Story of the Arab of the desert whose dog was dying of hunger, while his wallet was full of bread; he was lamenting over the dog and reciting poetry and sobbing and beating his head and face; and yet he grudged the dog a morsel from his wallet.

The dog was dying, and the Arab sobbing, shedding tears, and crying, “Oh, sorrow!”
A beggar passed by and asked, “What is this sobbing? For whom is thy mourning and lamentation?”
He replied, “There was in my possession a dog of excellent disposition. Look, he is dying on the road.

❦480. He hunted for me by day and kept watch by night; he was keen-eyed and good at catching the prey and driving off thieves.”
He, the beggar, asked, “What ails him? Has he been wounded?” The Arab replied, “Ravenous hunger has made him so lamentable.”
“Show some patience,” said he, “in bearing this pain and anguish: the grace of God bestows a recompense on those who are patient.”
Afterwards he said to him, “O noble chief, what is this full wallet in your hand?”
He replied, “My bread and provender and food left over from last night, which I am taking along with me to nourish my body.”

❦485. “Why don't you give some bread and provender to the dog?” he asked. He replied, “I have not love and liberality to this extent.
Bread cannot be obtained by a traveller on the road without money, but water from the eyes costs nothing.”
He, the beggar, said, “Earth be on your head, O water-skin full of wind! for in your opinion a crust of bread is better than tears.”
Tears are originally blood and have been turned by grief into water: idle tears have not the value of earth.
He, the Arab, made the whole of himself despicable, like Iblís the Devil: a piece of this whole is naught but vile.

❦490. I am the devoted slave of him who will not sell his existence save to that bounteous and munificent Sovereign,
So that when he weeps, heaven begins to weep, and when he moans in supplication, the celestial sphere begins to cry, “O Lord!”
I am the devoted slave of that high-aspiring copper which humbles itself to naught but the Elixir.
Lift up in prayer a broken hand: the loving kindness of God flies towards the broken.
If thou hast need of deliverance from this narrow dungeon of the world, O brother, go without delay and cast thyself on the fire.

❦495. Regard God's contrivance and abandon thine own contrivance: oh, by His contrivance all the contrivance of contrivers is put to shame.
When thy contrivance is naughted in the contrivance of the Lord, thou wilt open a most marvellous hiding-place,
Of which hiding-place the least treasure is everlasting life occupied in ascending and mounting higher.

Explaining that no evil eye is so deadly to a man as the eye of self-approval, unless his eye shall have been transformed by the Light of God, so that “he hears through Me and sees through Me,” and unless his self shall have become selfless.

Do not regard thy peacock-feathers but regard thy feet, in order that the mischief of the evil eye may not waylay thee;
For even a mountain slips from its foundations at the eye of the wicked: read and mark in the Qur’ān the words, "they cause thee to stumble."

❦500. From their looking at him, Ahmad Mohammed, who was like a mountain, slipped in the middle of the road, without mud and without rain.
He remained in astonishment, saying, “Wherefore is this slipping? I do not think that this occurrence is empty of meaning.”