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

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. 

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.