Discourses of Rumi

262 V DISCOURSES OF RUMIthousand reach their goal, and even they do notalways find happiness and peace. For every desirehas many branching paths to reach that goal. It islong and arduous, full of pitfalls and obstacles,and in the end it is possible those twisting pathswill fall short of your desire.However, once you enter the world of povertyand practice it, God bestows on you kingdomsand worlds you never imagined, and you feelquite ashamed of what you longed for at first.“Ah!” you cry. “With such reality in existence,how could I have sought after such foolishness?”But God says, “If only you had risen above suchdesires, becoming detached from them and seeingthem for what they were, all would have beenwell. Yet now, when they enter your thoughts andyou avoid them for My sake, My grace is infinite,so of course I make them attainable to you.”So it happened with Mohammed. Before heattained his goal and became famous, he listenedto the elegant speech and eloquence of the Arabs,and he wished that he too could speak so well.Yet, once the invisible worlds were revealed tohim, and he became drunk with God, his heart