Friday, December 3, 2010

The garden well.


There is a sufi story about a well in a persian garden where a sufi saint would sit to meditate. During the day time the gardener would draw water from the well for the plants. One day he came to find that the garden was flooded with water. He was very surprised and angry, and suspected that it was the sufi monk who was sitting in the garden who had done this. So the gardener decided that the useless old man who spent his time praying in the garden was spoiling plants. So he threw the sufi out of the garden. But then to his surprise the tree under which the sufi used to sit, uprooted itself and followed the saint. Then all the plants seemed to pull themselves from the earth, and also began to follow the sufi. Even the well lifted up from the ground, and left the garden, in pursuit of the man of prayer. Then the gardener realized that the whole garden depended on the prayer of the sufi, and it was his inner life that brought the water up from the depths, and sustained the beauty of the garden. Then the gardener followed the Sufi, and begged him to return, so that his garden could once again be re-established.

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