One day, Caliph Harun al-Rashid, during a conversation with his mentor, said:
- Teacher, you yourself know that by nature I am a seeker. I have all the blessings of this world, everything that most mortals dream of. Don’t you think that since I am freed from worldly worries with which the heads of ordinary people are constantly filled, I should have known more than what I know now?
The teacher listened and answered:
— Everything must have its own basis. You, for example, have every reason to rule, to command people to indulge your desires. But when there is no initial foundation, a person not only cannot create it himself, but often, like you, he mistakenly believes that he has already acquired this necessary foundation.
“So you teach me how to find it,” the impatient caliph began to insist.
“First, I will teach you to realize the necessity of this foundation, otherwise you will not agree to accept it from those who know it,” the sage answered slowly, drawing out his words.
He refused to talk further on this topic, because he knew that he could teach what was promised only under appropriate circumstances that could clearly explain what he would teach.
Several years passed, and finally the right opportunity came up. The caliph and the sage dined together, and during dinner Harun addressed his mentor:
- Teacher, these sweet marzipan balls can, in my opinion, serve as the clearest example of how human inventions, if they are good, quickly spread throughout the world, becoming the property of everyone.
- O Caliph! - exclaimed the sage. — Several thousand years have passed since man first tasted marzipan. But despite this, not everyone likes their taste. Moreover, there are still a great many people on earth who don’t even know anything about them.
Such an obvious derogation of his knowledge terribly angered the caliph, but he restrained himself and said to the sage:
- I give you one day so that you can prove your unfounded statement. And if by tomorrow evening you have not brought me a man who knows nothing about marzipan, I will throw you out of the yard as a deceiver and a fool.
“I will fulfill your will,” answered the sage, “but not at all because of threats, but only because right now the circumstances have arisen that are required to clearly demonstrate the need for the original basis.”
The next morning he went out into the streets of Baghdad and slowly walked along them. Soon he met some villager, he was dressed very simply and walked down the street as if an unknown force had somehow incomprehensibly thrown him into a world completely alien to him - there was unfeigned surprise in his gaze, and his hands somehow absurdly pressed a piece of flatbread to his chest.
-Where are you from and where to? - the sage asked him, drawing level with him.
- But, but... take it easy! - he blurted out in response. - I know you, all of you are greedy for my bread.
“Not at all,” the sage tried to calm him down, “on the contrary, I want to treat you to something tasty.”
- Why would this happen suddenly? - asked the peasant.
“To help you learn new things and also give one person the opportunity to understand something very important,” answered the sage.
After much persuasion, he managed to drag the stubborn man to the Caliph's palace. Seeing the dazzlingly luxurious clothes of the caliph’s bodyguards, his godlike viziers, snow-white marble, fountains, the unfortunate man fell on his face and screamed:
- Oh, I found out! Oh, it's he who came! The day of resurrection has come! Oh, how magnificent is this hall of justice of the one and all-powerful God!
“You see everything as it should be, but you are mistaken,” said the sage.
Then he talked for a long time about something, but the poor fellow could not understand anything and only looked at the sage with stunned, frightened, betrayed eyes.
Finally they came to the caliph and sat down next to him on the carpet. The sage pointed his palm at the peasant and told the caliph that he had fulfilled his will and brought to him a man who knew nothing about marzipan.
“Well, we’ll check that later,” answered the caliph. -What is this in your hands? - he asked, turning to the peasant.
“Food,” he answered.
The Caliph made a sign with his hand, and several marzipan balls were brought to him.
- Well, what is this? he asked. - It's something edible, isn't it?
“We have a very wise man living in our village,” the peasant answered him, “so when talking about food, he always cites the saying: “Dates, water and sensations.” I know water and dates, hence this sensation.
At these words the sage exclaimed:
- O Caliph! This person uses the life wisdom of his village as a basis in order to explain those phenomena that he does not understand without a more complete explanation or in the absence of experience. He doesn't feel the need for marzipan. And if there were, we would have to give him more information about them, a greater basis for understanding. In the same way, an enlightened person likes those objects, and even just their idea, that have developed from foundations that are absent or inconspicuous in his own environment.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru