M6:150 — روح را تاثیر آگاهی بود / هر که را این بیش‌، اللهی بود

Translation: The spirit's effect is awareness; whoever has more of this, is more divine. Meaning: This verse posits that the essence of the spirit is awareness, and the greater one's awareness, the closer one becomes to the divine essence, thus becoming more God-like.

Mawlana, in this profound couplet, touches upon one of the most pivotal insights into the nature of the spirit. He states that "The spirit's effect is awareness." This is more than a simple definition; it is an ontological declaration of the spirit's very being. The spirit, in its essence, is nothing but awareness. The spirit's existence is commensurate with its awareness, and its function is to possess and impart awareness. This is a truly astonishing pronouncement: the activity and agency of the spirit are one and the same as its existential effect.

However, this awareness exists in degrees. Mawlana continues: "whoever has more of this, is more divine." This means that as awareness intensifies and deepens, the individual draws closer to divinity. This is where I have often stressed that for Mawlana, self-knowledge is precisely knowledge of God; the sacred Hadith, "Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord" (Man ʿarafa nafsahu faqad ʿarafa rabbahu), is the key to understanding this verse. When the spirit turns inward and delves into itself, it discovers its own divine nature in the depths of its being. It is like digging a well to reach water; by digging into the well of one's existence and soul, one reaches the sweet water of divinity. The discovery of this inner divinity is what it means to become "more soulful" (jāntar shodan) and "more spiritual" (ruḥtar shodan).

This insight finds echoes in other schools of thought as well. For instance, in Buddhism, God in our conventional sense may not be explicitly present, yet the inner experience of discovering truth and divinity is clearly there. That is, God exists, but there is no "theory of God." Just as ancient peoples breathed oxygen and spoke prose for centuries without knowing their names, many truths reside within us, yet we remain unaware until someone like Mawlana awakens us to them.

Continuing this discussion, Mawlana elucidates higher stages of awareness. He states: "As there are tidings beyond this existence / These souls appear as inanimate in that realm." This means there are higher forms of awareness and "tidings" beyond our material world and physical constitution, such that our current conscious soul appears as an inanimate object when compared to those superior levels of awareness; our current level of awareness is primitive and negligible. Here, he refers to the hierarchy of the "soul" (jān) and the "soul of the soul" (jān-i jān):

"The first soul became a manifestation of the Threshold / The soul of the soul became a manifestation of God Himself."

The "first soul" is our initial, animalistic or human soul, which is a "manifestation of the Threshold" (mazhar-e dargāh) of the Divine. It is a gateway to God, an entry point to the world of meaning. But the "soul of the soul" is that spirit which has connected to higher spirits and traversed the stages of awareness; this soul is no longer merely a manifestation of the Threshold, but a "manifestation of God" (mazhar-e Allāh) Himself. This progression from the "Threshold" (antechamber) to the "Divine Court" (the inner sanctuary) is the pinnacle of the evolution of awareness and precisely the journey towards divinity, as elucidated by this and subsequent verses of Mawlana.

Key takeaways

• The essential nature of the spirit is awareness; the spirit's existence is proportional to its awareness.
• As one's level of awareness increases, one draws closer to the Divine essence, becoming more God-like.
• Self-knowledge is intrinsically knowledge of God, as encapsulated in the Hadith: "Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord."
• Awareness has degrees; our current level of awareness is minimal compared to higher forms.
• The 'first soul' manifests the Divine 'Threshold,' while the 'soul of the soul' manifests 'God Himself,' indicating a journey from the antechamber to the inner sanctuary of being.
• Many truths are hidden within our being and are only revealed as our awareness expands.