It is a very high stage on the path of love when a person really learns to love another with a love that asks no return.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
The nature of life on earth is illusory and in the Sanskrit tongue it is called Maya or illusion.
[ MUIZ COMMENTARY: Maya is literally “the measurer”, ie the power in creation by which limitations and divisions seem to exist in the Absolute Oneness, the True Reality. So everything in the manifested Universes, all that is limited, all that can be measured, everything having a beginning and an ending, a birth and a death, all that is subject to change, is temporary and transitory (no matter how long the scale of time), and dependent on something else for its continued existence. All that is temporary and transitory exists in relativity and duality, and is therefore Maya, … measurable, not Absolute, not Real, from the perspective of and in contrast to the One Source. ]
And every soul having the spark of the Divine Love, forgets the use and the purpose of that spark and begins to love itself most.
By a keen study of human life, we will find that as a rule, when we claim that we love, in reality we love self, we love our own benefit in life, we love another for the help that other gives, for their goodness, for their kindness, for their service, but in all this we surely love self, and it is for self all the while that we think we love another.
It is a very high stage in the path of love when we really learn to love another with a love that asks no return. When we do not seek love for the sake of love in return, then love becomes pure, the lover gives, and gives and gives, but even that is not the purpose of Life, it is still greater. The Perfect One who is the source and origin of the whole creation, is the Perfection of Beauty. All beauty on earth or in heaven belongs to That One and the purpose of the creation of every soul is to progress in the path of Love until the soul arrives at a stage where it may find the Perfection of Beauty.
( from Unpublished Papers from the Nekbakht Foundation Archives: Cupid and Psyche, May 5th 1921 )
The development of love is often hindered by different obstacles in life. The first obstacle is ourselves. We begin our life with selfishness, and all that we want is for self, and if there is a tendency to love, it is for one’s own happiness, and one’s own joy. When the question comes, ‘How much do you love me, and how much do I love you?’ it has come to be a trading in love. ‘I love you, but you do not love me’ is as much as to say, ‘I have bid so much, and I expect a return of love’. This is trading in love, and trade cannot lead anywhere, because it makes one think of the self, and love is beyond that. To love is to give; it is not to take at all. The true lovers never speak of what they have done for their beloveds, for they love for love’s sake, not for the sake of a return.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Chapter 9 – Love, Human and Divine )
To what does the love of God lead? It leads to that peace and stillness which can be seen in the life of the tree, which bears fruits and flowers for others and expects no returns, not even thanks in return. It serves, and cares for nothing else, not even for appreciation. That is the attribute of the godly.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad) Samuel L. Lewis
This is the real condition on the path of Love: that one gives out love and asks no return. So long as one expects love from another creature, of whatever degree, that is reflected love. It is only in God and from God that giving and receiving are one and the same. Heart feeds heart and nothing else feeds heart. Heart can feed heart of self, and it can feed mind of self, and body of self. Heart can also feed the heart of another, mind of another, and body of another. All healing, all help, all love come from heart, which is to say, they come from God, Who is hidden in the heart of each and every person.