Page 113 - The Book of Rumi

The Love Letter

young couple in love had been separated from each other for over a
A year. The young man had suffered greatly and written many long, heart-
wrenching letters to his beloved, complaining about his sorry state of mind
and heart. One early morning, he walked into a lush garden near the girl’s
home and, as luck would have it, the girl was there, too. He didn’t miss a beat
and quickly approached her, noting that her old nanny, who usually accompa-
nied her, was absent.
Thrilled that after so long a time he was able to sit by her side and hold her
soft gaze, he took out copies of his love letters, which he carried with him at all
times, and began to read them out loud. He recounted over and over again how
much he had suffered day and night, how his lips had not touched a morsel of
food, how his eyes had been wet with tears every single day. The girl took a few
minutes to gather her thoughts and realized what her beloved was doing.
“When you’ve already written all these words to me, why are you repeat-
ing yourself and wasting our precious little time together?” she said with obvi-
ous pain in her tone. “I’m sitting here next to you, and you’re reading love
letters to me? This isn’t the behavior of someone in love!”
The boy, taken aback, responded in disbelief: “I don’t seem to recognize
the same girl I knew last year! I drank from her fresh spring a year ago and
bathed my eyes and heart in her crystal-clear water. I can still see the spring,
but there’s no water! Has a thief perhaps redirected the stream?”
“I’m not the one you love, my dear!” exclaimed the girl downheartedly.
“I belong to one side of the world and you to the other. You’re only in love
with the state of being in love, not with me! You’re attached to me hoping to
experience that state once again. This isn’t true love. The true lover is as one
with his beloved; his beginning and end are contained in her beginning and
end. They’re one and the same. If you truly seek pure love, keep on searching,
for that’s the only water that will quench your thirst for a lifetime. That is the
original fountain of purity that your soul has been reaching for, not me !”
She stood up, took one last look at the young man’s stunned face, and
quietly walked away.

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