M6:4038 — چونک با حق متصل گردید جان / ذکر آن اینست و ذکر اینست آن

Translation: When the soul becomes connected with the Truth (Haqq), / the remembrance of That is this, and the remembrance of this is That.

Meaning: When the seeker's soul unites with God, the distinction between the one who remembers and the One who is remembered dissolves. To speak of one is to speak of the other; they become functionally identical.

This verse captures the essence of fanā, the state of annihilation and union. Rumi uses the story of Zulaikha to illustrate how love can so completely possess the lover's being that no 'self' remains. She was so filled with love for Joseph that speaking his name became a 'fur coat in winter,' warming her very soul. Her being was like a pitcher filled to the brim with the wine of love; inevitably, what seeps out is only that which is within. Immediately following our verse, Rumi clarifies: 'She was empty of self and full of love for the beloved; / So, from the jug, only that which is in it seeps out.'

This 'seeping out' describes the condition of a lover whose entire existence is oriented in a single direction. Every movement, every glance, every breath, and every word carries the scent of the beloved. As Rumi says elsewhere: 'Whatever the lover says, the scent of love / leaps from his mouth to the beloved's street.'

This state is the result of bī-khodī (self-lessness) and what I call gharqegī, a drowning in a spiritual state. When a person completely surrenders the self to a higher power, becoming empty, it is then the Beloved who acts in their place. The Beloved places thoughts in their mind, puts words on their tongue, and pulls the lover wherever He desires. This is the station where the mystic declares: 'The beloved has cast a rope around my neck / He pulls me wherever His heart desires.'

We should not find this state of being possessed entirely strange. Look at worldly conditions. A person obsessed with money, for instance, will sit in any gathering, even a wedding, and speak of nothing but profit, loss, and the price of goods. His waking, his sleeping, every particle of his being is consumed by this one thing. Divine love conquers the seeker's being in the same totalizing way, with the crucial difference that one attachment pulls a person down to the depths, while the other elevates them to the highest peaks.

When this connection—this ittiṣāl—with the Truth is perfected, the distinction between the rememberer (dhākir) and the Remembered (madhkūr) vanishes. The remembrance of 'this' connected soul is the very remembrance of 'That' ultimate reality. The two have become one, speaking and acting in and through each other.

Key takeaways

• In the state of annihilation (fanā), the lover becomes so filled with the beloved that their identity dissolves into the beloved's.
• What is inside a person inevitably manifests in their speech and actions: 'From the jug, only that which is in it seeps out.'
• At the peak of union, the duality of the 'rememberer' and the 'Remembered' ceases to exist; remembrance of self is remembrance of God.
• In the state of self-lessness, the seeker becomes an instrument in the Beloved's hands, and it is the Beloved's will that acts through them.
• The intensity of worldly obsessions, like greed, can serve as a pale reflection for understanding the mystic's total possession by divine love.