Once upon a time, a long time ago, one man, concentrated and persistently pondering the secrets of nature, revealed the secret of making fire. This man's name was Noor. Nur decided to share his discovery with people and for this he began to travel from community to community. He passed on his secret to many groups of people. Some took advantage of this knowledge. Others, without taking the trouble to think how useful it could be for them, only realized that Nur was dangerous for them, and drove him away. In the end, the people of some tribe, before whom he demonstrated his art, came into a wild panic and killed him, seeing him as a fiend of hell.
Centuries have passed. In one community in which Nur once taught people how to make fire, this knowledge was preserved only by special priests who enjoyed power, wealth and warmth, while the rest of the people froze from the cold. Another community completely forgot the art of Nur and began to worship tools for making fire. The people of the third community worshiped the image of Nur himself, since it was he who was their teacher. In the fourth community, the history of the discovery of fire was preserved in legends and traditions - some believed in them, others did not. The fifth community actually used fire, and this allowed them to stay warm, cook food and produce various useful items.
And so, many, many years later, one sage with a small group of disciples traveled through the lands of these tribes. The disciples were amazed at the many different rituals they encountered here.
“But all these actions relate only to making fire and nothing more,” they told the teacher. “It is our duty to reveal the truth to these people.”
“Well, I agree,” answered the teacher. “We will repeat our journey, and with this new goal, those of you who survive at the end will know what the real problems are and how to solve them.”
So, the sage and his disciples reached the first tribe, where they were given a warm welcome. The priests invited travelers to the ceremony of “creating fire.” When the ceremony ended and the crowd excitedly experienced the “miracle” they had seen, the master turned to the students:
“Would any of you be willing to reveal the truth to these people?”
The first student said:
“In the name of truth, I consider myself obligated to talk to these people.”
“If you are going to do this at your own peril and risk, then start,” answered the teacher.
The disciple came forward, stood in front of the leader of the tribe and the priests surrounding him and said:
- I can perform a miracle, which you attribute to a special manifestation of a deity. If I do this, will you admit that you have been in error for many centuries?
- Grab him! - the priests shouted.
The man was captured and taken away, never to be seen again.
The travelers set off and after some time approached the territory of the second community, where they worshiped tools for making fire. Another student volunteered to bring these people to reason.
With the master's permission, he said:
- I want to talk to you like reasonable people. You do not even worship the thing itself, but only the means by which it can be produced. Thus, you are deprived of the opportunity to use this thing. I know the reality behind your ritual.
This community consisted of more intelligent people. But they said to the disciple:
- Since you are our guest, we honored you with hospitality. However, being a stranger, unfamiliar with our history and customs, you cannot understand what we do. You are mistaken; perhaps you are even trying to deprive us of our religion or change it. That's why we don't want to listen to you.
The travelers moved on. Having reached the lands of the third community, they saw in front of each house an idol depicting Nur, the discoverer of fire. The third student addressed the community leaders as follows:
“This idol represents a person, representing the opportunity that a person is able to use, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps this is so,” replied Nur’s admirers, “but only a few are given the insight into this secret.”
“Yes, but only to those few who will understand, and not to those who refuse to look at certain facts,” said the third student.
“All this is heresy, and besides, it is expressed by a person who does not even speak our language correctly and does not belong to the priests, to those initiated into our faith,” the priests grumbled.
And this student failed to succeed.
So the group continued their journey until they arrived at the territory of the fourth community. This time, the fourth disciple spoke to the gathering of people. He stated:
— The story about the creation of fire is true. I know how to make fire.
Confusion arose in the crowd, and discordant opinions were heard. Some said:
“Perhaps this is true, and if so, then we certainly want to know how to make fire.”
But when the master and his followers tested them, it turned out that the majority sought to use the fire for their own personal gain. They did not understand that fire is something necessary for human progress. The minds of the overwhelming majority of the people of this tribe were so saturated with perverted legends that those who imagined themselves capable of perceiving truth as such turned out to be, as a rule, unbalanced people who could not receive fire even if they were shown how it was done.
There were others who stated: “Of course, there is nothing true in the legends. This person just wants to fool us so that he can gain a high position in our community.”
The third party said: “Our legends must remain as they are, because this is our heritage, connecting us all into a single whole. If we abandon them now and then discover that the new interpretation is no good, what will happen to our society?
There were also other points of view.
So, the group went further and finally came to the territory of the fifth community, where lighting a fire was something common and publicly available. But even there the travelers encountered trials. And then the master said to his disciples:
“You must learn how to teach, because man does not want to be taught.” First you will have to teach people how to learn. And before that, it is still necessary to explain to them that there is something that should be learned. People imagine that they already know everything. They want to study what they think needs to be learned, not what should be learned first. Only when you understand all this can we invent a teaching method. Knowledge without a special ability to teach is not the same as knowledge and the presence of this ability.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru