The Way to the Heart

The Lover who was Naught.

A story on the inner search and Self-realization by Jalaluddin Rumi.

A man desperately in love arrived at the house of his beloved and enthusiastically knocked on the door. "Who's there?" asked the lady.

"It's me!" declared the man, full of hope. "Go away. There's no place for someone like you in this house," she responded, her voice laced with sorrow. "You're naive and not yet ready.

Just like an uncooked meal you declare yourself as 'me' and still proclaim your undying love for me? A lover who only sees himself is no lover at all, but needs to roast in the fire of separation until he's properly cooked." She refused to open the door, and the distraught man eventually backed away from the house. Soon after, he left the town for an unknown destination in some faraway land.

Burning with the pain of separation, after an year of traveling from place to place, he gathered his courage and approached his beloved's house once again. Apprehensively, but politely, he knocked at the door. "Who's knocking at this hour?" asked the lady impatiently.

"No one.

The one on this side of the door is also you!" expressed the man humbly.

"Now that you've stopped seeing only yourself, you've become me at last.

Two individuals could never live in this house at the same time, but you're welcome to come in now." She carefully opened the door and welcomed her beloved in.

"At this point you're welcome to stay in this house.

There's no longer any distinction between us.

We are no longer the rose and the thorn. We are one and the same."

Did you recognize the characters in the story? They are the Mind and the Heart. The Mind is trying to find a way to the Heart. That is the sum total of the inner search.

You go looking in all those far away lands, while it is an inner search. The distance amounts to one step. Desire, and effort, and love, these alone are not enough to end the search. For reaching the Beloved, you cannot be standing apart.

To become one with God, you cannot remain as a separate subject. To realize the Ultimate Reality you must cease to see yourself as a separate object. That is the one condition for entry. Give up the claim of being a separate entity.

This idea of "my" life, "my" mind, the belief in a "me"; that is the price of entry. But don't take that the wrong way. The result is not death. No one dies, nothing is lost.

Except a mistaken belief. This is the inner search. The Mind's union with the Heart. This whole inner quest is only a matter of realizing the depth of the Heart.

That place from which you feel emotion, that heart itself is the House of God. It is the Heart of Reality. But no matter how many times the mind turns up at this door, it won't find a way in. As long as there is a belief in being an individual self, the Heart's secrets remain locked.

There is no room for duality in the understanding of Nonduality! In love, the mind creates an object of devotion. Even in the worship of God, the mind approaches the divine as an object that could be perceived. Or as a separate entity to be united with.

How conceited! And when contemplating Reality, the mind still presumes to stand outside the picture looking upon it as a separate observer. How foolish! There's no room for such a mind in this House.

Go away! A lover who only sees himself is no lover at all, but needs to roast in the fire of separation until he's properly cooked. When you assume that you know yourself, but don't know Reality, don't know others, are not one with God, you have locked yourself out of the Heart. And so you are condemned to roam the earth longing, seeking.

From place to place, practice to practice, guru to guru. No matter what spiritual experiences and insights you gain the true Union seems just out of reach. Because you've locked yourself out of your own Home. How long will you keep searching these faraway lands for some exotic experience to drown out your sorrows?

It's time to return Home. That familiar place within, called the "Heart". Let the mind turn that way. Just knock again.

You may hear a voice ask, 'But who am I?' Let the voice itself answer.

"There is no me. Only You!

You are what has always been I.

The meaning behind 'I'."

And as this is said, the thing that said it will no longer be you. It will immediately be seen as just a voice; a stream of thought. And you who heard the voice, you will at once see yourself as you are.

The One that the mind conceived of as residing in the Heart. But even that was the old, mental point of view. The Heart is not a point in the body. The entire world is perceived within the Heart.

This is the realm of the Heart Cave. Without the separation of lover and beloved, when all roles and identities are surrendered, then what is left? Only the Union of Love. When you realize this, then you are Home.