The Game of Love

"You are reviling on account of affliction and poverty and distress and tribulation.
No doubt the renunciation of sensuality gives bitter pain, but it is better than the bitterness that comes from being far from God.
How should pain endure for a single moment when the Giver of favors says to you,"How are you, O My sick one?"
And even if you can not hear God saying this, because you do not have the needed understanding and knowledge, yet your inward feeling of longing, is God inquiring after you.
Those beautiful Ones, who are spiritual physicians, turn toward the sick to inquire after them;
No beloved is unaware and forgetful of his lover.
O you, who desires to hear a wondrous tale, read the story of those that play the game of love."

Rumi (Vol.6, 1767-1775)

Commentary: A baffling game it is!