Topic: Idries Shah

[Michael]

a case of putting things in the right place

[nichi]

The Initiation of Malik Dinar

After many years' study of philosophical subjects, Malik Dinar felt that the time had come to travel in search of knowledge. "I will go," he said to himself, "seeking the hidden teacher, who is also said to be within my uttermost self."

Walking out of his house with only a few dates for provision, he came presently upon a dervish plodding along the dusty road. He fell into step alongside him, in silence for a time. Finally the dervish spoke. "Who are you and where are you going?"

"I am Dinar, and I have started to journey in search of the hidden teacher."

"I am el-Malik El-Fatih, and I will walk with you," said the dervish.
"Can you help me to find the teacher?" asked Dinar.
"Can I help you, can you help me?" asked Fatih, in the irritating manner of dervishes everywhere; "The hidden teacher, so they say, is in a man's self. How he finds him depends upon what use he makes of experience. This is something only partly conveyed by a companion."

Presently they came to a tree, which was creaking and swaying. The dervish stopped. "The tree is saying," he said after a moment: `Something is hurting me, stop awhile and take it out of my side so that I may find repose.'"

"I am in too much of a hurry," replied Dinar. "And how can a tree talk, anyway?" They went on their way.

After a few miles the dervish said, "When we were near the tree I thought that I smelt honey. Perhaps it was a wild bees' hive which had been built in its bole."

"If that is true," said Dinar, "let us hurry back, so that we may collect the honey, which we could eat, and sell some for the journey."

"As you wish," said the dervish.

When they arrived back at the tree, however, they saw some other travelers collecting an enormous quantity of honey. "What luck we have had!" these men said. "This is enough honey to feed a city. We poor pilgrims can now become merchants: our future is assured."

Dinar and Fatih went on their way.

Presently they came to a mountain on whose slops they heard a humming. The dervish put his ear to the ground. Then he said: "Below us there are a million ants, building a colony. This humming is a concerted plea for help. In ant language it says: `Help us, help us. We are excavating, but have come across strange rocks which bar our progress. Help dig them away.' Should we stop and help, or do you want to hasten ahead?"

"Ants and rocks are not our business, brother," said Dinar, "because I, for one, am seeking my teacher."

"Very well, brother," said the dervish. "Yet they do say that all things are connected, and this may have a certain connection with us."

Dinar took no notice of the older man's mumblings, and so they went their way.

The pair stopped for the night, and Dinar found that he had lost his knife. "I must have dropped it near the ant hill," he said. Next morning they retraced their way.

When they arrived back at the ant hill, they could find no sign of Dinar's knife. Instead they saw a group of people, covered in mud, resting beside a pile of gold coins. "These," said the people, "are a hidden hoard which we have just dug up. We were on the road when a frail old dervish called to us; `Dig at this spot and you will find that which is rocks to some but gold to others.'"

Dinar cursed his luck. "If we had only stopped," he said, "you and I would both have been rich last night, O dervish." The other party said: "This dervish with you, stranger, looks strangely like the one whom we saw last night."

"All dervishes look very much alike," said Fatih. And they went their respective ways.

Dinar and Fatih continued their travels, and some days later they came to a beautiful river bank. The dervish stopped and as they sat waiting for the ferry a fish rose several times to the surface and mouthed at them.

"This fish," said the dervish, "is sending us a message. It says: `I have swallowed a stone. Catch me and give me a certain herb to eat. Then I will be able to bring it up, and will thus find relief. Travelers, have mercy!'"

At that moment the ferry boat appeared and Dinar, impatient to get ahead, pushed the dervish into it. The boatman was grateful for the copper which they were able to give him, and Fatih and Dinar slept well that night on the opposite bank, where a teahouse for travelers had been placed by a charitable soul.

In the morning they were sipping their tea when the ferryman appeared. Last night had been his most fortunate one, he said; the pilgrims had brought him luck. He kissed the hands of the venerable dervish, to take his blessing. "You deserve it all, my son," said Fatih.

