Love's Ripening : Rumi on the Heart's Journey

Although alone, the lover is never lonely,Forever hidden with the Beloved. Love is the meaning of our existence, the raw material of transformation, the glorious way of access to Divine intimacy. This teaching infuses the lyric verse of Rumi (12071273), the greatest of the Sufi poets. The poems in this collection, taken from among the master's many volumes of work, focus on one of his greatest themes: how love grows and matures for those on the spiritual path. Kabir Helminski and Ahmad Rezwani have crafted a translation that remains faithful to the original Persian while giving eloquent expression to the joy of Rumi's astonishing encounter with the Divine. As our love moves on to ever more refined and exalted objects, Rumi declares, the distinction between lover and Beloved becomes irrelevantand wonderfully so: There is no Love greater than Love with no object,For then you, yourself, have become Love itself.

Kabir Helminski is the author of Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness and the Essential Self, as well as the translator of numerous books of Sufi literature and especially Rumi. He is the codirector, with his wife, Camille Helminski, of the Threshold Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sharing the knowledge and practice of Sufism. As the publisher of Threshold Books for some twenty years, he was largely responsible for making Rumi the most widely read poet of our time. As a producer and writer of Sufi music, he has gained recognition for numerous recordings, including his own Garden within the Flames. He is a representative of the Mevlevi tradition founded by Jelaluddin Rumi.