The Scent of Apples

"Now, O spiritual one, I bring to you as an offering the Sixth part to complete the Mathnawi.
These Six Books give light to the Six Directions...
Love has nothing to do with the five senses and the six directions: its goal is only to experience the the attraction exerted by the Beloved.
The command to call the people to God comes down from the Maker: what has the Saint to do with their acceptance or non-acceptance?
If you are thirsting for the spiritual Ocean, make an opening in the island of the Mathnawi.
Behold the fresh branches of coral, behold the fruits grown from the water of the spirit.
When the Mathnawi is made single, and stripped of words and sounds and breaths, it leaves all that behind and becomes the spiritual Ocean.
The speaker of the words and the hearer of the words, and the words themselves- all three become spirit in the end.
The Holy Transcendent One who makes the reality of the apple orchard, conceals the apples in a mist of words.
From this mist of sound and words and talk arise such a screen that nothing of the apple comes into our perception, but the scent.
At least, inhale this scent in greater quantity with your intelligence, that, taking you by the ear, it may lead you towards your origin."

Rumi (Vol.6, 3-86)

Commentary: In this, the last of the six books of the Mathnawi, Rumi lets us know that all this poetry is a mysterious part of God pulling us closer.