25 Nov Do you just have to be patient? (IDRIES SHAH)
Once upon a time there was a bird which did not have
the power of flight. Like a chicken, he walked about on the
ground, although he knew that some birds did fly.
It so happened that, through a combination of circum-
stances, the egg of a flying bird was incubated by this
flightless one.
In due time the chick came forth, still with the potentiality
for flight which he had always had, even from the time when
he was in the egg.
It spoke to its foster-parent, saying: ‘When will I fly?’ And
the landbound bird said: ‘Persist in your attempts to fly, just
like the others.’
For he did not know how to take the fledgling for its lesson
in flying: even how to topple it from the nest so that it might
learn.
And it is curious, in a way, that the young bird did not see
this. His recognition of the situation was confused by the fact
that he felt gratitude to the bird which had hatched him.
‘Without this service,’ he said to himself, ‘surely I would
still be in the egg?’
And, again, sometimes he said to himself: ‘Anyone who
can hatch me, surely he can teach me to fly. It must be just a
matter of time, or of my own unaided efforts, or of some great
wisdom: yes, that is it. Suddenly one day I will be carried to
the next stage by him who has brought me thus far’
This tale appears in various forms in different
versions of Suhrawardi’s twelfth-century Awarif
el-Maarif and carries many messages.
It is said to be
capable of interpretation intuitively in accordance
with the level of consciousness reached by the
reader. On the obvious level it has, of course,
morals, some of them emphasising the very bases
of modern civilisation. These include:
‘To assume that one thing follows from another
can be absurd and prevent further progress,’ and
‘Just because some one can perform one function
does not prove that he can fulfil another’.
Source: Idries Shah (1969) «Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching Stories of the Sufi Masters Over the Past Thousand Years», E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc., New York, USA
