Love is longing and longing, the pain of being parted....by Rumi

Love is longing and longing, the pain of being parted;
No illness is rich enough for the distress of the heart,
A lover's lament surpasses all other cries of pain.

Love is the royal threshold to God's mystery.
The carnival of small affections and polite attachments
Which litter and consume our passing time
Is no match to Love which pulses behind this play.

It's easy to talk endlessly about Love,
To live Love is to be seized by joy and bewilderment;

Love is not clear-minded, busy with images and argument.
Language is too precocious, too impudent, too sane
To stop the molten lava of Love which churns the blood,

This practicing energy burns the tongue to silence;
The knowing pen is disabled, servile paper

Shrivels in the fire of Love. Bald reason too is an ass
Explaining Love, deceived by spoilt lucidity.
Love is dangerous offering no consolation,

Only those who are ravaged by Love know Love,
The sun alone unveils the sun to those who have
The sense to receive the senseless and not turn away.

Cavernous shadows need the light to play but light
And light alone can lead you to the light alone.

Material shadows weigh down your vision with dross,
But the rising sun splits the ashen moon in empty half.

The outer sun is our daily miracle in timely
Birth and death, the inner sun
Dazzles the inner eye in a timeless space.

Our daily sun is but a working star in a galaxy of stars,
Our inner sun is One, the dancing nuance of eternal light.

You must be set alight by the inner sun,
You have to live your Love or else
You'll only end in words.

~ Rumi
Art by Diana Yanson 

Silence as Language of the Heart...by Rumi

Be silent.
If someone tells you there is no speech possible
Without words or sounds,
Don't listen to him. It's not true.

Be silent.

Without the bread of God
And the wine of annihilation, that word and that
Alphabet are like two or three empty cups at best.

Be silent.
Speak the meaning without the alphabet.
If you can,
Say it without words, so the heart
Can take over the conversation."

"All our lives we've looked
Into each other's faces.
That was the case today too.
How do we keep our love a secret?
We speak from brow to brow
And hear with our eyes."

"Even 'friend' and 'beloved'
Are wrong words for this.
Even 'Ahhhhh' retreats back into my mouth
Like the moon going behind a cloud.
A pure silent look is better."

"In the silence of our longing
We are together as one.
But as soon as we start talking,
We separate into two.
So be silent.
There is honor in silence.
For you and me."

"You have spent your whole life
With elegant speeches.
For some time you should
Walk alone in the gardens of silence."

"What would happen if you
Gave up thought for one moment,
Plunged into our sea like a fish,
And swallowed the waves there?

Give them up...
And turn into a holy light,
Silent, exempt from thought.
Why don't you become like this?"

And two more!

"Thought doesn't come to your mind
Until you become quiet.
Heart doesn't open its mouth
Until you close yours."

"Tell my secret with your eyes,
Without lips or tongues."

~ Rumi
(Silence as Language of the Heart )
From The Spiritual Practices of Rumi,by Will Johnson