M6:769 — پس تضرع کن که ای هادی زیست / باز بودم بسته گشتم این ز چیست

This couplet marks a turning point in the spiritual argument. Rumi has just described the state of inability (ʿajz) as a chain (M6:768). Faced with this binding, the soul's correct response is not despair or resignation, but tażarruʿ—a humble, tearful, and urgent supplication to God.

The prayer itself is a cry of bewilderment. The speaker remembers a time of spiritual openness and freedom ('I was free' / bāz būdam) but now finds themselves constricted and bound (baste gashtam). This is the classic Sufi experience of qabż (contraction), a state of spiritual dryness and constraint that follows a period of basṭ (expansion). The soul does not understand the reason for this change and turns to the 'Guide of all life' (hādī-ye zīst), God, for an answer.

This act of crying out is the beginning of the 'dying before you die' that the section's title announces. It is the death of pride and self-reliance, and the first step toward recognizing that only a divine guide can undo the knots we have tied for ourselves. The verses that immediately follow are the content of this prayer: a confession of having been deaf to guidance and engrossed in worldly distractions.