In prayer continually
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The ritual prayer is five times daily,
but the guide for lovers is the verse,
they who are in prayer continually.*
The headache of intoxication in those heads
isn't relieved by five times, nor by five hundred thousand.
"Visit once a week" is not the ration for lovers;
the soul of sincere lovers has an intense craving to drink.
"Visit once a week" is not the ration for those fish,
since they feel no spiritual joy without the Sea.
Mathnawi VI:2669-2670
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance
Threshold Books, 1996
