The Archer

The champion bowman of the town of Salima complained that he had no peer.

 

‘These people, the Salimites, are no archers, and thus they cannot judge my excellence!’ He repeated, again and again, to anyone who would listen.

 

He convinced everyone of his unhappiness.

 

One day a certain Sufi master was passing through the town, and stopped to drink some tea.

 

In the tea house the people told him of the miserable archer.

 

‘He may believe that he is suffering’ said the sage, ‘but the All Highest has in fact been more thank kind to this man. Had he been placed among archers, he would have been in constant fear of being outdone.’

 

‘If he had really needed adversaries of his own quality, nothing would have prevented him from finding them.’

 

‘Until man and his audience can hear the unspoken message, and forget the spoken one, he will remain in chains.’

~ by Shaykh on April 22, 2008.