Mulla Nasruddin – Blessings

The rain was pelting down. Aga Akil, the most sanctimonious man in town, was running for shelter. ‘How dare you flee from God’s bounty,’ thundered Nasrudin at him, ‘the liquid from Heaven ? As a devout man, you should know that rain is a blessing for all creation.’

The Aga was anxious to maintain his reputation. ‘I had not thought of it that way,’ he muttered, and slackening his pace he arrived home soaked through. Of course he caught a chill.

Soon afterwards, as he sat wrapped in blankets at his window, he espied Nasrudin pelting through the rain, and challenged him: ‘Why are you running away from divine blessings, Nasrudin ? How dare you spurn the blessing which it contains ?’

‘Ah,’ said Nasrudin, ‘you don’t seem to realize that I do not want the rain water to touch my feet and thereby defile the blessings it contains.’

Everything, every moment is a blessing of That. Whatever you call That: Nature, God, Existence anything. According to Nasruddin, rain here is that blessing which is showering always.

If you do not feel this blessing all the time then everything is a curse for you. Then you will consider certain things as blessings and will try to get the blessings. Blessings are showering naturally all around, but if we do not feel it that way, then no way we will be able to feel it.

According to Aga Akil, the priest, that which creates favorable conditions in life are blessings. According to Nasruddin, even draughts are blessings. There is no need to hanker for favorable conditions and call them blessings. The real blessings are the teachings which show us the blessings all around, everywhere, every moment. Whatever else we chase, whatever else apart from this teachings we take as blessings is actually a curse for us. Those running behind blessings would naturally suffer like this priest.

To consider certain things as blessing is not common sense. It cannot be argued and proved to ignorant people that their viewpoint lacks common sense. So Mulla Nasruddin uses tricks like this to show the foolishness of ordinary religious people.

Sufism got its beginning around dessert regions. In desserts it is natural to see rain as blessings. Life for many is also like dessert. Barren, harsh, with only some signs of life at times. Rain represents water, life all around. Spiritual knowledge is the rain that converts this dessert of life into heaven. Then one can feel the real rain, the God’s benediction all around.

This story could be literally understood with rain as just the rain, some water. At this level the story is a self explanatory joke on the poor priest. A little deeper is the understanding to see the story at the level of priest. And ultimately, we need to see what Nasruddin wants to say and how he is seeing this story.

Let us penetrate the story a little.

The priest is looking for shelter, means he is searching for happiness. This search itself is defiling. That is why Nasruddin says, ‘How dare you flee from God’s bounty, the liquid from Heaven ? As a devout man, you should know that rain is a blessing for all creation.’ A devout man, a religious mind should be able to see blessings as rain throughout the creation. How can one flee away from that blessings? Your searching for happiness shows you are fleeing away from that blessings. So being a religious person do not defile God’s blessings showering everywhere effortlessly. In short, do not search for happiness, as happiness is all around you.

But the priest could not live this teaching as he was concerned about people’s opinion and his reputation. Nasruddin tells him not to go searching for happiness and enjoy the raining blessings, but the priest merely slows down his search externally. He slackens his pace. But internally in his mind he is even more greedy for happiness. This is what happens to religious people who cannot fathom higher levels of understanding. Naturally they get chilled, they suffer. ‘Slackening his pace he arrived home soaked through.’

For Nasruddin, the rains are the lavishing benediction all around. For the priest the rains is literally water falling from above. For Nasruddin, follow the scriptures means understand the depths of scriptures. For priest, follow the scriptures means literally follow the external procedures laid down there. For Nasruddin, literal interpretation of scriptures is blasphemous. For the priest, not following literal interpretation is blasphemous. For Nasruddin, the outcome of understanding the depths of scriptures is feeling blessed all the time. For the priest, the outcome of following external procedures is gaining some favorable conditions in life. For Nasruddin, the blessings is available for all. For the priest, the blessings is for himself.

The priest believes Nasruddin guided him towards some religious procedure to be followed. So when he does not see Nasruddin himself following those procedures, he naturally asks Nasruddin, “Why are you running away from these religious procedures? How dare you defile the blessings they contain?”

Nasruddin says, “I do not want to defile them with my feet.” Feet here is anti-head, meaning feet represents being anti-intellectual – as good as being stupid. Nasruddin says I would be stupid if I do not see the blessings all around and start following the religious procedures.

Nasruddin was helping a so called religious person see the higher Truth. He failed. He ended up telling the priest how the priest is defiling the blessing of God showering everywhere by using his feet – by being stupid. By not understanding the real essence of the scriptures the priest can be said to be using his feet to understand the scriptures and thereby defiling the blessings those teachings contain.

To be aware of what is written in religious books does not make one religious. Merely following the books also would just show our foolishness. It also does not mean not to understand what is written in the books. The Truth is deeper.

