M6:1126 — حبذا اسپان رام پیش‌رو / نه سپس‌رو نه حرونی را گرو

Translation: How excellent are the tame, forward-going horses, neither moving backward nor held captive by obstinacy. Meaning: Rumi praises the disciplined and progressive soul, metaphorically an obedient horse that moves willingly forward, in contrast to a soul that is stubborn and regressive.

This verse is Rumi’s praise for a soul that has been disciplined and tamed, a soul that knows its path to the destination and charges forward with resolve. Precisely here, Rumi introduces the contrast between a 'forward-going' (pīsh-row) soul and a 'backward-going' (sapas-row) or 'obstinate' (ḥarūn) soul.

To understand this verse, we must recall the story Rumi narrates just before it: the tale of a man who requests a horse from a prince. The prince offers a spotted (ashhab) horse, but the man refuses, saying it is 'backward-going' and 'obstinate'—meaning it tends to move in reverse and is unruly. At this point, the prince offers a brilliant piece of advice: if the horse goes backward, 'turn its tail towards your home' and ride it that way. This parable is the key to understanding Rumi’s approach to the soul and human instincts.

I have always maintained that Rumi’s approach to soul-training stands in contrast to many Sufi and Eastern schools, including Buddhism. Those schools advocate for uprooting the desires of lust, anger, and other instincts to achieve freedom from suffering. However, Rumi never makes such a recommendation. He does not believe in 'uprooting' or 'cruel surgery' on the soul. This horse of the self should not be discarded, killed, or beheaded; rather, one must 'know the way to use' it.

This is, in fact, analogous to the concept of 'sublimation' in modern psychoanalysis, as proposed by Freud. Rumi, years before Freud, poetically and profoundly illustrated this path. He doesn't say, 'do not desire' or 'do not want'; instead, he advises, 'change the object of your desires and inclinations.' As he says elsewhere: 'When you restrain its desire for bread, that desire will emerge from noble intellect.' When the urge for gluttony is curbed, that same energy and desire will manifest through the intellect, in the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. This is exactly like a gardener pruning excessive branches so that energy is redirected to fruit-bearing ones. This is a shrewd and realistic strategy in spiritual cultivation.

Therefore, the soul Rumi praises in this verse is not a suppressed and passionless soul, but one whose inclinations have been reoriented. This tame, forward-going horse is the soul that, instead of 'going backward' towards the fleeting world, faces 'the hereafter' (ʿuqbā) and eternity. Such a soul is not 'obstinate' (ḥarūn) but obediently presses forward on the path of love and truth, just as Moses traversed a seven-hundred-year journey 'like the width of a mat' in a 'journey of love' (sīrān-i ḥubb). This is the pinnacle of the soul's perfection in Rumi's view.

Key takeaways

• Rumi, unlike some Sufis and Eastern schools, opposes the eradication of instincts; they should be reformed and redirected.
• The horse of the self should not be killed, but rather one must learn how to use it correctly; even seemingly negative instincts can be harnessed for noble purposes.
• Redirecting desires from transient matters towards eternity and the hereafter is key to soul-training.
• This approach aligns with the psychoanalytic concept of 'sublimation': the energy of curbed desires emerges through a nobler channel.
• The 'tame and forward-going' soul in this verse is one whose desires are rightly guided and, without obstinacy, advances on the path of truth.
• Such a soul, like Moses in his 'journey of love' (sīrān-i ḥubb), can traverse long distances in a short time.