Within yourself

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

Rumi on Love and the Barriers We Build

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī was born in Persia.  He was a poet and a Sufi mystic who believed that music, poetry and dance was a path for reaching God.

I feel these lines stand alone and really need no explanation but the general theme of Rumi's thought, like that of other mystic and Sufi poets of Persian literature, is essentially that of the concept of tawhīd – union with his beloved (the primal root) from which he has been cut off and become aloof – and his longing and desire to restore it. 

These words by Rumi are not just poetry. They are a mirror. A soft, invitation to turn inward—not to chase love as if it were lost, but to gently uncover the walls we’ve built to protect ourselves from its arrival.

Rumi, born in 13th-century Persia, was more than a poet. He was a mystic, a seeker, a soul who danced his way into divine union. Through music, poetry, and movement, he explored the sacred terrain of longing—the ache to return to the Beloved, the source, the root from which we all come.

In Sufi tradition, this longing is not romantic in the conventional sense. It is spiritual. It is the yearning to dissolve the illusion of separation and remember that we are already held, already loved, already whole. The concept of tawhīd—oneness with the divine—is central to Rumi’s work. And love, in this context, is not something we earn or find. It is something we remember.

Love as a Returning

To read Rumi is to be reminded that love is not a destination. It is a returning. A softening. A surrender. And yet, so often, we armor ourselves against it. We build barriers—out of fear, out of grief, out of the stories we’ve been told and the wounds we’ve carried.

These barriers might look like:

• Distrust of tenderness

• Shame around vulnerability

• Belief that we are too much or not enough

• The ache of abandonment, still echoing

• The need to control what cannot be controlled

Rumi doesn’t ask us to demolish these walls in a blaze of glory. He invites us to notice them. To sit beside them. To ask, gently: What were you protecting me from? And then, to listen.

Within Yourself: The Garden of Love

Rumi’s deepest truth is that the Garden of Love is within. The garden of love is not outside us. It blooms within. When we tend to our inner soil, when we clear the weeds of fear and shame, when we water the roots of compassion and truth, love grows. Not as a performance, but as a presence.

Rumi’s poetry reminds us that the Beloved is not far away. The Beloved is within. And every barrier we dissolve brings us closer—not to someone else, but to our own soul.

 A Gentle Practice

If you feel moved by Rumi’s words, here’s a gentle practice to explore:

• Sit quietly and ask yourself: What barriers have I built against love?

• Write them down without judgment.

• For each one, ask: What did this protect me from? What do I need now?

• Offer yourself compassion. You built these walls for a reason. And now, you get to choose which ones to keep, and which ones to soften.

Find more inspirational Rumi quotes at Good Quotes

ILLUSTRATION 1: Shah sitting on his throne, surrounded by poets. 19th century watercolour by unknown artist from Iran.

ILLUSTRATION 2: 1980 image by Masnavi Manavi Molavi.