There are so many wonderful things the great Sufi poet, Jalaluddin Rumi can teach you about Love. And when I say Love, I am referring to that pure, truthful and precious love we all seek for – Love that can be found at the core of each of every one of us – and Love that you will hopefully find more of after reading these beautiful Rumi quotes.
37 Things Jalaluddin Rumi Can Teach You About Love
Enjoy 🙂
1. Your soul is God’s lover.
“Soul, if you want to learn secrets, your heart must forget about shame and dignity. You are God’s lover, yet you worry what people are saying.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
2. Love is the bridge between you and everything.
“Love is the bridge between you and everything.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
3. What you seek is seeking you
“What you seek is seeking you.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
4. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.
“If you find me not within you, you will never find me. For I have been with you, from the beginning of me.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
“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.”
“A lover asked his beloved, Do you love yourself more than you love me? Beloved replied, I have died to myself and I live for you. I’ve disappeared from myself and my attributes, I am present only for you. I’ve forgotten all my learnings, but from knowing you I’ve become a scholar. I’ve lost all my strength, but from your power I am able. I love myself…I love you. I love you…I love myself.”
5. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.
“Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
6. Gamble everything for love.
“Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
7. Love calls – everywhere and always.
“Love calls – everywhere and always. We’re sky bound. Are you coming?” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
8. Love is the cure.
“Love is the cure, for your pain will keep giving birth to more pain until your eyes constantly exhale love as effortlessly as your body yields its scent.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
9. Life without Love is death.
“To live without you is to be robbed of love and what is life without it? To live without you is death to me, my love but some call it life.” ~Jalaluddin Rumi
10. Take someone who doesn’t keep score.
“Whenever we manage to love without expectations, calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
“Take someone who doesn’t keep score, who’s not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing, who has not the slightest interest even in his own personality: he’s free.”
11. A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.
“A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
12. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
“Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
13. Your task is not to seek for love.
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ― Jalaluddin Rumi
14. Be grateful for whoever comes your way.
“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
15. Pain can become your greatest ally.
“Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.” ~Jalaluddin Rumi
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
16. Let go of thinking.
“Put your thoughts to sleep, do not let them cast a shadow over the moon of your heart. Let go of thinking.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
17. There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can’t hope.
“There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can’t hope. The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
18. Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes.
“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
19. Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.
“Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
20. Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.
“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
21. Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.
“Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
22. Raise your words, not your voice.
“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
23. The way you make love is the way God will be with you.
“Remember. The way you make love is the way God will be with you.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
24. Love is our mother.
“We are born of love; Love is our mother.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
25. Through Love, all that is bitter will be sweet.
“Through Love, all that is bitter will be sweet, Through Love all that is copper will be gold, Through Love, all dregs will become wine, through Love all pain will turn to medicine. ” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
26. The heart knows no boundaries.
“I am neither of the East nor of the West, no boundaries exist within my breast.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
27. Love is beyond words.
“However much I might try to expound or explain Love, when I come to Love itself, I am ashamed of my explanations… Love alone can explain the mysteries of love and lovers..” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
28. Plant the love of the holy ones within your spirit.
“Plant the love of the holy ones within your spirit; don’t give your heart to anything, but the love of those whose hearts are glad.” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
29. Let love be your companion.
“I have no companion but Love, no beginning, no end, no dawn. The Soul calls from within me: ‘You, ignorant of the way of Love, set Me free.’” ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
30. Crave a love so deep the ocean would be jealous.
“I crave a love so deep the ocean would be jealous.”
31. Don’t plant anything but love.
“With life as short as a half-taken breath, don’t plant anything but love.”
32. You are a lover of your own experience.
“You are a lover of your own experience … not of me … you turn to me to feel ur own emotion”
33. The gifts of lovers to one another testify to invisible love.
“The gifts of lovers to one another are, in respect to love, nothing but forms; yet, they testify to invisible love.”
34. All fear become insignificant once the intention of life becomes love.
“All doubt, despair and fear become insignificant once the intention of life becomes love.”
