What is Love?

1.
I can still remember in one of our high school days, our Filipino teacher asked (in tagalog language), "What is Love?"
The whole class was so silent for many seconds, thinking... Fearing that the teacher would be annoyed if no-one participated,I raised my hand and answered, "Ma'am, it is a special way of feeling that is experienced by most of us."

Six years later, someone explained to me what Love really is.
Love has no definition through which its essence can be known. Rather, it is given descriptive and verbal definitions, nothing more. Those who define love have not known it, those who have not tasted it by drinking it down have not known it, and those who say that they have been quenched by it have not known it, for love is drinking without quenching.

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2.
Someone asked, “What is loverhood?”
I replied, “Don’t ask me about these meanings –
When you become like me, you’ll know;
When it calls you, you will tell its tale.”

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3.
Love makes bitter sweet,
Love turns copper into gold,
Love makes dregs into wine,
Love turns pain into healing,
Love brings dead into life,
Love makes kings into slaves -

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4.
"What is it to be a lover?" a friend asked.
"To have a perfect thirst." I answered. "What would happen, o friend, if you became a lover like me. Every day madness, every night weeping. Her image not out of my eyes for an instant. You would cut yourself off from your friends. You would wash your hands off the world. When I mix with people, I am water with oil, outwardly joined, inwardly separate. Leaving behind all selfish desires, you would become sick, but not any sickness a doctor could cure. If for an instant the doctors tasted this heartache, they would escape their chains and tear up their books!"



References:
Futuhat Al makkiya - Ibn Arabi
Kulliyat I shams - Jalaluddin Rumi
Mathnawi - Jalaluddin Rumi