For Rumi, love was a kind of eventful flight, a journey heavenward. But we are not given the nature of the journey nor the location of the heavens.

To be a lover of God was not to make some inflated claim for oneself, but actually to admit one's vulnerability and even helplessness before this Love.

The radiance of love's eternal light gives rise to the universe. The goal of love is to overcome separation, to bridge gaps, to bring the two lovers together as one. If love is to do its work, people must recognize the light and love it in return.

Rumi very consciously made himself and his poetry a bridge between cultures and between religions. There is nothing exclusivist about him. He includes everyone in his embrace. He was, and is, a healer of whatever might separate us.

God loves human beings because of the fullness of the divine beauty that they display and their resultant ability to recognize God's beauty. God then asks, as any lover would, that they love him in return.