M6:5 — عشق را با پنج و با شش کار نیست / مقصد او جز که جذب یار نیست

Translation: Love has no business with the five (senses) or the six (directions); its only aim is absorption in the Beloved. Meaning: True love transcends the boundaries of the five physical senses and the six spatial dimensions of the material world, singularly focused on being drawn into and absorbed by the Beloved.

This couplet, from the opening of Book Six of the Masnavi, opens a window into Rumi's understanding of love's nature and function. I have often emphasized that Rumi, unlike thinkers who confine themselves to logic and limited concepts, strives to articulate truths through metaphor, symbolism, and an ecstatic context; here we see precisely that. He employs 'the five and the six' to encompass the entirety of our material world and all sensory and rational perceptions.

'The five' refers to our five external senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. These are our instruments for cognizing the perceptible world. 'The six' refers to the six spatial directions (up, down, east, west, north, south) that define the material universe. Through this interpretation, Rumi posits that love is neither comprehensible through our senses nor contained within the spatiotemporal limitations of this contingent world. Love is a trans-natural phenomenon, and thus, the tools for understanding it must also transcend these five senses and six directions.

Rumi explicitly states that love 'has no business' with these, meaning love's sphere of operation and understanding is separate from them. Our intellect and senses, at best, can analyze worldly phenomena, but they remain incapable of grasping the essence of love. As he says elsewhere: 'O prisoner of the four and five and six, what a fine place! You drag others into it too!' This reinforces the idea that entanglement in these material and sensory dimensions is a 'prison.' Those who claim spiritual leadership while still bound by these limitations have not only failed to advance but are far from the truth, as they themselves are trapped in the 'confinement' of these restrictions.

But what is love's purpose? Rumi declares with absolute certainty: 'Its only aim is absorption in the Beloved.' This statement reveals the ultimate purity and singularity of love's purpose. Love seeks neither fame, nor power, nor even paradise or salvation from hell. The unique and exclusive goal of love is to be drawn into the 'Beloved,' the Absolute Beloved, God. This absorption is itself a form of annihilation and effacement in His Being; it is not an effort to possess, but a yearning for absorption and indwelling. In this path, the lover is not active but passively, with their entire being, surrenders to the magnetic force of the Beloved. They are no longer a seeker; they are the absorbed.

This couplet also contains another significant point, which Rumi himself hints at later: he is, in essence, suggesting that up to this point—that is, in the preceding five books—he might have been compelled to speak to the audience through allusions and hints, within the very realm of 'the five and the six.' However, now that he embarks on Book Six, he hopes that 'permission may arrive' to reveal 'the speakable secrets' 'with an expression closer / than these subtle, hidden allusions.' This is a metaphysical acknowledgment by Rumi that the deeper truths of love are difficult to fit into the framework of language and material concepts, and to articulate them, one must transcend these boundaries.

Key takeaways

• Love transcends the five senses and the six spatial dimensions of the material world.
• The ultimate goal of love is absolute absorption and annihilation in the Beloved, not the pursuit of worldly rewards or status.
• In the path of love, the lover is not active but passively surrenders to the magnetic force of the Beloved.
• The five senses and six directions are, in fact, limitations that hinder humanity from perceiving deeper truths.
• At the beginning of Book Six, Rumi promises his audience the revelation of deeper secrets that will transcend his earlier allusions.