The heart has many secrets, and its greatest mystery is how it can contain the wonders of God. The heart is the meeting place of lover and Beloved, the place where the lover dissolves into love. Those who are drawn into the arena of love, of a love that carries the fragrance of what is Real, can learn from the Sufis. They can follow the footsteps of these pilgrims of the heart, this band of lovers who have tasted the sweetness that was before honey or bee. Sufis tell us of this journey, and their maps outline the stages along the way. Their wisdom of love is alive and belongs to those who have been awakened by love and need to find their way back to their Beloved.

Sufis all sing the one song, that of lover and Beloved. The Beloved looks into the heart of the lover and ignites it with the spark of remembrance, with the call for the journey. This spark becomes a fire that burns us, that empties us of everything except love. Through the fire of love we come to know the essence of love, the greatest secret hidden within every cell of creation. Finding what we really are, we become lost in the mystical truth of humanity, that there is nothing other than God.


From the Book:Love is a Fire