Bol - odrednica zbiljske ljubavi
Pain – the determinant of true love

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines the concept of pain in its gnostic meaning with the accent on the poetic opus of Sheikh Attar of Nishapur who gave the pain a central and dominating position in his tasawwuf teachings. The characteristics of this pain have been pointed out regarding its metaphysical nature and different aspects of manifestation in the universe of human soul, which are conditioned by the levels through which traveler of the spiritual path passes. Unlike the rest of the gnostic sources according to which man’s sayr-e suluk (spiritual travel) begins from the station of repentance (toube) or wakefulness (yaqze), Attar developed an authentic opinion according to which the real spiritual travel begins with a search initiated by pain, whereby he showed that pain is an inner guide which paves the way for human towards his self-salvation from both aspects of ego – exoteric and esoteric – up to the level of bekā'a and the true existence through the never-ending God’s existence.

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