inevitabilities on the path to achieve the real goal: true love. The process is itself important as it makes the lover’s soul/spirit pure, reflective, and gracious. The peripheral effects are that those beautiful souls and spirits of the active lovers among us become divine blessings, not only for mankind, but for all organic and non-organic life in this mysterious cosmos. Their blessing is a continuous process that will stay with us even after our physical departure from this world. Our souls, in their long journeys through many planes, will always find solace in the blissful presence of the pure and kind souls of lovers. Their luminosity provides us with nourishment, which is essential for our souls to breath and grow.
Without their purity and freshness, their kindness and benevolence, life would be breathless and, to a great extent, worthless. They are a real blessing for us and we all should be grateful for this divine graciousness.
Among these beautiful souls are ones such as Rumi, who are known by Sufis as aashiq: the arch lovers. They practised love with such vigour, such intensity, that they were totally absorbed in their beloved. They surrendered themselves completely and asked in awe, “Who am I anyway?” They had forgotten whether they were lovers or beloved. All differences, all dichotomies, disappeared as if they were never there. They found ‘oneness’. The perceived separation disappeared and they became God, the Divine. Then they declared with exuberance that there is nothing but God.
Somebody once asked a Sufi his name and the Sufi drowned in his thoughts but could not recall it. All that was there in his memory was his beloved’s name. There was nothing else. Another