To Live Through Love

About This Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi Poem [Longer Commentary]

The imagery of love’s sword severing sins and the shining moon appearing once the grime is gone is an expression of the idea that love has the power to cleanse and renew. There is a universal truth here, one that speaks to the interconnectedness of all things. By letting go of our self-made barriers and surrendering to the power of love, we become part of something much greater. Love does not merely guide us; it shapes and molds us, sculpting us into beings capable of understanding, acceptance, and boundless empathy.

The final lines of the poem crystallize the theme of love as a sustaining force. The seagull that fears no shipwreck and loves to touch the ocean represents the fearlessness that comes with embracing love fully. Just as the ocean is vast and unending, so too is love’s capacity to nurture and sustain. By singing, “My life depends upon my dying,” Rumi acknowledges that in letting go of the ego and embracing love, one finds true life. The dream without sleep symbolizes the awakened state where love is not a mere sentiment but the very fabric of existence. In this state, we realize that love is not something to be attained but something we are, a truth as profound as it is simple.

From The Introduction By Kabir Helminski

Each year my wife, Camille, and I would return as if to remind ourselves that the tangible atmosphere of love was real. And if it were real, it might be possible to somehow bring it back with us. We lived for that. And gradually, too, we assimilated some of the knowledge of love that is found in Rumi’s teachings and in the primary sources of the tradition: the Qur’an and the sayings of the Prophet.

Western culture has been shaped by the concept of freedom and personal expression, particularly in America. Perhaps even our concept of love is subservient to this emphasis on individuality, so that the emphasis of the phrase “Do you love me?” has moved toward “Do you love me?” Our culture seems to be pursuing this direction unabated.

How does Rumi’s teaching apply to the context of “human love” and all of its difficulties—our possessive, protective, and demanding nature? Rumi never denies the value and beauty of any form of love, but he sees every form of love as a stepping-stone to a higher love. We are always and continually searching for the one thing that will satisfy our hearts. The need for love is behind all human desires. But:

Everything, except love of the Most
Beautiful, is really agony.
It’s agony to move toward death and not drink the water of life.

—J. M. Rumi, Mathnawi I (3684-3687), in Rumi: Daylight, trans. Camille Helminski and Kabir Helminski (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1999).

In the Sufi understanding, our unrefined substance of love is the raw material of transformation. When I was just beginning this path, I once asked a certain shaykh how he decides whether someone has what it takes to make the journey of Sufism. “I ask them what they love,” he told me, “and if they love something, anything, with devotion, they have what it takes, because that love can be transformed into a higher love for Truth.”

—J. M. Rumi, Mathnawi I, trans., Kabir Helminski & Ahmad Rezwani, in Love’s Ripening: Rumi On the Heart’s Journey (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2008).