Absurd Story?

I was browsing the May issue of Astro View and the article "The Mozart of Madras" caught my attention. It is about A.R. Rahman who was actually born A.S. Dileep Kumar in 1966 and converted to Sufism after his critically ill sister was miraculously healed with prayer from a Sufi dervish saint. A.R. Rahman is a very talented composer. His works have been featured in more than 100 movies. One of the latest is Slumdog Millionaire.




Curious to know more about Sufism I did a Google search and found it on Wikipedia. After going through the article I click on the link to one of the Sufi saint Nasrudin (or Nasreddin). As I was browsing the write-up about this saint, the artice "Whom Do You Trust" caught my eye.




Whom do you trust
A neighbour comes to the gate of Mulla Nasreddin's yard. The Mulla goes out to meet him outside.
"Would you mind, Mulla," the neighbour asks, "lending me your donkey today? I have some goods to transport to the next town."
The Mulla doesn't feel inclined to lend out the animal to that particular man, however; so, not to seem rude, he answers:
"I'm sorry, but I've already lent him to somebody else."
Suddenly the donkey can be heard braying loudly behind the wall of the yard.
"You lied to me, Mulla!" the neighbour exclaims. "There it is behind that wall!"
"What do you mean?" the Mulla replies indignantly. "Whom would you rather believe, a donkey or your Mulla?"




After reading the story I was thinking how absurd the story is and wondering about the moral of it. I still do not know the real moral or intention or spiritual truth of this story in the context of Sufism but then it dawn on me that the situation described in the story is real. It exist even today in our modern society.




It reminds me of someone I know personally for many years. He is a well respected man in society. He runs a drug rehabilitation center on a voluntarily basis. Many drug addicts have gone through his programme and came out becoming someone who is contributing to the betterment of society. But sad to say, success and self ego has got the better of him. He slowly began to get involved in questionable activities. Everytime a former resident of the center revealed something about him that is not good, some people who are brave enough to question his will get this reply: "Who do you want to believe? A former drug addict or your trusted spiritual leader?" He never gave a strait answer to the question posed to him. When you query him further, he would say "Why are you so stupid as to listen to the drug addict?"



After some thinking, the story is not so absurd anymore.