Passionate Love as Guidance for the Soul
In the depths of the soul, passionate love ignites a fire that transcends the ordinary, driving us toward the divine essence. This love is not merely a feeling but a powerful force that propels us into the arms of the Beloved, where freedom and beauty await.
When I wrote this poem, I was deeply inspired by these lines from Yunus Emre:
“How strange I feel under the hand of this love. I can’t see my way under the hand of this love. Once, I was the crown of the universe. Now I’m dirt to walk on, under the hand of this love…”
The simplicity and profundity of Yunus’s words captured a truth that I had long felt but had not yet fully articulated. In that line, I found an echo of the freedom that blossoms in the soul when the heart is set free, and love becomes the guiding force.
Rumi, too, often speaks of this liberating power of love:
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you love. It will not lead you astray.”
These words remind me that when we surrender to love, we are not losing ourselves; instead, we are allowing ourselves to be led by a force far greater and more beautiful than the confines of our ordinary understanding.
Hafiz, with his joyful and often exuberant praise of divine love, captures this freedom as well:
“I am a hole in a flute that Christ’s breath moves through—listen to this music.”
In these words, Hafiz reveals the ultimate freedom: becoming a vessel for the divine, allowing love to flow through us, and creating beauty in the world.
“Abandon the garden and the case,” says, “Shed the constraints that hold you back from experiencing love in its wild, untamed form.” When we join “the ranks of wild roses,” we are stepping into a life where love leads, where we are no longer confined by fear or doubt but are quickened by the essence of beauty and love.
Yunus, Rumi, and Hafiz all point towards this profound truth: true freedom is found not in control but in surrender. In allowing ourselves to be “under the hand of this love, ” we find our true strength and selves. When love leads, we are not lost; we are finally found.
Love and the Beloved
The concept of the Inner Beloved is central to my understanding of the soul’s journey. The poem’s lines about being tended from within under the hand of Love reflect this inner guidance. The Diamond Approach® teaches that the true source of love and fulfillment lies within us, in our connection to the Inner Beloved. This is where our true security and care come from—not external validations, but from the deep, inner relationship with the divine that sustains and guides us.
“When we love passionately, we are expressing a natural and intrinsic part of our Being. This love is a fire that burns away everything that is false, revealing the purity and truth of who we really are.”
A. H. Almaas
Passionate Love
This isn’t a gentle or passive love; it’s a dynamic, fiery force that propels the soul toward union with the divine. It’s an intense drive to fully embrace the divine essence and let it transform every aspect of our being. It’s a love that consumes and liberates, pushing us beyond our ordinary concerns and into a state of divine intoxication.
Ultimately, this poem is about the freedom of letting go and allowing love to lead us. It’s about the journey toward the Beloved, a journey that is both passionate and transformative, guided by the profound and nurturing presence of love within.
What keeps you from abandoning the limitations of mental beliefs and surrendering to this hand of love?
John Harper is a Diamond Approach® teacher, Enneagram guide, and a student of human development whose work bridges psychology, spirituality, and deep experiential inquiry. He is the author of The Enneagram World of the Child: Nurturing Resilience and Self-Compassion in Early Life and Good Vibrations: Primordial Sounds of Existence, available on Amazon.