Once upon a time, in a distant land lived a young man with a disease incurable for many years past, trying to hold on to life. Since his entire childhood and even more were spent dealing with this disease, his parents raised him with great care, almost wrapped him and hid him up in soft cottons. They did everything for him before he even had to ask, so that he wouldn’t ever get upset or sick. The young man got so used to this that after a while, without noticing it, selfishness surrounded his whole being. He acted mercilessly until he reached his goal.
One day, in pursuit of a challenge, this young man came by a strange land. This was a place that could, although he hadn’t realized it yet, change the course of his life. On a day he was running uncontrollably in pursuit of his ambitions, he collapsed in the middle of the road. Hours later, he found himself at the home of an old man he didn’t know. His body, captured by his ambitions, wanted to escape the place immediately; but his soul, hungry for spirituality despite his satisfied body, melted in the old man’s gaze.
The man, who saw the boy standing up to leave, said, “Wait a moment, what’s the rush? I made you soup. See, this is a healing soup, it’s good for both your body and soul.”
The gaze and words of this old man, who seemed to possess a mystic charm, really impressed the boy. “It is obvious that the beauty of his heart is reflected in his eyes as well as the words poured out of his mouth,” he thought. This sincerity, which he had never encountered in his own world, captured his soul, or perhaps became the first step that would allow his captive soul to flap its wings towards freedom.
As time went by, a good relationship formed between the boy and this old man. The young man, despite all his efforts, still could not get rid of the ambitions gripping his soul. The old man who had been aware of his situation since the beginning, one day said to him: “Let’s say you get on a ship with heavy loads on your back. Will you continue to carry these burdens on the ship? Son, leave your load on the ship now, you’re getting crushed under them. The ship is already going to the same place as you. Let your burden down so both your soul and body can become lighter.”
The young man thought for a while, measured and weighed the man’s words and finally said, “I have decided to carry my stuff myself, I can’t trust the owner of the ship.” Since childhood, he had seen people who, although actually incapable, were unaware of this fact and tried to carry everything on their own. As he was raised without a sign of faith and trust around him, he found it difficult to put his belongings down on the ship.
Although he was old, the wise man whose soul was still young, did not insist. “Okay, son,” he said. “But come to me tomorrow morning, and we will go on a journey with you. Don’t ask where and why. I am not Khidr, nor are you Moses! Just come.”
The young man hardly reached the morning. “I wonder where we will go, what journey this is?” All these thoughts gnawed at his brain till morning. He found himself at the old man’s door with the first lights of the day. “Are we going to have breakfast?” he asked.
“Let’s get on the road first, let’s see where God will give our sustenance.”
This was the first step in the journey of faith. They walked on for a long while. Just as they got tired, like a mirage, they saw a man sitting alone in front of a hut as if waiting for someone, in the middle of silence and loneliness. The old man said, “Hello!” The lonely one received his greeting.
“Who are you waiting for, with your eyes on the road?” he asked.
“I set my table here every day at this time, waiting for a guest of God who will accompany me. This sometimes happens to a sufferer who has lost his way in trouble, sometimes it is a passenger searching for himself. Today is yours, so come to the table!”
They gladly answered the invitation. The food on this table seemed to the young man the most delicious he had ever tasted. Among the smiles of the others, he contently filled his stomach.
“A traveler should be on the road, may God bless you,” they said as they left.
After a while, the old man took bread and water out of his bag and left it under a tree.
“Why did you leave them?”
“God gives sustenance to every being, but He has a way for it. Let’s see, who will He make us a means of sustenance for?”
A little later, a rabbit came from among the trees and began to drink from the water. The elderly man smiled as he observed the boy’s surprise, which was evident in his wide-open eyes. They continued their way for a while longer. Towards sunset, they came upon an old, ruined hut. A man carrying the sun to the hut with a sieve![1] The old man said “Hello!” The young man found the sight he witnessed to be highly unusual.
“Is this man crazy, can the sun ever be gathered on the sieve? Didn’t anyone tell him that it is impossible?”
“This man has been here all these years, carrying the sun! Do you think no one told him? What about the burdens we have carried to our huts all these years? Even though we know that one day they will all be left behind, don’t we keep carrying just as this ‘crazy!’ man?”
Young man was struck by the words. His ambitions, like his soul, melted away in front of the old man.
“We need to find a place to spend the night; we have one last place to go tomorrow morning.”
They set off as soon as the sun came up. The place they reached made the young man’s knees go weak and collapse.
“This is my last stop in this realm,” the old man said. “I wait for my day of union, and while I’m waiting, I come here from time to time, sweep up the dust that has got into it. Just like I am trying to get rid of the dust that filled my soul while preparing to come here.”
The boy realized that perhaps he had never thought about this stop before. He was startled with fear.
“Don’t be afraid!” said the old man. “This stop is the gate to a life that is eternal and more beautiful. The more preparation you make in this world, you leave your loads on the ship, trusting the owner of the ship and getting rid of unnecessary loads, the more comfortable you will be.”
The wise man told these with such a kind tone and compassionate look that the young man’s fears suddenly turned into hope.
“Do you think the owner of this ship, of whose existence I have lived all this time unaware, will forgive me?”
The man conveyed him a saying of our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him:
“Umar ibn Khattab, may God be pleased with him, said: Several captives were brought to the presence of the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him. There was a woman among the captives who ran around (with the longing she felt for her child, whom she was separated from), pressed every child she saw to her chest and fed them. In the face of this, the Messenger of God asked: ‘Would that woman ever throw her darling into fire?’ We said: ‘No, by God, she won’t!’ The Messenger of God said with an expression of wisdom: ‘God is much more merciful to His servants than the compassion this woman shows to her offspring.’”
The young man started to find healing from his bodily illness not cured for years, with the healing of his soul. The old man became his guide, taught him to leave his burdens on the ship, to trust and have faith.
Are fairy tales only for children?
Aren’t the adults put to sleep by fairy tales?
And this young man lived in a fairy tale for many years, the ending of which he did not know, until he crossed paths with the wise old man.
[1] http://binbiralan.com/gonul-dagi-dizisi-ve-gunesi-toplayan-adamin-hikayesi/
