M6:3096 — راه کن در اندرونها خویش را / دور کن ادراک غیراندیش را

Translation: Make a path within your inner realms; And remove the perception that thinks of the other. Meaning: This verse calls us to an inward journey, urging us to shed any perception or attachment directed towards 'otherness' or the external world, thereby discovering our true self and the unity of existence.

This verse, without a doubt, presents one of the most pivotal directives in the Masnavi, aligning perfectly with the concept of "self-knowledge"—a notion I have frequently emphasized as the "root of the root of the root of religion." Here, Mevlana invites us on a profound inner journey, a journey infinitely more fruitful than any external expedition. "Make a path within your inner realms" means to delve into this internal world, this boundless ocean of the self, and embark on exploration. This inner world, as sages and mystics have said, is itself a mirror of the entire cosmos. Socrates urged, "Know thyself," and the Prophet declared, "Whoever knows himself knows his Lord"; all these point to this hidden treasure within us.

But what is the condition for this inner journey? "Remove the perception that thinks of the other." The 'other-thinking' perception is our multiplicity-seeing gaze that views the world as full of dualities and differences—a perception that preoccupies us with the 'other' and distracts us from the essence. As Shabestari says, "When you counted one, it became many." Our eye is often prone to seeing multiplicity, and in this sense, we are, in a way, "polytheists"; for we fail to see the Unity behind the multitude. Mevlana aims to heal this "polytheistic eye." He does not want us to deny the world, but rather to see it differently. The world, according to him and to Ibn al-Arabi, his contemporary, is a "mirror of divine beauty." When you look into a mirror, you see yourself, not the mirror itself. This world is likewise a manifestation of divine names and attributes. But if our perception is 'other-thinking'—if it merely settles for the surface of the world and attends to the 'other'—then this mirror becomes a veil for us, not a revealer.

This injunction, in fact, is an invitation to pure tawhid (divine unity)—a unity that permeates not only our speech but also our perception and feeling. Mystics affirm, "He is both the seer, the seen, and the seeing." This means that at the peak of this inner journey, there remains no 'you' and no 'other'; everything merges into absolute unity. This is not merely a negation of external attachments, but also a negation of false egoisms and self-conceits. The 'self' that Mevlana wants us to "make a path within" is not the commanding self (nafs-i ammara) or the self-absorbed ego, but rather that divine essence inherent in our nature. This is the very 'formlessness' (bi-ṣūratī) from which the formed world emerged, and to which our soul must return to find itself in oneness. If we do not shed this 'other-thinking' perception, we will never go beyond the "foam of the sea" and see the "sea of purity." We must look beyond the diverse forms of the world to the singular water of existence. This is a path to transcend all dualities, even the duality of gratitude and complaint, both of which presuppose a kind of distance and attention to the 'other'.

Key takeaways

• The key to divine knowledge lies in the journey within oneself; this self-knowledge is the true root of religion.
• "Other-thinking perception" is the very multiplicity-seeing gaze that prevents us from grasping unity and veils true insight.
• The world is a mirror of divine beauty; to behold that beauty, one must shed the multiplicity-seeing gaze.
• The ultimate goal of this journey is to attain perceptual unity, where the viewer, the viewed, and the vision become one.
• Our soul originates from 'formlessness' (bi-ṣūratī) and must return to that state of detachment from forms and otherness.
• Letting go of 'other-thinking' means transcending all dualities, even common notions like gratitude and complaint.