Elif Shafak is a British-Turkish novelist, essayist, and academic. She is one of the most widely read Turkish authors in the world, with her work translated into nearly 60 languages. Her writing bridges Eastern and Western storytelling, weaving together history, Sufi mysticism, philosophy, and social critique. Beyond her literary output, she holds a PhD in political science and is a prominent advocate for human rights, gender equality, and freedom of speech. In 2025, she was appointed President of the Royal Society of Literature.In one of her most memorable works, The Forty Rules of Love, Shams of Tabriz, the wandering dervish, says these profound words. “Fret not where the road will take you. Instead, concentrate on the first step. That’s the hardest part and that’s what you are responsible for. Once you take that step let everything do what it naturally does and the rest will follow. Do not go with the flow. Be the flow.”
Go with the flow is passive
When people say “go with the flow,” they usually mean passivity—letting circumstances carry you along like driftwood in a river, often out of fear or helplessness. Shams flips this idea on its head: Going with the flow makes you a passive observer of your own life, sitting back and letting life happen to you. Being the flow means taking the active first step, accepting total responsibility for your movement, and realizing that you and the movement of life are not separate.The quote reflects a key paradox in Sufism: Active agency versus surrender. Be the flow is active agency, while Sufism also speaks of surrender. You don’t need to see the entire horizon or plan out every detail of your destiny; you only need to focus on taking the single, immediate action in front of you. Once you initiate action, you surrender control over the global outcome and trust the larger process of the universe.
Rumi and Ella
The quote is not just a piece of isolated wisdom. It serves as the ultimate catalyst for the book’s two main characters across two parallel timelines separated by 800 years: The transformative friendship between the radical dervish Shams of Tabriz and the scholar Rumi in the 13th century and the 21st-century Ella Rubenstein, a 40-year-old suburban housewife who is trapped in a stagnant, loveless marriage, reviewing a novel manuscript about Shams and Rumi.Before meeting Shams, Rumi was a highly respected, traditional religious scholar. He had a comfortable life, high social standing, and hundreds of students following his every word. He was “going with the flow” of what society expects of a successful cleric.When Shams entered Rumi’s life, he shattered that comfortable routine. By telling Rumi to “be the flow,” Shams demanded that he stop acting like an observer of God’s love and instead become an active, living embodiment of it, even if it costs him his reputation, safety, and social standing.Ella, similarly, lived her entire adult life “going with the flow.” She tolerated her husband’s infidelity, buried her own desires, and prioritized safety and domestic predictability over personal fulfillment. But then she opened her heart again for Aziz, the author of the manuscript.
Other famous quotes from the book
‘Love cannot be explained. It can only be experienced. Love cannot be explained, yet it explains all.’‘Eternity does not mean eternal time, but simply timelessness.’‘Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.’
