Ancient Wisdom

'Nasrudin' and his neighbor were comparing stories of financial ruin. ‘You may be poor, Mulla,’ said the other man, ‘but I owe so much that I shall be unable to repay the amount during my lifetime. My children will soon have to shoulder the burden of my debts and they, in turn, will be unable to pay. And so the debt will remain unpaid until the Angel of Death comes to rip my soul from me.’ ‘If I were you,’ suggested ' Nasiruddin', ‘I would stop repayments immediately and hope that the Angel of Death dies first.’

There was once an honest man, who had never, in his life, taken advantage of others. He was kind and hard-working, but he had not achieved any success in life. This man, whose name was Single mind, was constantly being betrayed and exploited, but this did not trouble him particularly, because - quite rightly - he knew that his own straight forwardness could not be corrupted by the villainy of others. Single mind practiced charity and generosity and kindness to the full extent of his capacity, reposing his trust in the justice which would follow such a life: as he was convinced it must. But he was not tranquil in mind. So he went to a Sufi and asked him what to do. The Sufi said: 'Brother; honesty, hard work, kindness: these are all things which are of the utmost importance to humankind, if realization is to be attained. But you must be sure that you are really honest; that you are, indeed not offsetting your generosity by an equally harmful greed for obstinacy in following your own...

  A King was once becoming impatient with a lecture by a Sufi, and made up his mind to score a point or two off him. Thus it was that, as soon as the Sufi had said, for - it seemed to the King - the thousandth time that ‘hundreds were blind and even those who were not blind could not understand what they saw’, he held up his hand. ‘As King of this country I insist that you match allegation with demonstration. On pain of death, show me these people who are blind, and those who are not, but will still not understand,’ he said. ‘Certainly, your Majesty’ said the Sufi. ‘And I will give even you, a mere king, the honor of taking part in my demonstration.’ ‘What do I have to do?’ asked the King. ‘You will sit for one day in the bazaar, the local market, in your robes and wearing your crown, hammering upon a brass tray.’ And so the King sat there all day with the Sufi beside him. Every few minutes someone stopped and asked, ‘What are you doing?’ and the Sufi, sitting nearby, took down his...

' Nasrudin’s donkey ran towards a pool to drink. The sides were very steep, and it was just about to over-balance and fall in when frogs began to croak loudly from the water.  This so frightened the ass that it reared up, and by this means was able to save itself.  ' Nasrudin ' threw a handful of money into the water, crying, ‘Frogs, you did me a good turn. Here is something for you to celebrate with.* 4