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The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

by Parker · 116 things on Twos

Forgiveness is the most godlike act a person can perform in marriage.
For despite what some people say, love is not only a sweet feeling bound to come and quickly go away.
Because love is the very essence and purpose of life. As Rumireminds us, it hits everybody, including those who shun love-even those who use the word "romantic" as a sign of disapproval.
When you kill someone, something from that person passes to you—a sigh, a smell or a ges-ture. I call it "the curse of the victim." It clings to your body and seeps into your skin, going all the way into your heart, and thus continues to live within you.
Find a nice woman and settle down. Have children. That will help to keep your feet on the ground. What is the point of roaming the world when it's the same misery everywhere? Trust me. There is nothing new out there. I have customers from the farthest corners of the world. After a few drinks, I hear the same stories from them all. Men are the same everywhere. Same food, same water, same old crap."
When one speaks ill of God, he speaks ill of himself.
"How we see God is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves. If God brings to mind mostly fear and blame, it means there is too much fear and blame welled inside us. If we see God as full of love and compas-sion, so are we."
Let us choose one another as companions. Let us sit at each others feet. Inwardly we have many harmonies. Think not that we are only what we see
No matter who we are or where we live, deep inside we all feel incomplete. It’s like we have lost something and need to get it back. Just what that something is, most of us never find out. And of those who do, even fewer manage to go out and look for it.
“Choose love, love. Without the sweet life of love, living is a burden—as you have seen.” - rumi
"So you see, don't judge the way other people connect to God," concluded Shams. "To each his own way and his own prayer. God does not take us at our word. He looks deep into our hearts. It is not the ceremonies or rituals that make a difference, but whether our hearts are sufficiently pure or not."
Stop interfering with the people around you and getting frustrated when you can’t change them. Instead of intrusion or passivity, may I suggest submission? Some people make the mistake of confusing submission with weakness, whereas it is anything but. Submission is a form of peaceful acceptance of the terms of the universe, including the things we are currently unable to change or comprehend.
Love is the water of life - rumi
Cleaning is praying, praying is cleaning
If you want to become a dervish, be as mute as that wooden spoon. Rebelliousness is not a good quality in a novice. Speak less, mature quicker!"
"One of the rules says, You can study God through everything and everyone in the universe, because God is not confined in a mosque, synagogue, or church. But if you are still in need of knowing where exactly His abode is, there is only one place to look for Him: in the heart of a true lover. There is no one who has lived after seeing Him, just like there is no one who has died after seeing Him. Whoever finds Him will remain with Him forever."
"Nothing reminds a man of home like the smell of freshly baked bread," she had said. "Never buy your bread. Bake it yourself, honey. It will work wonders."
When I asked him about this, he said one should keep the intellect satisfied and yet be careful not to spoil it. It was one of his rules. "Intellect and love are made of different mater-ials," he said. "Intellect ties people in knots and risks nothing, but love dissolves all tangles and risks everything, Intellect is always cautious and advises, 'Beware too much ecstasy,' whereas love says, 'Oh, never mind! Take the plunge!' Intellect does not easily break down, whereas love can effortlessly reduce itself to rubble. But treasures are hidden among ruins. A broken heart hides treasures."
Most of the problems of the world stem from linguistic mistakes and simple misunderstandings. Don't ever take words at face value. When you step into the zone of love, language as we know it becomes obsolete. That which cannot be put into words can only be grasped through silence.
At the end of the day, our fates are in the hands of God, and only He can tell when or how we each will depart the world.
The person who is openly loved by someone whois admired by so many people is bound to draw the envy, if not the hatred, of others.
God never burdens us with more than we can bear.
Loneliness and solitude are two different things. When you are lonely, it is easy to delude yourself into believing that you are on the right path. Solitude is better for us, as it means being alone without feeling lonely. But eventually it is best to find a person, the person who will be your mirror. Remember, only in another person's heart can you truly see yourself and the presence of God within you.
Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that he has been denied.
Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.
