M6:4289 — بارها گفتیم این را ای حسن / می‌نگردم از بیانش سیر من

Translation: Many times I have said this, O Hasan (Husam al-Din) / My soul is not sated from its expression. Meaning: Rumi addresses Husam al-Din Chalabi, stating that although he has repeated these truths many times, he never tires of expressing them and feels no weariness.

“Many times I have said this, O Husam al-Din, and my soul is not sated from its expression.” This pivotal couplet, emerging in the zenith of the Masnavi, unveils a fundamental insight for us: the secret to not growing weary of repeating truths. Rumi posits that weariness and spiritual lassitude stem from the aging of our perception or the stagnation of our soul, not from the truth itself growing old. Stagnant water becomes polluted; flowing water remains pure and fresh. Our soul is likewise: if it fails to renew itself, if it does not encounter a “fresh self” each day and see the world as a “new world,” it will quickly grow bored of everything.

The crucial point here is that our “hunger” (jūʿ) must also be renewed. Rumi, with a poignant analogy, asks: “You have eaten bread many times to ward off feebleness / It is the same bread, why are you not weary of it?” You consume bread repeatedly to stave off hunger and weakness; why do you not grow tired of eating bread? The answer is that your hunger is “new” each time. Whenever a fresh hunger awakens in your soul, the bread, too, becomes fresh and palatable to you. The real pleasure comes not from the bread itself, but from the renewed hunger; a state where “with hunger, barley bread is sweeter than sugar.” If you are truly hungry for truth, a single word of truth will hold novelty for you each time, quenching your thirst, just as water does for one who is parched.

This resonates with the miraculous point about Paradise in the Quran, which states that the inhabitants of Paradise will never tire of it: “Lā yabghūna ʿanhā ḥawlā” (They will not desire removal from it). This signifies that in Paradise, “renewal is bound with every fiber” of existence. However, if one lacks a true “hunger” for truth, and their soul is afflicted by “tukhma” (satiety leading to indigestion or aversion), then every word of truth appears stale and wearisome. “This weariness is not from the repetition of words,” but from the listener’s own satiety and disillusionment.

Rumi then delivers a pointed reproach, asking: how is it that you are not wearied by “the shop, bargaining, and clamor / in your deceit of people”? How is it that you do not tire of backbiting and “eating the flesh of people” after sixty years, but rather enjoy it and grow fat from it? Why do you repeat flatteries and flirtations “ardently and swiftly” many times without growing weary? This demonstrates that the problem does not lie with the divine word, but with the false hungers that distract our souls from genuine spiritual craving. The hunger that finds sustenance in lies and gossip will never be sated by them, yet grows weary of the soul’s true nourishment. This is the fundamental difference between true spiritual “hunger” for truth and the false satiety of the world.

Key takeaways

• Weariness and spiritual lassitude stem from the aging of our perception, not the truth itself.
• Renewed hunger (jūʿ) makes even repeated truths fresh and palatable.
• True pleasure derives from a fresh spiritual hunger, not from the food or words themselves.
• People of truth never tire of divine words, for they find novelty in them each time.
• Those who grow weary of truths do so due to a false satiety from worldly affairs, lacking genuine hunger for ultimate reality.