Of Rumi and Shams...

Just closed the last few pages of The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak...an interesting read...of many stories, characters and their journeys to discovering themselves. 

And at the heart of it, the story of Rumi and Shams - of love, its depths in its true, unconditional sense and its power to change hearts in more ways than one. Of Rumi's transformation from a cleric to a poet and a mystic...and more.

The book is not about the rules of love - infact, just the opposite...how there are no rules of love.

Among the many stories in the book, here's one of my favorites - of Layla and Majnu.

Layla was summoned by the emperor because he wanted to know what's so special about her that Qays, the poet, had fallen in love with her:

Oh how I love these lines..."You have to see me with the eyes of Majnun. Otherwise, you could never solve this mystery called love." 

~

Ending with one my favorite poems of Rumi

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,

to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment...

First, to let go of life.

In the end, to take a step without feet;

to regard this world as invisible,

and to disregard what appears to be the self.

Heart, I said, what a gift it has been

to enter this circle of lovers,

to see beyond seeing itself,

to reach and feel within the breast.

~