35. In the house of lovers, the music never stops.
“In the house of lovers, the music never stops, the walls are made of songs & the floor dances”
36. Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces
“I, you, he, she, we In the garden of mystic lovers, these are not true distinctions.”
37. Speak with the language of love.
“Listen with ears of tolerance! See through the eyes of compassion! Speak with the language of love.”
And these are 37 of the many lessons Rumi can teach all of us about love. Is there one in particular that you loved most? You can share it in the comment section below 🙂
Bonus:
“You have no idea how hard I’ve looked for a gift to bring You. Nothing seemed right. What’s the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It’s no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So I’ve brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.”
“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”
“She loved him so much she concealed his name in many phrases, the inner meanings known only to her.”
“I searched for God among the Christians and on the Cross and therein I found Him not.
I went into the ancient temples of idolatry; no trace of Him was there.
I entered the mountain cave of Hira and then went as far as Qandhar but God I found not.
With set purpose I fared to the summit of Mount Caucasus and found there only ‘anqa’s habitation.
Then I directed my search to the Kaaba, the resort of old and young; God was not there even.
Turning to philosophy I inquired about him from ibn Sina but found Him not within his range.
I fared then to the scene of the Prophet’s experience of a great divine manifestation only a “two bow-lengths’ distance from him” but God was not there even in that exalted court.
Finally, I looked into my own heart and there I saw Him; He was nowhere else.”
“Run from what’s comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I’ll be mad.”
“An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.
A head has one use: For loving a true love.
Feet: To chase after.
Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind,
for learning what men have done and tried to do.
Mysteries are not to be solved: The eye goes blind
when it only wants to see why.
A lover is always accused of something.
But when he finds his love, whatever was lost
in the looking comes back completely changed.”
“You think because you understand ‘one’ you must also understand ‘two’, because one and one make two. But you must also understand ‘and’.”
“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be. ”
“I am your moon and your moonlight too
I am your flower garden and your water too
I have come all this way, eager for you
Without shoes or shawl
I want you to laugh
To kill all your worries
To love you
To nourish you.”
“When someone is counting out gold for you, don’t look at your hands, or the gold. Look at the giver.”
“You are a volume in the divine book
A mirror to the power that created the universe
Whatever you want, ask it of yourself
Whatever you’re looking for can only be found
Inside of you”
“For ages you have come and gone
courting this delusion.
For ages you have run from the pain
and forfeited the ecstasy.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Although you appear in earthly form
Your essence is pure Consciousness.
You are the fearless guardian
of Divine Light.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
When you lose all sense of self
the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish.
Lose yourself completely,
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
You descended from Adam, by the pure Word of God,
but you turned your sight
to the empty show of this world.
Alas, how can you be satisfied with so little?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Why are you so enchanted by this world
when a mine of gold lies within you?
Open your eyes and come —
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
You were born from the rays of God’s Majesty
when the stars were in their perfect place.
How long will you suffer from the blows
of a nonexistent hand?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
You are a ruby encased in granite.
How long will you decieve Us with this outer show?
O friend, We can see the truth in your eyes!
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
After one moment with that glorious Friend
you became loving, radiant, and ecstatic.
Your eyes were sweet and full of fire.
Come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Shams-e Tabriz, the King of the Tavern
has handed you an eternal cup,
And God in all His glory is pouring the wine.
So come! Drink!
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
Soul of all souls, life of all life – you are That.
Seen and unseen, moving and unmoving – you are That.
The road that leads to the City is endless;
Go without head and feet
and you’ll already be there.
What else could you be? – you are That.”
“Like This
If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this.
If anyone wants to know what “spirit” is,
or what “God’s fragrance” means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this.
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means
to “die for love,” point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.
Like this.
How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.
How did Jacob’s sight return?
Huuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us
Like this.”
~love, Luminita💫
Comments
Luminita D. Saviuc
Luminita is the Founder and Editor in Chief of PurposeFairy.com and also the author of 15 Things You Should Give Up to Be Happy: An Inspiring Guide to Discovering Effortless Joy. For more details check out the 15 Things You Should Give Up To Be Happy Book Page.
read more