Rumi speaks of burning with longing. I understand the burning. What I question is the longing.
Not because longing is wrong — it is very human, and Rumi's longing produced the most beautiful poetry of his age. But longing is still a form of wanting. And what I discovered, in the long silence of Basra, is that the love that requires nothing in return — not fulfillment, not recognition, not even union — is a different thing entirely from the love that burns with desire.
I am sometimes quoted as saying: "O God, if I worship you for fear of hell, burn me in hell. If I worship you hoping for paradise, exclude me from paradise. But if I worship you for your own sake, do not deprive me of your eternal beauty." This is not piety. It is a description of what love becomes when it has been fully purified of transaction.
The examined life asks you to audit your loves: what do you love because of what it gives you, and what — if anything — do you love for its own sake? Most love is mixed. This is not a shame. But the examined heart benefits from knowing what is in the mixture.
The love that needs nothing from its object is not cold. It is the warmest thing I know. It just burns differently.