The Silent Power That Calls the Soul from Earth to the Heavens
A Note from Dr. John Persico
I want to post a blog by Mr. Wahidullah Noorzai. Mr. Noorzai left some very interesting comments on my blog dealing with the meaning of love. I asked Mr. Noorzai if he would consider elaborating on his concepts of love and what real love entails. He has done so with this blog post. I think you will enjoy it very much. Please feel free to leave comments.
Love is a pain that holds the treasures of the world within;
Whoever enters love’s struggle finds all its sorrows therein.
And if, far from the beloved, “hawa” should come to be,
There is no grief—for Adam himself is there with me.
Noorzai
1. A Truth Beyond the Reach of Words
No word can fully contain the truth of love. Language, however beautiful and expansive, sometimes takes refuge in silence before its greatness. Love is not one of those truths that can be understood merely by hearing its name. It must pass through the soul, take root in the depths of one’s being, and reveal itself in moments when even language falls short.
Love cannot be found only in saying, “I love you.” Sometimes it is hidden in a quiet gaze that understands another person’s suffering without asking a question; in a smile that brings light without expecting anything in return; in a hand that offers help without making a display of it; and even in a silence more eloquent than a thousand words. This power can flow so quietly through human existence that its presence goes unnoticed, yet its absence can leave the entire world stripped of meaning.
Perhaps love is that hidden force which leads human beings beyond the boundaries of the self. It teaches us that the world was not created merely for taking and possessing. In its presence, another person is no longer a stranger, their suffering no longer seems insignificant, and the beauty of existence extends beyond the limits of personal interest.
Love creates an expansiveness within the soul that enables a person to cherish something without seeking to own it, to give without demanding repayment, and to remain beside another without taking away their freedom.
Perhaps the first sign of recognizing love is this: in its presence, a person no longer thinks only of themselves. Their inner world grows wider, and life acquires a meaning beyond the mere passage of days.
2. Love and the Wisdom of Creation
From a faith-based perspective, love can be understood in connection with the wisdom of creation, divine mercy, and the beauty of existence. If we regard the universe as a manifestation of God’s will and wisdom, then love may also be seen as one expression of that wisdom—a force that brings life out of the dryness of isolation and makes connection, empathy, and flourishing possible.
Within this perspective, love is not merely an emotion between two people. It carries a broader meaning: from the relationship between the human being and the Creator to our relationship with other living beings; from our way of looking at nature to the manner in which we respond to the suffering and needs of others. It is as though a wisdom lies deep within existence, calling beauty toward generosity, power toward mercy, and life toward connection.
Of course, this understanding represents a spiritual and faith-based interpretation of the world—one in which love is not merely a psychological state but a reflection of a higher meaning in human life. Even those who do not approach this perspective through religion can encounter part of this human truth through experiences of beauty, kindness, care, and empathy.
Perhaps creation becomes more beautiful to us when, instead of seeing the world as a collection of things to possess, we recognize it as a reality whose dignity deserves to be respected and with which we must live responsibly.
3. Union with the Divine: Love Beyond Reward
In the mystical tradition, love reaches a horizon in which the beloved is not a means of obtaining a reward but the destination itself. The lover no longer longs merely for what may be received; the longing is for the presence and vision of the beloved. Here, love moves beyond the calculations of profit and loss and becomes a truth whose value lies within itself.
In a well-known supplication attributed to Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, this meaning appears in language filled with longing and freedom from the desire for reward:
“O God! The flowers of Paradise are thorns in the eyes of those who truly know You. What concern has the seeker of You with Paradise?
O God! If Paradise is the delight and light of the eyes, then without seeing You, it is pain and sorrow.
O God! Paradise without the vision of You is a prison, and asking a noble soul to leave one prison for another is no noble act.
O God! If You send me to Hell, I make no claim against You; and if You grant me Paradise, I have no desire for it without the vision of Your beauty. Fulfil our true longing, for I seek nothing but union with You.”
In this invocation, love moves beyond the desire for what the beloved gives and reaches toward the beloved themselves. Reward is no longer the destination; presence is what gives meaning. This is the horizon in which mysticism sees love as a path through which the soul can escape the narrow confines of self-centeredness.
