only an unbridgeable gulf,

but there is another nearness which is not of the body,

and its name is love.

Once gained it is never lost.

Then no separation exists

despite vast distances in the visible world.

If you can arrive at this distancelessness

with even one other it can be found with everybody.

One is the door, the all, the goal.

The beginning of love is through one, the end is all.

The love that unites you with everything,

with nothing excluded, I call religion,

and the love that stops anywhere I call sin.

32. Love.

I received your letter;

I have been waiting for it ever since I returned.

But how sweet it is to wait!

Life itself is a waiting!

Seeds wait to sprout,

rivers to reach the ocean.

What does man wait for?

He too is the seed for some tree,

a river for some ocean.

Whoever looks deep inside

finds that a longing for the endless and boundless

is his very being.

And whoever recognizes this

begins his journey towards God

because who can be thirsty and not look for water?

This has never happened and never will!

Where there is longing,

there is thirst for attainment.

I want to make everyone aware of this thirst.

I want to convert everyone’s life into a waiting.

The life that has turned into a waiting for God

is the true life.

All other ways of life are just a waste, a disaster.

33. Love.

I received your letter.

Its poetry filled my heart.

It is said that poetry is born out of love.

In your letter I saw this happen.

Where there is love

the whole existence becomes a poem;

the flowers of life bloom under the light of love.

It is strange that you ask

why my heart holds so much love for you.

Can love ever be caused?

If it is,

can it be called love?

Oh, my mad friend! love is always uncaused!

This is its mystery,

and its purity.

Love is divine

and belongs to the kingdom of God

because it is uncaused.

As for me

l am filled with love

as a lamp is filled with light.

To see this light one needs eyes.

You have those eyes so you saw the light.

The credit is yours, not mine.

34. Love.

I never imagined that you would write

such a loving letter!

And you say that you are uneducated!

There is no knowledge greater than love,

and those who lack love – these are the true illiterates,

because the heart is the real thing in life,

not the intellect.

Bliss and light spring from the heart,

not from the mind, and you have so much heart – that is enough!

Can there be a better witness of this than me?

I am surprised that you write asking me

to point out any mistakes you have made.

So far on earth, love has not made one mistake.

All mistakes happen through lack of love,

in fact this for me is the only mistake in life.

Writing to you: May God make you envious of me

was no mistake.

I would like the bliss that has arisen in my heart

to make you thirst for it more and more.

Queen of Mewal!

there is no reason for you to worry about it!

35. Love.

It was just this time of night, two days ago

that I left you at Chittor.

I can see now

the love and bliss filling your eyes.

The secret of all prayer and worship

is hidden in the overflow of those tears.

They are sacred.

God fills the heart of those he blesses

with tears of love,

and what to say about the calamity of those

whose hearts are filled instead with thorns of hate?

Tears flowing in love

are offerings of flowers at the feet of God

and the eyes from which they flow

are blessed with divine vision.

Only eyes filled with love can see God.

Love is the only energy

that transcends the inertia of nature

and takes one to the shores of ultimate awareness.

I think that by the time this letter reaches you