M6:113 — جان ویست و ما همه رنگ و رقوم / کوکب هر فکر او جان نجوم

Translation: He is the Soul, and we are all but colors and marks; He is the star of every thought, the Soul of the stars. Meaning: This verse posits that God alone is the absolute essence and we are mere manifestations of Him. He is the fundamental truth behind all intellection and the very life-force of the cosmos.

This beyt is one of Rumi's poetic pronouncements where truth is unveiled through lyrical expression rather than direct explanation. Here, Rumi ascends to the pinnacle of imagination and language to speak of the essence of existence. He confronts astrologers and those fixated on outward forms, who cling to appearances and colors, oblivious to the animating Soul: "The stars themselves are at war with the astrologer / How have you abandoned the Soul and chosen color?" Astrology, with all its complexities, remains a veil if it does not lead one beyond mere forms.

Rumi explicitly states in this verse that "He is the Soul, and we are all but colors and marks." He is the truth and the Soul of being; we are merely manifestations, colors, patterns, and figures on the tablet of existence. We are, as Rumi himself says elsewhere, "a color, a pattern, a mark on paper"—that is, outward determinations, not the origin or essence. This is the foundation of Rumi's existential monotheism. Through the metaphors of "kawkab" (star) and "nujūm" (stars), he not only wishes to display God's majesty but reaches a mystical zenith: "He is the star of every thought, the Soul of the stars." This means He is not only the guiding star of every thought and contemplation, but also the hidden Soul behind all forms and movements of the stars. He is what imbues the stars with life and meaning.

However, the climax lies in Rumi's immediate and astonishing retraction, which saves him from falling into the trap of conventional human understanding. He negates the word "fikr" (thought) that he just used in a way that reveals the depth of his mystical insight: "Where is thought? There, all is pure light! / This word 'thought' is for you, O thought-prone one!" We humans, who are "people of thought" and "thought-prone" (fikrnak), engage in thinking because we deal with unknowns. Thought, as the philosopher Sabzewari defined it, is a "movement towards principles, and from principles towards objectives"—that is, a movement from the known towards the unknown to solve a problem. But in the divine realm, no unknown exists that would necessitate thought. The higher world is entirely light, "pure" and completely luminous. There is no darkness or ambiguity for the intellect to illuminate through cogitation. God cannot be considered a "thinker" (mutafakkir) or "rational" (ʿāqil) in the human sense, as these attributes imply deficiency and a need to acquire knowledge. There, all is vision and direct apprehension.

Thus, "fikr" here is a metaphor for our limited mind; it is to bring understanding closer to our minds that Rumi uses this term. Divine reality is formless and directionless, transcending all space and time. He is "unbounded light" which "how can it have limits?" and a "place-burner" that cannot be contained by place. It is here that the language of parable and imagery comes into play to make our "frozen intellect" flow like a "torrent" (basīl). Without this pictorial language, our intellect would be incapable of grasping that luminous reality.

Key takeaways

• God is the Soul of existence; we are merely outward manifestations and "colors and marks" upon the tablet of being.
• Human thought is for solving unknowns; in the divine realm, which is pure light, there is no need for "thought."
• Rumi's metaphors regarding stars and the "star of every thought" serve to approximate transcendent truth for our limited minds.
• Divine reality is formless, directionless, and boundless, transcending any spatial or temporal definition.