Daily Archives: 2025-01-10

Be a man of meaning and don't twist in the form, what is meaning? the Real, and what is form? Nothing.

Pass by the forms and wake from names, escape toward meanings, from names and titled games.

Know that only agreement is possible between esoterics and there is no room for difference therewith, but as for the exoterics they have sought differences, strayed from unity, inherited multiplicity, and followed diversity. Therefore, whoever seeks unity must receive and follow the path of esoterics, because only the esoterics have found the path to unity, and the path of exoterics ends only in diversity and nothing else.

It is in this context that Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi says: If the words of the great ones are different in a hundred ways because the truth is One and the path is One, how can the words differ? But they appear differently. The meaning is identical, but the difference is in the appearance, in meaning they are all similar.

... similarly, when a difference arises between esoterics (the people of meaning), it is not a difference, but when the esoterics have put meaning into an expression to explain it, what is received from that expression, there is a difference between those perceptions, and not in the meaning itself. So the esoterics do not differ, but the difference is in the perception of the exoterics, and the defect lies within their understanding and perception.

After explaining the difference between expression and meaning, it becomes clear that those who understand the meanings are all in agreement, but those who understand only appearances all differ. So when there is a difference between exoterics (those who understand only appearances), that difference is actually in the expression, and the meaning remains hidden within it.