Love Is Reckless

Love is reckless; not reason.
Reason seeks a profit.
Love comes on strong, consuming herself, unabashed.

Yet, in the midst of suffering,
Love proceeds like a millstone,
hard surfaced and straightforward.

Having died to self-interest,
she risks everything and asks for nothing.
Love gambles away every gift God bestows.

Without cause God gave us Being;
without cause, give it back again.
Gambling yourself away is beyond any religion.

Religion seeks grace and favor,
but those who gamble these away are God's favorites,
for they neither put God to the test
nor knock at the door of gain and loss.

— Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)
Mathnawi VI.1967-1974
translated by Kabir Helminski with Lail Fouladvend

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What Remains After Nothing

Love is the flame which, when it blazes,
consumes everything other than the Beloved.
The lover wields the sword of Nothingness
in order to dispatch all but God:
consider what remains after Nothing.
There remains but God: all the rest is gone.
Praise to you, O mighty Love, destroyer of all other “gods.”

— Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)
Mathnawi V.588-590
translated by Kabir & Camille Helminski

from Kabir Helminski (Editor), The Rumi Collection:
An Anthology of Translations of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Shambhala Publications (1999), ISBN: 157062531X

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