A Shift in Meaning

If you call reason the religious law, no harm in that; and truth itself is nothing but pure love. On the spiritual path both hold full authority: one guards the road, the other guards the station. When they reach the goal of this way, they step beyond duality and become one. They break free of every bond and become absolute, rejoining their own origin. Now they are worthy of the placeless state, freed from detachment and from all attachments. Here the light of reason and the light of love become one; even Gabriel is left behind at this point, unable to keep pace. He says: this is not my limit; if I drew one fingertip closer, my wings would burn. Here the follower and the followed become one; reason and love, lover and beloved, all one. And that light was the light of Ahmad, the Prophet, if only you grasped the secret of these words. Just then a wild fervor rushed into my head, and another vision came to my mind. I wanted to explain the meaning of love's name, to speak of love's beginning that has no end. To lift a veil from the hidden secret, to set the souls of lovers ablaze. But love's awe told me: be silent. Do not seethe any longer in the fire of bewilderment. The great wing, with all Gabriel's glory of intellect, burns the instant it sets foot in this valley. It is simply not permitted to breathe a word here, to disturb the gathering of the free. A single ray from love's radiant sun strikes the weak of foundation blind and sightless. Whoever was taught the secrets of God was sealed up, his mouth stitched shut. This message set seals upon my lips: let me stop here, and so, farewell. If there is even one true seeker in the house of the free-spirited, let me stop; a single word is enough for the wise. If you have found any light from that sun, find it within your own self. Do not stir up uproar and clamor over these things; do not drive me further out of myself and into disgrace. Ask me no more to explain this passion; if you are not a man of love, do not walk this road. Your reason will be stunned by this tale, left dazed, frantic, and lost. You have no capacity to bear it, no patience; when did water ever settle in a sieve? Do not press deeper into the sea of bewilderment; hear a tale that is nearer to us. Listen to this, if you took in my words, so that perhaps you may find the ancient secrets through it. There lies the treasure house of love's secrets; and what is its keeper? All the ways and moods of love. The tale of lovers turns the heart to blood, and most of all it drives the lover mad. It holds such ecstasies that the impassioned themselves are stirred by it, not by speech or explanation. The mad rapture that belongs to lovers, when did it ever fit into book or notebook or page? What are these pages but a cover over the matter, a veil of mere fancy thrown over the Beloved's secrets? From behind the veil the lover knows; the hand of the stranger falls short of reaching there. Now listen, for the explanation has come: set aside the body's ear and open the ear of the soul.