M6:2297 — هر شبی تدبیر و فرهنگم به خواب / هم‌چو کشتی غرقه می‌گردد ز آب

Translation: Every night, my prudence and culture in sleep, Like a ship, become drowned by water.

Meaning: Rumi states that each night when we fall asleep, our intellect, foresight, and accumulated knowledge are swept away, as if the ship of our being is submerged in the waters of unconsciousness.

This couplet, without a doubt, reveals one of Rumi's most profound insights into existence and our relationship with it. Rumi uses the phenomenon of sleep here to demonstrate how the chain of causality and connection in the natural world is severed; or, more precisely, how all causes are directly and vertically connected to God, with nothing inherently possessing the necessity to continue or connect.

I have often stated that Rumi does not subscribe to natural causality but sees every moment as a fresh creation. This truth becomes most apparent in sleep. Throughout the day, we are an accumulation of thoughts, emotions, knowledge, and prudence. Rumi employs a beautiful metaphor, stating we are like 'envelopes' containing 'letters' (our prudence, culture, and skill). When night falls, we shed these accumulations, becoming empty and sinking into a realm of unconsciousness. Our body lies like a 'corpse' or an 'empty chest' from which its contents have been removed.

In the morning, God, with His wisdom and insight, replaces the letters into their correct envelopes. Without this order, the engineer of yesterday would awaken as a blacksmith today, and vice-versa. Rumi explicitly states: "The goldsmith's trade did not become the blacksmith's; in the morning, the goldsmith who wakes up does not find himself a blacksmith." This shows that each morning, by God's renewed miracle, we reclaim our being of the previous day, without any inherent continuity. This discontinuity, this 'disjuncture,' is precisely what the Ash'arites posited in their philosophy.

This idea might seem strange at first, but upon closer examination, it echoes in Western philosophy. I have often highlighted its similarity to logical positivism of the early 20th century. Positivists argued that we have no right to assert that what we do not perceive is identical to what we do. When horses disappear behind a wall and reappear from the other side, our senses only allow us to say, 'horses hid and other horses appeared,' not 'the same horses.' Similarly, when salt dissolves in water and then recrystallizes, we cannot definitively say, 'it is the same salt.' This logical meticulousness challenges many of our assumptions about the world. In many respects, Rumi is a Kantian 'before Kant was born'; he, too, teaches us that a large part of what we perceive in nature are assumptions we project upon it.

However, Rumi views this nightly 'drowning' not merely as a philosophical rupture but as a profound mercy. After being 'vomited by the whale of night,' we are 'rescued like Jonah from its belly, scattered again into scent and color,' returning to the sensory, material world. We awaken with 'sharp eyes, fresh ears, light bodies' and praise God, for in the 'horrible night' and in the belly of the 'whale with many paths,' we have tasted 'treasures of mercy and many delights.' Sleep for us is rest, comfort, and peace; an experience of temporary death from which new life arises.

This daily renewal offers a great lesson for life. Knowing that a Benefactor like God places treasures of mercy within the darkness of night and allows us to partake of them, we no longer fear the 'terrible places' or the darknesses of life. 'We will flee from nothing, having such a Companion as You.' Fear stems from feeling alone and unprotected, like a child afraid of the dark or a prisoner in solitary confinement. But when we know 'You are the Companion of the companionless,' even in the depths of 'darkness and terror,' its essence can be 'blessing and comfort.' Rumi teaches us that trust in the absolute presence of Truth leaves no room for fear of any phenomenon or any loneliness, for we are never alone; even when the ship of our being drowns in the waters of unconsciousness, a hidden, benevolent hand lifts it back from the depths.

Key takeaways

• Sleep exemplifies divine discontinuity in nature, where causal chains are constantly severed and reconnected by God.
• Rumi's analysis of the relationship between senses and perception resonates with 20th-century Logical Positivism and Kantian philosophy.
• The daily cycle of night and day, sleep and awakening, testifies to God's continuous, immediate, and merciful intervention in existence.
• Even in the deepest darkness and the 'drowning' of unconsciousness, divine grace and comfort are embedded, leading to renewed vitality.
• Reliance on God's constant presence eliminates fear of darkness, solitude, and life's challenges.