M1:123 — در تصوّر ذات او را گُنج کو / تا درآید در تصوّر مثل او

Translation: Where is the capacity within human conception for His Essence to enter? So that His like might enter into conception? Meaning: This verse asserts that the Essence of God, or ultimate reality, transcends all human imagination and mental conception, thus remaining beyond the grasp of finite understanding.

Following his discourse on the 'Sun of the Soul' (Shams-e Jan) in preceding verses, Mawlana poses a pivotal question with this couplet: "How can the Divine Essence be conceived by human imagination? Or even how can a likeness of Him be fashioned in thought?" His answer, unequivocally, is no. The Essence of God, or as he terms it, the Shams-e Jan, is so utterly bi-ṣūrat (formless) and transcendent of matter that it cannot be contained within the frameworks of our mental conceptions, which invariably deal with ṣūrat (forms) and notions.

As I have frequently pointed out, taṣavvor (conception or information, in its English sense) fundamentally entails the apprehension and internalizing of a 'form.' When you conceive something, you construct a 'form' of it in your mind. But if something is 'formless' or bi-ṣūrat, how can you possibly create an image of it? Such a feat, in Mawlana's view and that of mystics, is an impossibility. Just as the celestial sun (Shams-e falak), though unique in its external existence, can have its likeness imagined in the mind, the Shams-e Jan which 'comes forth from beyond the athīr' (the realm of nature and all that is contained within it), has no parallel in either mind or external reality. It is lā ḍidda lahu wa lā nidd lahu (He has no opposite and no peer).

Mawlana elucidates this concept through various parables. One of the most beautiful is the tale of the camel in the bird's house: Chūn be khāneh-ye murgh ushtur pā nehād / Khāneh vīrān gasht u saqfash ūftād (When the camel set foot in the bird's house / The house was ruined and its roof fell down). This illustrates that the camel (symbolizing Absolute Truth) cannot fit into the bird's house (symbolizing limited human imagination and understanding). Its entry signifies the annihilation (fanā) of the house and its inhabitants. Similarly, regarding the seeker of God, he states: Hamchunīn jūyā-ye dargāh-e Khudā / Chūn Khudā āyad shavad jūyandeh lā (Likewise, the seeker at God's threshold / When God arrives, the seeker becomes 'nothing'). When the Divine manifests, the seeker, overwhelmed by its grandeur, becomes lā (nothing), annihilated. These two cannot coexist; they are māniʿat al-jamʿ (mutually exclusive).

Another example is the story of the gnat and the wind before Solomon. The gnat complains that the wind prevents it from standing still. Solomon summons the wind, but as soon as the wind appears, the gnat flees, exclaiming, 'O King, my complaint is from his very presence!' That is, its grievance is against the 'being' of the wind, not its actions. The presence of one impedes the presence of the other. This encapsulates the meaning of fanā that mystics speak of: the annihilation of the seeker in the Divine Essence. This fanā is not absolute non-existence, but rather the non-presence of the seeker in the face of Absolute Presence. Our form-making mind cannot contain formless Truth; therefore, to comprehend it, the mind must undergo annihilation from itself and its own conceptions.

Key takeaways

• God's Essence transcends all human mental conception and form-making; Absolute Truth is formless.
• Human conception is limited to 'forms' and cannot grasp the formless.
• The entry of Absolute Truth into our realm of understanding necessitates the annihilation (fanā) of ourselves and our conceptions.
• The seeker of God must be ready to become 'nothing' (lā) and be annihilated in the face of Divine Presence.
• Like the gnat and the wind, the Absolute Presence of Truth leaves no room for the presence of the individual 'I'; these two are mutually exclusive.