In this understanding, union is not simply the attainment of an external desire; it is an inward transformation of the lover. The further a person moves away from self-centeredness, the closer they come to a wider horizon of existence. In this experience, the soul seems to need no wings made of physical matter. It rises beyond the limitations of fear, possession, and calculation, reaching an expansiveness whose name it may once have known only through words.
This flight is not an escape from life; it is a deeper way of seeing it. It is a return to the world with eyes that recognize beauty more clearly and a heart that can more readily understand the suffering of others.
4. The Heart: A Mirror That Receives and Reflects Love
If language cannot express the whole truth of love, perhaps we must return to the place where human beings feel it before they can put it into words: the heart.
Here, the heart does not refer merely to a physical organ. It is a symbol of the deepest human capacity to receive, recognize, and respond to affection. The mind can think about love, analyze it, and construct definitions for it. Yet a distance remains between knowing about love and actually living it—a distance that only experience can reveal.
The heart may be understood as a mirror in which the beauty of affection is reflected. But not every mirror remains clear. Selfishness, resentment, fear, and the desire to possess can cloud it. A person may continue speaking about love while gradually losing the ability to see another person as they truly are.
A heart that receives love does not stop at feeling. That experience must also be reflected in a person’s gaze, words, behavior, and choices. If kindness does not become visible through action, it remains no more than an aspiration. Affection that fails to recognize another person’s suffering has not yet reached its full potential.
Perhaps this is the secret of the heart: whatever it receives, it reflects in a new way through the human being. When affection finds a place within it, the world beyond may also share in its light.
5. Nature: The Silent Language of Love
Nature sometimes offers lessons in beauty, endurance, and transformation without speaking a single word. Consider spring: after the silence of winter, the earth comes alive again, blossoms emerge, and color returns to the world. This renewal is an image of the hidden power of life—a power that does not lose its capacity to flourish, even after a period of stillness.
Water, too, changes stone through its softness and persistence. Its strength does not always lie in force or impact; sometimes it lies in a quiet, continuous movement that leaves a profound mark over time. Perhaps love is often like this: not a cry demanding to be proven, but a constant presence that quietly transforms something within the human being.
The mountain offers another image: a symbol of steadfastness in the face of winds and storms. And the volcano reminds us of a hidden force that gathers deep within the earth and may eventually emerge with tremendous power. Yet not every form of power is necessarily love. Power becomes meaningful when it is directed toward creation, life, and the common good.
Nature does not provide scientific proof of love, but it can offer a beautiful metaphorical language through which to reflect upon it. In spring, water, mountains, and the sky, we find signs that remind us that life is not defined only by hardship and resistance. Gentleness, endurance, renewal, and generosity also belong to its beauty.
6. Love: A Power That Enables the Soul to Rise and Transform
When love takes root in the depths of a human being, it can transform that person—not because they lose their identity, but because their capacity for existence expands.
A person who moves only within the orbit of personal desires sees the world through the lens of self-interest. But when affection finds a place within them, their vision extends beyond the boundaries of the self. They can share in another person’s happiness even when they receive nothing from it; they can feel sorrow for someone whose name they do not even know; and they can love beauty not in order to possess it, but simply to appreciate it.
This is the flight that love creates within the soul: a movement from the narrowness of selfishness toward the expansiveness of empathy, from the desire to possess toward the ability to share, and from fear toward trust.
Yet this transformation should not separate human beings from the ground beneath their feet or from the realities of life. If love is a noble truth, its signs must also be visible in this world, among the people with whom we live. The greatness of love is not expressed only in moments of passion and longing; it is also revealed in the way we treat one another, in difficult choices, and in our commitment to protecting the dignity of life.
7. Love or an Escape from Loneliness: The Difference Between Need and Sharing
Perhaps one of the most difficult questions about love is this: Do we truly love another person, or are we attached to the feeling that their presence creates within us?
Sometimes human beings mistake the presence of another person for an escape from their own loneliness. They flee an inner emptiness, seek refuge in someone’s companionship, and call the peace they receive from that presence love. In such a relationship, the other person may be desired less for who they truly are and more for the role they play in soothing our loneliness, anxiety, or emotional needs.
