by T.L. James of MarsBlog. Part of our weekly Sufi Wisdom series.
Nasrudin had some good news for the King, and after a great deal of difficulty managed to gain an audience -- although by tradition every subject theoretically had the right of immediate access to the Court.Superficially, the tale is a wry account of the wages of greed -- the chamberlain, led by tradition to expect that a positive reward would be given to the bringer of good news, instead gets a whipping for his corrupt bargain.The King was pleased with what he had been told. 'Choose your own reward.' he said.
'Fifty lashes,' said Nasrudin.
Puzzled, the King ordered that Nasrudin be beaten.
When twenty-five strokes had been administered, Nasrudin called: 'Stop!'
'Now,' he said, 'bring in my partner, and give him the other half of the reward. The chamberlain, Your Majesty, would not allow me to see you unless I would swear to give him exactly half of anything that I got as a result of my good news.'
But what is the deeper meaning here?
What seems to be a simple tale of the wages of greed as usual has another layer of meaning
On the most common-sense level, it's a cautionary tale about knowing the person you are bargaining with before entering into a bargain with them. There's also the humour element of the vizier, the stock bad guy villain of those cultures, getting his. A very useful and amusing parable in Turkic, Arab, and Persian cultures for a whole bunch of reasons - and so the story is sure to get passed around and endure.
Memetically, that's job 1. Hence Shah's frequent point that Sufi tales and methods are designed for particular times, places, cultures and won't work the same way elsewhere if they're just imported willy-nilly.
Now, to deeper levels...
Who's the King? When I see "King" in Sufi stories, my first response is to substitute "G-d" and see what happens.
"See the King"... in that context, it's access to Allah and Allah's favour.
"Vizier"... Well, the usual gatekeepers to Allah are religious leaders. Especially the ones who preach (implictly or otherwise) "do as I say and Allah will smile on you" - or the converse "do as I say or Allah will punish you."
"Reward"... Spiritual reward. They tell the congregant what to do/ not to do, the congregant does it, Allah rewards the faithful congregant and also the religious leader. A common script.
So what's the problem with this?
Well, that script rests on a bargain. The follower foregoes a direct personal experience of Allah, except through another. Indeed, the story's relationship is mostly between Nasruddin and the vizier - the King is rather incidental.
In return for this bargain, the follower's greed for religious reward is satisfied, and so is the greed of the religious leader. Note that "greed" need not be linked to money, though humanity has certainly seen the greed for spiritual reward used to further that end as well.
To the Sufis, who focus strongly on (a) getting people beyond their conditioning; and (b) experiencing Allah in spirit and then in actuality, the above bargain is anathema because it creates a relationship with Allah that's missing both of these things. To a Sufi, this would be a punishment. Which is the meaning of Nasruddin's choice.
Now, the giving of the punishment to the vizier. This serves 2 purposes.
On one level, it's a swipe at the religious leaders who act this way, and so prevent their flock from encountering the truth of the religion and Allah directly. They're ripping their followers off, and one day they'll be called to account for it by Allah.
On another level, look at the student/shaykh relationship in Sufiism. Utter closeness and devotion, a guru relationship. I can read this 2 ways as well.
[1] The shaykh's job is to make the student ready to encounter Allah, not to get in the way of that encounter or act as a gateway. That's a tough line to walk in a guru relationship, and the story reminds them of the price of failure and of any ego in the shaykh.
[2] There is a sense in which the shaykh/student relationship is a gateway, in the sense that without the shaykh, the student cannot in fact get there on their own because they can't fix themselves. Shaykhs try, but no-one has a 100% success rate and sometimes their students will be "led to the King" and still ask for the wrong things. Which is painful for everybody. Viewed from that aspect, this story is a somewhat rueful tale transmitted by the shaykhs among themselves.
My thoughts, anyway...
It's much simpler. Revenge costs, and you'd better be prepared to pay up!
Good one, and true.
Sufi stories often have a censor like figure keeping the teacher away from the self (like the border guard in the wheelbarrow story). The king often represents the self, and Nasruddin the Sufi teacher.
My guess is that it represents how a Sufi teacher uses the greed and prejudice of the mind as a weapon against itself.
There is a very famous Sufi story.
An emperor was coming out of his palace for his morning walk when he met a
beggar. He asked the beggar, "What do you want?"The beggar laughed and said, "You are asking as if you can fulfill my desire!"The king was offended. He said, "Of course I can fulfill your desire. What is it? u just tell me."And the beggar said, "Think twice before you promise anything."The beggar was no ordinary beggar, he was the emperor's past-life Master.And he had promised in that life, "I will come and try to wake you in your next life. This life you have missed, but I will come again." But the king had forgotten completely--who remembers past lives? So he insisted, "I will fulfill anything you ask. I am a very powerful emperor; what can you
possibly desire that I cannot give to you?" The beggar said, "It is a very simple desire. You see this begging bowl? Can u fill it with something?" The emperor said, "Of course!" He called one of his viziers and told him,"Fill this man's begging bowl with money." The vizier went and got some money and poured it into the bowl . . . and it disappeared. And he poured more and more, and the moment he would pour it, it would disappear. And the begging bowl remained always empty. The whole palace gathered. By and by the rumor went throughout the capital, and a huge crowd gathered. The prestige of the emperor was at stake. He said to his viziers, "If the whole kingdom is lost I am ready to lose it, but I cannot be defeated by this beggar." Diamonds and pearls and emeralds . . . his treasuries were becoming empty. That begging bowl seemed to be bottomless. Everything that was put into
it--everything!--immediately disappeared, went out of existence. Finally it was evening, and people were standing there in utter silence. The king dropped at the feet of the beggar and admitted his defeat. He said, "Just tell me one thing. You are victorious--but before you leave, just fulfill my curiosity. What is this begging bowl made of?" The beggar laughed and said, "It is made of the human mind. There is no secret . . . it is simply made of human desire." This understanding transforms life. Go into one desire-what is the mechanism of it? First there is great excitement, great thrill, adventure. You feel a great kick. Something is going to happen, you are on the verge of it. And then u have the car, you have the yacht, you have the house, you have the woman . . . and suddenly all is meaningless again. What happens? Your mind has dematerialized it. The car is standing in the drive, but there is no excitement any more. The excitement was only in getting it . . . you became so drunk with the desire that you forgot your inner nothingness. Now--the desire fulfilled, the car in the drive, the woman in your bed, the money in your bank account--again excitement disappears. Again the emptiness is there, ready to eat you up. Again you have to create another desire to escape from this yawning abyss.
That's how one goes on moving from one desire to another desire. That's how
one remains a beggar. Your whole life proves it again and again--every desire frustrates. And when the goal is achieved you will need another desire. The day you understand that desire as such is going to fail comes the turning point in your life.