Old habits rarely die
It takes the lives of hundreds of silkworms to produce one silk scarf.
East, west, south, or north makes little difference. No matter what your des-tination, just be sure to make every journey a journey within. If you travel within, you'll travel the whole wide world and beyond.
The midwife knows that when there is no pain, the way for the baby cannot be opened and the mother cannot give birth. Likewise, for a new Self to be born, hardship is necessary. Just as clay needs to go through intense heat to become strong, Love can only be perfected in pain.
The quest for Love changes us. There is no seeker among those who search for Love who has not matured on the way. The moment you start looking for Love, you start to change within and without."
"These items will help you on your journey. Use them when need be. If you ever lose self-es-teem, the mirror will show your inner beauty. In case your reputation is stained, the handkerchief will remind you of how pure your heart is. As for the balm, it will heal your wounds, both inside and outside."
There are more fake gurus and false teachers in this world than the number of stars in the visible universe. Don't confuse power-driven, selfcentered people with true mentors. A genuine spiritual master will not direct your attention to himself or herself and will not expect absolute obedience or utter admiration from you, but instead will help you to appreciate and admire your inner self. True mentors are as transparent as glass. They let the Light of God pass through them."
Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?
"God is busy with the completion of your work, both outwardly and inwardly. He is fully occupied with you. Every human being is a work in progress that is slowly but inexorably moving toward per-fection. We are each an unfinished work of art both waiting and striving to be completed. God deals with each of us separately because humanity is a fine art of skilled penmanship where every single dot is equally important for the entire pic-ture."
It's easy to love a perfect God, unblemished and infallible that He is. What is far more difficult is to love fellow human beings with all their imperfections and defects. Remember, one can only know what one is capable of loving. There is no wisdom without love. Unless we learn to love God's creation, we can neither truly love nor truly know God.
"Real filth is the one inside. The rest simply washes off. There is only one type of dirt that cannot be cleansed with pure waters, and that is the stain of hatred and bigotry contaminating the soul. You can purify your body through abstinence and fasting, but only love will purify your heart."
"God created suffering so that joy might appear through its opposite," Rumi said. "Things become manifest through opposites. Since God has no opposite, He remains hidden."
Everything serves a purpose on your journey.
"Some people start life with a perfectly glowing aura but then lose color and fade. You seem to be one of them. Once your aura was whiter than lilies with specks of yellow and pink, but it faded over time. Now it is a pale brown. Don't you miss your original colors? Wouldn't you like to unite with your essence?"
"Your aura has lost its shine because all these years you have convinced yourself that you are dirty inside and out."
One day a prostitute passed by a street dog. The animal was panting under the hot sun, thirsty and helpless. The prostitute immediately took off her shoe and filled it with water from the nearest well for the dog. Then she went on her way. The next day she ran into a Sufi who was a man of great wisdom. As soon as he saw her, he kissed her hands. She was shocked. But he told her that her kindness toward the dog had been so genuine that all her sins had been pardoned there and then.
"They will listen," he said determinedly. "Be-cause there is no such thing as 'them, just as there is no 'I! All you need to do is keep in mind how everything and everyone in this universe is interconnected. We are not hundreds and thousands of different beings. We are all One."
"It's one of the forty rules. If you want to change the way others treat you, you should first change the way you treat yourself. Unless you learn to love yourself, fully and sincerely, there is no way you can be loved. Once you achieve that stage, however, be thankful for every thorn that others might throw at you. It is a sign that you will soon be showered in roses."
"How can you blame others for disrespecting you when you think of yourself as unworthy of respect?"
"The past is a whirlpool. If you let it dominate your present moment, it will suck you in," said Shams as if he had read my thoughts. "Time is just an illusion. What you need is to live this very moment. That is all that matters."
"Fret not where the road will take you. Instead concentrate on the first step. That's the hardest part and that's what you are responsible for. Once you take that step let everything do what it naturally does and the rest will follow. Do not go with the flow. Be the flow."
"Every man is an open book, each and every one of us a walking Qur'an. The quest for God is ingrained in the hearts of all, be it a prostitute or a saint. Love exists within each of us from the moment we are born and waits to be discovered from then on. That is what one of the forty rules is all about: The whole universe is contained within a single human being-you. Everything that you see around, including the things you might not be fond of and even the people you despise or abhor, is present within you in varying degrees. Therefore, do not look for She-itan outside yourself either. The devil is not an extraordinary force that attacks from without. It is an ordinary voice within. If you get to know yourself fully, facing with honesty and hardness both your dark and bright sides, you will arrive at a supreme form of consciousness. When a person knows himself or herself, he or she knows God."
Every individual is self-sufficient in his search for the divine. There is a rule regarding this: We were all created in His image, and yet we were each created different and unique. No two people are alike. No two hearts beat to the same rhythm. If God had wanted everyone to be the same, He would have made it so. Therefore, disrespecting differences and imposing your thoughts on others is tantamount to disrespecting God's holy scheme."
Doubts are good. It means you’re alive and searching.
When a true lover of God goes into a tavern, the tavern becomes his chamber of prayer, but when a wine bibber goes into the same chamber, it becomes his tavern. In everything we do, it is our hearts that make the difference, not our outer appearances. Sufis do not judge other people on how they look or who they are. When a Sufi stares at someone, he keeps both eyes closed and instead opens a third eye-the eye that sees the inner realm."
In one of your earlier e-mails, you said the idea that we could control the course of our lives through rational choices was as absurd as a fish trying to control the ocean in which it swam. I thought about your next sentence a lot: "The idea of a Knowing Self has generated not only false expectations but also disappointments in places where life does not match our expectations."
Now, if everything goes well, I'll be back in four days. Can 1 hope so? Yes. Can I control it? No! All I can do is take my laptop with me, try to find a good Internet connection, and hope that I will live another day. The rest is not in my hands. And this is what the Sufis call the fifth element-the void. The inexplicable and uncontrollable divine element that we as human beings cannot comprehend and yet should always be aware of. I don't believe in "inaction" if by that you mean doing nothing at all and showing no deep interest in life. But I do believe in respecting the fifth element.
I believe we each make a covenant with God. I know that I did. When I became a Sufi, I promised God to do my part to the best of my ability and leave the rest to Him and Him only. I accepted the fact that there are things beyond my limits. I can see only some parts, like floating fragments from a movie, but the bigger scheme is beyond my compre-hension.
I know you like to cook. Did you know that Shams says the world is a huge cauldron and something big is cooking in it? We don't know what yet. Everything we do, feel, or think is an ingredient in that mix-ture. We need to ask ourselves what we are adding to the cauldron. Are we adding resentments, animosities, anger, and violence? Or adding love and harmony?
As long as I knew myself, I would be all right. Whosoever knows himself, knows the One.
Life is a temporary loan, and this world is nothing but a sketchy imitation of Reality. Only children would mistake a toy for the real thing. And yet human beings either become infatuated with the toy or disrespectfully break it and throw it aside. In this life stay away from all kinds of extremities, for they will destroy your inner balance.
How can love be worthy of its name if one selects solely the pretty things and leaves out the hardships? It is easy to enjoy the good and dislike the bad. Anybody can do that. The real challenge is to love the good and the bad together, not because you need to take the rough with the smooth but because you need to go beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety.
While preaching to large crowds, I always take care to neither forget nor remember my audience. And there is only one way of doing this: to imagine the crowd as one single person. Hundreds of people listen to me every week, but I always talk to one person alone-the one who hears my words echo in his heart and who knows me like no other.
A committed pacifist with strong humanitarian views, Aziz believed that all religious wars were in essence a "linguistic problem." Language, he said, did more to hide than reveal the Truth, and as a result people constantly misunderstood and misjudged one another. In a world beset with mistransla-tions, there was no use in being resolute about any topic, because it might as well be that even our strongest convictions were caused by a simple misunderstanding. In general, one shouldn't be too rigid about anything because "to live meant to constantly shift colors."
