A certain king once came to the wise Bahauddin Naqshbandi, the “Master of Patterns,” and sat down to watch the meeting of his disciples.
Afterwards, when they sat down to dinner, the King said:
- Oh, Teacher of Eternity! I noticed that during classes your students sit in semicircular rows, just like my courtiers. Is there some kind of sign in this?
Bahauddin replied:
- O Lord of the World! Tell me quickly how your courtiers sit, and I can tell you whether the Seekers sit in this order.
“In the first circle there are those for whom I feel a special affection, so they are the closest.” Next sit the important and powerful people of the kingdom and the ambassadors. At the very end sit the least of this world.
“In that case,” said Shah Bahauddin, “we divide people according to different criteria.” Those who sit closer to me are deaf, so they can hear. The middle group consists of the ignorant, so that they can concentrate on the Teaching. The farthest ones sit the Enlightened Ones, for whom this kind of proximity is not important.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru