First Things First: Nasrudin and the Art of Learning
To the Sufi, perhaps the greatest absurdity in life is the way in which people strive for things – such as knowledge – without the basic equipment for acquiring them. They have assumed that all they need is ‘two eyes, a nose and a mouth’, as Nasrudin says. In Sufism, a person cannot learn until he is in a state in which he can perceive what he is learning, and what it means. Nasrudin went one day to a well, in order to teach this point to a disciple who wanted to know ‘the truth’. With him he took the disciple and a pitcher. The Mulla drew a bucket of water, and poured it into his pitcher. Then he drew another, and poured it in. As he was pouring in the third, the disciple could not contain himself any longer: ‘Mulla, the water is running out. There is no bottom in that pitcher.’ Nasrudin looked at him indignantly. ‘I am trying to fill the pitcher. In order to see when it is full, my eyes are fixed upon the neck, not the bottom. When I see the water rise to the neck, the pitcher will b