the world of No-place...

I wonder at these people who say,

"How can the saints and
the lovers love that ineffable world, since it has no place or form
and is beyond description?

How can they derive replenishment and aid
from it and be affected by it?"

After all, they themselves are
occupied with the same thing night and day.

Take this person who
loves another person and derives replenishment from her:

After all,
this replenishment, kindness, goodness, knowledge, recollection,
thought, joy, heartache -- he derives all these things, and all dwell
in the world of No-place.

Moment by moment he receives
replenishment from these meanings and is affected by them, but this
does not cause him any wonder.

Yet he wonders how some people are in
love with the world of No-place and draw replenishment from it.



--Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Fihi ma fih (The Discourses of Rumi) 38-39/50
Translation by Professor William Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
SUNY Press, 1985