LOVE

Love makes bitter things sweet.
Love turns copper to gold.
With love dregs settle into clarity.
With love suffering ceases.
Love brings the dead back to life.
Love transforms the King into a slave.
Love is the consummation of Gnosis.
How could a fool sit on such a throne?

Visit the sick, and you will heal yourself.
The ill person may be a Sufi master,
And your kindness will be repaid in wisdom.
Even if the sick person is your enemy,
You will still benefit,
For kindness has the power to transform
Sworn enemies into firm friends.
And if there is no healing of bad feeling,
There certainly will be less ill will,
Because kindness is the greatest of all balms.

The book of Sufi wisdom
Is not written on the blank page,
But on a heart white as virgin snow.
Scholars pursue penmarks.
Sufis track footprints in the snow,
Like hunters tracing a musk – deer’s trail,
Until they breathe in the sweet scent
That the deer exudes from its navel,
And rush to catch their quarry.

- Rumi