Women can’t help their curiosity; it is in their nature.
The first stage is the Depraved Nafs, the most primitive and common state of being, when the soul is entrapped in worldly pursuits. Most human beings are stuck there, struggling and suffering in the service of their ego but always holding others responsible for their continuing unhappiness. If and when a person becomes aware of the ego's abased situation, by starting to work on himself, he can move to the next stage, which in a way is the opposite of the previous one. Instead of blaming other people all the time, the person who has reached this stage blames himself, sometimes to the point of selfeffacement. Herein the ego becomes the Accusing Nafs and thus starts the journey toward inner purification. In the third stage, the person is more mature and the ego has evolved into the Inspired Nafs. It is only at this level, and not anytime before, that one can experience the true meaning of the word "surrender" and roam the Valley of Knowledge. Anyone who has made it this far will possess and display pa-tience, perseverance, wisdom, and humility. The world will feel new and full of inspir-ation. Nevertheless, many of the people who reach the third level feel an urge to dwell here, losing the will or the courage to go fur-ther. That is why, as beautiful and blessed as it is, the third stage is a trap for the one who aims higher. Those who manage to go further reach the Valley of Wisdom and come to know the Serene Nafs. Here the ego is not what it used to be, having altered into a high level of consciousness. Generosity, gratitude, and an unwavering sense of contentment regardless of the hardships in life are the main characteristics accompanying anyone who has arrived here. Beyond that lies the Valley of Unity. Those who are here will be pleased with whatever situation God places them in. Mundane matters make no difference to them, as they have achieved the Pleased Nafs. In the next stage, the Pleasing Nafs, one be-comes a lantern to humanity, radiating en-ergy to everyone who asks for it, teaching and illuminating like a true master. Sometimes such a person can also have healing powers. Wherever he goes, he will make a big difference in other people's lives. In everything he does and aspires to do, his main goal is to serve God through serving others. Finally, in the seventh stage, one attains the Purified Nafs and becomes Insan-i Kâmil, a perfect human being. But nobody knows much about that state, and even if a few ever did, they wouldn't speak of it. The stages along the path are easy to sum-marize, difficult to experience. Adding to the obstacles that appear along the way is the fact that there is no guarantee of continuous progress. The route from the first to the last stage is by no means linear. There is always the danger of tumbling back into earlier stages, sometimes even from a superior stage all the way down to the first one. Given the many traps along the way, it is no wonder that in every century only a few people manage to reach the final stages.
If every Ramadan one fasts in the name of God and every Eid one sacrifices a sheep or a goat as an atonement for his sins, if all his life one strives to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and five times a day kneels on a prayer rug but at the same time has no room for love in his heart, what is the use of all this trouble? Faith is only a word if there is no love at its center, so flaccid and lifeless, vague and hollow—not any thing you could truly feel.
Instead of losing themselves in the Love of God and waging a war against their ego, religious zealots fight other people, generating wave after wave of fear. Looking at the whole universe with fear-tinted eyes, it is no wonder that they see a plethora of things to be afraid of. Wherever there is an earthquake, drought, or any other calamity, they take it as a sign of Divine Wrath-as if God does not openly say, My compassion outweighs My wrath. Always resentful of somebody for this or that, they seem to expect God the Almighty to step in on their behalf and take their pitiful revenges. Their life is a state of uninterrupted bitterness and hostil-ity, a discontentment so vast it follows them wherever they go, like a black cloud, darkening both their past and their future. There is such a thing in faith as not being able to see the forest for the trees. The totality of religion is far greater and deeper than the sum of its component parts. Individual rules need to be read in the light of the whole. And the whole is concealed in the essence.
The human being has a unique place among God's creation. "I breathed into him of My Spirit," God says. Each and every one of us without exception is designed to be God's delegate on earth. Ask yourself, just how often do you behave like a delegate, if you ever do so? Remem-ber, it falls upon each of us to discover the divine spirit inside and live by it.
Hell is in the here and now. So is heaven. Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven, as they are both present inside this very moment. Every time we fall in love, we ascend to heaven. Every time we hate, envy, or fight someone, we tumble straight into the fires of hell.
Is there a worse hell than the torment a man suffers when he knows deep down in his conscience that he has done something wrong, awfully wrong?
Is there a better paradise than the bliss that descends upon a man at those rare moments in life when the bolts of the universe fly open and he feels in possession of all the secrets of eternity and fully united with God?
Why worry so much about the aftermath, an imaginary future, when this very mo-ment is the only time we can truly and fully experience both the presence and the ab-sence of God in our lives? Motivated by nei-ther the fear of punishment in hell nor the desire to be rewarded in heaven, Sufis love God simply because they love Him, pure and easy, untainted and nonnegotiable.
Brother, stand the pain. Escape the poison Of your impulses. The sky will bow to your beauty If you do.... That way a thorn expands to a rose. A particular glows with the universal.
Rumis favorite words are love, patience, balance, and tolerance.
"When you spit in my face, I got very angry. My ego was provoked, yearning for revenge. If I kill you now, I'll be following my ego. And that would be a huge mistake."
Bountiful is your life, full and complete. Or so you think, until someone comes along and makes you realize what you have been missing all this time. Like a mirror that reflects what is absent rather than present, he shows you the void in your soul-the void you have resisted seeing. That person can be a lover, a friend, or a spiritual master. Sometimes it can be a child to look after. What matters is to find the soul that will complete yours. All the prophets have given the same advice: Find the one who will be your mir-ror! For me that mirror is Shams of Tabriz. Until he came and forced me to look deep into the crannies of my soul, I had not faced the fundamental truth about myself: that though successful and prosperous outside, I was lonely and unfulfilled inside.
Unlearn everything I know
When you love someone this much, you expect everyone around you to feel the same way, sharing your joy and euphoria. And when that doesn't happen, you feel sur-prised, then offended and betrayed. How could I possibly make my family and friends see what I see? How could I describe the indescribable?
Is there a way to grasp what love means without becoming a lover first? Love cannot be explained. It can only be ex-perienced. Love cannot be explained, yet it explains all.
"My only concern is the shell you have been living in. As a famous preacher, you have been surrounded by fawning ad-mirers. But how well do you know common people? Drunks, beggars, thieves, prosti-tutes, gamblers-the most inconsolable and the most downtrodden. Can we love all of God's creatures? It is a difficult test, and one that only a few can pass."
"The universe is one being. Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation. Do no harm. Practice compassion. And do not gossip behind anyone's back—not even a seemingly innocent remark! The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time. One man's pain will hurt us all. One man's joy will make everyone smile.”
Slowly but surely, Moses understood that things that can seem malicious or unfortunate are often a blessing in disguise, whereas things that might seem pleasant can be harmful in the long run.
"Yes, but you quarrel with people," I ob-jected. Shams bristled with fervor. "I don't quarrel with them, I quarrel with their ego. That's different."
This world is like a snowy mountain that echoes your voice. Whatever you speak, good or evil, will somehow come back to you. Therefore, if there is someone who harbors ill thoughts about you, saying similarly bad things about him will only make matters worse. You will be locked in a vicious circle of malevolent energy. Instead for forty days and nights say and think nice things about that person. Everything will be different at the end of forty days, because you will be different inside."
Two men were traveling from one town to another. They came to a stream that had risen due to heavy rainfall. Just when they were about to cross the water, they noticed a young, beautiful woman standing there all alone, in need of help. One of the men immediately went to her side. He picked the woman up and carried her in his arms across the stream. Then he dropped her there, waved good-bye, and the two men went their way. During the rest of the trip, the second traveler was unusually silent and sullen, not responding to his friend's questions. After several hours of sulking, unable to keep silent anymore, he said, "Why did you touch that woman? She could have seduced you! Men and women cannot come into contact like that!" The first man responded calmly, "My friend, I carried the woman across the stream, and that is where I left her. It is you who have been carrying her ever since." "Some people are like that," Shams said. "They carry their own fears and biases on their shoulders, crushed under all that weight. If you hear of anyone who cannot comprehend the depth of the bond between your father and me, tell him to wash his mind!"
