M6:1982 — روی در روی خود آر ای عشق‌کیش / نیست ای مفتون ترا جز خویش خویش

Translation: Bring your face to face with yourself, O follower of love; O infatuated one, you have no kin but your own self. Meaning: This verse urges lovers to delve into their solitude, recognizing that on the path of love, their true confidant and companion is none other than their own self.

This verse emerges from a profound narrative within the Masnavi, specifically the story of the king returning a scroll of treasure-directions to a poor man. Rumi, as if seeing himself in the figure of that poor man who, despairing of the outer world, turns inward to immerse himself in his own 'soudā' (melancholy or ardent passion), declares this to be the state of lovers. Here, Rumi informs us of his own inner conditions; this is his song of fervent passion and madness, which, in the sixth book of the Masnavi during his final years, spills forth from the tongue of love.

I observe that Rumi emphasizes here that love, this 'pain-seeking' love (ʿishq-e dar-andīsh), does not ponder pleasure but pain. He states, "My pain is from the Beloved, and the cure is also from Him." This is the specific path of the lover; just as animals lick their own wounds to heal, the lover too must be their own consoler. No one else can be a companion or confidant in this inner entanglement of love. Rumi asserts with conviction: "Love has no companion in its convolutions / No house-dweller is its confidant in any village." This is the inevitable experience of solitary love, an experience akin to death, which everyone must bear alone. This solitude differs from existentialist 'loneliness' that speaks of being forsaken in the world; this is jodā'ī (separation), where the Beloved is ever-present, even if we are distanced from Him. This solitude is a form of sublime self-sufficiency in the presence of an absent-present one.

Love is 'partnership-burning' (ʿishq-e sherkāt-sūz); it allows no one to participate in its essence. This particular madness of love is distinct from common madness and lies beyond the realm of conventional 'medicine' or intellect. If a physician were to contract this madness, they would wash their medical books with blood and cast them aside, for this is the only malady the patient does not wish to escape, but rather seeks. This love, in truth, is the origin and inscription of all intellects; "The medicine of all intellects is engraved by it."

And another crucial point is that love does not attach itself to outward beauties and 'heart-ravishers.' Those beauties are merely a 'veil' or a mask that love has donned upon its face to guide the seeker from the outward to the inward, from form to reality. You may fall in love with this mask, but behind it sits the true Beloved. Hence, "Bring your face to face with yourself, O follower of love" means to sit with your own self and seek solitude within. This counsel from Rumi is an invitation to profound introspection, where the lover, at the peak of their 'infatuation' and madness, finds only themselves as helper and companion. This re-examination of inner states is a sign of spiritual culmination and maturity, presented in Rumi's final years of Masnavi-composition.

Key takeaways

• The lover's path is one of profound solitude and absolute self-sufficiency.
• The madness of mystical love is a unique state, transcending conventional reason and medical remedy.
• Outward beauties serve merely as a 'mask' or 'veil' guiding the seeker towards the true, inner Beloved.
• The pinnacle of love consumes all need for external companionship or validation.
• This solitude is not existential loneliness (abandonment) but a separation from an ever-present Beloved who resides within.
• In his later years, Rumi revisits and internalizes this deeply personal and incommunicable experience of love.