The ferryman was now rich: and this was how it happened. He was about to go home at his usual time, but he had seen the pair on the opposite bank and resolved to make one more trip, although they looked poor, for the "baraka", the blessing of helping the traveler.  When he was about to put away his boat he saw the fish, which had thrown itself on the bank. It was apparently trying to swallow a piece of plant. The fisherman put the plant into its mouth. The fish threw up a stone and flopped back into the water. The stone was a huge and flawless diamond of incalculable value and brilliance.

"You are a devil!" shouted the infuriated Dinar to the dervish Fatih. "You knew about three treasures by means of some hidden perception, yet you did not tell me at the time. Is that true companionship? Formerly, my ill luck was strong enough: but without you I would not even have known of the possibilities hidden in trees, anthills and fish–of all things!"

No sooner had he said these words than he felt as though a mighty wind were sweeping through his very soul. And then he knew that the very reverse of what he had said was the truth. The dervish, whose name means the victorious king, touched Dinar lightly on the shoulder, and smiled. "Now, brother, you will find that you can learn by experience. I am he who is at the command of the hidden teacher."

When Dinar dared to look up, he saw his teacher walking down the road with a small band of travelers, who were arguing about the perils of the journey ahead of them.

Today the name of Malik Dinar is numbered among the foremost of the dervishes, companion and exemplar, the man who arrived.

as collected by Idries Shah

[Michael]

lovely tale for my bedtime - I'll dream of ants and trees and fish

[nichi]

Such was the repute of Abdul Qadir that mystics of all persuasions used to throng to his reception hall, and the utmost decorum and consideration for the traditional manner uniformly prevailed. These pious men arranged themselves in order of precedence, of age and according to the repute which their teachers had enjoyed and their own precedence in their own communities.

Yet they vied with one another for the attention of the Sultan of the Teachers, Abdul Qadir. His manners were impeccable, and nobody of low intelligence or lack of training was seen at these assemblies.

One day, however, the three shiekhs of Khorasan, Iraq and Egypt came to the Dargah, guided by three illiterate muleteers. Their journey from Mecca, where they had been on a pilgrimage, had been plagued by the inelegance and caperings of these men. When they saw the assembly of the Sheikh they were made as happy to think of their release from their companions, as they were by their desire to glimpse the Great Sheikh.

Contrary to the usual practice, the Sheikh came out to meet them. No sign passed between him and the muleteers. Later that night, however, finding their way to their quarters, the three sheikhs glimpsed by accident the Sheikh saying goodnight to the muleteers. As they respectfully left his room, he kissed their hands. The sheikhs were astonished, and realized that these three, and not they, were hidden sheikhs of the dervishes. They followed the muleteers and tried to start a conversation. But the chief muleteer only said: "Get back to your prayers and mumblings, sheikhs, with your Sufism and your search for truth which has plagued us during thirty-six days' travel. We are simple muleteers and want nothing of that."

This is the difference between the hidden Sufis and the superficial ones.

as collected by Idries Shah

[Jahn]

So - am I hidden or esposed? 

[nichi]

One day a venerable hermit who had spent many years in contemplation and isolation received a visit from a celestial creature. Now, he felt, here was a result of his austerities, a confirmation that he was progressing on the road to sanctity.

"Hermit," said the angel, "you are to go and tell a certain charitable man that it has been decreed by the Most High that because of his good works he is to die in exactly six months from now and to be taken straight to paradise."

Delighted, the hermit hurried to the house of the charitable man. When he heard the message the charitable man immediately increased the amount of his benefactions, hoping that he could help more people, even though he had already been promised paradise.

But three whole years passed, and the charitable man did not die. He continued his work unconcerned. But the hermit, feeling frustrated that his prediction had not turned out to be true, annoyed because it seemed after all that he had had a mere hallucination, stung because people pointed him out in the street as a false prophet and pretended recipient of visitants, was becoming more and more sour, until nobody could stand his company, least of all himself.

