Couplet 1

بشنو ازنے  چون حکایت میکند

Listen to the flute! What does it want to say

وز  جدائیہا   شکایت  میکند
And what complaints does it make of separations

             This is the first couplet of Mathnavi

          Here ‘Ne’ is referred for the Human Spirit (Rooh), which was busy and absorbed in love and maarifah of Allah Ta’ala in the World of Spirit (aalim-e-arvaah). After contact of the World of Bodies (i.e. aalim-e-ajsaam –this world), the human attributes like lust (shohbat) and wrath overpowers it and due to this reason, the reduction in the intensity of  the roohaani attributes like love and maarifah etc. has started. Under such a circumstances, if due to any unseen effect or contact with a kaamileen or contact with any ahl-e-ishq (People of Love), it has woken up and because of evidences and feel (zauq), it recalls its actual position and actual attributes, and because of the reduction or diminishing of these attributes, it feels distressed. 

           Then in these circumstances, it shows the regrets of its feeling by means of acts as well as by means of its posture. This is the understanding with the word Hikayat and because of this sorrow, distressfulness, crying, it is compared with ‘Ne” which means flute. Further since the good attributes of the rooh are so many like love, maarifah and eternal zikr and it finds reduction in each of these and therefore it is crying by recalling each one of them one by one, as it has got separated from all these and thus it has been stated that it is sharing the grief of so many separations.