M1:2206 — پس عمر گفتش که این زاری تو / هست هم آثار هشیاری تو

Translation: Then Omar said to him: 'This lamentation of yours Is itself a sign of your awakening.' Meaning: This verse indicates that Omar perceives the old lutanist's weeping and sorrow not as weakness, but as a sign of his spiritual awakening and regret for his past.

Omar tells the weeping lutanist that his tears and lamentation are a sign of his hushyārī (awakening); an awakening from seventy years of heedlessness. However, through Omar's words, Rumi immediately deepens this observation, asking in the very next verse: 'When will you repent of this repentance, tell me?' This fundamental question is at the heart of Rumi's view on tawba (repentance) and transformation. A repentance that merely returns to the past, even if it signifies awakening, still has its roots in what has been. As Rumi puts it: 'When the tree remains as it is, tomorrow it will yield the same fruit.'

Rumi teaches us that true tawba means finding a 'new existence,' donning a 'new garment,' discarding the old, and never looking back. This repentance is not about returning, but about moving towards a different future. Both past and future can impede one's path, as he states in another verse: 'Set fire to both [past and future], for how long / will you remain full of knots like the reed?' These knots prevent the reed from harmonizing with the piper's breath; similarly, the knots of past and future prevent the soul from connecting with the present moment.

This thought is the core of the Sufi's 'Ibn al-Waqt' (child of the moment) ethos; that is, living in the present. Any promise made for tomorrow or regret for yesterday is a theft from the present. Rumi deliberately shuns the 'Yād Bād' (recall the time when...) found in Hafez's poetry. In Hafez, the past and its nostalgia hold a high place: 'Recall the days of beloved friends, recall those times gone by.' But Rumi has no 'Yād Bād'; he rarely mentions Shams-e Tabrizi, and each time such an association occurs, he immediately pulls himself out of the pit of the past. He declares: 'A Sufi is the child of the moment, O friend / saying 'tomorrow' is not of the path's condition.'

So, the awakening (hushyārī) spoken of in this verse is the first step; the second step is to repent from the very repentance that keeps one tethered to the past, and the final step is to sever both knots of past and future, soaring freely in the boundless expanse of the present moment.

Key takeaways

• Lamentation and weeping are initial signs of spiritual awakening and detachment from heedlessness.
• True repentance is not a return to the past, but an embrace of a new existence and leaving the old behind.
• Rumi's pivotal question, 'When will you repent from this repentance?' challenges the superficial understanding of transformation.
• Both past and future, like knots on a reed, hinder full presence in the now and connection to truth.
• Rumi's philosophy of being 'Ibn al-Waqt' (child of the moment) signifies living fully in the present, free from memories and desires.
• Unlike Hafez, Rumi's Masnavi shows no trace of nostalgia or 'Yād Bād' (recalling the past); the emphasis is squarely on the present.