There was once a conceited and ignorant aristocrat. He had convinced himself that everything which was in any way connected with him was of a special nature, which could function or yield its greatest value, only because of his association with it. Among his possessions were a number of excellent fruit-bearing bushes, some plants which bore beautiful flowers, and a number of exceptional hens which lay abundantly.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, a certain building was infested by mice. The people in charge decided to kill them. One night they put down mouse-killing poison. But the next morning the poison had been eaten. "We shall change the type of poison," the people said, and they made another attempt. But this second lethal dose the mice also ate happily, and left signs that they were thriving on their new diet.

AN ANCIENT tale, among the Sufis, tells how a wise man once related a story about a remarkable tree which was to be found in India. People, who ate of the fruit of this tree, as he told it, would neither grow old nor die. This legend was repeated, by a reliable person, to one of the Central Asian kings of long ago, and this monarch at once conceived a passionate desire for the fruit - the source of the Elixir of Life.

The philosophers, logicians and doctors of law were drawn up at Court to examine Nasrudin. This was a serious case, because he had admitted going from village to village saying: ‘The so-called wise men are ignorant, irresolute and confused.’ He was charged with undermining the security of the State. ‘You may speak first,’ said the King. ‘Have paper and pens brought,’ said the Mulla.
Paper and pens were brought. ‘Give some to each of the first seven savants.’ They were distributed...

Nasrudin used to take his donkey across a frontier every day, with the panniers loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again. They searched his person, sifted the straw, steeped it in water, and even burned it from time to time. Meanwhile he was becoming visibly more and more prosperous...

I must emphasize this point: my stories require, at this stage, no extra commentary, wretched imaginings, or vapid guesswork by you, me, or anyone else. The very worst would be that of moralizing away the effective substance. Thus the urge to tag tidy little rationalizations, persuasive formulas, intellectual summaries, symbolical labels, or any other convenient pigeon-holing device, must be steadfastly resisted. Mental encapsulation perverts the medicine, rendering it impotent. It amounts to a bypass around the story’s true destination; to explain away is to forget. Thus, let the stories which you can remember do their own work by their very diversity. Familiarize yourself with them.