(2) Then his wife said to him: 'This student, who is quite exhausted (with austerities), has carefully tended your fires. Let not the fires themselves blame you, but teach him.' The teacher, however, went away on a journey without having taught him. The student from sorrow was not able to eat. Then the wife of the teacher said to him: 'Student, eat! Why do you not eat?' He said: 'There are many desires in this man here, which lose themselves in different directions. I am full of sorrows, and shall take no food.'

(18) On another occasion Bayazid said, "Were God to offer thee the intimacy with Himself of Abraham, the power in prayer of Moses, the spirituality of Jesus, yet keep thy face directed to Him only, for He has treasures surpassing even these." One day a friend said to him, "For thirty years I have fasted by day and prayed by night and have found none of that spiritual joy of which thou speakest." Bayazid answered, "If you fasted and prayed for three hundred years, you would never find it." "How is that?" asked the other. "Because," said Bayazid, "your selfishness is acting as a veil between you and God." "Tell me, then, the cure." "It is a cure which you cannot carry out." However, as his friend pressed him to reveal it, Bayazid said, "Go to the nearest barber and have your beard shaved; strip yourself of your clothes, with the exception of a girdle round your loins. Take a horse's nosebag full of walnuts, hang it round your neck, go into the bazaar and cry out, 'Any boy who gives me a slap on the nape of my neck shall have a walnut.' Then, in this manner, go where the Qadi and the doctors of the law are sitting." "Bless my soul!" said his friend, "I really can't do that, do suggest some other remedy." "This is the indispensable preliminary to a cure,' answered Bayazid, "but, as I told you, you are incurable."

(12) The doctor, physicist, and astrologer are doubtless right each in his particular branch of knowledge, but they do not see that illness is, so to speak, a cord of love by which God draws to Himself the saints concerning whom He has said, "I was sick and ye visited Me not." Illness itself is one of those forms of experience by which man arrives at the knowledge of God, as He says by the mouth of His Prophet, "Sicknesses themselves are My servants, and are attached to My chosen."

(74) If any mortal thinks, that day by day, While doing ill, he eludes the gods keen sight, His thoughts are evil; and when justice has The leisure, he shall then detected be So thinking. Look, whoe'er you be that say That there is not a God. There is, there is.

(1) JESUS was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. Jesus saw her, and said unto her,

(3) Another time when Sultan Mahmud was riding alone he met an old woodcutter leading his donkey loaded with brambles. At that moment the donkey stumbled, and as he fell the thorns skinned the old man's head. The Sultan seeing the brambles on the ground, the donkey upside down, and the man rubbing his head, asked; 'O unlucky man, do you need a friend?' 'Indeed I do,' replied the woodcutter. 'Good cavalier, if you will help me I shall reap the benefit and you will come to no harm. Your looks are a good omen for me. It is well known that one meets with good-will from those who have a pleasing countenance.' So the kind-hearted Sultan got off his horse, and having pulled the donkey to its feet, lifted up the faggot of thorns and fastened it on its back. Then he rode off to rejoin his army. He said to the soldiers: 'An old woodcutter is coming along with a donkey loaded with brambles. Bar the way so that he will have to pass in front of me.' When the woodcutter came up to the soldiers he said to himself, ' How shall I get through with this feeble beast?' So he went by another way, but catching sight of the royal parasol in the distance began to tremble, for the road he was compelled to take would bring him face to face with the Sultan. As he got nearer he was overcome with confusion for under the parasol he saw a familiar face. 'O God,' he said, 'what a state I'm in! Today I have had Mahmud for my porter.'

When he came up, Mahmud said to him: 'My poor friend, what do you do for a living?' The woodcutter replied, 'You know already. Be honest. You don't recognize me? I am a poor old man, a woodcutter by trade; day and night I gather brambles in the desert and sell them, yet my donkey dies of

hunger. If you wish me well give me some bread.' 'You poor man,' said the Sultan, 'how much do you want for your faggot?' The woodcutter replied: 'Since you do not wish to take it for nothing and I do not wish to sell it, give me a purse of gold.' At this the soldiers cried out: 'Hold your tongue, fool! Your faggot is not worth a handful of barley. You should give it for nothing.' The old man said: 'That is all very well, but its value has changed. When a lucky man like the Sultan puts his hands to my bundle of thorns they become bunches of roses. If he wishes to buy them he must pay a dinar at the very least for he has raised the value of my thorns a hundred times by touching them.'

(3) Hsü Wu Kuei went to visit the Prince. The latter said, "Living, Sir, up in the hills, and feeding upon berries or satisfying yourself with leeks, you have long neglected me. Are you now growing old? Or do you hanker after flesh-pots and wine? Or is it that mine is such a well-governed State?" "I am of lowly birth," replied Hsü Wu Kuei. "I could not venture to eat and drink your Highness' meat and wine. I came to sympathise with your Highness." "What do you mean?" cried the Prince? "What is there to sympathise about?" "About your Highness' soul and body," replied Hsü Wu Kuei. "Pray explain," said the Prince. "Nourishment is nourishment," said Hsü Wu Kuei. "Being high up does not make one high, nor does being low make one low. Your Highness is the ruler of a large State, and you oppress the whole population thereof in order to satisfy your sensualities. But your soul is not a party to this. The soul loves harmony and hates disorder. For disorder is a disease. Therefore I came to sympathise. How is it that your Highness alone is suffering?"

