‘Teaching Stories’ is a term used for stories and anecdotes, particularly those that come to us from the Sufi tradition, that were created as vehicles for the transmission of Wisdom.
Now, knowledge is something we can quite easily get from these stories or texts, but wisdom – ah that is something else; and something that requires a kind of “slow-simmer yet known in a flash” state of openness of mind. Ordinary knowledge can come quickly; wisdom can be maddeningly slow. Little wonder then, that we often settle for the former.
Idries Shah, whose translations and commentaries on Sufi thought and Sufi stories made them accessible to English-language readers, wrote that Sufi teaching stories are works of art which are used to transmit to us a Higher knowledge. We cannot perceive this Higher Knowledge because we are not prepared for it; mostly settling for a lower level, ordinary knowledge. We don’t even really know what this ‘Higher’ might be, and in fact, many of us don’t even suspect its presence.
Through stories, the preparation we need can be developed, by not only reading or listening to the stories once, but by getting to know the stories - studying them and familiarizing ourselves with them. Yet paradoxically, this ‘effort’ is never enough to get to the layers of deep meaning in them.
We get close to the wisdom of these stories by “soaking in story” as the students of the old teachers were required to do, so that their inner meanings are slowly made known to us, as we need them.
In fact, here is a story that illustrates this period of ‘preparation’:
There was once a woman who had heard of the Fruit of Heaven, which when eaten would give the person immense and immediate knowledge. She desperately wanted to find this. So she sought out a wise dervish named Alef and asked him: “How can I find this fruit, so that I may attain to immediate knowledge?”
“I would advise you to study with me”, said the dervish, “But if you wish otherwise, you will have to travel resolutely and at times restlessly throughout the world.”
She left him and sought another sage, Wajid the Wise, and then found Salim the Sage, then later she went to Karim the Crazy, then she sought out Ali the Secretive, even Rahman the Elusive, and many more.
This way, she wandered thirty years in her search. Finally she came upon a beautiful garden, and there in the center stood the magnificent Tree of Heaven, and from its branches hung the luscious Fruit of Heaven.
Standing beside the Tree was Alef, the first dervish she had met and questioned.
“Why did you not tell me that you were the Custodian of the Fruit of Heaven when I first came to you?” she asked him.
“Because then you would not have believed me. Besides, the Tree produces fruit only once in thirty years and thirty days.”
Some stories give up their meanings to us more readily; others don’t. For the second kind, a process of preparation is required, that is not the same kind of preparation our education system teaches us these days. Here, to learn something, you may have often to be exposed to it many times, perhaps from different perspectives, and you also have to give it the kind of respectful attention which will enable you to learn. Here, you are expected to ‘be’ with the story. Hear it, read it, say it aloud many times. Truly enjoy it; be-friend it.
These stories were not listened to or read to be understood through the mind only, but to be absorbed into the very texture of our conscious and inner self. Teachers of these Traditions understood that sometimes, we learn by adopting and absorbing the experience directly, even without the participation of our logical, analytical minds. After multiple hearings or readings, these teaching stories not only seem to reside in one’s memory, their impact can manifest itself a long time after hearing them, and in a manner quite different from what we expect.
In general, in our hurry to ‘get it’, Shah points out that if a person feels he or she has ‘understood’ a story, then he has understood it only at the level where he stands at present moment, or understands the story at the level of his conditioning. If one decides “This is the meaning”, there is a very real chance of blocking any further, deeper impact of the story on one’s inner being.
Sufism acknowledges that people have different capacities to understand esoteric and mystical learning, and its writings and stories and poems usually have several layers so that different readers will learn at the level appropriate to them.
I experienced something like this when my husband and I have worked on some translations from the Persian to the English of the poems of the mystic Hafez. There are times when a translation seems to be ‘going well’, you have the rhythm, the nuances, but you stumble at a turn of phrase that can say two rather different things! Which way to go? You try to approach it logically, rationally, to make ‘sense’. Then in frustration you set it aside. But not really, because it bothers you, however vaguely. Then after a pause, you find the courage to go back to it – and suddenly, you break through to another layer, and what you wrote before is no longer what you ‘hear’ the poet now saying! This is always a magical, mystical moment.
And for these reasons, I do believe that in spite of bringing the Sufi mystics more easily within the grasp of thousands of people, and in spite of having some very beautiful and inspiring poems for those of us who do not know Persian or Arabic, the creators of the very popular ‘versions’ (note – these are most times not even translations from the original language; they are often versions culled from other English translations!) do a great injustice to themselves and their readers. Even if the books do sell in millions.
The original creators of these poems and stories did not want to give us a ‘pre-digested’ form of the learnings, nor really something our minds could easily relate to. They were intelligent enough to do so if they had wished to. They also respected the intelligence of their students. They wanted us to be with the story, be with the poetry, be with the teachings that would slowly and surely leach their wisdom into our lives. We claim we don’t have time to let this happen these days – and are that much the poorer for this.
Jalaludin Rumi’s beautiful poems have been likened to the honey that attracts the bee; but he embedded within them deeper ideas, declaring, “You get out of it what is in it for you.”
For those who wish to learn most fully from Story, it is important not to consider any ‘knowing’ or ‘understanding’ - no matter how significant it may seem, no matter how useful an insight it gives - as the final meaning. We need to remain always aware of the possibility of another angle of deeper insight, another understanding, which may appear as a result of holding ourselves gently and respectfully open to the manifold gifts these stories have to offer.
May you soak in Story to prepare you for deeper understanding of the stories and of yourself. Marguerite Theophil
When Stories nestle in the body,
soul comes forth.
~Deena Metzger
