{"id":500,"date":"2022-08-21T10:12:29","date_gmt":"2022-08-21T10:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qsconsultants.in\/blog\/?p=500"},"modified":"2022-08-21T10:32:13","modified_gmt":"2022-08-21T10:32:13","slug":"the-wayward-princess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qsconsultants.in\/blog\/the-wayward-princess\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wayward Princess"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), as we begin today \u2018let us remember this about \u2018Attention\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week I bring to your attention a story titled \u2018The Wayward Princess<\/em>\u2019 from the book titled \u2018Tales of Dervishes\u2019 which is a compilation of tales recorded during the past thousand years. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Persian word dervish <\/strong>is generally considered to be derived from the verb der-vekhtan <\/strong>to wait at a door. The reference is to waiting before the door of enlightenment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wayward Princess<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CERTAIN king believed that what he had been taught, and what he believed, was right. In many ways he was a just man, but he was one whose ideas were limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day he said to his three daughters:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018All that I have is yours, or will be yours. Through me you obtained your life. It is my will which determines your future, and hence determines your fate.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dutifully and quite persuaded of the truth of this, two of the girls agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third daughter, however, said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Although my position demands that I be obedient to the laws, I cannot believe that my fate must always be determined by your opinions.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We shall see about that,\u2019 said the king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He ordered her to be imprisoned in a small cell, where she languished for years. Meanwhile the king and his obedient daughters spent freely of the wealth which would otherwise have been expended upon her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The king said to himself:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis girl lies in prison not by her own will, but by mine. This proves, sufficiently for any logical mind, that it is my will, not hers, which is determining her fate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people of the country, hearing of their princess’s situation, said to one another:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018She must have done or said something very wrong for a monarch, with whom we find no fault, to treat his own flesh and blood so.\u2019 For, they had not arrived at the point where they felt the need to dispute the king’s assumption of rightness in everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From time to time the king visited the girl. Although she was pale and weakened from her imprisonment, she refused to change her attitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally the king’s patience came to an end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Your continued defiance,\u2019 he said to her, ‘will only annoy me further, and seem to weaken my rights, if you stay within my realms. I could kill you; but I am merciful. I therefore banish you into the wilderness adjoining my territory. This is a wilderness, inhabited only by wild beasts and such eccentric outcasts who cannot survive in our rational society. There you will soon discover whether you can have an existence apart from that of your family, and, if you can, whether you prefer it to ours.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His decree was at once obeyed, and she was conveyed to the borders of the kingdom. The princess found herself set loose in a wild land which bore little resemblance to the sheltered surroundings of her upbringing. But she soon learned that a cave would serve for a house, that nuts and fruit came from trees as well as from golden plates, that warmth came from the Sun. This wilderness had a climate and a way of existing of its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After some time she had so ordered her life that she had water from springs, vegetables from the earth, fire from a smouldering tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Here,’ she said to herself, ‘is a life whose elements belong together, form a completeness, yet neither individually nor collectively do they obey the commands of my father the king.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day a lost traveller – as it happened, a man of great riches and ingenuity – came upon the exiled princess, fell in love with her, and took her back to his own country, where they were married.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a space of time, the two decided to return to the wilderness where they built a huge and prosperous city where their wisdom, resources and faith were expressed to their fullest possible extent, The ‘eccentrics’ and other outcasts, many of them thought to be madmen, harmonized completely and usefully with this many-sided life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city and its surrounding countryside became renowned throughout the entire world. It was not long before its power and beauty far outshone that of the realm of the princess’s father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the unanimous choice of the inhabitants, the princess and her husband were elected to the joint monarchy of this new and ideal kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At length the king decided to visit the strange and mysterious place which had sprung up in a wilderness, and which was, he heard, peopled at least in part by those whom he and his like despised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As, with bowed head, he slowly approached the foot of the throne upon which the young couple sat and raised his eyes to meet those whose repute of justice, prosperity and understanding far exceeded his own, he was able to catch the murmured words of his daughter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘You see, Father, every man and woman has his own fate and his own choice.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story from \u2018Tales of Dervishes\u2019 by Idries Shah<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am sure that you will enjoy reading this book; you can buy your copy from the following link:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tales of the Dervishes by Idries Shah<\/a><\/blockquote>