The past is an interpretation. The future is an illu-sion. The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness. If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.
Shams always told me, "You see, the present moment is all there is and all that there ever will be. When you grasp this truth, you'll have nothing to fear anymore. Then you can walk out of this brothel for good."
Destiny doesn't mean that your life has been strictly predetermined. Therefore, to leave everything to fate and to not actively contribute to the music of the universe is a sign of sheer ignor-ance. "The music of the universe is all-pervading and it is composed on forty different levels. "Your destiny is the level where you will play your tune. You might not change your instrument but how well to play is entirely in your hands.”
The true Sufi is such that even when he is unjustly accused, attacked, and condemned from all sides, he patiently endures, uttering not a single bad word about any of his critics. A Sufi never apportions blame. How can there be opponents or rivals or even "others" when there is no "self" in the first place? How can there be anyone to blame when there is only One?
Sometimes it is necessary to destroy all attachments in order to win over your ego. If we are too attached to our fam-ily, our position in society, even our local school or mosque, to the extent that they stand in the way of Union with God, we need to tear those attachments down."
"If the wine drinker Has a deep gentleness in him, He will show that, When drunk. But if he has hidden anger and arrogance, Those appear, And since most people do, Wine is forbidden to everyone."
"My friends, wine is not an innocent drink," Rumi addressed us in a renewed voice, so commanding and yet so composed and solid, "because it brings out the worst in us. I believe it is better for us to abstain from drinking. That said, we cannot blame alcohol for what we are responsible for. It is our own arrogance and anger that we should be working on. That is more urgent. At the end of the day whoever wants to drink will drink and whoever wants to stay away from wine will stay away. We have no right to impose our ways on others. There is no compulsion in religion."
"If you want to strengthen your faith, you will need to soften inside. For your faith to be rock solid, your heart needs to be as soft as a feather. Through an illness, accident, loss, or fright, one way or another, we all are faced with incidents that teach us how to become less selfish and judg-mental, and more compassionate and gener-ous. Yet some of us learn the lesson and manage to become milder, while some others end up becoming even harsher than before. The only way to get closer to Truth is to expand your heart so that it will encompass all humanity and still have room for more Love."
Nothing should stand between yourself and God. Not imams, priests, rabbis, or any other custodians of moral or religious leadership. Not spiritual masters, not even your faith. Believe in your values and your rules, but never lord them over others. If you keep breaking other people's hearts, whatever religious duty you perform is no good. "Stay away from all sorts of idolatry, for they will blur your vision. Let God and only God be your guide. Learn the Truth, my friend, but be careful not to make a fetish out of your truths.”
This world was full of people obsessed with wealth, recognition, or power. The more signs of success they earned, the more they seemed to be in need of them. Greedy and covetous, they rendered worldly possessions their gibla, always looking in that dir-ection, unaware of becoming the servants of the things they hungered after. That was a common pattern. It happened all the time. But it was rare, as rare as rubies, for a man who had already made his way up, a man who had plenty of gold, fame, and authority, to renounce his position all of a sudden one day and endanger his reputation for an inner journey, one that nobody could tell where or how it would end. Rumi was that rare ruby.
What we need is sincere self-examination. Not being on the watch for the faults of others."
"The Sufi says, 'I should mind my inner encounter with God rather than judging other people' An orthodox scholar, however, is always on the lookout for the mistakes of others. But don't forget, students, most of the time he who complains about others is himself at fault”
While everyone in this world strives to get somewhere and become someone, only to leave it all behind after death, you aim for the supreme stage of nothingness. Live this life as light and empty as the number zero. We are no different from a pot. It is not the decorations outside but the emptiness inside that holds us straight. Just like that, it is not what we aspire to achieve but the consciousness of nothingness that keeps us going."