Then the angel appeared again. "You see," it said, "how frail a thing you are. True enough, the charitable man has gone to paradise, and has in fact 'died' in a certain manner known only to the elect, while he yet enjoys this life. But you, you are still almost worthless. Now that you have felt the stings which vanity brings on, perhaps you will be able to make a start on the road to spirituality."

as collected By Idries Shah

[Nichi]

The Story of Fire
By Ahmed el-Bedavi (d. 1276), founder of the Egyptian Bedavi Sufi Order
Retold by Idries Shah

Once upon a time a man was contemplating the ways in which Nature operates, and he discovered, because of his concentration and application, how fire could be made.

This man was called Nour [Light]. He decided to travel from one community to another, showing people his discovery.

Nour passed the secret to many groups of people. Some took advantage of the knowledge. Others drove him away, thinking that he must be dangerous, before they had had time to understand how valuable this discovery could be to them. Finally, a tribe before which he demonstrated became so panic-stricken that they set about him and killed him, being convinced that he was a demon.

Centuries passed. The first tribe which had learned about fire reserved the secret for their priests, who remained in affluence and power while the people froze.

The second tribe forgot the art and worshipped instead the instruments. The third worshipped a likeness of Nour himself, because it was he who had taught them. The fourth retained the story of the making of fire in their legends: some believed them, some did not. The fifth community really did use fire, and this enabled them to be warmed, to cook their food, and to manufacture all kinds of useful articles.

After many, many years, a wise man and a small band of his disciples were traveling through the lands of those tribes. The disciples were amazed at the variety of rituals which they encountered; and one and all said to their teacher: ‘But all these procedures are in fact related to the making of fire, nothing else. We should reform these people!’

The teacher said: ‘Very well, then. We shall restart our journey. By the end of it, those who survive will know the real problems and how to approach them.

When they reached the first tribe, the band was hospitably received. The priests invited the travelers to attend their religious ceremony, the making of fire. When it was over, and the tribe was in a state of excitement at the event which they had witnessed, the master said: ‘Does anyone wish to speak?’

The first disciple said: ‘In the cause of Truth I feel myself constrained to say something to these people.’

‘If you will do so at your own risk, you may do so,’ said the master.


Now the disciple stepped forward in the presence of the tribal chief and his priests and said: ‘I can perform the miracle which you take to be a special manifestation of deity. If I do so, will you accept that you have been in error for so many years?’

But the priests cried: ‘Seize him!’ and the man was taken away, never to be seen again.

The travelers went to the next territory where the second tribe were worshipping the instruments of fire-making. Again a disciple volunteered to try to bring reason to the community.

With the permission of the master, he said: ‘I beg permission to speak to you as reasonable people. You are worshipping the means whereby something may be done, not even the thing itself. Thus you are suspending the advent of its usefulness. I know the reality that lies at the basis of this ceremony.’

This tribe was composed of more reasonable people. But they said to the disciple: ‘You are welcome as a traveler and stranger in our midst. But, as a stranger, foreign to our history and customs, you cannot understand what we are doing. You make a mistake. Perhaps, even, you are trying to take away or alter our religion. We therefore decline to listen to you.’

The travelers moved on.

When they arrived in the land of the third tribe, they found before every dwelling an idol representing Nour, the original fire-maker. The third disciple addressed the chiefs of the tribe:

‘This idol represents a man, who represents a capacity, which can be used.’

‘This may be so,’ answered the Nour-worshippers, ‘but the penetration of the real secret is only for the few.’

‘It is only for the few who will understand, not for those who refuse to face certain facts,’ said the third disciple.

‘This is rank heresy, and from a man who does not even speak our language correctly, and is not a priest ordained in our faith,’ muttered the priests. And he could make no headway.

The band continued their journey, and arrived in the land of the fourth tribe. Now a fourth disciple stepped forward in the assembly of people.

‘The story of making fire is true, and I know how it may be done,’ he said.

Confusion broke out within the tribe, which split into various factions. Some said: ‘This may be true, and if it is, we want to find out how to make fire.’ When these people were examined by the master and his followers, however, it was found that most of them were anxious to use firemaking for personal advantage, and did not realize that it was something for human progress. So deep had the distorted legends penetrated into the minds of most people that those who thought that they might in fact represent truth were often unbalanced ones, who could not have made fire even if they had been shown how.

There was another faction, who said: ‘Of course the legends are not true. This man is just trying to fool us, to make a place for himself here.’

And a further faction said: ‘We prefer the legends as they are, for they are the very mortar of our cohesion. If we abandon them, and we find that this new interpretation is useless, what will become of our community then?’

And there were other points of view, as well.

So the party traveled on, until they reached the lands of the fifth community, where firemaking was a commonplace, and where other preoccupations faced them.

The master said to his disciples:

‘You have to learn how to teach, for man does not want to be taught. First of all, you will have to teach people how to learn. And before that you have to teach them that there is still something to be learned. They imagine that they are ready to learn. But they want to learn what they imagine is to be learned, not what they have first to learn. When you have learned all this, then you can devise the way to teach. Knowledge without special capacity to teach is not the same as knowledge and capacity.’

[Michael]

and such exist why, in perforce the otherwise known as community of Tibetan Buddhists, that thereunto resides the commonly accepted principle in which due to the above mentioned explicts, only a few have the authority to teach.

But they want to learn what they imagine is to be learned

[Nichi]

A kinsman came to see Nasrudin from the country, and brought a duck. Nasrudin was grateful, had the bird cooked and shared it with his guest.

Presently another visitor arrived. He was a friend, as he said, "of the man who gave you the duck." Nasrudin fed him as well.

This happened several times. Nasrudin's home had become like a restaurant for out-of-town visitors. Everyone was a friend at some removes of the original donor of the duck.

Finally Nasrudin was exasperated. One day there was a knock at the door and a stranger appeared. "I am a friend of the friend of the friend of the man who brought you the duck from the country," he said.

"Come in,"said Nasrudin. They seated themselves at the table, and Nasrudin asked his wife to bring the soup. When the guest tasted it, it seemed to be nothing more than warm water.

"What sort of soup is this?" he asked the Mulla.

"That," said Nasrudin, "is the soup of the soup of the soup of the duck."


as collected by Idries Shah

 

[Nichi]

"Some people," said the Mulla to himself one day, "are dead when they seem to be alive. Others, again, are alive although they seem to be dead. How can we tell if a man is dead or he is alive?"

He repeated this last sentence so loudly that his wife heard. She said to him: "Foolish man! If the hands and feet are quite cold, you can be sure that he is dead."

Not long afterwards Nasrudin was cutting wood in the forest when he realized that his extremities were almost frozen by the bitter cold. "Death," he said, "now seems to be upon me. The dead do not cut wood, they lie down respectably, for they have no need of physical movement."

He lay down under a tree.

A pack of wolves, emboldened by their sufferings during that harsh winter, and thinking the man dead, descended upon the Mulla's donkey and ate it.

"Such is life!" the Mulla reflected: "one thing is conditional upon another. Had I been alive you would not have taken such liberties with my donkey."



as collected by Idries Shah

[Nichi]

Walking one evening along a deserted road, Mulla Nasrudin saw a troop of horsemen coming towards him. His imagination started to work; he saw himself captured and sold as a slave, or impressed into the army.

Narudin bolted, climbed a wall into a graveyard, and lay down in an open tomb. Puzzled by his stange behaviour, the men--honest travellers--followed him. They found him stretched out, tense and quivering.

"What are you doing in that grave? We saw you run away. Can we help you?"

"Just because you can ask a question does not mean that there is a straightforward answer to it," said the Mulla, who now realized what had happened. "It all depends upon your viewpoint. If you must know, however: I am here because of you, and you are here because of me."


as collected by Idries Shah

[Nichi]

Seeing a white shape in the garden in the half-light, Nasrudin asked his wife to hand him his bow and arrows. He hit the object, went out to see what it was, and came back almost in a state of collapse.

"That was a narrow shave. Just think. If I had been in that shirt of mine hanging there to dry, I would have been killed. It was shot right through the heart."


as collected by Idries Shah


 

[Nichi]

A man invited Nasrudin to go hunting with him, but mounted him on a
horse which was too slow. The Mulla said nothing. Soon the hunt outpaced him and was out of sight. It began to rain heavily, and there was no shelter. All the members of the hunt got soaked through. Nasrudin, however, as soon as the rain started, took off all his clothes and folded them. Then he sat down on the pile. As soon as the rain stopped, he dressed himself and went back to his host's house for lunch. Nobody could work out why he was dry. With all the speed of their horses they had not been able to reach shelter on that plain.

"It was the horse you gave me," said Nasrudin.

The next day he was given a fast horse and his host took the slow one. Rain fell again. The horse was so slow that the host got wetter than ever, riding at a snail's pace to his house. Nasrudin carried out the same procedure as before.

When he got back to the house he was dry.

"It is all your fault!" shouted the host. "You made me ride this terrible horse."

"Perhaps," said Nasrudin, "you did not contribute anything of your own to the problem of keeping dry."


as collected by Idries Shah

[Nichi]

One dark night two men met on a lonely road. "I am looking for a shop near here, which is called The Lamp Shop," said the first man.

"I happen to live near here, and I can direct you to it," said the second man.

"I should be able to find it by myself. I have been given the directions, and I have written them down," said the first man.

"Then why are you talking to me about it?"

"Just talking."

"So you want company, not directions?"

"Yes, I suppose that that is what it is."

"But it would be easier for you to take further directions from a local resident, having got so far: especially because from here onwards it is difficult."

"I trust what I have already been told, which has brought me thus far. I cannot be sure that I can trust anything or anyone else."

"So, although you once trusted the original informant, you have not been taught the means of knowing whom you can trust?"

"That is so."

"Have you any other aim?"

"No, just to find The Lamp Shop."

"May I ask why you seek a lamp shop?"

"Because I have been told on the highest authority that that is where they sypply certain devices which enable a person to read in the dark."

"You are correct, but there is a prerequisite, and also a piece of information. I wonder whether you have given them any thought."

"What are they?"

"The prerequisite to reading by means of a lamp is that you can already read."

"You cannot prove that!"

"Certainly not on a dark night like this."

"What is the 'piece of information?'"

"The piece of information is that The Lamp Shop is still where it always was, but that the lamps themselves have been moved somewhere else."

"I do not know what a 'lamp' is, but it seems obvious to me that The Lamp Shop is the place to locate such a device. That is, after all, why it is called a lamp shop."

"But a 'Lamp Shop' may have two different meanings, each opposed to the other. The meanings are: 'A place where lamps may be obtained,' and 'A place where lamps were once obtained, but which now has none.'"

"You cannot prove that!"

"You would seem like an idiot to many people."

"But there are many people who would call you an idiot. Yet perhaps you are not. You probably have an ulterior motive, sending me off to some place where lamps are sold by a friend of yours. Or perhaps you do not want me to have a lamp at all."

"I am worse than you think. Instead of promising you 'lamp shops' and allowing you to assume that you will find the answer to your problems there, I would first of all find out if you could read at all. I would find out if you were near such a shop. Or whether a lamp might be obtained for you in some other way."

The two men looked at each other, sadly, for a moment. Then each went his way.


as collected by Idries Shah

[Nichi]

When the Waters Were Changed
from ‘Tales of the Dervishes’ by Idries Shah


Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a
warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not
been specially hoarded, would disappear. It would then be renewed, with
different water, which would drive men mad.

Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and
then went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.

On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water.

When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this
man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.

At first he drank none of the new water, but went back to concealment, to
draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving, and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water, and became like the rest. Then he forgot all about his own store of special water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.

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