The Interest Without the Capital
The Interest Without the Capital - meaning Summary
Love Transcends Material Existence
This poem presents mystical love as self-sufficient and transcendent of material needs. Lovers live sustained by love alone, freed from dependence on existence. Rumi uses paradoxes—flying without wings, carrying a ball without hands, weaving after injury—to show spiritual capability beyond physical constraints. The central image, "interest without the capital," suggests a spiritual return that requires no worldly investment, as lovers dwell in and become one with nonexistence.
Read Complete AnalysesThe lover’s food is the love of the bread; no bread need be at hand: no one who is sincere in his love is a slave to existence. Lovers have nothing to do with with with existence; lovers have the interest without the capital. Without wings they fly around the world; without hands they carry the polo ball off the field. That dervish who caught the scent of Reality used to weave basket even though his hand had been cut off. Lover have pitched their tents in nonexistence: they are of one quality and one essence, as nonexistence is.
Mathnawi III, 3020-3024
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