Changing Waters
The following is a tale by Sayed Sabir Ali-Shah, a Sufi saint of the Chishti Order, who died in 1818.
I would like to offer this food for thought because it invokes questions about the need for human beings to either fall victim to the silent majority syndrome, which is when many are aware of the numerous ills of the world or society chose to ignore reality for fear of being excluded from the majority who consider themselves acceptable or cool or what would be considered the ‘in crowd’.
For example, Cheikh Aamadu Bamba Mbàkke was ridiculed, exiled and accused of what the US would term as a terrorist because he sparked jealousy amongst other tribal chiefs at the time who didn’t like that he was disrupting the social balance. Many other figures from Mandela to Lumumba to current Burmese pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Imagine if voices like these chose the path of the silent majority.
Instead they realized the greater struggle.
Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded, would disappear. It would then be renewed, with different water, which would drive men mad.
Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.
On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his retreat and drank his preserved water.
When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.
At first he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water and became like the rest. Then he forgot all about his own store of special water and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.
Climate change happens but no one listens, Wars continue but no one cares.
Basically we live in a world of babbling fools - many who are ruled by their arrogance, intelligence and egos. If we take a close look in the mirror when we choose to mimik that of the masses then we too become babbling fools. Those fools will one day perish and a new generation of fools reborn, which has been the cyclical nature of the earth for some time. But the legacy and changes of those brave souls who dared to challenge the established order will live on forever.
