“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – Rumi

 

Society has changed our understanding of the concept of love. In a so-called “loving” relationship between two people, the greatest thing that either partner can offer is their body, which means that the physical aspect plays a huge part. The connection starts with attraction and transforms into a physical union. This is not the nature of pure love. Every worldly relationship starts with the words: “I love you”. But in reality, even a proposal for marriage really means, “I love myself. Will you marry me?”

 

We pursue worldly relationships in order to fulfil our needs and desires. “I love myself” is the undertone in all our relationships, and thus we tend to approach God in the same manner: “I love myself. Please give me what I desire.” But this is not how love works. We have to focus on transforming the “I” into “you”; to try and fulfil our Beloved’s desires instead of our own. We can only experience true love when this transformation takes place.