2594 - You put the king in the rook’s place, it is ruin; likewise, the horse in the king’s place, it is the act of an ignoramus.

2595 - Both bounty and severity are in the religious Law: for the king the throne, for the horse the gate.

2596 - What is justice ? To put in its place. What is injustice ? To put it in its wrong place.

2616 - He has said, “Travel”: always seek in the world and try your fortune and lot.

2617 - In assembly-places always be seeking amidst the intellects such an intellect as is in the Prophet.

2619 - Amidst the eyes, too, always be seeking that eye which this epitome has not the power to describe.

2621 - In order that this kind of meeting should not be lost; for to be looked on by them is fortune and an elixir of immortality.

2622 - Amongst the righteous there is one the most righteous: his diploma verified by the Sultan’s hand a "shah",

2628 - If you forget this Qibla for one moment, you will become in thrall to every worthless qibla.

2630 - If you desire benefit and wheat from this Barn, do not part, even for half an hour, from those who sympathise,

2631 - For at the moment when you part from this helper you will be afflicted with an evil comrade.

Story of the attachment between the mouse and the frog: how they tied their legs together with a long string, and how a raven carried off the mouse, and how the frog was suspended and lamented and repented of having attached himself to an animal of a different species instead of sorting with one of his own kind.

2632 - As it happened, a mouse and a faithful frog had become friends on the bank of a river.

2633 - Both of them were bound to a tryst: every morning they would come into a nook,

2634 - They played heart-and-soul with one another and emptied their breasts of evil thoughts.

2635 - The hearts of both swelled from meeting: they recited stories and listened to each other,

2636 - Telling secrets with and without tongue, knowing how to interpret, “A united party is a mercy.”

2637 - Whenever the exultant consorted with the merry, a five years’ tale would come into his mind.

2638 - Flow of speech from the heart is a sign of friendship; obstruction of speech arises from lack of intimacy.

2639 - The heart that has seen the sweetheart, how should it remain bitter ? A nightingale has seen the rose, how should he remain silent ?

2640 - At the touch of Khadir the roasted fish came to life and took its abode in the sea.

2641 - To the friend, when he is seated beside his Friend, a hundred thousand tablets of mystery are made known.

2642 - The brow of the Friend is a Guarded Tablet: to him it reveals plainly the secret of the two worlds.

2645 - Keep your eye always paired with his face: do not stir up dust by way of discussion and argument,

2647 - In order that he may speak whose innermost garment is inspiration which lays the dust and does not stir up trouble.

2648 - When Adam became the theatre of inspiration and love, his rational soul revealed the knowledge of the Names.

2649 - His tongue, from the page of his heart, recited the name of everything as it is.

2650 - Through his vision his tongue was divulging the properties and essences of all things.

2651 - Such a name as fits the things, not so as to call a catamite a lion.

2652 - Nine hundred years Noah in the straightway, and every day he had a new sermon to preach.

2653 - His ruby drew its eloquence from the corundum in the hearts: he had not read the Risála or the Qútu ’l-qulúb.

2656 - And the new-born child becomes an eloquent divine and, like the Messiah, recites mature wisdom.

How the mouse made an arrangement with the frog, saying, “I cannot come to you in the water when I want. There must be some means of communication between us, so that when I come to the river-bank I may be able to let you know, and when you come to the mouse-hole you may be able to let me know, etc.”

2665 - This topic is endless. One day the mouse said to the frog, “O lamp of intelligence,

2666 - At times I wish to talk with you in secret, and you are leaping playfully in the water.

2667 - I am on the river-bank, crying aloud for you, you in the water do not hear the wailing of lovers.

2668 - At this appointed time, O brave, I never become weary of conversing with you.”

2669 - The prayer is five times, but the guide for lovers is, they who are in prayer continually.

2670 - The hangover that is in those heads is not relieved by five nor by five hundred thousand.

2671 - “Visit once a week” is not the ration for lovers; the soul of the sincere has an intense craving to drink.“

2673 - To the lover one moment of separation is as a year; to him a year’s uninterrupted union is a fancy.

How the mouse exerted himself to the utmost in supplication and humble entreaty and besought the water-frog to grant him access.

2686 - He said, “O dear and affectionate friend, without your face I have not a moment’s rest.

2687 - By day you are my light and acquisition and strength; by night you are my rest and comfort and sleep.

2688 - It would be a generous act if you would make me happy and kindly remember me early and late.

How the mouse humbly entreated the frog, saying, “Do not think of pretexts and do not defer the fulfillment of this request of mine, for ‘there are dangers in delay,’ and ‘the Sufi is the son of the moment.’” A son does not withdraw his hand from the skirt of his father, and the Sufi’s kind father, who is the “moment,” does not let him be reduced to the necessity of looking to the morrow keeps him all the while absorbed, unlike the common folk, in the garden of his (the father’s) swift reckoning. He does not wait for the future. He is of the River, not of Time, for “with God is neither morn nor eve”: there the past and the future and time without beginning and time without end do not exist: Adam is not prior nor is Dajjal posterior. these terms belong to the domain of the particular reason and the animal soul: they are not in the non-spatial and non-temporal world. Therefore he is the son of that “moment” by which is to be understood only a denial of the division of times, just as “God is One” is to be understood as a denial of duality, not as the real nature of unity.

2714 - A certain Khwaja, accustomed to scatter silver, said to a Sufi, “O you for whose feet my soul is a carpet,

2715 - Would you like one dirhem to-day, my king, or three dirhems at breakfast-time tomorrow ?”

2716 - He replied, “I am more pleased with half a dirhem yesterday than with this to-day and a hundred dirhems tomorrow.”

2717 - A slap in cash is better than a donation on credit: lo, I put the nape of my neck before you: give the cash !

2726 - O comrade, I am of the earth, you art of the water; but you are the king of mercy and munificence.

2727 - By way of bounty and dispensing so act that I may attain to serving you early and late.

2728 - I am always calling you on the river-bank with my soul, I never experience the mercy of response.

2729 - Entrance into the water is barred against me because my frame has grown from a piece of earth.

2730 - Use the aid either of a messenger or a token to make you aware of my cry.

2731 - The two friends debated on this: at the close of the debate it was settled,

2732 - That they should procure a long string, in order that by pulling the string the secret should be revealed.

2733 - “One end must be tied to the foot of this slave double, and the other to your foot,

2734 - That by this device we two persons may come together and mingle as the soul with the body.”

2735 - The body is like a string on the foot of the soul, drawing it from Heaven to earth.

2736 - When the frog-like soul escapes from the mouse-like body into the water, the sleep of unconsciousness, it enters into a happy state;

2737 - The mouse-like body pulls it back with that string: how much bitterness does the soul taste from this pulling !

2738 - Were it not for the pulling of the scatter-brained mouse, the frog would have enjoyed himself in the water.

2739 - You will hear the rest of it from the light-giving of the Sun when you rise from slumber on the Day.

2740 - “Tie one end of the string on my foot and the other end on your,

2741 - That I may be able to pull you to this dry land: lo, the end of the string is clear.

2742 - This news was disagreeable to the heart of the frog, “This wicked fellow will bring me into a tangle.”

2743 - Whenever a feeling of repugnance comes into the heart of a good man, it is not devoid of some significance.

2744 - Deem that sagacity to be a Divine attribute, not a suspicion: the light of the heart has apprehended from the Universal Tablet.

2786 - Who am I in relation to this ? Come, O my King, make my ruling star auspicious and wheel once.

2787 - Illumine my spirit with moonbeams, for my soul is blackened by contact with the Tail.

2788 - Deliver it from fancy and vain imagination and opinion; deliver it from the well and the tyranny of the rope,

2789 - In order that through Your goodly lovingkindness a heart may lift its wings and soar up from a water and earth.

2790 - O Prince of Egypt and faithful keeper of your promise, the wronged Joseph is in your prison.

2791 - Quickly dream a dream of his release, for God loves the beneficent.

2792 - The seven noxious lean cows are devouring its seven fat cows.

2793 - The seven dry, ugly, and unapproved ears of corn are feeding on its fresh ears.

2794 - Famine has arisen in its Egypt, O mighty Potentate: listen, O King, do not continue to sanction this.

2795 - Let my Joseph sit in Your prison, O King: come, deliver me from the wiles of the women.

Return to the Story of the mouse seeking the frog on the river-bank and pulling the string in order that the frog in the water might become aware of his seeking him.

2741 - That moulded of love is pulling the string in hope of being united with the righteous frog.

2742 - He is perpetually harping on the heart-string, saying, “I have got the end of the string in my paw.

2743 - My heart and soul have become as a thread in contemplation, ever since the end of the string showed itself to me.”

2944 - But suddenly the raven of separation came to chase the mouse and carried it off from that spot.

2945 - When the mouse was taken up into the air by the raven, the frog too was dragged from the bottom of the water.

2946 - The mouse in the raven’s beak, and the frog likewise suspended in the air, its foot in the string.

2947 - The people were saying, “How could the raven make the water-frog its prey by craft and cunning ?

2948 - How could it go into the water, and how could it carry him off ? When was the water-frog the raven’s prey ?”

2949 - “This,” said the frog “is the fit punishment for that one who, like persons devoid of honour, consorts with a rascal.”

2950 - Oh, alas, alas for the sorrow caused by a base friend ! O sirs, seek ye a good companion.

2951 - Reason complains bitterly of the vicious carnal soul: as an ugly nose on a beautiful face.

2952 - Reason was saying to him, “it is certain that congeniality is spiritual in origin and is not from water and clay.”

2953 - Take heed, do not become a worshipper of form and do not say this. Do not seek the secret of congeniality in the form.

2954 - Form resembles the mineral and the stone: an inorganic thing has no knowledge of congeniality.

2955 - The spirit is like an ant, and the body like a grain of wheat which it carries to and fro continually.

2956 - The ant knows that the grains of which it has taken charge will be changed and become homogeneous with it.

2957 - One ant picks up barley on the road; another ant picks up a grain of wheat and runs away.

2958 - The barley does not hurry to the wheat, but the ant comes to the ant; yes.

2959 - The going of the barley to the wheat is consequential: the ant, mark you, returns to its congener.

2960 - Do not say, “Why did the wheat go to the barley ?” Fix your eye on the holder, not on that which he holds in pawn.

2961 - A black ant on a black felt cloth: the ant is hidden; the grain is visible on its way,

2962 - Reason says, "Look well to your eye: when does a grain ever go along without a grain-bearer ?”

2963 - On this account the dog came to the Companions: the forms are the grains, while the heart is the ant.

2972 - My being your congener is not in respect of form: Jesus, in the form of man, was homogeneous with the angels.

2973 - The celestial Bird carried him up above this dark-blue fortress as the raven the frog.

Ya Ali Madad.