Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), Last week I drew your attention to, \u2018Teaching Stories\u2019, what they are and what is their utility. This week let me bring to your attention a teaching story which is extracted from an interesting and thought provoking work, by Idries Shah, \u2018The Idries Shah Anthology.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The High Cost Of Learning<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There was once a sage who set up business in the market place as a seller of knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of his customers was a young man, newly married, who wanted to test out this strange form of commerce. \u2018How much is your knowledge, if I buy it piece by piece?\u2019 He asked the wise man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018It can cost as much or as little as you can offer, but the advice will be proportionate to the price in its usefulness,\u2019 was the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Very well,\u2019 said the young man, I\u2019ll try a piece for one copper coin.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018The advice is,\u2019 replied the sage, Don\u2019t eat more than you have to, and get exercise \u2013 or you\u2019ll get fat!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Nothing cheap without reason,\u2019 thought the customer to himself. Aloud he said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018What can I have for five pieces of copper?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018For five I can tell you that if you neglect your duty, you may lose eighteen years of your life!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I shall certainly try not to have that happen to me; but what will you tell me for one silver piece?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018For that I can tell you that if you attempt to act without a proper basis and lack of understanding, you will ruin your life.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Partly out of politeness to the older man, whom he now thought of as perhaps a little mad, or perhaps just a minor swindler, the youth thanked him and said to himself, \u2018Perhaps what I have learnt today is to follow my own good sense and not to try to buy advice when I should gain wisdom by experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He put the whole matter out of his mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not long afterwards, the young man was walking along a street when he saw a beggar, who said to him: \u2018It is your duty to give alms, and I call upon you in the name of that duty, so that good shall befall you and so that evil shall be averted!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of giving the man anything, he started to walk faster, muttering, \u2018May God give you something!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n It so happened that his increasing his speed brought him face to face with a military patrol whose task it was to capture strong young men for the army, for the king of his country was waging a war. He was seized and spent the next eighteen years in fighting and captivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This gave him a great deal of time to think, and the words about the eighteen years which would be taken from his life if he failed his duty now bore strongly upon his mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally he was ransomed, and found himself back in his native town, looking for the house where he had left his wife, such a long time before. No sooner had he approached the building than he saw a woman, whom he recognised as his wife, going through the front door with a young man, holding him by the hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The blood rushed to his head, and he put his hand to his sword, thinking, \u2018I might as well die for murder, but I cannot stand the sight of this infidelity!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then he remembered the words of the sage: \u2018If you attempt to act without proper basis and lack of understanding, you will ruin your life.\u2019 At that moment he could not see that there was any lack of understanding, or that there was no proper basis for killing the miscreants. But somehow he restrained himself, just in case there was some better course of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All that day he walked about, tortured by the thought that his wife had played him false, or, at least, had given him up for dead and taken a new husband or a lover. When evening fell, he went back to the house and lurked by the lighted window, almost resolved to commit the double murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside the room he could see the couple sitting together on a sofa. Then he heard the words of his wife: \u2018I have been told that another ship has arrived in port, from foreign parts. Tomorrow morning you should go, my son, and enquire from the sailors, as we have done for almost twenty years, if there is any news of your father.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n Thus it was that five pieces of copper were shown to the price of eighteen years of suffering; while one silver piece was the value of three lives, although, without an understanding of how life works, nobody would have suspected it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Idries Shah Anthology – Idries Shah<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This anthology is intended to provide a basic sample of his (Idries Shah\u2019s) work, an essential reader, to allow people to do exactly what he would have wished them to do: to think for themselves and to make up their own minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can buy your copy from any of the bookstores near you or via any on-line portal selling books or also by clicking the following link: <\/p>\n\n\n\n