Book Summaries
The Oath (Tales of the Dervishes)
A MAN who was troubled in mind once swore that if his problems were solved he would sell his house and give all the money gained from it to the poor. The time came when he realized that he must redeem his oath. But he did not want to give away so much money. So he thought of a way out.
A MAN who was troubled in mind once swore that if his problems were solved he would sell his house and give all the money gained from it to the poor.
The time came when he realized that he must redeem his oath. But he did not want to give away so much money. So he thought of a way out.
He put the house on sale at one silver piece. Included with the house, however, was a cat. The price asked for this animal was ten thousand pieces of silver.
Another man bought the house and cat. The first man gave the single piece of silver to the poor, and pocketed the ten thousand for himself.
Many people’s minds work like this. They resolve to follow a teaching; but they interpret their relationship with it to their own advantage. Until they overcome this tendency by special training, they cannot learn at all.
—
The trick described in this story, according to its dervish teller (Sheikh Nasir el-Din Shah) may be deliberate —or it may describe the warped mind which unconsciously performs tricks of this kind.
The Sheikh, also known as The Lamp of Delhi’, died in 1846. His shrine is in Delhi, India. This version, attributed to him, is from an oral tradition of the Chishti Order. It is used to introduce the psychological technique designed to stabilize the mind, making it incapable of tricks of self-deception.
YARPP List
Related posts:
- The Idiot, the Wise Man and the Jug (Tales of the Dervishes)
- Crime and Punishment Summary (8.9/10)
- Strategy 17: Defeat Them in Detail (The 33 Strategies of War)
- Amusing Ourselves to Death Summary (9/10)
Keep Reading
Related Articles
Book Summaries
Ch. 8: Copy it (Chip War)
Nikita Khruschev’s support for building the Soviet microelectronics center, Zelenograd, coincided with the return of Soviet student Boris Malin from studying in Pennsylvania with an integrated circuit.
Book Summaries
Leibnitz (A History of Western Philosophy)
Lebinitz thought, like Voltaire’s Pangloss, that we live in the best of all possible worlds. He argued for God’s existence by using the ontological argument, which shows that the idea of a perfect being is possible. He wrote out a proof for this, including the quality of existence itself.
Book Summaries
The Top 12 Books About Learning how to Learn
1. The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money 2. A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra) 3.
Book Summaries
Technopoly Summary Part 2
Neil Postman’s observation that every technology creates “winners and losers” challenges the widespread assumption that progress is invariably a tide lifting all boats. He draws on the work of Harold Innis to illustrate how technological shifts reconfigure social power dynamics.