Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), as we begin today ‘let us remember this about ‘Attention’.
Our life experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to. Attention: is important and most of the times we are so indifferent to it. It is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. We feed the hunger blindly. Once the mechanism is brought to our attention and we begin to study it, it is as if a veil has been stripped off ordinary life, and we become freer in our action and choices.
This week I bring to your attention a story titled ‘Bread and Jewels’ from the book titled ‘Tales of Dervishes’ which is a compilation of tales recorded during the past thousand years.
The Persian word dervish is generally considered to be derived from the verb der-vekhtan to wait at a door. The reference is to waiting before the door of enlightenment.
Bread and Jewels
A King once decided to give away a part of his wealth by disinterested charity. At the same time he wanted to watch what happened to it. So he called a baker whom he could trust and told him to bake two loaves of bread. In the first was to be baked a number of jewels and in the other, nothing but flour and water.
These were to be given to the most and least pious people whom the baker could find.
The following morning two men presented themselves at the oven. One was dressed as a dervish and seemed most pious, though he was in reality a mere pretender. The other, who said nothing at all, reminded the baker of a man whom he did not like, by a coincidence of facial resemblance.
The baker gave the bread with the jewels in it to the man in the dervish robe, and the ordinary loaf to the second man. As soon as he got his loaf the false dervish felt it and weighed it in his hand. He felt the jewels, and to him they seemed like lumps in the loaf, unblended flour. He weighed the bread in his hand, and the weight of the jewels made it seem to him to be too heavy. He looked at the baker, and realized that he was not a man to trifle with. So he turned to the second man and said: ‘Why not exchange your loaf for mine? You look hungry, and this one is larger.’
The second man, prepared to accept whatever befell, willingly exchanged loaves.
The king, who was watching through a crack in the bakehouse door, was surprised, but did not realize the relative merits of the two men.
The false dervish got the ordinary loaf. The king concluded that Fate had intervened to keep the dervish protected from wealth. The really good man found the jewels and was able to make good use of them. The king could not interpret this happening.
I did what I was told to do,’ said the baker.
‘You cannot tamper with Fate,’ said the king.
‘How clever I was!’ said the false dervish.
Story from ‘Tales of Dervishes’ compiled by Idries Shah
I am sure that you will enjoy reading this book; you can buy your copy from the following link:
Enjoy reading it with your family, friends and near and dear one’s.
Before concluding today’s episode please pay attention to these words of a Storyteller.
My stories require, at this stage, no extra commentary, imaginings, or guesswork by you, me, or anyone else. The very worst would be that of moralizing. To explain away is to forget. Thus, let the stories which you can remember do their own work by their very diversity. Familiarize yourself with them.
Concluding today’s post and podcast episode, I thank all who take time out and read (the blog post) and listen to the episodes each week. For those who listen and have not subscribed to the podcast I suggest you do and click on the bell icon so that you can be notified for all the new episodes that get uploaded every week.
Namaste.
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