One day, the king of Bukhara, seeing the futility of life, gave up his kingdom and headed to Afghanistan to find spiritual guidance.
The first thing the teacher assigned him was to sweep all the students' rooms. There were many different students there, both poor and rich, but there was not a single king. They all felt great pity for this man who had once been a king and now had to sweep rooms - a job he had never done before. They didn’t say anything, but one day they couldn’t help but feel: “It’s a pity that this man has to do this job. He is so good, kind and meek, such a wonderful person, why should he do this?”
And they went to the teacher and said:
- Teacher, would you give this job to one of us? It pains us to see how this man, who used to be a king and lived in palaces, sweeps rooms.
“My students,” answered the teacher, “you need to wait.” I don't think the time has come yet.
They said:
“This causes us great pain.”
“Okay,” said the teacher, “I’ll tell one of you what to do, and then we’ll see.”
One day, the man who had previously been a king was carrying a basket of garbage, and one of the disciples pushed him so hard that it fell out of his hands and the garbage spilled onto the floor. So he had to put everything back together. He looked at that student and said:
- Now, if I were who I was before, I would show you what it means to allow yourself such mistakes.
After which he collected the trash and left. The message about this was conveyed to the teacher, and he said:
“Didn’t I tell you that the time has not come yet?”
After some time, another disciple did the same, and the one who was once the king stood and looked at him for a while, as if wanting to say something, but said nothing. And again the teacher was informed about what had happened, and he said:
- It's not time yet.
And a similar incident happened for the third time. The man didn't even look up; he continued to do his job. And then the teacher said:
- Now the time has come.
They may ask: “Isn’t it weakness to be so passive?” Yes, if a person is so passive from weakness, it will be weakness. But if a person is passive because of deep thinking, then this is strength, because great strength is needed to dominate oneself.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru