Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), Last week I drew your attention to one of many, \u2018Teaching Stories\u2019. This week I bring to your attention yet another teaching story which is extracted from an interesting and thought provoking work, \u2018The Idries Shah Anthology.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The King Without a Trade<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There was once a king who had forgotten the ancient advice of the sages that those who are born into comfort and ease have greater need for proper effort than anyone else. He was just a king, however, and a popular one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Journeying to visit one of his distant possessions, a storm blew up and separated his ship from its escort. The tempest subsided after seven furious days, the ship sank, and the only survivors of the catastrophe were the king and his small daughter, who had somehow managed to climb upon a raft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After many hours, the raft was washed upon the shore of a country which was completely unknown to the travellers. They were at first taken in by fishermen, who looked after them for a time, then said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018We are only poor people, and cannot afford to keep you. Make your way inland, and perhaps you may find some means of earning a livelihood.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanking the fisherfolk, and sad at heart that he was not able to enlist himself among them, the king started to wander through the land. He and the princess went from village to village, from town to town, seeking food and shelter. They were, of course, no better than beggars, and people treated them as such. Sometimes they had a few scraps of bread, sometimes dry straw in which to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every time the king tried to improve his condition by asking for employment, people would say,: \u2018What work can you do?\u2019 And he always found that he completely unskilled in whatever task he was required to perform, and had to take to the road again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In that entire country there were hardly any opportunities for manual work, since there were plenty of unskilled labourers. As they moved from place to place, the king realized more and more strongly that being a king without a country was a useless state. He reflected more and more often on the proverb in which the ancients have laid down:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018That only maybe regarded as your property which will survive a shipwreck.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n After three years of his miserable and futureless existence, the pair found themselves, for the first time, at a farm where the owner was looking for someone to tend his sheep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He saw the king and the princess and said: \u2018Are you penniless?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n They said that they were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Do you know how to herd sheep?\u2019 asked the farmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018No\u2019, said the king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018At least you are honest,\u2019 said the farmer, \u2018and so I will give you chance to earn a living.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n He sent them out with some sheep, and they soon learned that all they had to do was to protect them against wolves and keep them from straying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The king and the princess were given a cottage, and as the years passed the king regained some of his dignity, though not his happiness, and the princess blossomed into a young woman of fairylike beauty. As they only earned enough to keep themselves alive, the two were unable even to plan to return to their own country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It so happened that one day, the Sultan of that country was out hunting when he saw the maiden and fell in love with her. He sent his representatives to ask for her farther whether he would give her in marriage to the Sultan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Ho, pleasant,\u2019 said the courtier who had been sent to see him, \u2018the Sultan, my lord and master , asks for the hand of your daughter in marriage.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018What is his skill, and what is his work, and how can he earn a living?\u2019 asked the former king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Dolt! You peasants are all alike,\u2019 shouted the grandee. \u2018Do you understand that the king does not need to have work, that his skill is in managing kingdoms, that you have been singled out for an honour such as is ordinarily beyond any possible expectation of commoners?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018All I know,\u2019 said the shepherd-king, \u2018is that unless your master, Sultan or no Sultan, can earn his living, he is no husband for my daughter. And I know a thing or two about the value of skills.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n The courtier went back to his royal master and told him what the stupid peasant has said, adding: \u2018We must not be hard on these people, Sire, for they know nothing of the occupations of kings\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sultan, however, when he had recovered from his surprise, said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I am desperately in love with this shepherd\u2019s daughter, and I am therefore prepared to do whatever her father may direct in order to win her.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n So he left the empire in the hands of a regent, and apprenticed himself to a carpet-weaver. After a year or so, he had mastered the art of simple carpet-making. Taking some of his own handiwork to the shepherd-king\u2019s hut, he presented it to him and said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I am sultan of this country, desirous of marrying your daughter, if she will have me. Having received your message that you require a future son-in-law to possess useful skills, I have studied weaving, and these are examples of my work.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018How long did it take you to make this rug?\u2019 asked the shepherd-king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Three weeks,\u2019 said the sultan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018And when sold, how long could you live on its profit?\u2019 asked the shepherd-king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Three months,\u2019 answered the sultan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018You may marry my daughter, if she will accept you,\u2019 said the father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sultan was overjoyed, and his happiness was complete when the princess agreed to marry him. \u2018Your father, though he may be only a peasant, is a wise and shrewd man,\u2019 he told her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018A peasant may be as clever as a sultan,\u2019 said the princess, \u2018but a king, if he has the necessary experiences, may be as wise as the shrewdest peasant.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sultan and the princess were duly married, and the king, borrowing some money from his new son-in-law, was able to return to his own country, where he became known for evermore as the benign and sagacious monarch who never tired of encouraging each and every one of his subjects to learn a useful trade. <\/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