Once upon a time there was a Teacher to whom two people came and asked to become his students.
He agreed, telling them that he took them on with a three-month trial period. For ninety days, the Master did not give them tasks, did not hold conversations with them, and did not invite them to meetings.
When the probationary period expired, he called them into the yard and said:
- I want you to go out the gate; there are camels standing there. Let each of you take one camel by the bridle and, climbing over the wall, drag the camel over it.
The first student said:
“Master, I heard what was said: use your mind.” My mind tells me that this is impossible and my intuition tells me that you gave me this task to test whether I have common sense or not
“So, you won’t try to drag the camel over the wall?”
“I won’t, Teacher, and don’t let it look like disobedience.”
Then the Master turned to the second student:
- What will you answer?
Without saying a word, the student went out of the gate and headed towards the camels. He took the bridle and, leading the camel to the wall, tried to climb onto it, but he failed, since he was holding the bridle in his hand.
“That’s enough,” said the Master, “return the animal to its place and return.”
A few minutes later, all three of them stood in the yard, and the Master said:
“Everyone is well aware that the Path requires a variety of abilities from the walker. This includes intelligence, and common sense, and obedience, and much more.
Obedience is no less important than intelligence and common sense. Anyone who has tried to teach someone anything knows that people prefer to use their intelligence and common sense instead of obedience, thus disturbing the balance of these three qualities. Most people think that finding a clever way out is preferable to doing what you're told, when in fact neither of those things is more important than the others. Now we can find intellectuals everywhere, but where can we find people who can obey?
So the first student failed the test because he places too much emphasis on intelligence. The second one will remain with me, since he did not fall into the temptation of evidence, which cuts us off from our abilities
The master turned to the second student and asked him why he tried to do the impossible.
He answered:
“I knew that you knew that this was impossible, so there was no harm in obedience, since I saw where it led.” I felt like saying, “This is impossible. I won’t try because of common sense” was the easiest. Everyone has enough common sense to refuse obedience. So I thought you were testing whether I was capable of obeying and refusing easy decisions.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru