M6:2261 — هم خیالاتش هم او فانی شدی / دانش او محو نادانی شدی

Translation: Both his imaginings and his very self would vanish; His knowledge would be effaced by unknowing. Meaning: This verse describes a mystical state where the seeker's self and all its conceptual knowledge dissolve, giving way to an intuitive, unmediated form of knowing.

We must pause at this couplet, for it unveils one of Rumi's most profound mystical teachings. He has been speaking of a mirror in which one sees oneself, even if one believes one is seeing the mirror itself. But this verse takes a step further. Khiyālāt here refers to the seeker's mental images and perceptions; it means that both the image and form one perceives of oneself in the mirror of perception, and the observer itself — the 'he' — which is the seeker's personality, cognitions, and conceptual knowledge, must vanish and be effaced.

This annihilation is not a loss but a prerequisite for attaining another kind of knowledge. Following this effacement of the self and all conceptual understandings, Rumi states: “His knowledge would be effaced by unknowing.” This 'unknowing,' as you understand, is not ignorance in the conventional sense; rather, it refers to a state where acquired, conceptual knowledge dissolves so that presential, intuitive knowledge can emerge. Knowledge of concepts and reasoning gives way to an apprehension of direct vision and unmediated experience; a knowledge that Sufis, without teachers or books, come to grasp and understand.

Rumi further clarifies this subtle point, saying that in this unknowing and selflessness, a knowledge emerges that declares to the human: Anī Ana (I Am I). This phrase immediately brings me to the story of God's manifestation to Moses in the Torah; where Moses asks God what he should tell his people, and God replies: “I Am That I Am.” He introduces Himself not by any attribute — not Creator, not All-Seeing, not All-Hearing — but simply as pure existence, a raw, formless being.

In interpreting this passage, Rumi means to convey that in this realm of formlessness, Moses not only experiences God as pure existence but also, in the mirror of that Divine Presence, sees and experiences “his own formless self.” That is, in the essence of God, he observes his own shapeless, attributeless essence. Rumi’s statement, “He is neither this nor that, He is simple, He has placed your image before you,” means that the mirror of God’s existence is so simple and formless that whoever gazes into it sees their own image reflected. Thus, in reality, humanity finds itself in the essence of God and sees God in itself. This is a great and unique mystical discovery. It is here that the prostration to Adam effectively becomes a prostration to one's own self in the divine mirror.

Key takeaways

• The annihilation of one's khiyālāt (mental images) and the observing self (personality, conceptual knowledge) is a prerequisite for deeper gnosis.
• Here, unknowing is not ignorance, but the effacement of conceptual knowledge for the emergence of intuitive, presential knowledge.
• From this unknowing arises a knowledge that reveals the seeker's existential truth in light of the Divine Truth (the Anī Ana).
• In the mirror of Divine Being, one observes not something external, but one's own formless essence.
• Prostration to Adam, in its mystical sense, is a prostration to oneself in the mirror of the Real (God).