The Goblet Without A Rim Poem by Mystic Qalandar

If you have sealed yourself as whole,
you have mistaken the lid for fullness—
for what is complete has no edge.

Even in a cup that leaves no space,
something finer as saffron still can rest atop.
Imagined fullness leaves no room
for wisdom to arrive.

Sages and mystics have whispered
at the threshold of silence:
I once bore myself like a filled goblet—
brimming with pride,
as though one more drop would undo me.
But that knowing soured—
an arrogance that would not bow.

How could I enter
when I myself had closed the door?
Can light pass through a window
that worships its own dust?

Then came a turning—
vast, unbounded—
a silent scattering
woven into my first day.
A tongueless presence stood before me—
and I was seen.

It said: Speak—
"Lord, increase me in knowledge."
And for the first time,
I recognized what is real.

As knowing came,
grain by grain,
I felt the first drop fall—
not of loss,
but release.
And the goblet I had called full
began to forget its rim.

What quiet mercy—
that "Lord, increase me in knowledge"
is not the cry of lack,
but the unveiling of a hidden treasure.

The desert does not boast of barrenness;
it waits for the secret steps of rain.
The sky does not cling to clouds;
it opens into the unseen.

So I learned another fullness:
loosening the knots of knowing,
letting certainties fall like autumn leaves,
until the wind alone remained my teacher.

In that sacred openness,
something vast drew near—
not a voice,
but a presence finer than sound.
And I understood—
not in thought,
but in a stillness beneath it:

wisdom does not gather where things are held,
but where space is made.
Knowledge is not possession,
but a passing light
that lingers only in the unbound.

So empty me, O hidden fountain,
of all that claims to be enough.
Break the walls I named as shelter,
and return me to the open.

For now I have seen—
the goblet was never made to be full—
only to be filled.

MyKoul