The Way From Knowledge To Vision

Passion for that Beloved brought me out of learning and reciting so that I became mad and distracted.
Once I took my way earnestly to prayer rug and mosque; I put on the shirt of abstinence to increase good works.
Love entered the mosque and said, "Right-guided master, rend the bond of being; why are you in bondage to prayer?
Let not your heart tremble before the blow of my sword; lay down your neck, if you wish to journey from knowledge to vision..."

--Mevlana, Mystical Poems of Rumi, tr. Arberry, # 320.