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 ‘The Kashkul’ from the book titled ‘Wisdom of the Idiots’ here the stories contain several levels of meaning and work like psychological mirrors in which the reader may see himself and reality reflected, and come to better understand both.
The movements of the characters in these stories portray psychological processes, and the story becomes a working blueprint of those processes.
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.
The Kashkul
It is related that a dervish once stopped a king in the street. The king said: How dare you, a man of no account, interrupt the progress of your sovereign?’
The dervish answered:
‘Can you be a sovereign if you cannot even fill my kashkul, the begging-bowl?’
He held out his bowl, and the king ordered it to be filled with gold.
But, no sooner was the bowl seen to be full of coins than they disappeared, and the bowl seemed to be empty again.
Sack after sack of gold was brought, and still the amazing bowl devoured coins.
‘Stop!’ shouted the king, for this trickster is emptying my treasury!’
‘To you I am emptying your treasury, said the dervish, but to others I am merely illustrating a truth. And the truth?’ asked the king.
‘The truth is that the bowl is the desires of man, and the gold what man is given. There is no end to man’s capacity to devour without being in any way changed. See, the bowl has eaten nearly all your wealth, but it is still a carved sea-coconut, and has not partaken of the nature of gold in any respect.
‘If you care’, continued the dervish, to step into this bowl, it will devour you, too. How can a king, then, hold himself of being of any account?’
Story from ‘Wisdom of The Idiots’ 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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