The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) · 16 of 37 · tr. E.H. Whinfield
STORY VI-b
They possess freewill and compulsion besides, 4 As in oyster-shells raindrops are pearls.
Outside the shell they are raindrops, great and small; Inside they are precious pearls, big and little.
These men also resemble the musk deer's bag; Outside it is blood, but inside pure musk; Yet, say not that outside 'twas mere blood, Which on entering the bag becomes musk.
Nor say that outside the alembic 'twas mere copper, And becomes gold inside, when mixed with elixir.
In you freewill and compulsion are vain fancies, But in them they are the light of Almighty power.
On the table bread is a mere lifeless thing, When taken into the body it is a life-giving spirit.
This transmutation occurs not in the table's heart, 'Tis soul effects this transmutation with water of life.
Such is the power of the soul, O man of right views!
Then what is the power of the Soul of souls?
(God).
Bread is the food of the body, yet consider, How can it be the food of the soul, O son?
Flesh-born man by force of soul Cleaves mountains with tunnels and mines.
The might of Ferhad's soul cleft a hill; The might of the Soul's soul cleaves the moon; 5 If the heart opens the mouth of mystery's store, The soul springs up swiftly to highest heaven.
If tongue discourses of hidden mysteries, It kindles a fire that consumes the world.
Behold, then, God's action and man's action; Know, action does belong to us ; this is evident.
If no actions proceeded from men, How could you say, 'Why act ye thus?' The agency of God is the cause of our action, Our actions are the signs of God's agency; Nevertheless our actions are freely willed by us, Whence our recompense is either hell or 'The Friend.'" *NOTES: 1.
The poet's insistence on the doctrine of God being the Fa'il i Hakiki, or Only Real Agent, without whose word no being and no action can be, leads him to the question of freewill and compulsion of man's will (see Gulshan i Raz, I.
555).
2.
So Gulshan i Raz, I.
442.
3.
The leading principle of all mysticism is that, independently of sense and reason, man possesses an inward sense, or intuition, which conveys to him a knowledge of God by direct apprehension (see Gulshan i Raz.
I.
431).
4.
Their wills are identified with God's will, as in the case of the saint Daquqi (infra, Book III.
Story XII.) 5.
As a sign of the last day (Koran liv.
1).
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
[auto] The text explicitly uses alchemical metaphors (raindrops to pearls, copper to gold via elixir/alembic) to describe spiritual transformation within the soul.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The passage states clearly that 'The agency of God is the cause of our action,' affirming divine ordering of human affairs.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
The passage concludes that human actions lead to recompense of either 'hell or The Friend,' referencing final judgment.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
The text suggests that for the saint, human freewill and compulsion become 'vain fancies' replaced by the 'light of Almighty power,' implying self-effacement.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
[auto] The passage centers on the doctrine of God as the 'Only Real Agent' (Fa'il i Hakiki), asserting that all action ultimately belongs to God while maintaining human responsibility.