Relax your body,
Sit back,
Listen,
And breathe.
To soften in a world that hardens us takes courage.
Yet softness is not weakness.
It is the strength to remain open.
It is what allows love to reach us,
Reshape us,
And remind us who we are.
Center into the breath,
Deeply inhaling and exhaling,
And soften.
Love as a path of return is not reserved for saints or mystics.
It is practiced in daily life,
In the way we speak,
Listen,
And respond.
Rumi teaches that every object,
Every being is a jar full of delight.
This is an invitation to presence,
To see the divine reflected in the ordinary,
In a shared glance,
A child's laughter,
The scent of rain,
The rhythm of breath.
When we live with eyes of love,
The mundane becomes miraculous.
Think about the way you approach your day,
The way you prepare a meal,
Speak to a colleague,
Offer help to a stranger.
Each small act,
When infused with love,
Becomes sacred service.
Rumi would remind us that love is not a feeling to chase,
But a state of being to embody.
He asked his students to look beyond opposites,
Beyond right and wrong,
Beyond success or failure.
In his words,
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing,
There is a field.
I'll meet you there.
That field is love's landscape,
The place where the mind dissolves and the soul remembers unity.
To walk the path of return is to become that field,
To hold space where understanding and compassion can breathe.
Rumi said,
Raise your words,
Not your voice.
It is grain that grows flowers,
Not thunder.
In these simple lines,
We find a roadmap for living.
Love does not need domination to create change.
It needs intention,
Gentleness,
And consistent nourishment.
Love,
In Rumi's understanding,
Is also surrender.
To walk the path of return means letting go of control,
Not in defeat,
But in devotion.
Rumi wrote,
Run from what's comfortable,
Forget safety,
Live where you fear to live.
These lines shake the comfort of complacency because true love calls for courage.
When we cling to the familiar,
We resist the current of divine flow.
But when we release our grip,
Even our tears become prayers.
Even our uncertainty becomes faith.
Inhale,
Exhale,
And release.
There is a story from Rumi's life that captures this beautifully.
One night,
Filled with longing for divine union,
Rumi whirled an ecstatic dance.
His students worried for him,
But he said,
Do not fear,
I am being polished by love.
The dance was not performance.
It was surrender,
A symbol of letting go of self and spinning into oneness.
The whirling dervishes carry this legacy still.
The right hand opened to receive the grace of divine love.
The left hand turned downward to share it with the world.
We,
Too,
Are asked to live like this,
Open,
Receiving,
And giving.
Love flows only when it is not contained.
Inhale and exhale deeply,
Allowing love's breath to course all the way through,
From the inside out.
In love,
Of love,
With love,
And as love,
I am Simran,
Be well.