If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough.
Where there is love, there is bound to be heartache.
Submission does not mean being weak or passive. It leads to neither fatalism nor capitulation. Just the opposite. True power resides in submission-a power that comes from within. Those who submit to the divine essence of life will live in unperturbed tranquillity and peace even when the whole wide world goes through turbulence after tur-bulence.
Girls who got married changed forever.
Little did I know that I was making the most common and the most painful mistake women have made all throughout the ages: to naively think that with their love they can change the men they love.
Religions are like rivers: They all flow to the same sea. Mother Mary stands for compassion, mercy, affection, and unconditional love. She is both personal and universal. As a Muslim woman, you can keep liking her and even name your daughter Mary.”
"There is no such thing as early or late in life," Aziz said. "Everything happens at the right time."
“I don’t have to know to love.”
In this world, it is not similarities or regularities that take us a step forward, but blunt opposites. And all the opposites in the universe are present within each and every one of us. Therefore the believer needs to meet the unbeliever residing within. And the nonbeliever should get to know the silent faithful in him. Until the day one reaches the stage of Insan-i Kâmil, the perfect human being, faith is a gradual process and one that necessitates its seeming opposite: disbelief.
You see, Ella, all I can give you is the present moment. That is all I have. But the truth is, no one has more than that. It is just that we like to pretend we do."
"We're all what we are," murmured Aziz. "And we're all subject to change. It is a journey from here to there. You can make that journey. And if you are brave enough and if I am brave enough, we can go to Konya together in the end. That is where I want to die."
Outsiders think drinkers are lazy people who have nothing else to do. Little do they know that drinking increasing amounts of wine every day requires a lot of effort. We carry the weight of the world on our shoulders.
This world is erected upon the principle of reciprocity. Neither a drop of kindness nor a speck of evil will remain unreciprocated. Fear not the plots, deceptions, or tricks of other people. If somebody is setting a trap, remember, so is God. He is the biggest plotter. Not even a leaf stirs outside God's knowledge. Simply and fully believe in that. Whatever God does, He does beautifully."
"God is a meticulous clockmaker. So precise is His order that everything on earth happens in its own time. Neither a minute late nor a minute early. And for everyone without exception, the clock works accurately. For each there is a time to love and a time to die."
"It is never too late to ask yourself, 'Am I ready to change the life I am living? Am I ready to change within?' "Even if a single day in your life is the same as the day before, it surely is a pity. At every moment and with each new breath, one should be renewed and renewed again. There is only one way to be born into a new life: to die before death."
Girls are just as good students as boys, if not better.
Yesterday's victors became today's losers. Every winner is inclined to think he will be triumphant forever. Every loser tends to fear that he is going to be beaten forever. But both are wrong for the same reason: Everything changes except the face of God.
Little by little, one turns forty, fifty, and sixty and, with each major decade, feels more complete. You need to keep walking, though there's no place to arrive at. The universe is turning, constantly and relentlessly, and so are the earth and the moon, but it is nothing other than a secret embedded within us human beings that makes it all move. With that knowledge we dervishes will dance our way through love and heartbreak even if no one understands what we are doing. We will dance in the middle of a brawl or a major war, all the same. We will dance in our hurt and grief, with joy and elation, alone and together, as slow and fast as the flow of water. We will dance in our blood. There is a perfect harmony and subtle balance in all that is and was in the universe. The dots change constantly and replace one another, but the circle remains
While the parts change, the whole always remains the same. For every thief who departs this world, a new one is born. And every decent person who passes away is replaced by a new one. In this way not only does nothing remain the same but also nothing ever really changes. For every Sufi who dies, another is born some where.
If there was anything worse in the eyes of society than a woman abandoning her husband for another man, it was a woman abandoning her future for the present moment.
Prayer is better than sleep.
"A life without love is of no account. Don't ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western.... Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. "Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! "The universe turns differently when fire loves water."