(3) One night, Mahmud, being in a state of dejection, went in disguise to the hammam. A young attendant welcomed him and made the necessary arrangements for him to sweat comfortably over the hot coals. Afterwards he gave the Sultan some dry bread, which he ate. Then The Sultan said to himself: 'If this attendant had excused himself from receiving me I would have had his head cut off.' At last the Sultan told the young man that he wished to return to his palace. The young man said: 'You have eaten my food, you have known my bed, and you have been my guest. I shall always be glad to receive you. Though in reality we are made of the same substance, how, in regard to outer things, can you be compared to one in my lowly position?' The Sultan was so pleased with this answer that he went seven times more as the guest of the attendant. On the last occasion he told him to make a request. 'If I, a beggar, should make a request,' the attendant said, 'the Sultan will not grant it.' 'Ask what you will,' said the Sultan, 'even if it be to leave the hammam and become a king.' 'My only request,' said he, 'is that the Sultan shall continue to be my guest. To be a bath attendant sitting near you in a hot room is better than to be a king in a garden without you. Since good fortune has come to me because of the hot-room, it would be ungrateful of me to leave it. Your presence has lighted up this place; what can I ask for better than yourself? ' If you love God seek also to be loved by him. But while one man seeks this love, ever old and ever new, another desires two obols of silver from the treasure of the world; he seeks a drop of water when he might have the ocean.

(6) No more, then, may he who in soul is sick and full of idols, make a pretext of the heresies, in reference to the recovery of health and conversion to God.

(4) Jesus drank of the water of a limpid rill whose taste was more agreeable than the dew of the rose. One of his companions filled a pitcher from this rill, and they went on their way. Jesus, being thirsty, took a sip of water from the pitcher, but the water was bitter, and he stopped in astonishment and prayed: 'O God, the water of the rill and the water in the pitcher are the same. Tell me why the one is sweeter than honey and the other so bitter?' The pitcher* then spoke, and said to Jesus: 'I am very old, and I have been fashioned over a thousand times under the firmament of the nine cupolas - sometimes as a vase, sometimes as a pitcher, sometimes as a ewer. Whatever form I took I have always had in me the bitterness of death. I am so made that the water I hold will always partake of that bitterness.'

O heedless man! Try to understand the meaning of the pitcher. Strive to discover the mystery before life is taken from you. If while living you fail to find yourself, to know yourself, how will you be able to understand the secret of your existence when you die? You participate in the life of man yet you are only a psuedo man.

(2) A man guilty of many sins repented bitterly and returned to the right path. But in time, his desire for the things of the world returned stronger than ever, and he again surrendered himself to evil thoughts and acts. Then sorrow wrung his heart and reduced him to a miserable state. Again he wished

to change his attitude, but had not the strength to do so. Day and night as a grain of wheat in a hot pan, his heart could not keep still, and his tears watered the dust. One morning, a mysterious voice spoke to him: 'Listen to the Lord of the World. When you repented the first time I accepted your penitence. Though I could have punished you I did not do so. A second time when you fell into sin I gave you a respite, and now even in my anger I have not caused you to die. And today, O fool, you acknowledge your perfidy and wish to return to me a third time. Return then, to the Way. I open my door to you and wait. When ydU have truly changed your attitude your sins will be forgiven.'

(2) One day a good-natured king gave a rare and beautiful fruit to a slave, who tasted it and thereupon said that never in his life had he eaten anything so delicious. This made the king wish to try it himself, and he asked the slave for a piece. But when he put it into his mouth he found it very bitter and he raised his eyebrows in astonishment. The slave said: ' Sire, since I have received so many gifts at your hand how can I complain of one bitter fruit? Seeing that you shower benefits on me why should one bitterness estrange me from you?'

So, servant of God, if you experience suffering in your striving, be persuaded that it can be a treasure for you. The thing seems topsy-turvy but, remember the slave.

(198) Let us live happily then, free from ailments among the ailing! among men who are ailing let us dwell free from ailments!

(8) They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth. I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

(3) A heedless youth went to one who was fasting to complain of forty temptations of a demon. He said: 'The demon keeps me from the Way, and he has reduced my religion to nothing.' The shaikh said: 'My dear young man, just before you came to me I saw the demon prowling round you. Contrary to what you say he was vexed and was throwing dust on his head because you had ill-treated him and he said to me: " The whole world is my domain but I have no power over him who is the enemy of the world." Tell the demon to pass on, and he will leave you alone.'

