An essay on the tales
of sand
Answers
Tales of Sand
From Idries Shah’s “Tales of the Dervishes.” This version of the story is from Award Fifi the Tunisian who died in 1870.
A stream, from its source in far-off mountains, passing through all kinds and outline of the countryside, finally reached the sands of the desert. even as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream tried to cross this one, but it found that as fast because it suddenly met the sand, its waters disappeared.
It was convinced, however, that its destiny was to cross this desert, and yet there was no way. Now a hidden voice, coming from the desert itself, whispered: ‘The Wind crosses the desert, and then can the stream.’
The stream objected that it had been dashing itself against the sand and only getting absorbed: that the wind could fly, and this was why it could cross a desert.
'By hurtling in your own accustomed way you can't get across. you'll either disappear or become a marsh. you need to allow the wind to hold you over, to your destination.’
But how could this happen? 'By allowing yourself to be absorbed within the wind.’
This idea wasn't acceptable to the stream. After all, it had never been absorbed before. It didn't want to lose its individuality. And, once having lost it, how was one to understand that it could ever be regained?
'The wind’, said the sand, 'performs this function. It takes up water, carries it over the desert, then lets it fall again. Falling as rain, the water again becomes a river.’
'How am I able to know that this is often true?’
'It is so, and if you are doing not believe it, you can not become quite a quagmire, and even that would take many, many years; and it certainly isn't an equivalent as a stream.’
'But am I able to not remain an equivalent stream that I'm today?’
'You cannot, in either case, remain so,’ the whisper said. 'Your essential part is over exciting and forms a stream again. you're called what you're even today because you are doing not know which a part of you is that the essential one.’
When he heard this, certain echoes began to arise within the thoughts of the stream. Dimly, he remembered a state during which he -or some a part of him, was it?- had been held within the arms of a wind. He also remembered -or did he?- that this was the important thing, not necessarily the apparent thing, to do.
And the stream raised his vapor into the welcoming arms of the wind, which gently and simply bore it upwards and along, letting it fall softly as soon as they reached the roof of a mountain, many, many miles away. and since he had his doubts, the stream was ready to remember and record more strongly in his mind the small print of the experience. He reflected, 'Yes, now I even have learned my true identity.’
The stream was learning. But the sands whispered, 'We know because we see it happen day after day: and since we, the sands, extend from the riverside all the thanks to the mountain.’
And that is why it's said that the way during which the Stream of Life is to continue on its journey is written within the Sands.