M2:153 — آنک تخم خار کارد در جهان / هان و هان او را مجو در گلستان

This verse is God's response to Jesus, who has asked why his foolish companion is so obsessed with resurrecting old bones instead of tending to his own soul. God explains that this man is an idbār-jū, one who actively seeks spiritual ruin. The couplet serves as a powerful agricultural metaphor to illustrate this point.

The man's inner state is like that of a farmer who deliberately plants thorn seeds (takhm-i khār). The world is his field, and his actions are the seeds he sows. The natural, inevitable result of sowing thorns is a harvest of thorns. It is therefore pointless and contrary to nature to look for such a person in a rose garden (gulistān), a place of beauty, fragrance, and spiritual flourishing. He has, by his own choices, excluded himself from that reality.

Rumi uses this image to explain the man's perverse desire. His obsession with dead bones is a symptom of his inner disposition; he is drawn to what is lifeless and barren because that is what he cultivates within himself. The following verses extend the metaphor, explaining that for such a person, even a rose will turn to a thorn in his hand, and a friend will become a snake.