mystic. Sufism is a philosophy that focuses on the heart, not just the mind. It’s about connecting
with life and the divine through love, awareness, and presence. He wrote books like the Masnavi and
the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, full of stories and poems about love, connection, and the human soul.
For Rumi, love starts inside us. Most of the time, we struggle to love not because love isn’t there,
but because we’ve built walls inside ourselves. Fear, pride, control, and expectations block
love from flowing naturally. The first step is to notice these walls and let them go. When we
remove these barriers, love can move freely. Once the walls come down, love opens up in
every part of life. It’s not just about romantic relationships or special moments. Love becomes the
way we connect with people, with the world, and with something bigger than ourselves. When we stop
clinging, judging, or trying to control, every moment becomes a chance to love — a kind word,
a look, a gesture, or even the challenges we face. Love isn’t something we have to chase.
It’s already there, ready to be felt and lived. Today, we often treat love like a transaction.
We expect it to make us feel safe, complete, or validated.
But real love doesn’t trap or limit us. True love frees us and allows those around us to grow too.
And so in this video, we’re going to explore how to love through the philosophy of Rumi.
1. Begin by Dying Before You Die Rumi says, “Die before you die and be completely
dead. Then do whatever you want. It’s all good.” In Sufism, what we call the ego is known as
nafs - the lower self that clings. It’s that part of us always saying, “I, me, mine.” It wants to
control, to be right, to be seen. It’s restless, always comparing, always needing something more.
The Sufis call this the lower self because it keeps us trapped in survival - chasing comfort,
approval, or recognition. But beyond this lower self, there’s a higher one - the soul, or the
heart - what Sufis call ruh or qalb. This higher self isn’t separate from the Divine. In Sufism,
the Divine is seen as the sacred pulse of the universe, a living presence that exists in
everything - the source of life, love, and wisdom. When we connect to this higher self, we begin to
feel that divine presence within us - the part of us that’s aware, kind, and capable of real love.
The Sufi path - the path that Rumi walked - is the transformation of the lower self into
the higher one. It’s not about destroying who you are, but refining who you are.
The ego blocks love because it separates. It says, “I'm this identity” “I’m right,” “I’m different,”
“I deserve more.” It builds walls where love wants to build bridges. As long as we live
trapped in the small self, we can’t experience the vastness of love that’s trying to reach us.
Rumi learned this through the most powerful friendship of his life - his meeting with
Shams of Tabriz, a wandering mystic who changed him forever. Before meeting Shams,
Rumi was a scholar - respected, disciplined, and proud. Then when Shams appeared, everything Rumi
knew was set on fire. He shattered Rumi’s image of himself. He questioned everything Rumi thought he
knew, burned away his pride, and exposed the small self hiding behind words and learning.
Through Shams, he saw how his ego stood between him and the Divine. That breaking burned away his
pride and revealed his heart. Rumi called this burning fana — the death of the ego — followed
by baqa, living again through love, through the Divine. Rumi, once a man of reason,
began to speak in poetry and silence. He no longer preached about God — he felt God in everything.
We too can practice letting go of our ego in our daily lives, especially in our relationships. When
we argue, when we feel jealous, when we need to be right — that’s the lower self reacting. It’s
trying to protect its image, to stay in control. But love asks for something softer. It asks us
to pause, to breathe, to ask — “What part of me is trying to protect itself right now?”
When we speak from that awareness, something shifts. The ego wants to win,
but love wants to understand. The ego wants attention, but love wants to give. The ego says,
“I’ll love you if…” but love says, “I love you, even through this.”
Small practices help us return to that higher self. Take a deep breath before you speak in
anger. When you hurt someone, apologize without defending yourself. Do something kind without
expecting credit. Sit in silence with someone you care about. Or read a few lines of Rumi together.
2. Lose Yourself in the Dance Rumi writes, “Dance,
when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.”
For Rumi, love was never meant to be dissected, solved, or perfectly understood. It was meant
to be lived — raw, messy, and alive. He often compared love to a dance. A true dance doesn’t
begin after you’ve figured out every step. It begins the moment you stop trying to control
it — when you let life’s music move through you. In Sufi practice, this idea isn’t just poetic;
it’s lived. The whirling dervishes, Rumi’s followers, spun for hours with their eyes
closed and arms open, letting the Divine carry them. Their turning wasn’t a performance — it
was prayer in motion. In that dance, the ego loses its grip, the boundaries
of “me” and “you” dissolve, the dancer is no longer dancing; the dance is dancing them.
