The One Without The Other

Once a man went to 'Ahmad Yasavi', the Sufi master of Turkestan, and said:

"Teach me without books and let me learn to understand without the intervention of a master between me and Truth, for humans are frail, and reading books does not enlighten me.'

'Yasavi' said:

"Do you seek to eat without a mouth, or to digest without a stomach? Perhaps you would like to walk without feet and buy without paying... I could do as you ask only if you could first dispense with physical organs, as you wish to avoid those things which have been devised for the spiritual organs.

'Just think for a moment whether you could use food without an apparatus, approach the Sufi without having heard of them in the words you so dislike, desire wisdom without a source appreciate to your state.

It may be an amusing pastime to think of learning without books as a basis, and experiencing without a teacher. So it is an amusing pastime to think of magic and miracle. Aside from amusement, what of the permanent yield of the activity?"