This is love

This is love: to fly to heaven, every moment to rend a hundred veils;

At first instance, to break away from breath -- first step, to renounce feet;

To disregard this world,

to see only that which you yourself have seen

..I said, "Heart, congratulations on entering the circle of lovers,"

On gazing beyond the range of the eye,

on running into the alley of the breasts.

"Whence came this breath, O heart?

Whence came this throbbing,

O heart?

Bird, speak the tongue of birds: I can heed your cipher!

The heart said, "I was in the factory whilst the home of water and clay was abaking."

I was flying from the workshop whilst the workshop was being created.

"When I could no more resist,

they dragged me; how shall Itell the manner of that dragging?"

oh, beloved!

Oh Beloved,take me.

Liberate my soul.

Fill me with your love

and release me from the two worlds.

If I set my heart on anything but you

let fire burn me from inside.

Oh Beloved,take away what I want.

Take away what I do

.Take away what I need.

Take away everything

that takes me from you.

Ode 2180

From these depths depart towards heaven;

may your soul be happy,journey joyfully.

You have escaped from the city full of fear and trembling;

happily become a resident of the Abode of Security

..If the body’s image has gone,

await the image-maker;

if thebody is utterly ruined,

become all soul.

If your face has become saffron pale through death,

become adweller among tulip beds and Judas trees.

If the doors of repose have been barred to you,

come, departby way of the roof and the ladder.

If you are alone from Friends and companions,

by the help ofGod become a saheb-qeran

( Saheb qeran is a person who is born under a happy conjunction of the planets. [lord of happy circumstance].

If you have been secluded from water and bread,

like breadbecome the food of the souls, and so become!

new rule!!

It is the rule with drunkards to fall upon each other,

to quarrel, become violent, and make a scene.

The lover is even worse than a drunkard.

I will tell you what love is:

to enter a mine of gold.And what is that gold?
The lover is a king above all kings,

unafraid of death, not at all interested in a golden crown.

The dervish has a pearl concealed under his patched cloak.

Why should he go begging door to door?
Last night that moon came along,

drunk, dropping clothes in the street.

"Get up," I told my heart, "Give the soul a glass of wine.

The moment has come to join the nightingale in the garden,

to taste sugar with the soul-parrot."
I have fallen, with my heart shattered

-where else but on your path?

And I broke your bowl, drunk, my idol, so drunk

,don't let me be harmed, take my hand.
A new rule, a new law has been born:

break all the glasses and fall toward the glassblower.

powerless reason!

Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.

Love alone is capable of revealing the truth of Love and being a Lover.

The way of our prophets is the way of Truth.

If you want to live, die in Love; die in Love if you want to remain alive.


I silently moaned so that for a hundred centuries to come,

The world will echo in the sound of my hayhâ

It will turn on the axis of my hayhât*

*hayhâ and hayhât, a corruption of the same term in Persian means 'alas' or 'woe to me!'

(Divan, 562:7)

the vision

During prayer I am accustomed to turn to God like this:

that's the meaning of the words of the Tradition,

'the delight felt in the ritual prayer.

'The window of my soul opens,

and from the purity of the Unseen World,

the Book of God comes to me straight.

The Book, the rain of Divine Grace,

and the Lightare falling into my house through a window

from my real and original source

.The house without a window is Hell:

to make a window is the foundation of true religion.

Don't thrust your axe upon every thicket

come, use your axe to cut open a window

.[III, 2401-5]

Translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski

the journey

Come, seek, for search is the foundation of fortune:

every success depends upon focusing the heart.

Unconcerned with the business of the world,

keep saying with all your soul, "Ku, ku," like the dove.

Consider this well, o you whom worldliness veils,

God has tied "invocation" to "I will answer."

When weakness is cleared from your heart,

your prayer will reach the glorious Lord.

[III, 2302-5]

Even though you're not equipped,

keep searching:equipment isn't necessary on the way to the Lord.

Whoever you see engaged in search,

become her friend and cast your head in front of her,

for choosing to be a neighbor of seekers,

you become one yourself;protected by conquerors,

you will yourself learn to conquer.

If an ant seeks the rank of Solomon,

don't smile contemptuously upon its quest.

Everything you possess of skill, and wealth and handicraft,wasn't it first merely a thought and a quest?

[III, 1445-49]

O God, You who know all that is hidden

You who speak with compassion,

don't hide from us the errors of our wrong pursuits;

nor reveal to us the lack within the good we try to do,

lest we become disgusted and lose the heart to journey on this Path.

[IV, 1348-54]

Translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski