The mind, on the other hand, has all kinds of ideas about what ought to fill this deepest emptiness of the heart, what ultimately will bring a final peace. The mind does its work conceptualizing the Beloved, creating many images and forms for the heart to love. These images, ideas, and beliefs that the mind creates in the process of its development distract the heart. The heart loses its way as it begins to long for and pursue the images created by the mind. In our ordinary experience, the heart follows the lead of the mind because we feel we should follow what we know to be true, and we believe it is the mind that knows truth. The heart is what possesses the truth sense, not the mind. The mind can discriminate and know, but it is the heart that ascertains whether it is the truth. Since the Beloved is the Ultimate Truth, only the heart will know it for certain. And since the heart primordially loves the truth, the Ultimate Truth is inherently its deepest Beloved. The heart’s primordial knowing of what will fill its emptiness is intuitive, not conceptual, and usually unconscious. The heart’s vacancy is the chamber where the Guest resides. That is the nature of our heart. Because the heart loses its way we spend a whole life wanting this and wanting that, needing this and needing that, searching for this and searching for that. Every time we acquire a new beloved, whether a person, a career, or a philosophy, for a while the heart believes, “I found it.” After some time and a lot of disappointment and heartache, we realize, “No, that isn’t it. My heart is still not contented.” And everything we find, everything we achieve, everything we love, we eventually discover is not it. The heart remains dissatisfied and the emptiness still gnaws at us.

When we discover the absolute in our heart, which is a particular realization of the absolute, we find out that it is what our heart has always been looking for. We learn that we have been erecting idols in our heart, when our heart is in reality the Kaaba, the throne of the divine essence, the absolute. We have been loving so many people, so many things, and filling our heart with them wondering how come we are not completely happy and totally fulfilled. But now we realize that we have needed to keep our heart vacant, emptying it from all other loves except the love of the truth. We did not recognize what should truly fill our heart, who our real beloved is, until now. When we see the luminous crystalline mystery in the depths of our heart our love runneth over; we are beyond ourselves with deep joy and passionate love. We finally recognize our true and one beloved, the one we have been looking and waiting for, and understand the reason for our previous lack of total contentment and complete fulfillment. All these loves were simply expressions of the true beloved and, reminding us of Him, and because of that we loved them.

We see that all that we have loved, we loved because it revealed something about our true beloved to us. It was a reflection of the true beloved, a message from him, a beckoning toward him. But we did not see that at the time, instead filling our heart with these partial expressions. Now our true love has revealed Himself to us, and the heart instantly recognizes and rejoices. We realize we have always been in love, sometimes sweetly and tenderly and other times passionately and deeply. We have always been forlorn and sad, dejected and depressed. When we were in the company of an earthly love we could not feel the total intimacy that we knew our heart wanted. Our love has always been unrequited, because all the loves were substitute loves, at best partial manifestations of our true love. Now that we are united with our true beloved, our earthly love is balanced and seen in perspective. It deepens and expands, for we see how much beauty and majesty our earthly love reminds us of, and expresses to us. In other words, we realize that we love others and objects because we see something in them that expresses our true beloved. We have earthly love because all manifestation is the appearance and body of our true beloved.

The poem shows that the way of the heart is love. The inner journey is motivated and powered not by utilitarian needs, such as the need to be free from suffering, but by the self-sacrificing love of the soul for her source and for her true nature. The heart loves the truth; the deeper the truth, the deeper the love, and the deeper the love, the deeper the revelation of the truth. The Absolute is the true Beloved of the heart, whether we are conscious of it or not. The mind cannot and does not know the Guest; it does not and cannot know the Secret. The mind does not know, really, what the heart deeply loves and desires. Only the heart knows the Guest because the Guest is the true possessor of the heart. Only the heart can know the Secret, can know the Guest. The heart will simply not rest unless it is occupied by its master. The heart is bereft without its owner.

You may have experiences of connecting with, moving closer to or farther away from the Source, as though there is the Beloved and there is you and a rapprochement occurs. Many people have these experiences, but they are part of the delusion because although they bring us closer to ourselves and our hearts may open some, they are still based on a lack of perception of the objective situation. The objective situation is that the Beloved is not an object that you can move toward or away from. The Source is not something that is an other. The Source is not an object of perception, nor is it a conceptualized percept. The Source or the Origin is the very nature of what we are and of everything that is. It is not only pervasive and omnipresent, it is completely, one hundred percent coemergent with, and indistinguishable from, everything and anything. This perception is both difficult to attain and also difficult to maintain because of our continuous belief, supported by all kinds of things in our lives, that we are independent entities and that reality or true nature is something we can gain or lose.

