M6:1118 — آن یکی اسپی طلب کرد از امیر / گفت رو آن اسپ اشهب را بگیر

Translation: One man requested a horse from the Amir. Said [the Amir], "Go, take that ashhab (dappled) horse." Meaning: This verse initiates a story where an individual seeks a horse from a ruler, and the ruler points him to a specific dappled horse. It sets the stage for a deeper allegorical discussion about the nature of desires and the means one employs to reach a destination.

This verse, at first glance, appears to be merely the opening of a tale. Indeed, Mowlana himself, elsewhere in the Masnavi, employs such stories to "break the trance" of his audience. Yet, I must insist that this particular story of the horse and the Amir is profoundly significant and replete with meaning, embodying a deep mystical and educational principle. In essence, this allegory serves as an astute response to the extremist approaches to self-purification prevalent among some Sufis and even Eastern schools of thought like Buddhism.

Through this narrative, which introduces the ashhab horse that "goes backward," Mowlana seeks to instruct us on how to deal with the perceived "undesirables" within ourselves. His explicit answer is: do not cast anything away, do not uproot it, and do not subject it to tyrannical surgery. This stance directly opposes those Sufis who advocated for the eradication of lust (shahwat), anger (ghazab), and other instincts. Mowlana argues that if there is a horse that "goes backward," that is rebellious and pulls in the wrong direction, do not discard it or put it down; rather, find a way to utilize it.

The key lesson is: "Turn its tail towards your home." If a horse can only move in reverse, then simply position your destination behind it, and thereby benefit from its unique mode of movement. This is precisely the approach that Victor Hugo, in Les Misérables, beautifully articulates: "Do not remove anything from the soul; reform it." The cultivation of the self, therefore, is not achieved through eradication and negation, but through reform, therapy, and careful gardening.

This allegory clearly teaches us that our instincts and desires, which seemingly distance us from our goal, are in fact tools that can, by a change of direction or a "transformation of their object," lead us to virtuous ends. Instead of advocating for the negation of desire, common in Buddhism and some Sufi currents influenced by it (such as Saʿdi's "one who desires nothing"), Mowlana proposes the "transformation of desire." He prays: "O Transformer, turn its desire towards the afterlife"; that is, direct the inclination and craving towards the eternal. This is precisely the psychological energy transformation that Freud refers to in his theory of "sublimation": "When you restrain its desire from bread / That desire will emerge from the noble intellect." The energy once spent on the stomach and lower appetites now turns towards the intellect and higher aspirations, much like pruning superfluous branches from a tree redirects vitality to the productive ones. The goal is to tame the rebellious self, not to kill it.

Key takeaways

• Utilizing instincts and desires rather than eradicating them.
• The importance of "transforming the object" of desires towards virtuous and eternal goals.
• Mowlana's pedagogical approach: healing and reforming the self, not tyrannical excision or elimination.
• A counterpoint to Sufi or Buddhist teachings advocating for the complete negation of desire.
• Alignment with Freud's psychological theory of "Sublimation."
• The lesson of the "backward horse": every part of one's being can be tamed and put to use.