The Famous Spiritual Quote that Rumi Never Actually Said…
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – Not Rumi (actually, A Course In Miracles)
No matter where you look on the internet, you'll see this quote attributed two only two people:
- Rumi
- A Course In Miracles
You'll find quote images, citations, explanations on what the quote means, and even coffee mugs, shirts, and posters with it on them. A BBC expert even cites this love quote alongside an article on Rumi. The thing is…
Here's what you won't find:
Anybody with actual evidence that this quote is attributed to Rumi anywhere or any time.
Yes, read that again. To our knowledge, there is not a single post on the internet which successfully attributes this quote to anything Rumi has ever written or had translated into English.
Years back, while researching the quote we did discover a Rumi scholar who wrote on a forum that these words had never been in any of his printed or translated works. Further, he wrote that based on his knowledge of Rumi's works, the way this is phrased is not how Rumi would have phrased it within his poetry.
Obviously that is hearsay. Unfortunately, in trying to locate that forum posting many years later we were unable to find it. We wanted to link back for your reference, so if you happen to come across it, please send us the link so we can cite appropriately.
Continuing onward…
When we also take into consideration the fact that the earliest known reference to this quote in any printed literature does come from the 1975 version of “A Course In Miracles” (See T-16.IV.4), we see that there's strong reason to believe that Rumi never actually said or wrote this.