Feet is considered impure in religious language. Rain is considered sacred in the same religious language. If you use one of this point selectively and ignore the other then you would suffer like the priest. Nasruddin uses both of them, means religious books should be looked at holistically – one should look at the essence and not blindly follow everything stated there. If you do not outgrow religious pettiness then forget about divine, in this world also you would suffer – that’s for sure seen through this story.

When you actually feel the rains all around then you can never defile it. That means, when you see the blessings all around there can never be any question about defilements. You cannot run away from that rain to anywhere because everywhere is that blessings. The priest is hurriedly going away from this blessings towards the comforts of his house, that is, towards the comforts of his ego. Nasruddin manages to slacken his pace towards ego, gives him some more feel of the blessings. But alas! the priest was following Nasruddin just for the sake of his reputation and not out of understanding. It is still raining, but after doing the show off of appreciating the rains, now he is back in his comfort zones. The home of priest is representative of his ego.

The real rains – the blessings do not touch your body. They touch your being. You need to come out of body identification to get soaked in this beautiful rains. This is the fruit of this spiritual teachings – which is called Baraka in Sufism or Prasad in Indian traditions.

It may seem Nasruddin is making fun of this priest. But a saint never does that just for the sake of fun. Nasruddin simply wants to call us to this shower of blessings which can never be defiled.

Once a sage was sleeping with his feet towards the idol of Shiva. A priest came and rebuked him, “How dare you keep your feet towards Shiva Lingam? You would be cursed. At once change the directions of your feet or else I will teach you few lessons. “

The sage said, “I know this, dear, but I could not find a direction where Shiva is not there.”

The priest was holy in the eyes of people. Whether he was really holy or not is shown by Nasruddin. The priest is actually defiling the God’s blessing – the intellect. Since people made him holy and is revered by those people, now he has to dance to the tune of people. If that means getting soaked in rain, if that means torturing one against all practicalities, then so be it. These are the ways many of the religious traditions are formed.

You would have seen priests sprinkling water on devotees in the temples. This is symbolic of showering of God’s blessing on you. The priests always end up coming up with such religious procedures. The saints would have said something, the priest understood something else and based on this misunderstanding a custom is started which the majority happily follow. Why a person actually feeling the blessings would become part of such rituals?

Once the traditions are formed, it then becomes blasphemous not to follow them. This suffocates the free flow of spiritual knowledge. This suffocates the saints who have transcended the level of majority mortals. The saints want to tell the Truth to all but the listeners use the blasphemy charges against these saints and try to drag them to their level.

There has been constant unease due to such blasphemy charges, especially in the religions rooted in the desserts regions. The saints are the real rains, the real blessings for the inhabitants of these desserts. But unfortunately, they are defiling them by considering them blasphemous. That is why, Nasruddin is saying to the priest, ‘why are you running away from the rains’ – which means why are you running away from the saints as if they are blasphemous. ‘As a devout man, you should know that rain is a blessing for all creation.’ – meaning as a religious person you should know that saints are actually a blessings for all.

A simple person may have understood Nasruddin. But to a ordinary religious man such saints are blasphemous. They try to ignite people against such saints. However, saints are made of different material. Let us see an event in the life of Bayazid as narrated by Rumi in his book Masnavi. Bayazid used to get into ecstasy several times and in such a state would declare himself to be no other than God. After he descends onto earthly planes, he would be sternly reminded of the blasphemy he was committing.

Bayazid said, “I cannot control myself in that state. However, if you believe I am offending anyone then here I order my disciples to stab me with their knives when such offence happens again.” What happens next time now in the words of Rumi.

The torrent of madness bore away his reason
And he spoke more impiously than before:
‘Within my vesture is naught but God,
Whether you seek Him on earth on in heaven.’
His disciples all became mad with horror,
And struck with their knives at his holy body.
Each one who aimed at the body of the Sheykh—
His stroke was reversed and wounded the striker.
No stroke took effect on that man of spiritual gifts,
But the disciples were wounded and drowned in blood.

Contemplation Points

Do ‘you’ need to pass through the stage of priest in order to come to the stage of Nasruddin?

Understand clearly the story from three different levels: 1) physical rain 2) priest 3) Nasruddin.

Why only you, leaving aside others, can never be blessed? Why only you can never be happy? Why is it said that to be blessed is to see blessings all around?

This is not a trickle to my field alone,
This is not a drizzle on your field alone.
When lavishing benediction is seen everywhere,
Then it simply rains and rains for all.
The above is the excerpt from the ‘It rains for ALL’ poem available at PranDhyan.org website. Go over the gist of this Nasruddin story and the poem and contemplate on the meaning and similarities of both.

Whenever you get scorched in the dessert of life; come to this story – read it – digest it to feel the rains.