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 story which is extracted from an interesting and thought provoking work, \u2018World Tales\u2019 by Idries Shah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018World Tales,\u2019 is divided into five volumes and contains stories from great works like Panchatantra<\/em>, Thousand and One Nights, <\/em>Straparola, Boccaccio, Chaucer and Shakespeare and a dozen others which now form the basis of the classic literature of Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t Count Your Chickens<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Once upon a time there lived a woman called Truhana. Not being very rich, she had to go yearly to the market to sell honey, the precious product of her hive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Along the road she went, carrying the jar of honey upon her head, calculating as she walked the money she would get for the honey. \u2018First,\u2019 she thought, \u2018I will sell it, and buy eggs. The eggs I shall set under my fat brown hens, and in time there will be plenty of little chicks. These in turn will become chickens, and from the sale of these, lambs could be bought.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Truhana then began to imagine how she could become richer than her neighbours, and look forward to marrying well her sons and daughters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trudging along, in the hot sun, she could see her fine sons and daughter in-law, and how the people would say that it was remarkable how rich she had become, who was once so poverty-stricken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the influence of these pleasurable thoughts, she began to laugh heartily, and preen herself, when, suddenly, striking the jar with her hand, it fell from her head and smashed upon the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seeing this, she was as cast down as she had been excited, on seeing all her dreams lost for illusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n World Tales – Idries Shah<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many traditional tales have a surface meaning (perhaps just a socially uplifting one) and a secondary, inner significance, which is rarely glimpsed consciously, but which nevertheless acts powerfully upon our 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