God Speaks to Each of Us

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

First Love Story

“The minute I heard my first love story,

I started looking for you, not knowing

how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.

They're in each other all along.”

Rumi

Dark Night of the Soul

The Dark Night

One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings - ah, the sheer grace! - I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled. In darkness, and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised, - ah, the sheer grace! - in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled. On that glad night in secret, for no one saw me, nor did I look at anything with no other light or guide than the One that burned in my heart. This guided me more surely than the light of noon to where he was awaiting me - him I knew so well - there in a place where no one appeared. O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the Beloved into his Lover. Upon my flowering breast, which I kept wholly for him alone, there he lay sleeping, and I caressing him there in a breeze from the fanning cedars. When the breeze blew from the turret, as I parted his hair, it wounded my neck with its gentle hand, suspending all my senses. I abandoned and forgot myself, laying my face on my Beloved; all things ceased; I went out from myself, leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.

I can not sleep

Rumi

I cannot sleep in your presence.
In your absence, tears prevent me.
You watch me My Beloved
On each sleepless night and
Only You see the difference
Looking at my life

I see that only Love

Has been my soul’s companion
From deep inside
My soul cries out:
Do not wait, surrender
For the sake of Love.

If you can’t smell the fragrance

Don’t come into the garden of Love.
If you’re unwilling to undress.Don’t enter into the stream of Truth.
Stay where you are.
Don’t come our way.
Unkempt, lovesick and in disgrace.
Without love there is nothing but grief.
In love… what else matters?

The way of our Prophet.Yet it is in our nature.
To fight with Love.We can’t see you, mother,
Hidden behind dark veilsWoven by ourselves.
To walk the path of TruthYou need the grace of God.
We all face death in the end.
But on the way, be careful. Never to hurt a human heart!“

Come follow me and you will find the way.
Your mistakes can also lead you to the Truth.
When you ask, the answer will be given.”
Is so drunk with love, he’s oblivious.“
Will you give me some of your sweetness?”
“I have none,” he says,unaware of his richness.
It is all kindness, generosity.

Disharmony prevails when You confuse lust with love, 
while The distance between the twoIs endless.
But his banner is hidden.
The Koran speaks the Truth.
But its miracle is concealed.
Love has pierced with its arrow
The heart of every lover.
Blood flows but the wound is invisible.

All year round the lover is mad,

Love is our Mother and

Do you want to enter paradise?

Do you know what the music is saying?

The Master who’s full of sweetness

You know what love is?

This Love is a King

On Presence

Presence is standing in awe at the threshold of a great temple recognizing the possibility of our divine expansion. It is a moment of recognition that there is a world that is greater than the world of the ego and personality that we have called home. Then when we are summoned to enter, the great temple of our inner being and recognize that within there exists a hallway where the divine presence is felt. We feel the inner quiet, a sanctified presence of grace a sense of wonderment. And as we enter even deeper we are greeted by the divine mother, embraced and bathed in love. Tears of recognition come, this is the real home. An opening of the heart and an outpouring of divine love, nothing that can compare to any earthly experience can be described here. Deep awe and yearning for greater bliss. This is where we are ready to die to ourselves, to let go of the old self, to surrender the ego and be returned to the origins of our being. Yet this is just a visit, there is so much more to learn and uncover, this is just the beginning of the understanding. 

Love your Solitude

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Love is the Fountain

"Love is the fountain of life-giving water. No one and no thing can live without love. Its expression varies according to the capacity of the receiver and the giver, and in its highest form, love is divinity.

To love is to live. You cannot really live without love. The omnipotent laws of nature have this power in its divine potency pervading the universe. The right to strike at the chord of love only belongs to the brave and sturdy at heart.

Hectic search for exhilarating experiences should not be mistaken for love. They are the forerunners of grim, relentless penalties and intense suffering.

Love from its lowest to its highest expression has its ups and downs. Love suffers the pangs of separation, the stings of jealousy, and all the little pricks that a lover has to endure are the different helpmates in disguise. They stir you up and bring forward to life the most important parts of your nature. Then they no longer maintain their individual life, but merge in one common longing for the beloved.

One in love tastes the glories of life to the full. The blissful heights of joyousness and the buoyant feelings of heavenly delights are the steady steps towards divine oneness. Love surrenders to the will of the beloved, gives all to the beloved, sacrifices all for the beloved, lives for the beloved, dies for the beloved. This supreme state of love is the God-state, for what is God but love - infinite, unbounded, eternal love?

Love annihilates the lower self, and expresses the higher self. So, dear soul, long for your divine beloved till you become one with your beloved. " Meher Baba, 1937

I love what I could love

I had a natural passion for fine clothes, excellent food, and lively conversation 
about all matters that concern the heart still alive. 

And even a passion about my own looks.

Vanities: they do not exist.

Have you ever walked across a stream stepping on 
rocks so not to spoil a pair of shoes?

All we can touch, swallow, or say aids in our crossing to God and helps unveil the soul.

Life smooths us, rounds, perfects, as does the river the stone, 
and there is no place our Beloved is not flowing, 
though the current's force you may not always like.

Our passions help to lift us.

I loved what I could love until I held Him, 
for then - all things - every world disappeared.

- St. Teresa of Avila

Time and Space

The temple of love is not love itself,

true love is the treasure,

not the walls about it.

Do not admire the decoration,

but involve yourself in the Essence,

the Perfume that invades and touches you,

the Beginning and the End.

Discovered, This replaces all else,

                                                the apparent and the unknowable -

time and space are slaves to this Presence

- Rumi -

Without You

Without You — my Life, my Love –

I would never have wandered across these endless countries.

You have poured out so much grace for me,

Done me so many favors, given me so many gifts –

I look everywhere for Your love –

Then suddenly I am filled with it.

- Rabia al Basri,