(2) A madman, a fool of God, went naked when other men went clothed. He said: 'O God, give me a beautiful garment, then I shall be content as other men.' A voice from the unseen world answered him: ' I have given you a warm sun, sit down and revel in it.' The madman said: 'Why punish

me? Haven't you a better garment than the sun?' The voice said: 'Wait patiently for ten days, and without more ado I will give you another garment.' The sun scorched him for eight days; then a poor man came along and gave him a garment which had a thousand patches. The fool said to God: 'O you who have knowledge of hidden things, why have you given me this patched-up garment? Have you burnt all your garments and had to patch up this old one? You have sewn together a thousand garments. From whom have you learned this art?'

It is not easy to have dealings at the Court of God. A man must become as the dust of the road which leads there. After a long struggle he thinks he has reached the goal only to discover that it is still to be attained.

(6) Then they started out for the place where they found Vucub-Caquix reclining on his throne. The old woman and man walked along followed by the two boys, who stayed behind them. In this way they arrived at the house of the lord who was screaming because his tooth pained him. When Vucub-Caquix saw the old man and the old woman and those who accompanied them, he asked, "Where do you come from, grandparents?" "We come looking for something to eat, honorable sir," they answered. "And what do you eat? Are those not your sons who are with you?" "Oh, no, sir! They are our grandsons; but we are sorry for them and what is given to us, we share with them, sir," answered the old woman and the old man. Meanwhile, the lord was suffering terrible pain from his tooth, and it was only with great difficulty that he could speak. "I earnestly beseech you to have pity on me. What can you do? What do you know how to cure?" the lord asked them. And the old ones answered, "Oh, sir! we only take the worm from the teeth, cure the eyes, and set bones."

(425) them on good men; what regulations are necessary they will find out soon enough for themselves. Yes, I said, my friend, if God will only preserve to them the laws which we have given them. And without divine help, said Adeimantus, they will go on for ever making and mending their laws and their lives in the hope of attaining perfection. You would compare them, I said, to those invalids who, having no self-restraint, will not leave off their habits of intemperance? Exactly. Yes, I said; and what a delightful life they lead! they are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they will be cured by any nostrum which anybody advises them to try. Such cases are very common, he said, with invalids of this sort. Yes, I replied; and the charming thing is that they deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth, which is simply that, unless they give up eating and drinking and wenching and idling, neither drug nor cautery nor spell nor amulet nor any other remedy will avail. Charming! he replied. I see nothing charming in going into a passion with a man who tells you what is right. These gentlemen, I said, do not seem to be in your good graces. Assuredly not. Nor would you praise the behaviour of States which act like the men whom I was just now describing. For are there not ill-ordered States in which the citizens are forbidden

(4) In the time of Moses there was a dervish who spent days and nights in a state of adoration, yet experienced no feeling for spiritual things. He had a beautiful long beard, and often while praying would stop to comb it. One day, seeing Moses, he went to him and said: 'O Pasha of Mount Sinai,

ask God, I pray you, to tell me why I experience neither spiritual satisfaction nor ecstasy.'

The next time Moses went up on Sinai he spoke to God about the dervish, and God said, in a tone of displeasure: 'Although this dervish has sought union with me, nevertheless he is constantly thinking about his long beard.' When Moses came down he told the Sufi what God had said. The Sufi thereupon began tearing out his beard, weeping bitterly. Gabriel then came along to Moses and said: ' Even now your Sufi is thinking about his beard. He thought of nothing else while praying, and is even more attached to it while he is tearing it out!'

O you who think you have ceased to be pre-occupied with your beard, you are plunged in an ocean of affliction. When you can regard it with detachment you will have a right to sail across this ocean. But if you plunge in with your beard you will have difficulty in getting out.

(1) Fit objects for admiration are the Stoics, who say that the soul is not affected by the body, either to vice by disease, or to virtue by health; but both these things, they say, are indifferent. And indeed Job, through exceeding continence, and excellence of faith, when from rich he became poor, from being held in honour dishonoured, from being comely unsightly, and sick from being healthy, is depicted as a good example, putting the Tempter to shame, blessing his Creator; bearing what came second, as the first, and most clearly teaching that it is possible for the gnostic to make an excellent use of all circumstances, And that ancient achievements are proposed as images for our correction, the apostle shows, when he says, "So that my bonds in Christ are become manifest in all the palace, and to all the rest; and several of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word of God without fear," - since martyrs' testimonies are examples 'of conversion gloriously sanctified. "For what things the Scripture speaks were written for our instruction, that we, through patience and the consolation of the Scriptures, might have the hope of consolation." When pain is present, the soul appears to decline from it, and to deem release from present pain a precious thing. At that moment it slackens from studies, when the other virtues also are neglected. And yet we do not say that it is virtue itself which suffers, for virtue is not affected by disease. But he who is partaker of both, of virtue and the disease, is afflicted by the pressure of the latter; and if he who has not yet attained the habit of self-command be not a high-souled man, he is distraught; and the inability to endure it is found equivalent to fleeing from it.