Excerpt
"Wisdom of Idiots"
by
Idries Shah,
The Octagon Press,
London,
1969, 1970,
pages 37 - 38
+++
"Dispute With Academics"
It is recorded
that
Bahaudin Naqshband
was asked:
"Why do you
not dispute
with Scholastics?
Such-and-such
a Sage
regularly does so.
This causes the Scholars'
total confusion,
and
his own disciples'
invariable admiration."
He said:
"Go and ask those
who remember the time
when
I myself used to contend
with Academics.
I regularly refuted
their surmises
and
their imagined proofs
with relative ease.
Those
who were
then present
on numerous occasions
will tell you that.
But, one day,
a wiser man than I
said:
"You so frequently
and predictably
shame
the men of the tongue
that
there is
a monotony in it.
This is
especially so
because
it is
to no final purpose,
since
the Academicians
are
without understanding,
and
continue to wrangle
long after
their positions
have been
demolished."
He added:
"Your students
are in a constant state
of wonderment
at your victories.
They have learned
to admire you.
Instead,
they
should have perceived
the
comparative
worthlessness
and
lack of significance
of your opponents.
You have thus,
in victory,
failed,
by,
let us say,
a quarter.
Their wonderment,
too,
takes up
much of their time,
when
they could be
appreciating
something
worthwhile.
So you have
failed
by
perhaps
another quarter.
Two quarters
are equal
to
one-half.
You have
one-half
of
an opportunity left."
"That
was
twenty years ago.
That is why
I do not
trouble myself
or others
with Scholars,
whether
for
victory or defeat.
Now and again
one may strike
the
self-appointed Scholars
a blow,
to demonstrate
their hollowness
to Students:
as one
hits
an empty pot.
To do
any more
is both wasteful
and
tantamount
to
giving Intellectuals
an importance,
through
granting them
gratuitous attention,
that they
certainly
could not attain
by
themselves."
+++
from
"Wisdom of Idiots"
by
Idries Shah,
The Octagon Press,
London,
1969, 1970,
pages 37 - 38
+++
"Dispute With Academics"
It is recorded
that
Bahaudin Naqshband
was asked:
"Why do you
not dispute
with Scholastics?
Such-and-such
a Sage
regularly does so.
This causes the Scholars'
total confusion,
and
his own disciples'
invariable admiration."
He said:
"Go and ask those
who remember the time
when
I myself used to contend
with Academics.
I regularly refuted
their surmises
and
their imagined proofs
with relative ease.
Those
who were
then present
on numerous occasions
will tell you that.
But, one day,
a wiser man than I
said:
"You so frequently
and predictably
shame
the men of the tongue
that
there is
a monotony in it.
This is
especially so
because
it is
to no final purpose,
since
the Academicians
are
without understanding,
and
continue to wrangle
long after
their positions
have been
demolished."
He added:
"Your students
are in a constant state
of wonderment
at your victories.
They have learned
to admire you.
Instead,
they
should have perceived
the
comparative
worthlessness
and
lack of significance
of your opponents.
You have thus,
in victory,
failed,
by,
let us say,
a quarter.
Their wonderment,
too,
takes up
much of their time,
when
they could be
appreciating
something
worthwhile.
So you have
failed
by
perhaps
another quarter.
Two quarters
are equal
to
one-half.
You have
one-half
of
an opportunity left."
"That
was
twenty years ago.
That is why
I do not
trouble myself
or others
with Scholars,
whether
for
victory or defeat.
Now and again
one may strike
the
self-appointed Scholars
a blow,
to demonstrate
their hollowness
to Students:
as one
hits
an empty pot.
To do
any more
is both wasteful
and
tantamount
to
giving Intellectuals
an importance,
through
granting them
gratuitous attention,
that they
certainly
could not attain
by
themselves."
+++
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