"This small statement can transform your whole life. It can change the very gestalt of your vision. The moment one recognizes that all is one, love arises on its own accord. And love is Sufism.

"Sufism is not concerned with knowledge. Its whole concern is love, intense, passionate love: how to fall in love with the whole, how to be in tune with the whole, how to bridge the distance between the creation and the creator.

"The so-called, organized religions of the world teach a kind of duality that the creator is separate from the creation, that the creator is higher than the creation, that there is something wrong with creation, it has to be renounced. Sufis don't renounce, they rejoice. And that's what I am teaching you here: Rejoice!

"My sannyas is a way of rejoicing, not a way of renunciation.

"Rumi has said:

If you are not one with the beloved,
Seek!
And if you are in union,
Rejoice!

"This assembly is a Sufi assembly. You are my Sufis, the Sufis of the new age. I am introducing you to the world of love. I am initiating you into the ways of love.

"Sufis talk about two kinds of love. One they call muhabbat; it means the ordinary love, lukewarm, momentary, partial. One moment it is there, another moment it is gone. It has no depth, no intensity. You call it passion, but it is not passionate. It is not such a flame which can burn you. You don't become aflame with it; it remains something under your control. You don't become possessed by it, you don't lose yourself in it. You remain in control.

"The other kind of love, the real love? The authentic love, Sufis call it ishq; ishq means love with total intensity. One is lost in it, one is possessed by it. One goes mad in it.

"I have heard:

"The great Sufi Master Ruzbihan was once on the roof of his khanigah while in a state of wajd….

"The khanigah is the place where Sufis meet; it is a temple of love. It is a temple of madness, of utter rejoicing. This is a khanigah. No other god than love is worshipped, no other prayer than love is preached."