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Copyright © 2001 by Andrew Flaxman

    
SUFI TALES AS A KEY TO LEARNING

      by

       Andrew Flaxman

 We live in an age in which entertainment is used increasingly as a tool for education.  What tends to be forgotten is that education necessitates effort on the part of the learner.  Partly because we no longer remember how difficult it was to learn to read, write, walk and talk, we assume it is possible to develop further maturity in some easy way.  At the beginning of life we go through a natural, automatic growth, but as we grow older we must take on a much more conscious role in our own self-development.  Television is perhaps the best example of the attempt to combine education with entertainment.  This medium can certainly bring us information, but how effective is it in bringing us real education?  Reading for pleasure alone may also prevent us from understanding the effort in thinking that is required to achieve enlightenment.
 One of the finest sources of entertainment that also is educational is the rich literature of the Sufi tradition.  The Sufi training is the ancient "secret" path associated with Islam in much the same way as the Cabala is associated with Judaism.  Every religion has its "hidden" or esoteric aspect available to those who desire to go more deeply into spiritual matters and who are not satisfied with ritual and dogma and a faith directed towards an entity outside of oneself.  The Sufi teachers have developed story telling to a high art for the awakening of our slumbering organs of spiritual perception.  In the typical Sufi tale lessons in wisdom are embedded in a fascinating surface narrative.
 These charming tales have a variety of purposes but are all instruments to open up the mind as well as to be entertaining and to give information.  Some of them have concealed meanings, others thought-revealing contradictions of behavior, many are humorous, and many are similar to meditation exercises.  Re-reading them with patience brings us answers to life's mysteries in a much different way than the Parables from the Bible or the familiar Aesop's fables which also attempt to impart wisdom to the reader or listener.  The Sufi tales, coming from a less familiar culture, can introduce us to wisdom that we are unable to experience in our own heritage because we have superficialized or ritualized such information.  They can help free us from the
social and religious indoctrinations that prevent us from growth beyond our particular stage of cultural development.
 There is an additional element to this esoteric teaching method, and that is a mind-expanding quality.  The realization of this expanded self, or the spiritual essence of the individual is the ultimate purpose of Sufi study.  The student must necessarily get beyond the literal level in these stories, without interfering with understanding and enjoying their humor and outward characteristics.  This comprehensive appreciation cannot be accomplished by a process of analyzing which will deprive the tales of their value as an instrument of awakening.  We can, however, develop a sense of simultaneous awareness of different dimensions and levels.  Then we discover that the humor found in these tales is a valuable structure for self-realization and awareness.  People who have suppressed their sense of humor, or who have not developed it, lack an essential ingredient for understanding life. These stories encourage enlightenment by getting us to question our unexamined assumptions.  Questioning is crucial in self-discovery because real answers do not come without our asking questions.  Any answer provided without our having the question in our mind will be ignored, misunderstood or taken for doctrine or dogma.  These tales also illustrate how the clever mind interferes with understanding.  Many show how the heart can understand what the most learned scholars cannot comprehend with their minds.  These tales also describe a very different teacher-student relationship than we have in our academic settings; it is a form of study with a very different focus.  According to Idries Shah, one of the outstanding contemporary Sufi teachers and writers, in his book, Learning How to Learn: "The construction of the Sufi tales is such as to permit the presentation to the mind of a design or series of relationships.  When the reader's mind is familiar with this structure, he can understand concepts and experiences which have a similar structure, but which operate on a higher level of perception.  It could be called the relationship of the blueprint to the finished apparatus."  The Sufi tradition is a most unusual and outstanding form of training for initiation into the spiritual understanding of life.
 What better way of appreciating this tradition than through reading some tales and learning to benefit from them.  For example, there is "The Ancient Coffer of Nuri Bey."

 Nuri Bey was a reflective and respected Albanian, who had married a wife much younger than himself.  One evening when he had returned home earlier than usual, a faithful servant came to him and said:
 
"Your wife, our mistress, is acting suspiciously.  She is in her apartments with a huge chest, large enough to hold a man, which belonged to your grandmother.  It should contain only a few ancient embroideries.  She will not allow me, your oldest retainer, to look inside."
 Nuri went to his wife's room, and found her sitting disconsolately beside the massive wooden box.  "Will you show me what is in the chest?" he asked.
 "Because of the suspicion of a servant, or because you do not trust me."
 "Would it not be easier just to open it, without thinking about the undertones?" asked Nuri.
 "I do not think it possible”
 "Is it locked?"
 "Yes."
 "Where is the key?"
 She held it op, "Dismiss the servant and I will give it to you."
 The servant was dismissed.  The woman handed over the key and  withdrew, obviously troubled in mind.  Nuri Bey thought for a long time.  Then he called four gardeners from his estate.  Together they carried the chest by night unopened to a distant part of the grounds, and buried it.  The matter was never referred to again.

 What does this story mean and what can it do for us?  First of all, there is the story level itself.  Short as it is, it has a dramatic plot.  There are elements of tension, mystery and climax that make for an interesting and entertaining tale.  To the superficial consciousness, this tale remains just that.  When asked to make a judgment about characters in the story, all sorts of opinions can be expressed.  But beneath the surface one feels certain troubling elements in the story which when examined turn out to defy analysis.  The story itself seems to be penetrating our thoughts and to be disturbing to our feelings.  To the thoughtful reader, immediately questions arise: Is this a story about adultery and homicide?  Is it a story about older men who marry younger women?  Is it about wisdom and cleverness?  Is it about faith and trust?  Is the end of the story satisfying?  Has the problem really been buried and forgotten?
 One of the most important aspects of education is the element of self-discovery.  If you learn something for yourself, it is yours.  If you learn to do something, you have the confidence that you can do it again.  This is very different than being given an explanation by someone else or being forced to memorize something by rote.  The same quality is to be seen in this Sufi tale.  Its transforming force remains quiescent until the reader spends some time and repetition on it.  For this reason, these next comments will not have the same effect as they would have had if the reader had discovered this aspect of the tale for himself or herself.  However, there are many other tales available for your own self-discovery.
 One of the actual experiences that can be derived from "The Ancient Coffer of Nuri Bey" is the realization of the importance of pre-suppositions in all of our attitudes, feelings and judgments.  Reading the story with the assumption that there is a man in the coffer brings with it very different thoughts and feelings than if the assumption is that there is no man in the coffer.  Now you will understand what Idries Shah meant when he called these stories a "relationship of the blueprint to the finished apparatus."  To the normal level of consciousness we all have opinions and make judgments based on pre-suppositions, most of the time on unconscious pre-suppositions.  And what is even worse is that we "never refer to the matter again."  We have all been as clever as Nuri Bey, just as "reflective and respected," although we don't think of ourselves as Albanian.
 Nuri Bey is very much an archetype for the reflective and respected person.  Our reactions to his story can bring to us a realization that we have to become much more aware of the basis of our thought life.  Our deteriorating financial , educational  and energy systems are the fall-out from an inadequate level of thinking and cleverness.  We are just beginning to see that the solutions to our problems were not really buried at all.  The real trouble is that the same thinking that brought us our atomic waste  and other problems is still admired and respected in much the same way as you probably admired and respected the solution Nuri Bey found for his problem.
 Another short Sufi tale which holds other lessons is "How to Catch Monkeys"

 Once upon a time there was a monkey who was very fond of cherries.  One day he saw a delicious looking cherry, and came down from his tree to get it.  But the fruit turned out to be in a clear glass bottle.  After some experimentation, the monkey found that he could get hold of the cherry by putting his hand into the bottle by way of the neck.  As soon as he had done so, he closed his hand over the cherry; but then he found that he could not withdraw his fist holding the cherry, because it was larger than the internal dimension of the neck.
Now all of this was deliberate, because the cherry in the bottle was a trap laid by a monkey hunter who knew how monkeys think.
 The hunter, hearing the monkey's whimperings, came along and the monkey tried to run away.  But, because his hand was, as he thought, stuck in the bottle, he could not move fast enough to escape.
 But, as he thought, he still had hold of the cherry.  The hunter picked him up.  A moment later he tapped the monkey sharply on the elbow, making him suddenly relax his hold on the fruit.
 The monkey was free, but he was captured.  The hunter had used the cherry and the bottle, but he still had them.
 
What do you make of this tale?  At the first level, that of plot, the story seems to be about how much cleverer the hunter is than the monkey.  Do you sympathize with the poor monkey?  If you do, it is understandable, because this is the same condition of any person with "normal" consciousness.  Now we are beginning to relate to the tale at an analogical level.  At a level of analogy, the tale seems to be about life itself.  We are like the monkey with our ability to experiment and to find the ways to fulfill our desires.  This type of thinking allows us to solve problems and has brought us the many benefits of modern science, the "cherries" of life.  But our desires for material things as well as emotional rewards have also been the reason for our imprisonment.  Letting go of what we had desired is what frees us.  If it is our desires that capture us, it is life's tough blows, "the sharp tap" on our awareness that makes us relax our hold and frees us.  Yet in another, more profound sense, we are still trapped.  These contemplations strike at the question of the nature of freedom itself.
 Using our normal consciousness, this story jars our sense of morals and ethics.  What has this tale to do with learning to be a better person?  How dare we compare this type of teaching to the Parables of the Bible or Aesop's Fables?  But what if part of evolving as a Human Being has to do with developing our level of consciousness about self and the world in which we live.  This expanded consciousness does not negate or make less the importance of morals and ethics.  It includes this level of awareness but is a related but different faculty.
 Following these remarks, if the monkey is "normal" human consciousness, who or what then is the hunter?  The hunter "Knew how monkeys think" and had captured the monkey.  He was able to use "the cherry and the bottle, but still had them."  This ability to understand the "normal" human consciousness conjures up many thoughts and analogies.  The hunter can be likened to our higher self that knows very well the imprisoning desires of the lower self.  Many people are caught up by their desires for money and power.  Not only are we slaves to these desires, but ironically if we do gratify our desires of money and power, how often we become slaves to the very conditions in which freedom had been mistakenly sought.  This little tale can have a very beneficial meditative effect if you will let it work for you.
 The story conjures up for this writer one of the Beatitudes.  The Third Beatitude (Matthew 5:5) reads: "Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth."  The one who originally translated this part of the Sermon on the Mount (St. Jerome) could have used instruction in "How to Catch a Monkey."  What is really meant here is that those who have gained control over their desires will inherit the earth, i.e., be among the evolved of Humankind.  The word "meek" is really a mis-translation for describing the person who is inwardly very strong-willed and very much in control over emotions and desires.  For an outstanding example of this great strength necessary for this "meekness," think of Gandhi.  One of the main reasons non-violent civil disobedience is so difficult to organize is that it requires such strength of will power and self-control among its practitioners.  On a personal level as well it is this desire-world of ours that must be made meek to our higher selves.  We must elevate our thinking above the animal level, "the way monkeys think."
 Learning how to master your desires is not just an intellectual process because it is not your intelligence that is the basis for habits or programmed, habitualized thinking.  What one likes and dislikes and the habits one acquires are held in a separate but interpenetrating part of us.  This is the reason that knowing something is not good for you, say smoking for example, can not stop the bad habit by itself.  A person must be willing to work on this hidden dimension of what constitutes the whole self to change habits or inbred thoughts and feelings.  All sorts of systems have been designed to enable people to accomplish this re-thinking (i.e., re-penitence).  The Sufi teachings and others like them use a shock technique to raise consciousness.
 At one time, two thousand years ago, mankind was constituted quite differently than today.  We take it for granted that the way we think, feel and act has always been the same, more or less.  Since Darwin, we are aware of an evolution of physical development, but remain unaware of the evolution of human consciousness of self.  Formerly our inner perceptions were not as embedded in our sense of the physical as they are now in most people.  This looser relationship between our senses made it easier to come into contact with outer aspects of reality and our relationship to it.  This explains how it was that John the Baptist could use immersion in water to effect a change in the thinking (repentance) in those baptized.  Today this takes place as a ritual, but back then it produced a dramatic spiritual experience similar to the near-death experiences of many contemporaries from all walks of life that have been widely reported and studied.
 A dramatic historical incident supports the theory that spiritual perception was easier to attain centuries ago than it is now.  In the 4th Century, A.D., Licinius ruled over the eastern part of the Roman Empire before Constantine overthrew him.  Licinius was much less inclined to support the Christian religion than Constantine and sought to publicly ridicule the rite of baptism.  To demonstrate his challenge to Christianity he organized a festival at Helioplis where he arranged that an actor burlesque baptism by dressing in the white robes of a priest and be immersed in water.  After his immersion, however, instead of ridiculing this rite, the actor turned to the people and said: "I have now become a Christian and I will remain a Christian with all the strength at my command."  This type of conversion was due to the actual spiritual experience and explains in some part the force of early Christianity in attracting such committed followers.
 Other less dramatic methods for changing one's thinking include such practices as mediation and prayer.  The Lord's Prayer, specifically, "Keep us from temptation, " is an attempt through constant repetition to reach that deep part of us from which unhealthy and self-destructive desires emanate.  Another method which will help to strengthen one's ability to take control over this subconscious source of programmed thoughts and feelings is to picture each moment of your day backwards before you go to sleep at night.  This practice is very difficult because it reverses the normal sequence of daily events.  It will develop strength in will power as well as creating an objectivity between you and your daily events, allowing a separation between you and your desires.
 A third short Sufi tale which deals with still other mind-sets is "When the Waters Were Changed"

 Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning.  At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world that had not been specially hoarded would disappear.  It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad.
 Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice.  He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.
 On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water.
 When he saw, from his security waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men.  He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, or of having been warned.  When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.
 At first he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day.  Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else.  He drank the new water, and became like the rest.  Then he forgot all about his own store of special water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.

 This simple tale is not so simple.  It triggers off an unending stream of thoughts that range from the subject of peer group pressure to who is sane, who is insane, to the question of what is reality itself.
 On a physical, materialistic level one can observe teen-age behavior as an example of some entity tampering with the water system which makes adolescents go crazy for some fad in fashion or in music.  In this case parents rarely succumb to the same changed "water."
 On a more psychological level, where adults are more in control of education, most everyone is induced to drink the changed water.  The best examples of the educational power that grips everyone are the lessons of nationalism, racism and religious fervor that elders inculcate in youth.  An historic illustration of this was when Henry David Thoreau objected to the Mexican-American War in 1846 on the moral grounds that this aggressive action was really a pretext to annex territory and extend slavery.  Most of this country's political force unified once President Polk decided to conquer Mexico.  Thoreau would not drink the same water as his countrymen and refused to pay his taxes as a protest of what the government was doing with his money.  When he was put into jail, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to him asking why he was in jail.  Thoreau wrote back asking why Emerson was not.  It isn't easy to go against the mass of feelings of others in your community.  There is a heavy price to pay and most do not have the inner strength to pay it.  However, there is even a heavier price to pay for not paying heed to your inner self - You actually lose that sense of self as did the only man in the Sufi tale who at first did not drink the changed water.  He ended up forgetting his own store of special water, his higher self.
 Real education should have the insights and the power to prepare students for the time when the waters are changed.  Certainly, it is easy to see how the Germans were not prepared by their education for the difficult times that made Hitler possible.  It is much harder to see in our own situation the deficiencies that are so easy to see in others.  Thoreau and then Gandhi and Martin Luther King all had a sense of the necessity for inner education that could make individuals much stronger in character to overcome injustice in the outer world.  This level of education must include principles not normally found in our secular liberal arts institutions and which are normally not found in religious institutions either.  Insights and motivation have to be discovered through education so that the self can be strong enough not to give up and drink the "Mad" water.  Rather, the self must become strong enough to come back and live among the mad without becoming mad itself.
 This type of transformation and return is described in Plato's analogy of the cave (The Republic, Book VII).  All men in the cave believe that the shadows of the reflected light are reality, not realizing that they are in a cave and that the sun outside is the true reality.  The sunlight would blind most anyone who ventured outside.  Anyone who can climb outside and adjust to the sun and then come back to the cave would have a far greater understanding of the shadows and reflections.  But who amongst those back in the cave would accept what the person exposed to the sun would have to say?  "Wouldn't they all laugh at him and say he had spoiled his eyesight by going up there, and it was not worth-while so much as to try to go up.  And would they not kill anyone who tried to release them and take them up, if they could somehow lay hands on him and kill him?"
 Plato advises the philosopher who has seen the light not to remain above but to come back down into the cave and teach in the darkened world about the light.  Our Sufi tale is not so specific and does not have the same didactic and intellectual qualities.  But it too, in its own way, acts as a catalyst to wake us up out of our darkness.
 A fourth Sufi tale, probably one of the best known, deals with further aspects of the nature of reality.  It is "The Blind Ones and the Matter of the Elephant"

 Beyond Ghor there was a city.  All its inhabitants were blind.  A king with his entourage arrived near by; he brought his army and camped in the desert.  He had a mighty elephant, which he used in attack and to increase the people's awe.
 The populace became anxious to see the elephant, and some sightless from among this blind community ran like fools to find it.  As they did not even know the form or shape of the elephant they groped sightlessly, gathering information by touching some part of it.  Each thought that he knew something, because he could feel a part.
When they returned to their fellow citizens eager groups clustered around them.  Each of these was anxious, misguidedly, to learn the truth from those who were themselves astray.
 They asked about the form, the shape of the elephant; and listened to all that they were told.
 The man whose hand had reached an ear was asked about the elephant's nature.  He said: "It is a large, rough thing, wide and broad, like a rug."
 And the one who had felt the trunk said: "I have the real facts about it.  It is like a straight and hollow pipe, awful and destructive."
 The one who had felt its feet and legs said: "It is mighty and firm, like a pillar."
 Each had felt one part out of many.  Each had perceived it wrongly.  No mind knew all; knowledge is not the companion of the blind.  All imagined something, something incorrect.  The created is not informed about divinity.  There is no Way in this science by means of the ordinary intellect.
 