We make mistakes in our lives and in our relationships. We do our best not to, but we do cause pain sometimes. We also do things that enable people to experience great happiness. The point of practice is to apply in the best way you can what you know of the goodness of being, to learn from it and let it inform you and keep informing you. The truth is that people are going to have reactions to you regardless of how you appear. You can’t avoid that. The more important question is about your own inner integrity. How do you feel in relation to yourself? How do you feel in relation to your inner nature, whether you perceive it as emptiness or the Beloved? And how do you feel in relationship to your Being and the energy that is your life? Are you making yourself available? Your Beloved is trying to seduce you at every moment. The natural seduction of the Beloved wants to take you inward. Within every experience is the Beloved, ready to awaken you, saying, “Here I am—just listen, look . . . and follow me.” Every reaction has within it the original pure energy that will optimize our evolution and our corporeal life. That pure energy is beckoning us. And the more we allow ourselves to be pulled by the One we love, the more that two people can meet as expressions of the One—two organs of perception peering into the vastness of each other’s being. What is possible for one’s individual consciousness is also possible for the blended consciousness of two individuals—but with an amplified and intensified potentiality. Two as one can bring more variation of depth and breadth to the process of realization than is possible on one’s own. You are able to see the Beloved in your partner and see your partner in yourself, like a hall of mirrors into the infinity of the infinite. You become a field of one, sensitive presence with the appearance of two, peering into the endless openness within one another.

As long as we want something that we can think about, it is an attachment and not the true Beloved of the heart. As long as we long for something that we can relate to in a relationship, it is an attachment and not the true Beloved of the heart. These objects of attachment are still not the true passion of the heart. The true Beloved is not an object we can relate to, for anything we can have a relationship with is an object made by the mind. That is why the poem says to divorce heart from all relationships. I do not mean to abandon all human relationships; I mean to abandon the mode of relating when it comes to the search for the inner Beloved. Relating to something implies a duality of lover and Beloved. The true Beloved simply does not admit such duality. Relationship, as any form in duality, is within the realm of the mind, and the Guest is pre-mind, transcendent to mind. Furthermore, all the issues we have in doing our work as we’re going through our search will have to be seen only as distractions. Issues, difficulties, conflicts, mental and emotional, are to be recognized and understood, so that they stop distracting us from our real search. We understand our mind and resolve our emotional conflicts not for their own sake but to reveal our true love. As long as we don’t understand our issues, our mind and heart will focus on them and we will be distracted from our true love. Ignorance, conflicts, assumptions, beliefs, and so on obscure our true love and veil the face of the Beloved.

The Absolute is the realm of complete mystery, or of bedazzlement, as the Sufis say. And only here will the heart feel it has arrived home, at long last. There is wonder, there is beauty, there is majesty, but it is all mystery upon mystery. The peace is stupendous, the certainty is absolute and the beauty is dazzling. It is the ultimate Beloved of the heart, the Spirit of spirits, and the mystery of all existence. It is the absolute presence of absolute annihilation, which is then seen to be the primal cause of all. Obviously such words make no sense to the mind, but when consciousness finally reaches this its final abode, the heart will hear these words as music.

The absolute is majesty; when it manifests its crystal brilliancy it also has beauty. The beauty evokes passionate love; the crystal form of love attains a deep pomegranate color. The feeling is more than love; it is more like bedazzlement. The beauty bedazzles and enchants. I feel a deep devotional and passionate love, and desire for it to take me and completely annihilate me. That is what I have always wanted. A subtle understanding further illuminates my situation. I see that when I feel increasing longing, devotion and love I become more identified as the person, the one who longs. As the longing person I am only a shell over the mystery, veiling it even while longing for it. In other words, even by loving the absolute I assert myself, as the individual, and thus become a veil over what I love. To completely have the beloved, my love must annihilate me totally. I can have the beloved when only the beloved is.

But there is another implication in recognizing that the soul is implicitly and naturally in love with the mystery. We said that it is not something that you learn—that it is already there. We just don't see it because of the veils. So there is a natural, appreciative magnetism between the soul and the Beloved. It's not like we say, "Let me learn to love the Beloved." We always love the Beloved, but we see the Beloved through one veil or another. Our love for these forms that veil the Beloved is actually our love for the mystery itself. At some point, we can recognize that directly. But what does that reveal? It reveals that it is in our nature to love the mystery. But the mystery is not only the ultimate mystery of reality; we do not call it “the Beloved” simply to mean that it is beloved by the soul. That mystery, that Beloved, is the ultimate nature of the soul. This has very deep, far-reaching implications. That the mystery, the Beloved, is the ultimate nature of the soul means that it is the ultimate identity of the soul. It is actually the true self, the true essence of the soul.

We are talking about mystical poverty because this perspective is needed in our work here. We are not working to get richer; we are working to get poorer. You might think you are coming here to get more realized, to achieve more essential states. The truth is you will have less and less. The heart and the mind usually do not hear this message for years and years. They keep rebelling, keep doing things according to what they have learned. “I don’t want this. I want that.” After some long time, the heart and the mind become wiser. The heart sees, responds, and moves toward poverty. The heart realizes that riches hurt, that they are not the real thing, not the truth, not the true Beloved. Also, the heart realizes that trying to get riches is not the heart’s nature. Its nature is always surrendering, forgiving, disowning.

Initially the truth might be a specific insight, some connection we make between various elements in our experience. But as the soul gives herself more to the truth, the truth becomes essential truth, and ultimately the absolute truth—the ultimate nature of everything in all its beauty, magnificence, and splendor. When we finally behold the absolute truth and see its beauty and magnificence, we understand. We recognize it as the source of love. We love it because it’s lovable. We love it because we are loving our true self. We love it because it’s natural to love the truth. Not because it’s correct, ethical conduct, but because in some very deep place in us, the truth is the Beloved.