A Sufi Fairytale

This story, found at Ask Alana, is about a clever teacher and how he cleverly ignites motivation in a group of lethargic people.

The Palese were a seafaring people who for some reason or other had become very lethargic. They still had boats, but they never actually managed to set sail - there was always something better to do. At the same time, though, the Palese were very proud, and considered themselves the greatest seafaring nation in the world.

The Palese lived on an almost barren island; what food plants there were, yielded crops of very poor quality. Across the sea, however, there was an archipelago covered in exotic fruit trees and palms that bore delicious fruit. The Palese knew this from old legends, and they had many teachers who, even though they had never been to the islands, told wondrous stories about their splendor, and gave detailed accounts of the great journeys of the past, and of how one could get there even today.

One day, a new teacher appeared. This teacher, too, was talking about the islands, but his tales felt different from the tales the others told. When he described the flavor of the fruits, and the splendor of the trees, it seemed to the listeners as though they could actually smell the flowers of the trees and perceive the taste of their fruit on their tongues.

There was one thing, though, that was disturbing about this teacher: one day he would say that the archipelago consisted of five islets, another day he would say that there were seven; one day he would say that they formed an arch, another day, that they formed a circle, and so on. His descriptions were never consistent; the only thing consistent about him was the vividness and seeming authenticity of his talks.

The other teachers were very annoyed with this man, and they said things like: "Actually, everyone knows that there are six islands, and they form a rectangle."

The new teacher created such a stir and controversy, and at the same time aroused such a profound longing in his listeners, that in the end something almost unprecedented happened: after years of dreaming about the archipelago, sitting in front of their houses, drawing maps, discussing winds and currents and sailing routes, doing anything but actually taking to the sea, some of the Palese began to look at their boats again.

They realized that the boats were real, and that they could leave the shore on them. Some of them traveled in the direction the teacher had seemed to them to be indicating, and, after a long and perilous journey, many of them found the islands. They brought back delicious fruit and shared it with their neighbors.

At that point, nobody was interested any more in whether there were six, seven or eight islands, and whether they formed an arch or a rectangle.

And in time, even though the teacher had never given a description of the archipelago that he had not at another time contradicted, the Palese decided that in fact he had been the only one of their teachers who had explored and known the archipelago himself.

He was remembered for millennia as one of the greatest of teachers, because in his compassion he had made people dissatisfied and curious enough to try to find the archipelago for themselves.

Copyright © by Jasmine Way

This Sufi Story about motivation and was inspired by the living thought of Sufi poets and teachers such as Kahlil Gibran and Jalaluddin Rumi. These brief parables aim to provide an insight into the psychology of the path. A world where effect comes before cause and silence is the key to being heard.

In a sense, no-sense is the only sense.

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen

A thief entered the little hut of a Zen Master,

but discovered there was nothing to steal.

The Zen Master discovered the thief.

"You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler,

"and you should not return empty-handed.

Please take my clothes as a gift."

The thief was bewildered,

but he took the clothes and slunk away.

The Zen Master sat naked, watching the moon.

"Poor fellow," he mused,

"I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon.

- Traditional Zen Koan

The Trees and the Bees

There was once a forest of trees, which lived a magnificent and beautiful life. Due to the natural development of their surroundings, the trees "climaxed," and then gradually died, giving way to smaller species that lived below them. Various groups of bees made their nests in the hollow trunks of these dead trees and became very happy making honey. Gradually, the trees, one by one, began to decay and fall.


The various groups of bees debated amongst themselves why this should be and concluded that it must have something to do with the various merits of their hives. Some felt that when a tree fell, the bees in it were being punished for improper belief. Others felt more charitable and wanted to bring the homeless bees to their hive, saying "It could have been us, after all." Still others felt that the hives of the homeless bees must have been flawed in some way from the beginning and so were predestined to fail.

The trees gradually continued to fall, one by one, and each time one fell, the bees in those trees still standing developed more speculations. Finally, all the bees were homeless and had to move on. Each group had been caught by surprise, believing their hive to be the true one destined to survive and bring in a new age. Each hive had failed to recognize that all trees fall eventually, and so it should finish its work and find another forest before it lost its tree. Each had failed to look further than its own hive and consider the effects of the tree, the soil and the rest of their ecology and its own survival.

From: The Sufi Book of Life
Art by: Lili Lovemonster

A Sufi Story about Competition

Once upon a time, a sultan set up a competition with a very rich prize for the most accomplished visual artistry. He invited teams from around the world. Both China and Greece sent delegations of artists. Each side could order whatever materials it wanted, and the wall of a room was provided for each to do its work. A curtain separated the two rooms.

The Chinese team asked for a plethora of paints made from many different plants and minerals, which provided an unimaginable array of colors. The Greek team asked only for materials for sanding and polishing.

When the two teams were finally ready, the Chinese unveiled their wall first. They had used every color of the rainbow, in a most harmonious design. The sultan was dazzled. Then the Greeks unveiled their work, throwing back the curtain between the two rooms. They had used no paint, but had polished their wall to such a degree that it reflected the work on the Chinese side. Through the play of light and air, the Chinese design seemed to move, and was even more fantastic and beautiful.

~Neil Douglas-Klotz

A Sufi Story

One day a neighbor found Mullah Nasruddin sitting in a tree in his garden, in the process of sawing off the limb on which he was sitting.

"Mullah, you'd better stop, otherwise you'll fall down," said the neighbor, then went back inside his house. Sure enough, Mullah kept sawing, the limb broke, and he fell. Mullah ran next door and pounded on his neighbor's door.

"O, great one, please forgive me," said Mullah, "I didn't know I had a psychic for a neighbor! Could you please predict what will happen to me tomorrow?"

The neighbor tried to deny that he could predict the future, saying that what he had told Mullah was just common sense. But Mullah wouldn't listen and kept after him. Finally, the neighbor became exasperated and said, "Mullah, for heaven's sake, for all I care you can drop dead tomorrow!"

The next morning, Mullah woke and said to his wife, "Our neighbor is a psychic and he told me that I would drop dead today, so I have to prepare." He took his donkey along for company and went to the graveyard, then dug a grave for himself and lay down in it. As the day ended, he was still lying there and thought, "I must be dead now. This isn't really so bad!"

Then a pack of dogs came by and started harassing his donkey. The donkey began to bray and make a racket. Finally, Mullah yelled from the grave, "You dogs - get out of here! If I weren't dead I'd get out of my grave and give you a thrashing!"

A Bucket Story

A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the House, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of it’s own imperfection. And miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causeswater to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts,” the pot said.

The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw. So I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house?


Moral: Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are, and look for the good in them.

Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.
Remember to appreciate all the different people in your life.

A Yin Yang Story

Here's a story by Alan Cohen, it seemed appropriate considering our current fascination with yin and yang. Enjoy!

One morning, Eve decided it was time to clean her fishbowl. Unable to find a container in which to put her two goldfish, Yin and Yang, while the bowl was being cleaned, Eve let about two inches of water into her bathtub and lovingly placed the little creatures there.

when she finished scrubbing the bowl and putting the ceramic deep sea diver in a new position, Eve returned to find Yin and Yang engaged in a very thought-provoking behavior: the two goldfish were swimming around in one little corner of the bathtub, in a circle no bigger than the fishbowl!

In many ways, we humans are like the goldfish. We develop our patterns, our habits, our taught lifestyles (which we have adopted from families, friends, and television commercials), and then, when we have the chance to go beyond them to discover a new and freer dimension, we prefer to remain in our tiny corner of the world, though it offers us little joy, a lot of anxiety, and no expansiveness.

~From The Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore
by Alan Cohen