New Teaching Stories III
To find wisdom we need to go beyond the rational mind.
Before even religions were born people were telling stories to teach new generations, about essential aspects of life. The art of the teaching story was further developed by many spiritual traditions and religions. In modern times too often we teach in one-dimensional ways. Yet life is multilayered. I wrote these stories to help you see and embrace more of that.
The Prince and his Soulmate
Once a prince heard about an old wise man who seemed to be able to help people find their soul mate. This sage had helped two of his youth friends find theirs. One was now happily married to his soul mate and the other had found a friend for life, with whom he would have daily deep discussions on many matters. The prince got slightly jealous and asked the sage to also help him meet his soul mate. The sage told him, that he might not like it. The prince waived these objections and pressured the sage to agree.
Several days later the sage invited the prince to dress simple and follow him into a neighborhood of commoners. Here they entered a house where a whole family had gathered in a bedroom sitting around a bed, with someone laying in it. The prince noticed immediately a beautiful woman, with eyes full of tears, sitting next to the bed. Would this be his soul mate? But when this woman looked up he felt no connection with her at all. Then his eyes turned toward the person laying in the bed. It was a very old woman on the verge of dying. But her eyes. Her eyes were the clearest he’d ever seen and they seemed to look right through him. She reached for his hand and she held it just like that. The family gathered around the bed didn’t seem to mind. The prince felt a deep connection, yet at the same was repulsed by her old wrinkly body. His mind couldn’t handle it and after a short moment left the room. And once outside he felt a pain of loss he couldn’t describe, yet at the same time, felt he couldn’t get back in again. He walked up to the sage asked why he had done this to him. Why wasn’t his soulmate someone of his own age? The sage smiled with a sigh. “Because you aren’t ready yet. Only when you are willing to live a life true to yourself will you meet her again. That means you have to let go of your self-indulgences and learn to listen to your heart.” “What good will that do?” moaned the prince, “By the time I’ve learned that my soul mate will be dead and I will be lonely for life.” The sage shook his head in denial, “No. When you learn to live your true self, you’ll be able to find the right wife and your soulmate will be reborn as your daughter.”
Comment of the sage: “Only an open heart can help find a true soulmate.”
Comment of the fool: “My heart is open all the time, so where is mine!?”
What you seek is already present
One day a seeker went to a sage. The sage was sitting in the wind on a wide-open plain. The seeker asked the sage, “Can you tell me, why there is suffering?”
The sage smiled and gestured around her. The man looked around and saw nothing that gave a clue.
The seeker asked, “Then tell me, why are some powerful and others not?”
The sage smiled and gestured around her. The man quickly scanned the area. He still could not see anything of interest and turned back to the sage.
The seeker asked, “Then tell me, where do I find true wisdom?”
The sage smiled and gestured around her.
The seeker got frustrated, and said, “Look I am just a beginning seeker, and I need some help here.”
The sage smiled and gestured around her.
Comment of the sage: Whatever the topic is, it is present here and now.
Comment of the fool: Better hammer it down, next time it happens.
Same But Different
“So, every teaching story has more than five layers of meaning?” the student asked.
“So, what of it?” said his friend, a fellow student.
“Yeah, what of it?” said the master.
They both look at the master. He looks at his friend. “Wasn’t that what you were saying?”
“So, I says it too.” The master says. The boys stare back at the master.
He winks at the boys, “Same, but different.”
Comment of the sage: I dunno about those layers, but those boys are still learning.
Comment of the fool: Yeah, what of it?
Taking life serious.
One day two man on their way to work, see a man dancing on a flat roof.
They stop and look at him in wonder.
“Shouldn’t you be working?” shouts one of them.
“Shouldn’t you take life more serious?” shouts the other.
The man on the roof dances on and shouts back, while doing so: “If you take life serious, better get rid of those stones dragging you down.”
The two men on the street shrug and move on. They could not see any stones they were carrying.
Comment of the sage: Life is too serious, to be taken too seriously.
Comment of the fool: Stop stealing lines and join the dance!
The Teachings in the Park
One day a foreign seeker came to Istanbul to find her Sufi master, because a voice had told her so. The voice had said she’d have to go sit on such and such bench and wait there for her master, as yet unbeknown to her. She sat on this bench in the park, opposite of a café across the street. There she started reading a book, while waiting for her master to turn up. On the third day, just when she finished the book a small boy brought her a letter. It said, “Reading the book you missed a thousands lessons right in front of you. The boy with the dog, the elderly woman with her cane, the teenage girls with their phones, the three brothers in a fight, the loving parents, the crows in the park. All the lessons you could have observed in any of these, and many more, are gone now. Come back in three years.”
Three years later the same foreigner sat on the same bench and started waiting. She observed many things that made her richer. Then shortly after dark a well trimmed man, dressed in shiny black sat on the other side of the bench. He had a razor thin smile. “Good, will you come with me?” “No,” said the waiting seeker, “for I can see that you are a vampire and will suck me dry.” With a sigh and his thin smile the vampire stood up and left.
