During his storytelling, Rumi has the welcome habit of providing you with additional insight using what we would in modern times, possibly call a sidebar: a small divergence from the main story to explain a principle that is to be encountered now within the story.
This insight is very helpful in understanding some of the profound concepts on which he is giving us practical guidance.
In the King and the Maiden, when the King reverts to deep and desperate prayer to save his beloved from sickness that none of his renowned physicians have been able to cure. He hastens to prostrate and pray, to sing praises of divine gratitude and glory, to beseech the Lord for guidance and relief; he gets a response when "the ocean of self is drowned in the Self" as Rumi puts it aptly; "then the ocean of mercy starts to flow".
Falling asleep, he dreams of a physician, divinely sent to guide and to cure his ailing beloved. The next morning he gets up and sees someone faintly visible in the horizon, knowing, as was told to him in his dream that this indeed is sent by the Lord, a potent healer of mind and body.
And then Rumi breaks out in a sidebar.... talking of the faint Idea, the "Khial"; the thought...
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