M6:4126 — گفتش ابراهیم ای مرد سفر / کرکست من باشم اینت خوب‌تر

Translation: Abraham told him, "O man of journey, / If I be your vulture, this would be better for you." Meaning: This verse refers to Abraham's exchange with Nimrod, where Abraham suggests that if Nimrod seeks God in the heavens, he should allow Abraham to be his spiritual guide for that journey, rather than relying on physical means or literal vultures.

This verse is one of those profound and inspiring stories Mowlana employs to elucidate the fundamental principle of needing a spiritual guide (Pīr) and surrendering to that guidance (taslīm) on the spiritual path. Nimrod, arrogant and self-willed, sought the ultimate Divine reality in the heavens out of sheer narcissism, believing he could reach it through material means and animal power. He constructed a throne and harnessed four vultures to carry him to the celestial spheres, to verify, as he put it, "whether there is a God or not." This illusion, that one can grasp ultimate truth with physical eyes and bodily instruments, is the same great fallacy that many, from Nimrod in Abraham's time to Yuri Gagarin in the modern era, have fallen prey to. One who seeks the soul under a surgeon's knife, or fails to find God through a spaceship's window, commits Nimrod's error—seeking something where it is not, much like Mulla Nasruddin searching for lost money from a dark house in a brightly lit alley.

Abraham, the prophet of guidance, offered Nimrod, the "heavy-souled" and "stiff-necked" who resisted truth under the burden of his ego, a proposition: "If you wish to ascend to the heavens and find God, let me be your vulture. Let me carry you to the skies." This is a metaphorical offer, not a literal one. Abraham is not proposing to become a literal bird, but rather to be Nimrod's guide on this spiritual ascent.

Mowlana emphasizes that this journey is not a spatial one, to be undertaken by airplane, rocket, vulture, or an arrow shot from a bow. It is a "spiritual journey, an intellectual journey, and a journey of the heart." A heart that travels "without provisions or mount" and "like lightning" from West to East, or the perceptions of people in their sleep, traveling at night "from alienation" (az ightirāb – from their earthly selves). This is the inner journey that leads one to gnosis.

This verse underscores the necessity of a Pīr-e Rashād (a guide who has reached the destination and can guide others) as opposed to a Pīr-e Gardūn (one merely old in years). An arrow, though sharp and swift, cannot fly without an archer and a bow. Similarly, the seeker cannot soar to the heavens of meaning on their own. They require the "ladder to heaven," which is the spiritual master. This is the very "condition of submission" (sharṭ-e taslīm) that Mowlana repeatedly insists upon. Submission to the master is akin to a patient's submission to a surgeon, or a student's to a teacher. Without this submission, one will reach no spiritual destination, because one's "mercantile intellect" (ʿaql-e tājer-ṣefat), though useful in material affairs, is "not made for ultimate and otherworldly felicity." This is the same lesson that Hafez beautifully articulates: "Undertake not this stage without Khizr's companionship / It is darkness, beware the danger of going astray."

Key takeaways

• Discovering ultimate truths requires a spiritual path and tools, not material means or physical travel.
• A spiritual master (Pīr-e Rashād) is essential for spiritual ascent and finding truths; self-reliance leads to error.
• The spiritual journey is an inner one: a movement of the heart and intellect, not the body and space.
• Submission (taslīm) and trust in the guide are the primary conditions for reaching the destination.
• Self-conceit and arrogance (the 'Nimrodic disposition') are the main obstacles to accepting guidance and attaining truth.