Trust God But Tie Your Camel

There was once a man who was on his way back home from market with his camel and, as he’d had a good day, he decided to stop at a mosque along the road and offer his thanks to God.

He left his camel outside and went in with his prayer mat and spent several hours offering thanks to Allah, praying and promising that he’d be a good Muslim in the future, help the poor and be an upstanding pillar of his community.

When he emerged it was already dark and lo and behold – his camel was gone!

He immediately flew into a violent temper and shook his fist at the sky, yelling:

“You traitor, Allah! How could you do this to me? I put all my trust in you and then you go and stab me in the back like this!”

A passing sufi dervish heard the man yelling and chuckled to himself.

“Listen,” he said, “Trust God but, you know, tie up your camel.”

 

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Change the World

(Image courtesy http://arkarthick.com)

Bayazid, a Sufi mystic, has written in his autobiography, “When I was young I thought and I said to God, and in all my prayers this was the base: ‘Give me energy so that I can change the whole world.’ Everybody looked wrong to me. I was a revolutionary and I wanted to change the face of the earth.

“When I became a little more mature I started praying: ‘This seems to be too much. Life is going out of my hands–almost half of my life is gone and I have not changed a single person, and the whole world is too much.’ So I said to God, ‘My family will be enough. Let me change my family.’

“And when I became old,” says Bayazid, “I realized that even the family is too much, and who am I to change them? Then I realized that if I can change myself that will be enough, more than enough. I prayed to God, ‘Now I have come to the right point. At least allow me to do this: I would like to change myself.’

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Already God

Rabiya, a great Sufi mystic, was passing…. It was the street she used to pass every day on her way to the marketplace, because in the marketplace she would go every day and shouts the truth that she had attained. And for many days she had been watching a mystic, a well-known mystic, Hassan, sitting before the door of the mosque and praying to God, “God, open the door! Please open the door! Let me in!”

Rabiya could not tolerate it that day. Hassan was crying, tears were rolling down, and he was shouting again and again, “Open the door! Let me in! Why don’t you listen? Why don’t you hear my prayers?”

Every day she had laughed, whenever she had heard Hassan she had laughed, but it was too much today. Tears…and Hassan was really crying, weeping, and crying his heart out. She went; she shook Hassan, and said, “Stop all this nonsense! The door is open — in fact you are already in!”

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The Sun and the Cave

 

One day the sun and a cave struck up a conversation. The sun had trouble understanding what “dark” and “dank” meant and the cave didn’t quite get the hang of “light and clear” so they decided to change places.

The cave went up to the sun and said, “Ah, I see, this is beyond wonderful. Now come down and see where I have been living.” The sun went down to the cave and said, “Gee, I don’t see any difference.”

 

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The Secret of Surrender

A man was very much interested in self-knowledge, in self-realization. His whole search had been to find a master who could teach him meditation. He went from one master to another, but nothing was happening.

Years went by, he was tired, exhausted. Then someone told him, “If you really want to find a master you will have to go to the Himalayas. He lives in some unknown parts of the Himalayas; you will have to search for him. One thing is certain, he is there. Nobody knows exactly where, because whenever somebody comes to know of him he moves from that place and goes even deeper into the Himalayan ranges.”

The man was getting old, but he gathered courage. For two years he had to work to earn money for the journey, then he made the journey. It is an old story. He had to ride on camels and horses and then go on foot, and then he reached the Himalayas. People said, “Yes, we have heard about the old man, very ancient he is, one cannot say how old — maybe three hundred years old, or even five hundred years old; nobody knows. He lives somewhere, but the location cannot be given to you. Nobody is aware of where exactly you will find him, but he is there. If you search hard you are bound to find him.”

The man searched and searched and searched. For two years he was roaming in the Himalayas — tired, exhausted, dead exhausted, living only on wild fruits, leaves and grass. He had lost much weight. But he was intent that he had to find this man; even if it took his life, it would be worth it.

And can you imagine? One day he saw a small hut, a grass hut. He was so tired that he was not even able to walk, so he crawled. He reached the hut. There was no door; he looked in, there was nobody inside. And not only was there nobody inside, but there was every sign that for years there had been nobody inside.

You can think what would have happened to that man. He fell on the ground. Out of sheer tiredness he said, “I give up.” He was lying there under the sun in the cool breeze of the Himalayas, and for the first time he started feeling so blissful, he had never tasted such bliss! Suddenly he started feeling full of light. Suddenly all thoughts disappeared, suddenly he was transported — and for no reason at all, because he had not done anything.

And then he became aware that somebody was leaning over him. He opened his eyes. A very ancient man was there. And the old man, smiling, said, “So you have come. Have you something to ask me?”

And the man said, “No.”

And the old man laughed, a great belly laugh which was echoed by the valleys. And he said, “So now you know what meditation is?”

And the man said, “Yes.”

(Source : OSHO – The Book of Wisdom)

 

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