How to Get out of Trouble

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 joke titled ‘How to get out of Trouble’ from the book titled ‘Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin’. Mulla (Master) Nasrudin is the classical figure devised by the dervishes partly for the purpose of halting for a moment situations in which certain states of mind are made clear.

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.

How to get out of Trouble

A man had fallen between the rails in an Underground station when Nasrudin came along
one afternoon. People were crowding around, all trying to get him out before a train ran him over. They were shouting, ‘Give me your hand!’ But the man would not reach up.

The Mulla elbowed his way through the crowd and leant over to the man. ‘Friend,’ he said, ‘what
is your profession?’


‘I am an income-tax inspector,’ gasped the man.

‘In that case,’ said Nasrudin, ‘take my hand!’ The man immediately grasped the Mulla’s hand
and was hauled to safety.


Nasrudin turned to the open-mouthed audience. ‘Never ask a tax man to give you anything, you
fools,’ he said, and walked away.

Joke from ‘Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin’ 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!