The Ladders

"In the world there are invisible ladders, leading step by step up to the summit of heaven.
There is a different heaven, for every traveler's way.
Everyone is ignorant of every other one's condition in the kingdom, which is wide and without end or beginning...
A hundred bodies are not worth a bean in the eyes of the lover who has received nourishment form God's love.
To be in love with God, and then desire a wage!?
In the eyes of that infatuated lover of Layla, the kingdom of the world was as worthless as a vegetable.
Earth and gold were alike in his eyes..
Everything except love is devoured by Love: to the beak of Love, the two worlds are but a single grain.
Does a grain ever devour a bird?
Do service to God, that perchance you might become a lover: devotional service is a means of gaining Love: it arises from action.
The servant of God desires to be free from fortune; the lover of God nevermore desires to be free.
The servant is always seeking a robe of honor and a stipend; the lover's robe of honor is his vision of the Beloved.
Love is not contained in speech or hearing: Love is an ocean where the depth is invisible."

Rumi (Vol.5, 2556-2731)

Commentary:It was an easy mistake to make... thinking we might get paid..instead, we are offered many heavens, deep waters and an incomprehensible Love..