O one who has good intentions, start your journey now.
Find that Beloved who can direct you in the right way.
Search everywhere for that One who will give you happiness.
Seek the road to reach Him.
Where is that great One? How can you find Him?
Love is a light, exalted,
a secret river to be drunk, purified and flowing forever,
a fire burning, never extinguished.
Love goes together with suffering, but Love is the greatest of the great.
If they say the one who loves can fly, it’s true. Don’t deny it.
It’s better to be a slave and serve Him with pleasure
than to be a free wanderer.
The one who cries with Love doesn’t have an eye ache.
There is nothing wrong with his eyes.
No one knows a lover’s business.
A lover is ill, but there is no doctor’s cure for his illness.
Suffering is the best cure for him.
Don’t think too much about anyone who hasn’t fallen into Love,
who hasn’t stayed in the Valley of Love.
Friends, don’t be discouraged.
Compassion comes after trouble.
Don’t put on any dress except Love.
Don’t cover yourself with any garment except Love.
Knots have been tied on the strings of Love’s spell.
The pain and suffering of Love’s fire is all ablaze.
Love is such a lost blessing
that anyone who doesn’t try to find it is deprived.
The day I met my Beloved, I screamed. I lost my mind.
My trials to avoid guilt all disappeared.
But, this is Absence inside of Presence.
This is eternal blessing.
If Love slips out of your hand, don’t fall into despair.
Keep searching. Fight to find Love.
Until you reach Him, until you see Him,
don’t sleep, don’t eat, don’t relax.
Divan-i Kebir, Volume 1, ghazal 123, verses 1576-1584, pages 301-302.