Lesson 4: The Story of the Greengrocer and the Parrot

Meaning: Counterfeit gold and fine gold in weight and measure can never be told apart by outward appearance alone, without the touchstone to test them.

Meaning: Anyone in whose soul God places the touchstone of discernment will distinguish every certainty from doubt.

Meaning: If a piece of debris leaps into a living person's mouth, they will find peace only after they spit it out.

Meaning: If a little piece of debris enters among thousands of morsels of food, as soon as it enters, the living sense detects it at once.

Meaning: The worldly sense is a ladder to this world, while the religious sense is a ladder to the heavens.

Meaning: Seek the health of that worldly sense from the physician, and beg the health of that religious sense from the Beloved.

Meaning: The health of that worldly sense comes from the flourishing of the body, while the health of that religious sense comes from the breaking down of the body.

Meaning: The spiritual path first ruins the body, but after that ruin, it restores it to true flourishing.

Meaning: Like the one who ruins the house for the sake of a treasure of gold, and then with that very treasure rebuilds it more splendid than before.

Meaning: Or like the one who cuts off the water and cleanses the riverbed, and then lets the water flow again through it to drink.

Meaning: Or like the one who cuts open the skin and draws out the arrowhead, and after that, fresh skin grows anew.

Meaning: Or like the one who tears down the fortress and seizes it from the infidel, and after that raises upon it a hundred towers and ramparts.