As long as that presence satisfies our needs, the relationship continues. But when that source of comfort becomes unavailable, the emptiness returns. A person may then begin searching for another presence to soothe the same need once again.
This condition should not be confused with every form of human need or attachment. Human beings are not independent of affection, companionship, and connection. Needing another person is not, in itself, evidence of an absence of love. The problem begins when we no longer see the other person as an independent and valuable human being, but instead regard them as a means of filling the gaps within ourselves.
Love begins somewhere deeper: when we cherish another person not to escape loneliness, not to possess their peace, and not merely to satisfy our own desires, but because of the value and uniqueness of their existence.
In this sense, love understands the language of giving and sharing. Sharing, however, does not mean that a person who loves never needs to receive affection in return. A living relationship between two people involves both giving and receiving. The difference is that neither person reduces the other to a source of emotional consumption.
Perhaps love can be described as the effort not to own another person, but to recognize their existence without trying to confine them within the boundaries of our own needs and expectations.
8. Love Between Two People: Respect for the Heart and Mutual Dignity
When love moves from the world of thought and emotion into the lives of two human beings, it encounters a more delicate and, at the same time, more challenging reality. Here, the matter is no longer simply a beautiful feeling. It concerns two people, each carrying an inner world, memories, wounds, hopes, needs, and freedoms of their own, who nevertheless wish to travel part of life’s journey together.
Sometimes, amid the noise of everyday life, a heart beats not to hear more words, but to receive a deeper kind of attention: a gaze that truly sees it, rather than merely noticing its presence; that understands it, rather than simply hearing its voice; and that respects its dignity, even in moments when it cannot explain its pain.
Such a heart needs something beyond the physical touch of a hand. It needs a sense of security, understanding, and acceptance. Sometimes a gaze born of genuine understanding can lift a burden from someone’s shoulders that no grand speech could ever ease.
But this respect cannot be one-sided. If one person must constantly understand, forgive, remain patient, set aside personal wishes, and carry the difficulties of the relationship alone, while the other considers themselves exempt from accountability and responsibility, what has developed is no longer a complete expression of love.
True love does not mean that one person disappears into the wishes of another. It means creating a space in which both can remain themselves while still sharing affection and commitment.
Acceptance is one of love’s highest expressions. Yet acceptance does not mean abandoning one’s dignity or tolerating humiliation and domination. To love someone is to recognize their differences, respect their freedom, and make room for their growth—just as we expect our own freedom, differences, and growth to be respected.
A deep bond is not ownership of another person. It is the conscious choice of two free human beings who wish to remain beside one another without either being forced to abandon themselves in order to preserve the relationship.
9. Responsibility: When Love Becomes Action
Perhaps the value of love becomes most visible during difficult days, when illness, exhaustion, anxiety, or changing circumstances transform the shape of life. At such times, affection can no longer be confined to beautiful words. It must become a real presence, patient attention, and responsible action.
A helping hand, a presence that does not abandon, patience that does not humiliate, and attention that takes even unspoken needs seriously are all expressions of a love that has moved beyond emotion and become action.
Responsibility can be the practical language of love. But it must arise from mutual dignity, not from coercion, fear, guilt, or a habit of one-sided sacrifice.
Sometimes, in shared life, a person assumes responsibilities they could not have anticipated at the beginning: caring for someone who is ill, enduring economic hardship, offering companionship through exhaustion, or accepting changes that time imposes upon life. Such responsibilities can be expressions of commitment and affection. Yet they should never mean that one person must always give while the other always receives.
Love approaches human dignity when neither person is required to surrender the right to be seen, heard, and respected as a human being simply in order to be loved.
10. Freedom, Rights, and the Boundaries of Love
Without freedom, love can gradually turn into dependence and possession. A person who loves another cannot disregard that person’s freedom simply because they feel attached to them. Genuine affection recognizes the independent existence of the other.
Commitment does not mean ownership. Loyalty does not mean depriving another person of choice and growth. Generosity should not mean destroying one’s own needs and dignity.
In a healthy relationship, both people have the right to speak, disagree, express their wishes, and maintain personal boundaries. Respecting these boundaries is not a sign of insufficient love; it is one of the conditions that allow love to remain healthy and endure.
No one should have to endure humiliation, violence, coercion, or domination to prove their affection. Accepting a person is not the same as accepting every action they take. We can love someone while still opposing behavior that harms their dignity or the dignity of others.
Perhaps love approaches maturity when two people can remain close while preserving each other’s independence; when they can be committed without sacrificing freedom; and when they can accept responsibility without turning it into a chain around another person’s life.
11. Love and Responsibility in Human Society
If love can transform the inner world of an individual and bring a relationship between two people closer to respect and responsibility, can it not also acquire a broader meaning in social life?
A society is not merely a collection of individuals living alongside one another. It is a network of shared dependencies, responsibilities, opportunities, and vulnerabilities. Every human being needs the support of others at some point in life, and no one can imagine themselves permanently outside these human connections.
In such a society, speaking about rights is essential, but it is not enough. Rights without mutual responsibility may become a one-sided demand, just as responsibility without respect for rights and dignity can lead to coercion and exploitation.
In its social meaning, love invites us to build a culture in which people pay attention not only to their own interests but also to the living conditions of others. It calls for a society in which the suffering of vulnerable people is recognized, opportunities are distributed more fairly, and the responsibility to support human beings does not fall upon a limited and forgotten group.
Within this perspective, love does not replace justice, law, or responsible institutions. Rather, it can strengthen the human spirit necessary to make them meaningful. Affection that does not lead to fairness and respect remains at the level of emotion; and responsibility separated from human dignity can become a tool of imposition.
Perhaps one of the greatest expressions of love is to contribute to building a world in which no one has to surrender their dignity in order to receive a little affection.
12. Returning to the Truth of Love: What Remains in the End
So, what is real love?
Is it the feeling that makes the heart beat faster at the beginning of an acquaintance? Is it contained in the longing to meet, in affectionate words, in the giving of gifts, or in the promises people make to one another? Or is its truth far deeper than all these expressions?
Perhaps love cannot be confined within a final definition. From the wisdom of creation to union with the Divine, from the quiet invocations of mystics to the peaceful gaze of two human beings, from the blossoming of spring to the hand that offers help in difficult times, love takes many forms. Yet in all of them, we may find a sign of moving beyond selfishness and approaching a wider truth.
Love is neither possession of another person, nor an escape from loneliness, nor the sacrifice of one human being for the comfort of another. It is a power that can bring people closer to generosity, understanding, freedom, dignity, and responsibility.
Perhaps what we were unable to express at the beginning has become a little clearer by the end: love is not a truth about which we merely speak. It is a truth that must be present in the way we see, cherish, give, and live.
If love has found a place in our hearts, its influence should also be visible in our conduct: in a gaze that understands another person, in a hand that offers help, in words that do not humiliate, in responsibilities that are shared fairly, and in relationships that protect the freedom and dignity of both people.
And perhaps this is the secret of love’s silent power: it cannot be seen, yet it changes the way we look at the world; it cannot be held in our hands, yet it expands the inner world of the human being; it needs no language, yet it can give life its deepest meaning.
Love is the power that calls the soul from the narrow confines of the self toward the vastness of existence. And when it takes shape in human life, it becomes an affection that seeks neither ownership nor the emptying of another person’s identity, but rather the beauty of living together with dignity, freedom, and meaning.
A Note of Appreciation from the Author
My sincere thanks to Dr. John Persico for his thoughtful engagement with this work, his generous editorial attention, and the opportunity to share these reflections with a wider audience.
Our exchange has been more than a discussion about an article. It has been a meaningful human encounter—one that has opened a space for reflection and dialogue about love, affection, respect, empathy, and our shared human experience.
I am grateful for his care, patience, and willingness to preserve the spirit of the original work while helping it reach readers.
Wahidullah Noorzai
Founder, Noorzai International Doctrine Academy (NIDA)
Former Senior Military Officer | Field Strategist | Regional Security Analyst