The next day in de middle of the day a beautiful young man, with bright black eyes and brilliant white teeth came to sit with her on the bench. “Are you here to follow my teachings?” said the golden boy. The young woman shook her head. “No, I see you are a young masculine online teacher followed by many people, mainly girls. But they don’t follow your wisdom, they follow your radiation of beauty and success. You’re not whom I’m here for.” And the beautiful teacher smirked disappointed and left.
The next day early in the morning a little old beggar sat a little too close to her on the bench. From his breath the woman noticed that the man was already drunk. “You want to learn a big lesson from me, girl?” said the drunkard in broken English. The foreigner looked down on the drunkard, and kindly shook her head. “No, sir, I’m sorry. You are here to take advantage of me, for my money, rather than teach me. You could have been wise, but threw it away.” The old man hung his head. “True that. Very perceptive.” And he wandered away.
That same day, shortly after noon a big woman loaded with shopping bags came sit on the other end of the bench. The woman smiled at the foreigner and started talking in Turkish. The foreign seeker neighed her head kindly and raised her shoulders to help her understand she didn’t speak her language. The Turkish woman smiled back at her and offered her some dates. After a short hesitation she kindly and gladly accepted. The Turkish woman smiled at her and left.
At sundown, an elderly man arose from a table at the café across the street and came to sit next to her on the bench. The man had the clearest eyes the foreign woman had ever seen. “It’s not your perception, young lady,” the man from the café began, “You’ve seen through all of them, and let them go. But with your sharp perception, you also rejected all the lessons they brought. You indeed didn’t need to go with the vampire. That was smart. Yet even sitting with him on the bench, you could have deepened your insight into how you sometimes feed on others. Also with the golden boy, you didn’t take enough time. With him, you could have learned how you still desire your own version of fame and beauty. By rejecting the beggar, you missed what chances you still throw away. And you thought the woman with the shopping bags, who didn’t speak your language, would have no lessons for you. But she carries her duties with patience and kindness in ways you are only now beginning to learn. It is, when you accepted the dates she offered you, your heart started to open.”
The foreign seeker was taken aback. All blood had drained from her face. The elderly man patted her knees and rose up. “That was all my teaching for you.” “What eh?” said the foreigner. “You don’t need me anymore,” said the man warmly spreading his arms wide, “From now on the whole world can be your teacher.” Everywhere around her, a living world full of noises, people, birds, nature, life rushed into her as pure experience. After some deep breaths, the foreigner neighed her head towards the man from the café. He winked back and walked away. Their ways parted and they never saw each other again. Yet they left each other as friends anyway.
Comment of the sage: The world is a teaching mirror.
Comment of the fool: Woomph. I’ve yet to eat and I’m already full.
Judgments
“Knowing what must be done, does away with fear.” ~ Rosa Parks
JUDGEMENTS
“Knowing what must be done, does away with fear.” ~ Rosa Parks
A woman in Iran is brought before an Islamic State tribunal for betraying the Iranian State with indecent behaviour. The state prosecutor calls her a sinner. He accuses her of harassing men with indecency and freely offering social judgments against the Iranian government.
When the judge gives her the time to defend herself she bursts. She takes off her headscarf and waves her long lustrous hair, and says: “This is natural beauty. Anyone thinking of indecency rules or sex while watching it is a sinner within and betrayer of the Islamic ideology too.” Then she sits down. The whole audience and the court listens and watches in shock. Men stare, or stare demonstratively not, at her hair. This woman has for sure crossed all the lines.
Then the judge rises. He shakes and trembles. He cries like a man in despair and then falls to his knees. While wailing he moves towards the woman on his knees. “Thank you for opening the eyes of the court, thank you for exposing us as sinners and losers who hide behind a veil of power and revellers in self-justification that bully everything that is other. Thank you for showing the same guts to break the laws, as we did in the Islamic revolution, for something you believe in.” When he reaches her he embraces her knees and cries. The whole court and everyone in the audience are flabbergasted. The woman sits frozen and looks at the judge. She puts her scarf back on.
Then the judge rises like nothing happens and demands the release of the woman. The other members of the court rise to protest his judgment. The judge looks with fire in his eyes at them. “If there is just the smallest grain of hate against this woman or revelling in power within yourself, then you are not part of the Islamic victory, but part of a new tyranny. If there is but one small part in you either lusting or hating this woman, you show me that you cannot control your own emotions. If so, how then can we then ever trust you to control your thoughts honestly when sitting in judgment?” The men of the court stare at him. The prosecutor wants to rise to say something but the judge stops him, “And I will wail on your lap too until you too will understand,” he follows. The woman is hastily released.
A few days after that, the judge is removed from office and never seen again.
Addition: It is whispered this story though is shared all over the country. A few will add it’s not the woman, but the revolution that has been judged. Some whisper the Judge was a Sufi, others think the woman was one too or became one because of this event. There are even some who claim the woman was a Sufi master and the Judge her student. Some say everyone present in the courtroom who had an open heart was changed for the better after this. Others say this would never have happened in real life and is just a story.
Comment of the sage: “One is free in what one can play with.”
Comment of the fool: “Now there’s a woman I’d long to meet.”
NB: Some stories were published before and re-edited here.
NB: If you like teaching stories and never met Mulla Nasruddin, start here.
