THE PROFESSOR AND THE MYSTIC

In a small town of Iran, there lived a Professor of Geography who had a close friend - the local Sufi mystic. One day, when they were going for their usual walk together, the Professor told his friend," Janaab, I like you very much for your compassion, your helpful attitude, your poetic insights, your kindness to all and your sense of humour. You are the best human being I have ever met. But there is one thing about you that I find very difficult to accept."    'Pray, what is that, please do tell me frankly.’ the mystic answered, ‘I have learnt from my Master that my critic is my best friend. You are my best friend, so I also want you to play the role of critic’,    "It is your way of trying to explain the happenings of this world. You use very circuitous language, and make things difficult to understand. Throughout my college and university days, I have trained myself in simple logic, in the efficacy of cause and effect. Why can't you try to do the same?”    The mystic did not answer, and they proceeded with their walk. Soon, they came to the market square, where a big crowd had collected. On enquiry, they were told that everyone was there to witness the public hanging of a person convicted of theft.    'Can you tell me, Professor, using your cause-and-effect theory, why this person is being hanged?' asked the mystic.    'Simple. Because he stole.' said the Professor triumphantly, and the mystic did not dispute that.    They carried on with their walk, and when they were passing a house, the mystic asked the Professor, 'do you know whose house this is?'    'Yes, it belongs to Abdullah the thief.'    'Why do you say Abdullah the thief?' asked the mystic.    'Because everyone knows he steals.'    'Oh, then why isn't he being hanged?'    'Because he has never been caught.' confidently answered the Professor, with a twinkle in his eye    'Then tell me, Professor, was that poor man in the market square being hanged because he stole or because he was caught?'    'Well,' said the Professor rather defensively, ' it was both, I guess.'   'Now' said the mystic, ' let us go back and investigate a little more. Let us find out how that man was caught.'   They went back to the market square and discovered that a resident of the locality who wanted to travel to Kabul had gone to the nearby river to cross it, but found that in spite of it being the summer month, the river was flooded. The resident cursed himself for not having started earlier from his home (as was his original plan) for it was getting dark, and so he could not go back safely. So, he decided to spend the night in an abandoned shelter there itself, and while doing so, he had seen the thief running away from the town with his booty.    'Now tell me, Professor, is this man being hanged because he is a thief, or because he was caught, or because this other resident delayed his start for Kabul and therefore spotted him that night?'    Now it was the turn of the Professor to keep quiet.    The mystic carried on: ' It is actually even more complicated than that. You are a Professor of Geography. You know this river should be quite dry in the summer months, yet it was flooded that night. And you know its cause.'    'Yes,' answered the Professor,' unusual and unexpected floods are occurring on this river because sometime back the tree cover next to the Hindu Kush mountains has been eradicated, the forests destroyed.'    'And who did that, and why?'    ' 50 years ago Changez Khan wanted to invade India via a route that the defender would not expect, and so he was creating a new route on which his soldiers could go.'    'So now tell me, is this man being hanged because he is a thief, or because he got caught, or because the other man delayed his departure for Kabul or because Changez Khan decided to invade India 50 years ago?'    As the Professor lapsed into thoughtful silence, the mystic said,' My dear man, everything in this world is interconnected, we are all part of an indivisible whole. To understand the universe, you have to become the Whole, and not just analyze it into parts. When you use cause and effect logic, you are analyzing the parts. That is fine, nothing wrong with it, for God has endowed us with an intellect which is meant for analysis The problem happens when we become arrogant enough to feel that we have the answer, when all that we have is a perspective. A perspective is just that - a perspective – and is no more right or wrong than any other perspective, however powerful may be the intellect behind it. The Hindus refer to these perspectives as maya  because they  represent duality, whereas Reality is at the level of what they call Advaita  So, when I give you circuitous arguments for explaining any worldly phenomenon, I am merely drawing your attention to the reality of this Great Truth of advaita, of one-ness, which cannot be explained by any human words because all human languages convey things only by comparison, that is, by perspectives that exist at the level of maya, of duality.' “You mean to say,” asked the Professor,” to know reality I have to become a Hindu?” “Oh no, not at all”. answered the mystic “Reality is one, available within every human being. The one-ness that the Hindu mystics refer to is conveyed by the mystics and saints of all religions. Christ has said ‘if thine eye be single, they whole body shall be full of light’, and elaborated saying that this ‘singularity’  becomes evident as we purify our mind of all the evils or selfishness lying within it. By doing so, we don’t change our religion, but become a better human being, whatever religion we have been born in. Our own Jalaluddin Rumi conveyed this so beautifully:   The lamps are different, but the light is the same- it comes from beyond. If you keep looking at the lamp, thou are lost – For thence arises number and plurality. Fix your gaze upon the light.