Thursday, October 2, 2008

How dare you lecture me!!

I received this story from Mr. K. Narayanan Thampi of Cochin today and decided to share it with you. I am not sure whether it is one of the dervish stories of the Sufi master, Mullah Nasreddin (Nasreddin Hoca):

It is no disgrace for a man to fall, but to lie there and grunt is.

Once upon a time Nasrudin and his master went hunting in the forest. The master cut his thumb while shooting his bow and arrow because he held it incorrectly. Nasrudin stopped the bleeding and bandaged the deep wound as his master moaned in pain.

In an attempt to console his master, Nasrudin said. "Sir, there are no mistakes, only lessons, and we can learn from them if we're willing."

The master became enraged. "How dare you lecture me!" he barked. And with that he threw Nasrudin into a deserted well and continued on without his devoted servant.

A little further on, a group of forest people captured the master and took him to their chief for human sacrifice. The fire was roasting hot, and the master was about to be thrown into it when the chief noticed his bandaged thumb and set him free. It was a rule that all sacrificial victims had to be perfect specimens.

Realizing how right Nasrudin had been, the master rushed back to the well to rescue his faithful servant. Acknowledging his unjust actions, the master pulled Nasrudin out and asked him to forgive him for the terrible mistake.

Nasrudin assured him that he had not made a mistake at all. On the contrary, he insisted that there was another lesson concealed here. Nasrudin told his master that he had done Nasrudin a great service by throwing him into the well. He thanked his master for saving his life explaining that if he had continued with him into the forest, the forest people would have taken him for sacrifice and surely he would had died.

"You see," Nasrudin ventured, "there are no mistakes, only lessons to learn. What we call our mistakes can be blessings in disguise, if we're willing to learn from them." This time the master smiled and nodded in agreement.


Also see: Communication: Interesting jokes

6 comments:

Maddy said...

Nasereddin Hodja (Anatolia-Turkey)is a real interesting charecter. Many of such lovely stories are attributed to him and I have a nice book of his stories after my days in Turkey. Turks always pepper their talks while drinking the many glasses of 'Raki' with Hodja stories...and they are fun, with great morals!! however i am not sure if he was a dervish.

RAJI MUTHUKRISHNAN said...

Thanks for sharing.....a lesson to be learnt everywhere, if only we care to see..

Unknown said...

Maddy, thanks for providing the Turkish background. I find the Nasereddin stories fascinating.

I assumed that since he was a Sufi he would qualify for the label 'dervish'.

Unknown said...

Thanks, Raji. You are so right.

Jacob Matthan said...

How true. In our own life we have seen this again and again. But there are some mistakes we will and should make again and again, even after we have learnt our lesson. That is where compassion for human beings over-rides our lessons learnt.

Unknown said...

Jacob, thanks for the comment.