This battle of Love is getting hotter.
The source of it’s heat is beyond time and space:
from the sparks of it’s fire the smoke of seven Hells is rising.
But Hell is extinguished by Love’s burning.
Hell says to the sincere lover.”Go quickly,
or my fire will be destroyed by your flames.”
Watch how this breath of Love dissolves
unfaithfulness, the brimstone of Hell!
Offer this brimstone to this passionate Love,
an neither these Hells
nor what sparks them
will assail you.
Paradise, too, says to the lover,
“Pass over me like the breeze,
or all I possess will become unsalable;
“for you are the original owner
and I’m just the advertisement:
I am the idol, while you are the reality.”
Both Hell and Paradise tremble
before the man or woman of faith:
neither feels safe in the presence of the truly faithful.
Mathnawi VI, 4606-4614
The Living Room 