Theos-Talk Archives (November 2003 Message tt00016)

Hallo everyone,


Here are a few stories about the notorius Mulla Nasrudin.
Nasrudin being a special character from the Middle Eastern parts 
of this physical Planet.

Mulla (i.e. Master) Nasrudin - sometimes seen together with Khidr - is the 
classical figure devised by the initiates partly for the purpose of halting 
for a moment situations in which certain states of mind are made clear. 
The Nasrudin stories, known throughout the Middle East, constitute 
(in the manuscript The Subtleties of the Incomparable Nasrudin) on of the
strangest achievements in the history of metaphysics. Superficially,
most of the Nasrudin stories may be used as jokes. They are told
and retold endlessly in the teahouses and the caravansarais, in the
homes and on the radio waves, of Asia. But it is in herent in the
Nasrudin story that it may be understood at any one of many depths.
There is the joke, the moral - and the little extra which brings the
consciousness of the potential mystic a little further on the way to
realization.

Nobody really knows who Nasrudin was, where he lived, or when.
This is truely in character, for the whole intention is to provide a
figure who cannot really be characterized, and who is timeless.
It is the MESSAGE, and NOT the man, which is important to the 
Theosophists or the Sufis, because they KNOW. This has not 
prevented people from providing him with spurious history, and 
even at tomb! Scholars, against whose pedantry in his stories 
Nasrudin frequently emerges triumphant, have even tried to take his - 
Subtleties - to pieces in the hope of finding appropiate biographical 
material.

If we look at some of the classical Nasrudin stories in as detached 
a way as possible, we soon find that the wholly scholastic approach
is the last one that the Theosophist or Sufi will allow 
(think about Blavatsky):

Nasrudin ferying a pedant across a piece of rough water, said
something ungrammatical to him. "Have you never studied
grammar?" asked the scholar.
"No."
"Then half of your life has been wasted."
A few minutes later Nasrudin turned tot he passenger. "Have you
ever learned how to SWIM?"
"No. Why?"
"Then ALL your life is wasted - we are sinking!"

This is the emphasis upon Theosophy or Sufism as a practical 
activity, denying that the formal intellect can arrive at TRUTH, and that 
pattern-thinking derived from the familiar world can be applied to TRUE
reality, which moves in another dimension.

This is brought out even more forcefully in a - wry - tale set in a teahouse;
a Theosophical term for a meeting place of Theosophists. A monk enters
and states:
"My master taught me to spread the word that mankind will never
be fullfilled until the man who has NOT been wronged is as indignant
about a wrong as the man who actually HAS been wronged."

The assembly is momentarily impressed. Then Nasrudin speaks:
"My Master taught ME that nobody at all should become indignant
about anything until he is sure that what he thinks is a wrong is in
fact a wrong - and not a blessing in disguise!"
(Now, where is my friend Bart ? ---- Smile.)




from
M. Sufilight with some swimming Nasrudin tombs...and a smile...

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