Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00043)

Hi all of you,

Here is part 3 of 4. (about 2 pages).
The article by Idries Shah "The Wisdom of Sufic Humor", taken from "Human Nature" April (1978)



Incidentally, a lot of diversionary activity such as musical assemblies, 
dressing up, and incantations -- well but erroneously know in the West and 
among ignorant people in the East as "spiritual" or "esoteric" -- originates 
in attempts to satisfy the demand for "real mysticism" by unsuitable people 
(or by suitable people who are thinking wrongly). Sometimes the only 
shortcoming is that they lack the right information.

One of the subjective attitudes that effectively keeps one from the 
possibility of mystic learning is a mind filled with thwarted acquisitive 
aspirations. People are greedy, but they are told that they should not be. 
So, all unknowing, they sometimes render avarice in the form of greed for 
"higher things." There is an excellent Western story that freezes this 
situation on a lower, illustrative level, allowing us to see the relative 
absurdity of meanness and also its comparative unproductivity.

There was once a miserly man from Aberdeen who was learning golf. His 
teacher suggested that his initials be put on the ball, so that anyone who 
found it could return the ball to the clubhouse where he might later claim 
it. The Aberdonian was interested. "Yes,' he said, "please scratch my 
initials, A.M.T., for Angus McTavish, on the ball. Oh, and if there is room, 
add M.D., as I am a physician." The instructor did this. Then McTavish 
scratched his head. "While you are about it," he said, "you might as well 
add, 'Hours,11:30 to 4' "

A lot of the stories that seem to be aimed against gurus are not really 
antiguru. They are only meant to remind us of ways in which real teachers 
can be distinguished from practitioners who are interested only in gathering 
tribes of followers. As an example, there is the one in which two mothers 
talk about their sons.

One says, "And how is your boy getting on as a guru?"
"Just fine," replies the second. "He has so many pupils that he can 
afford to get rid of some of the old ones."
"That's great," says the first. "My son is getting on so well that he 
can afford NOT to take on everyone who applies to him!"

One of the values of such narratives is seeing whether gurus themselves 
can laugh at these stories; if they cannot, then they should not be 
considered spiritual teachers at all, because they are so insecure. Paranoid 
behavior, too, is often seen in the manifestation of hostility towards such 
tales, when the listener thinks that he or she is being challenged by what 
sounds like an antiguru story. Would-be disciples who do not enjoy such 
jokes are often rejected by genuine Sufis.
GREED FOR HIGHER THINGS IS AS GREAT AN OBSTACLE TO MYSTIC LEARNING AS IS 
GREED FOR MONEY OR MATERIAL POSSESSIONS.
There is another story that infuriates some second - rate teachers:
One guru tells another, "Always say things that cannot be checked."
"Why?" asks the second guru.
"Because," replies the first guru, "if you say 'Mars is peopled by 
millions of undiscernible beings, and I have met them,' people will not di
spute it. But if you say, 'It is a nice day today,' some fool will always 
reply, 'But not as nice as it was yesterday'. And if you put up a sign 
saying WET PAINT, who will take you at your word? You can tell how few by 
the number of finger marks the doubters leave on it."

Rationalizations whereby people interested in psychological and 
spiritual things maintain, at the expense of truth, their version of how 
things are, produce situations in which these people have to be shown up as 
absurd. An old tale told in India has it that, on the evening of a wild-duck 
shoot, the follower of a guru went to get his blessing. This was no 
vegetarian guru, but a Tantric type with more than a dash of Kali, the 
goddess of destruction, in his thoughts. The blessing was given, but no 
ducks appeared at the shoot.

The disciple went back to the guru the next day. The guru asked him how 
he had got on: "I expect you shot many ducks?"
"No," the disciple answered, "but it was not the shortcoming of my aim, 
but rather that Mother Kali had decided to be merciful to the birds." 

Western psychology will not advance very far in the East while such 
mental mechanisms as rationalizations continue to be described as recent 
Western discoveries, for this knowledge has been common in the East for 
centuries. If we do not admit this, we miss the meaning of many valuable 
Eastern teachings.

People often express surprise that Sufis have for at least a thousand 
years insisted that scientific and scholastic methods are often blind to 
their own limitations. You may have to take the Sufis' word for this 
initially, but you can, little by little, taste the disabling subjectivity of 
many people who are often regarded as objective or scholarly repositories of 
wisdom.
ONE ABSURDITY, ADVANCED BY CONFUSED THINKERS, IS THAT SPIRITUALLY OR 
MYSTICALLY MINDED PEOPLE CANNOT THINK LUCIDLY.
I do not say that they are all like this, or that you will find in life an 
exact counterpart to the following joke, but it will enable you to identify 
the tendency when it crops up.

The scientist says to the logician, "I have determined statistically 
that all geniuses are totally vain, even if they oversimplify and don't talk 
much."
The logician answers, "Nonsense. Geniuses vain and terse? What about 
me?"

The absurdity of many assumptions of society often obscures the fact 
that these assumptions exist only to please those who make them, and are not 
meant to take anyone or any idea a stage further.
MENTAL MECHANISMS THAT ARE RECENT DISCOVERIES OF WESTERN SCIENTISTS HAVE BEEN 
KNOWN FOR CENTURIES IN THE EAST.
Sufis, like others in the field of education, use assumptions either as 
launching pads or as something to be challenged, not as dogma.

Look from a different perspective, for a moment, at what people regard 
as laudable and altruistic acts and thoughts. One day a Westerner was 
watching a Chinese gentleman burning bank notes before the tablets of his 
ancestors. The Westerner said, "How can your ancestors benefit from the 
smoke of paper money?"

The Chinese bowed courteously and said, "In the same way in which your 
dear departed relatives appreciate the flowers you put on their graves." Yet 
similar assumptions drench our spiritual thinking.

So, the Sufis say, there is nothing wrong or bad in doing something that 
gives you pleasure. But to think at the same time that the act is doing 
something else is, at best, irrelevant to human progress. All human progress 
comes through NOT thinking that one thing is, in fact, another; that is, 
through right judgment.

You can find lucid people who really can tell one thing from another, 
and are in fact able to separate the two. But generally when they manifest 
this ability in the form of behavior, people tend to think that they are 
either great sages, humorists, or idiots. My three collections of Nasrudin 
jokes give many such examples, partly to illustrate this characteristic and 
training, and partly to help you make it, as it were, your own property.



Part 4 of 4 follows shortly

from
M. Sufilight with peace...and love...

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