Rumi believed that love reveals itself not through endless thinking, but through presence — through
the courage to step forward without knowing where it will lead. The ego demands guarantees:
Will this last? Will I be safe? Will it hurt? But love doesn’t speak that language. Love
speaks in rhythm, not in certainty. It moves through gestures, through shared silence,
through the way your heart beats a little faster when you allow yourself to be fully here.
This is where many of us get stuck. We wait for clarity before we move. We want to know
the outcome before taking the step. But love doesn’t grow in control — it grows in surrender.
This isn’t about recklessness or ignoring red flags. Sufis say, “Tie your camel, then trust
in God.” In love, this means grounding yourself in awareness, while allowing space for what wants to
unfold. You don’t need to analyze every silence or decode every gesture or message. Instead,
speak honestly. Listen deeply. Meet someone’s gaze without performing. Dance with life as
it moves — not as you think it should move. If you love someone, express it without waiting
for the perfect moment. If you’re unsure, give yourself permission to experience the connection
without writing the whole story in advance. Take walks, share laughter, let your guard down in
small ways. Love will either carry you where you need to go or teach you what you need to
learn. When you lose yourself in the dance, you stop fighting life and begin flowing with it.
3. Seek Union, Not Possession Rumi once said, “Lovers don’t finally
meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” For him, love was never about owning someone or
making them yours. It wasn’t about control or possession. Real love is a quiet recognition — a
connection that already lives between two people. It isn’t something you win or earn. It grows
naturally when both can simply be themselves, without trying to shape or fix the other.
But somewhere along the way, many of us turned love into a transaction. We started
giving with conditions, keeping score, and measuring its worth by what we get in return.
Sometimes it sounds like — “I’ll love you if you make me feel special.”
Or, “I’ll give you my time if you give me security.”
Or, “I’ll be close to you only when my needs are met.”
Or even, “I’ll stay because of how this makes me look to the world.”
When love turns into a transaction, it stops being about connection. We are no longer in
love with the person themselves; we are attached to what they give us. That’s where fear enters:
fear of losing them, fear of not being enough, fear of not getting what we want. We cling to the
rewards, not the person, and then the relationship starts to feel tight, heavy, full of unspoken
expectations. We try to control, we demand, we monitor. And slowly, love becomes a cage.
Real love was never meant to be a cage. Love is supposed to make you feel free,
not restricted. This is what Rumi points to when he speaks of union. Not ownership or control — but
a kind of shared space where love flows between two individuals who still stand as themselves.
Real love doesn’t erase you. It lets you breathe. It allows both people to grow, side by side,
without needing to shrink for the other. To love this way is quiet work. It means:
Letting go of the urge to control how someone loves you.
Finding your worth within yourself, so you’re not begging love to prove it.
Giving without keeping score, because real love isn’t a bargain.
Remembering that no one can “complete” you — love is a reflection of the fullness you already carry.
Helping each other grow instead of holding each other back.
When you practice love this way, the fear of losing someone no longer rules your
mind. You stop clinging, stop demanding, and start truly connecting. Love stops
being something to possess and control — it becomes something that sets both people free.
Rumi’s words aren’t just poetic lines; they are a practical guide: “Lovers don’t finally meet
somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” The love you are searching for is actually
something to awaken within yourself and in your connection with others. And real love — the kind
that lasts — doesn’t make you feel small. It doesn’t trap or limit. It gives you space
to breathe, to grow, to be fully yourself, and to feel free alongside another person.
4.Let Pain Be Your Teacher
In the words of Rumi “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
Pain is one of life’s most honest teachers. It strips away the stories we tell ourselves,
the masks we hide behind, and the illusions we build for safety. When we face heartbreak,
betrayal, or loss, something inside us cracks - and through that crack, something true begins
to emerge. Pain reveals what we’ve been avoiding: our fears, our attachments, the fragile structures
we’ve built around our sense of self. When everything we’ve leaned on starts to crumble,
what remains is raw, unfiltered, and real. Most of us try to escape pain. We distract
ourselves, keep busy, pretend we’re fine. But avoiding it doesn’t free us - it keeps us stuck.
Pain has a way of pulling us back to what’s real. It whispers, “This is where you’re still holding
on. This is where you’re still afraid.” When we allow ourselves to feel it fully - without
rushing to fix it or numb it - its lessons begin to unfold. Heartbreak exposes where we
seek completion outside ourselves. Rejection shows us the insecurities beneath our confidence. Grief
reminds us of the depth of our love. Pain doesn’t come to destroy us; it comes to wake us up.
True healing begins when we stay with the pain gently. Sometimes that means sitting in
silence with the ache, writing honestly, or sharing with someone who truly understands.
Over time, our relationship with discomfort changes. Instead of running, we begin to meet
it with awareness. Pain’s lessons are meant to be lived, not just understood.
When his beloved friend and teacher, Shams of Tabriz, vanished, Rumi was shattered. It wasn’t
just the loss of a friend - it was losing the mirror through which he saw divine love.
Shams had awakened something sacred in him. When he disappeared, Rumi was forced
inward. What had once been directed outward turned into a fire within. Out of that grief,
the scholar became a mystic, the thinker became a poet. His pain didn’t end him; it transformed him.
What Rumi discovered was that the love he mourned had never truly left. It wasn’t bound to a single
person - it was the divine flowing through that person. Shams was a doorway, not the source. When
the doorway closed, Rumi realized the source lived within him all along. That understanding
became the heartbeat of his poetry: what is real — love, truth, presence - can never be taken away.
When we glimpse this truth ourselves, we begin to see that what’s real doesn’t die with change
or loss. It simply shifts its form. And with that realization, letting go becomes less like
force and more like quiet trust. Pain, in its own way, frees us. It loosens our grip,
humbles us, and makes us more compassionate — not just toward ourselves but toward everyone
who carries their own silent wounds. Pain can be a teacher if we change
the question from “Why is this happening to me?” to “What is this showing me?” Rejection,
for instance, can be unbearable at first. We question our worth, blame ourselves, ache for
what’s gone. But if we stay with that feeling, slowly we begin to see the truth beneath it:
the part of us that was seeking love or validation outside. We realize the love we were chasing was
never out there - it has always been waiting within. Pain and love are not opposites.
The heart doesn’t break to close - it breaks to open wider. Each wound lets in more light,
more truth, more understanding. As Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
A part of healing is learning to forgive - both others and ourselves. Many of us carry hidden
resentment toward our own mistakes. We replay moments of failure, judge ourselves harshly,
and let shame harden inside us. Rumi reminds us that true self-love begins with forgiveness. If we
can’t forgive ourselves, our hearts stay locked. Forgiveness isn’t about denying what happened. It
begins with honesty - seeing ourselves clearly. That means acknowledging the times we’ve fallen
short, not to punish ourselves but to grow from it. Rumi said, “Be like a tree and let
the dead leaves drop.” We cannot heal if we keep clutching on to what we should release.
Reflect on where you’ve hurt yourself or others. Listen to what those moments are
trying to teach you. As Rumi wrote, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” In that space, self-judgment softens, and growth begins.
Forgiveness isn’t weakness — it’s strength. It tells your heart, “I am still worthy of love,
even here.” When we forgive others and ourselves, we free ourselves from shame, resentment, and the
weight of old stories. Love can flow again. Pain cracks us open. Forgiveness clears
the space inside. And through those cracks and clearings, healing happens.
5. See the Divine in Everything In our final quote from Rumi
for this video, he says, “Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.”
For Rumi, love was never confined to the bond between two people. It wasn’t something that
existed only in romance or in moments that felt extraordinary. Love was a way of seeing - a way
of walking through the world with eyes wide open. When Rumi spoke of the Divine, he didn’t mean
some distant deity locked away in heaven. As mentioned earlier, The “divine” is the sacred
pulse that lives through everything - the spark of aliveness that makes the world breathe. Every
tree, every stranger, every breeze that brushes your skin carries this quiet presence. To him,
nothing was separate from love - everything was love speaking its own secret language.
Rumi’s own life changed the moment he began to see the world this way. After Shams disappeared,
Rumi’s love didn’t vanish with him. Instead, it widened. He realized that what he had loved in
Shams wasn’t a single man, but something far greater: the divine essence shining through
him. He began to find that same light in the world around him - in the rustle of leaves, the
laughter of children, the silence of the night. He would wander through the streets of Konya
where he lived, and where others saw only ordinary scenes - a bird soaring above,
a potter at his wheel, a beggar on the corner - Rumi saw signs of the Beloved.
This is why his poetry speaks not in commands, but in wonder. He wanted us
to remember that the world itself is sacred — not something to conquer or control, but
something to fall in love with, again and again. When we stop waiting for love to arrive through a
single person, one perfect relationship, or a rare moment of magic, we begin to see how much love is
already here. It’s in a cup of tea on a quiet morning. In sunlight filtering softly through a
window. In the stranger who smiles without reason. To “see the divine in everything” is to look at
the world as if it’s whispering to you, not with words, but with presence. When you see life this
way, even the smallest things become sacred. Love is not something to chase.
It’s something to see. It’s already here - in
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