M6:1710 — ای فرو رفته به گور جهل و شک / چند جویی لاغ و دستان فلک

Translation: O you, sunk into the grave of ignorance and doubt, / How long will you seek the jests (lağ) and tricks (dastān) of fate's wheel (falak)? Meaning: Rumi directly addresses heedless humanity, questioning how long they will remain engrossed in the world's trivialities and deceits, oblivious to the erosion of their spiritual capital.

This verse is Rumi's awakening address to us, to all of humanity, who, in his own words, have "grown fat on trivialities and jests." Rumi utters these words in the heart of the cautionary tale of the Turk and the Tailor, where a simple-hearted Turk becomes engrossed in the witty banter and jokes of a cunning tailor, while the tailor slowly steals pieces of his valuable cloth, leaving him empty-handed in the end.

I see this as the very story of our lives. "O you, sunk into the grave of ignorance and doubt"; this is a bitter image of the heedless human condition, sunken into the inferno of not-knowing and uncertainty, with eyes closed to reality, oblivious to the capital of their own life. This living-dead human willingly surrenders their time, energy, and opportunities to the "tailor of time," pleading with "Satan" and his "demonic companions": "Come on, tell me another joke, distract me, make me forget reality, take from me, steal from me."

As Rumi unequivocally states, "There is no story more laughable than you / You yourself are the most comical tale." What story or jest could be greater than your own situation, engrossed in the tricks of fate, becoming the greatest joke in this world? This bitter laughter is directed at those who sell their lives for "nonsense" and, in pursuit of laughter and entertainment, "lose" themselves.

"This common tailor" (the tailor of time/fate) cuts and sews our garment; but this tailoring is not for clothing us, but for stealing from us. Many appear to be "a hundred-year-old raw children"; outwardly old and experienced, yet in reality, naive and inexperienced, having learned nothing from the "playacting of the cosmos," from the deceptions of time. "If its jest gave to the gardens / When winter came, it blew away what it had given." Time, like an actor, bestows a spring, makes gardens green, but then that same actor brings an autumn and scatters it all to the wind. This cycle of "fortune and misfortune," of "light and darkness," is not a meaningless accident, but rather the "heedless games of the era."

Rumi urges us not to be among these "old children" who sit "begging before it"; these silent beggars who, before the wheel of time, wait for fate to offer another "jest" so they can laugh, or to frown so they can grieve. These deceptions continue until, at the end of the day, one departs from life "empty-handed," just like the child in the fifth book of the Masnavi who, heedless of thieves, loses his clothes and returns home. This verse is a warning to awaken from this deadly heedlessness and to avoid watching the "story" in which we ourselves are the ridiculous protagonists.

Key takeaways

• A call to awaken from heedlessness and immersion in ignorance and doubt.
• A warning against the world's deceptive entertainments that plunder the capital of one's life.
• The heedless human is the most laughable story and joke in existence.
• The metaphor of the "common tailor" (time/fate) stealing the garment of life while we are engrossed in its jests.
• A critique of "old children" who fail to learn from the trickery of fate's wheel and die empty-handed.