This lesson was learned by a very great early Sufi whose name was Ibrahim Adham Balkhi. He was the king of Balkh which was a kingdom in Afghanistan. At that time it was a rich, composite culture in Afghanistan which included a strong Buddhist element. I am sure you are familiar with those incredible Buddha monuments that were destroyed by the Taliban regime that were the legacy of that period. And Ibrahim Adham himself was a saint in the footsteps of the Buddha. If you study the Sufi tradition you will find the trace of Buddhism. The Sufis in their Persian poetry speak of the but 1, the idol, as a manifestation of the divine beloved. And this word but comes from Buddha.
Like Buddha, Ibrahim Adham was a great king living in opulence. Of course, each of us in this contemporary era live, by comparison to the people of former times, like kings. So in some sense, Ibrahim Adham was a person just like any one of us. But he was the king of the court of a mighty kingdom. And this king was visited by another strange mystic from the dessert. This was Khizr, the green man of the dessert. He blew in, evaded the guards, and made his way into the inner court. Instead of bowing in obeisance as was the protocol, he impudently went up to the throne. The king was deeply offended and said, “What brings you to the court of the great king?”
And Khizr replied, “Oh, I’m just passing through this caravanserai,” which means motel. You can imagine how angry the king was to hear his palace called a motel.
He said, “How dare you say that!”
And Khizr said, “Well, who sat on that throne before you?”
The king answered, “My father.”
Khizr said, “And before him?”
“His father,” said the king.
“And before him?”
“His father.”
And Khizr replied, “And you mean to tell me that this isn’t a motel with people constantly coming and going all the time?”
Suddenly a revelation came to the king. He realized that all he had invested himself in, his persona of grandeur and wealth and power, was ephemeral; it was trifling in the grand scheme of things. He was just passing through a motel. The words of Khizr went straight into his heart, like a barb. He was compelled to leave his crown and his throne and live as a wandering dervish. For many years he wandered. One time, he came upon a dervish who was complaining about his poverty and the ex-king said, “You must have bought your poverty very cheaply.”
The dervish said, “Does one buy poverty?”
Ibrahim Adham said, “I paid all the wealth in the world and still I feel I got a very good deal.”
Then he became a disciple of Fuzail bin Ayaz who was a highway robber turned Sufi. There at the khanqua, he was made to renounce his false pride. His murshid, his teacher, was very strict with him, and he made him carry out the garbage; this, for a man who was pampered all his life. But Ibrahim Adham took it in stride and carried the garbage. The other students couldn’t bear to see that great noble being subjected to humiliation so they said, “Please, take it easy on him.”
The murshid said, “Well, alright, well have a test.”
He sent someone to knock over the garbage while Ibrahim Adham was carrying it. The former king looked at him very sternly and said, “When I was king, I would have never put up with that.”
This report went back to the murshid and he said, “He’s not ready yet.”
Some months later, they did it again. This time, Ibrahim Adham just looked at the one who knocked over the garbage. When he heard this report, the murshid said, “Hes still not ready.”
Then, finally, months later when they again knocked over the garbage, Ibrahim Adham didn’t even look to see who did it. He just picked up the garbage and continued with his chore. His murshid went and embraced him and gave him a very high initiation. He became successor in that order. In fact, that is the order that we are continuing in this line. So he followed in the footsteps of the Buddha who was also a great king who renounced his worldly position to discover an eternal reality.
Topic: SMALL STORIES (Read 216571 times)