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EJason: Collecting Stones

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.sufi,alt.islam.sufism,alt.religion.gnostic,talk.religion.newage,talk.religion.newage,alt.consciousness.mysticism
From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva)
Subject: EJason: Collecting Stones (sufi story)
Date: 13 Sep 1997 03:03:32 -0700

[from tariqas@world.std.com: E Jason ]

There was once a dervish devotee who believed his task was to
reproach those who did evil things and to enjoin upon them spiritual
thoughts so that they might find the right path. What this dervish
did not know, however, was that a teacher is not one who only tells
others to do things by acting through fixed principles. Unless the
teacher knows exactly what the inner situation is, with each student,
the teacher may suffer the reverse of what he desires.

However, this devotee one day found a man who gambled excessively,
and did not know how to cure the habit. The dervish took up his
position outside the man's house. Every time he left for the gambling
house, the dervish placed a stone to mark each sin upon a pile which
he was accumulating as a visible reminder of evil.

Each time the other man went out he felt guilty. Each time he came
back he saw another stone on the pile. Each time he put a stone on
the pile the devotee felt anger at the gambler and personal pleasure
(which he called 'Godliness") in having recorded his sin.

This process continued for twenty years. Each time the gambler saw
the devotee, he said to himself: 'Would that I understand goodness!
How that saintly man works for my redemption! Would that I could
repent, let alone become like him, for he is sure of a place among
the elect when the time of requital arrives.'

It so happened that, through a natural catastrophe, both men died at
the same time. An angel came to take the soul of the gambler, and
said to him gently: 'You are to come with me to paradise.'

'But,' said the gambler, 'how can that be?' I am a sinner, and must
go to hell. Surely you are looking for the devotee, who sat opposite
my house, who has tried to reform me for two decades?'

'The devotee?' said the angel, 'No, he is being taken to the lower
regions, since he is to be roasted on a spit."

'What justice is this?' shouted the gambler, forgetting his
situation, 'you must have got the instructions reversed.'

'Not so,' said the angel, 'as I shall explain to you. It is
thuswise: the devotee has been indulging himself for twenty years
with feelings of superiority and merit. Now it is his turn to redress
the balance. He really put those stones on the pile for himself, not
for you.'

'And what about my reward, what have I earned?' asked the gambler. 

'You are to be rewarded because, every time you passed the dervish,
you thought first of goodness and secondly of the dervish. It is
goodness not man, which is rewarding you for your fidelity.' 

(typed in By Tom Bombadil)

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