There are many meditations and contemplative thoughts that flow from this tale.  On a basic level, this tale teaches toleration for other points of view and a sense of everything being relative.  This tale has quite an expanded and different meaning on deeper levels.
 First of all we have the familiar theme of blindness that we encounter throughout the realm of great literature and art.  Very often blindness is the sign of spiritual seeing, as with Homer or the anguished Oedipus or the blinded Gloucester in King Lear.  In contrast, here the blindness of the investigators is analogous to the people who lived in Plato's cave, people who are confident that the shadows are the true reality.  In "The Matter of the Elephant" this blindness or ordinary consciousness also prevents truth from being discovered.  Is not each of the scientific disciplines similar to each of these blind investigators, each sure of the nature of reality through their vigorous research?  The physicist explains the world through quantum physics, the biologist explains reality through genetics, and so forth.  Could not a shoemaker explain the world just as convincingly from his knowledge of leather, stitching and polish?  Probably not, but only because his trade does not have the necessary prestige to it.
 The key to the wisdom found in this Sufi tale is the remark that "There is no Way in this science by means of the ordinary intellect."  The science of knowing reality is not considered possible through the ordinary intellect.  The ordinary intellect divides and separates things out from the whole and thereby loses its connection with the meaning of life itself.  This should not be taken to mean that there is no path through other means.  As Plato knew and as the story teller about the elephant knows, "Elephant" is a reality in itself, an archetypal thought-form that can be discovered through a higher form of knowledge than the ordinary.
 One of the crucial aspects of this knowing is to develop the ability to see things from different points of view so that the true nature of the trunk of the elephant can be discovered without mistaking the part for the whole.  There are actually not an unlimited number of ways to look at reality.  For example, you can look at things from the point of view of mathematics (as did Einstein) phenomena, sensations, realistically, idealistically (as did Plato), materialistically (as did Marx), psychically, or spiritualistically.  You can also view the world through pneumatics, monads (as did Liebnitz), dynamics, or rationalism (as did Voltaire).  Each of these 12 ways of looking at the world has its own validity, but none by itself has the whole picture.  Add to these different vantage points the different tones and moods of individual perception and you would have a greater picture of total "reality."
 This holistic knowing can be termed "supersensible" to distinguish it from the intellectual process of dependence on the five senses.  Self-knowledge is the first step to this sense-free knowing.  It is sense-free because self-knowledge does not depend on any of our outer senses; it is an additional sense.  Through self-knowledge, and other inner senses it is possible to rise above the parochial views of the five outer senses.  A higher order of meaning manifests itself comparable to the divine knowledge referred to in this Sufi elephant tale.  The tale refers to the fact that this higher knowledge is not for the created to know.  What is meant by this limitation to our knowing is that unless we get in touch with the Divine in us, higher knowledge is not for us to know.  In its revitalized form, education would provide access to this "Creator" wisdom that is in each of us.  Through this higher, spiritual self it would then be possible to know the true nature of the elephant and thus by extension, reality itself.  This level of knowing is of the highest order, filled with love and total commitment.  The importance of heart-centered, inner-directed education such as the Sufis devised is that it fosters an ability to create out of a sense of true freedom and leads to enterprise that gives profound meaning to one's life and promotes the greatest good for all.
HUMANITIES 104A
Required Reading:
Tales of the Dervishes, Idries Shah

Sufi studies today web-site:
http://www.sufis.org/

***
"The Ancient Coffer of Nuri Bey," "How to Catch Monkeys," "When the Waters Were Changed" and "The Blind Ones and the Matter of the Elephant" are all from Tales of the Dervishes by Idries Shah, Copyright @1967 by Idries Shah, published by E.P Dutton & Co, Inc.

Some Questions and Thoughts for Contemplation:

1.  In what ways do the Parables in the Bible differ and compare with Sufi Tales?  Give examples.
2.  In what ways do Aesop's Fables differ and compare with Sufi Tales?  Give examples
3.  What is the importance of asking questions?  Do Sufi Tales help develop this skill?  Give     
      examples.
4. Give some examples of the clever mind interfering with understanding.  What is the       difference between being clever and being wise?
5.  Give some examples of a higher level of perception or awakened spiritual senses.
6.  Have any of your opinions changed after reading a Sufi Tale or this essay?  Give examples.

List some of your own questions and thoughts.