WHAT IF

[Dekalb_Blues]

The Man Whose Time Was Wrong  

Once upon a time there was a rich merchant who lived in Baghdad. He had a substantial house, large and small
properties and dhows which sailed to the Indies with rich cargoes. He had gained these things partly through
inheritance, partly through his own efforts, exercised at the right time and place, partly through the benevolent
advice and direction of the King of the West, as the Sultan of Cordoba was called at that time.

Then something went wrong. A cruel oppressor seized the land and houses. Ships which had gone to the Indies
foundered in typhoons, disaster struck his house and his family. Even his close friends seemed to have lost their
power to be in a true harmony with him, although both he and they wanted to have the right kind of social
relationship.

The merchant decided to journey to Spain to see his former patron, and he set off across the Western Desert. On
the way one accident after another overtook him. His donkey died; he was captured by bandits and sold into
slavery, from which he escaped only with the greatest difficulty; his face was tanned by the sun until it was like
leather; rough villagers drove him away from their doors. Here and there a dervish gave him a morsel of food and
a rag to cover himself. Sometimes he was able to scoop a little fresh water from a pool, but more often than not
it was brackish.

Ultimately he reached the entrance of the palace of the King of the West.

Even here he had the greatest difficulty in gaining entry. Soldiers pushed him away with the hafts of their spears,
chamberlains refused to talk to him. He was put to work as a minor employee at the Court until he could earn
enough to buy a dress suitable to wear when applying to the Master of Ceremonies for admission to the Royal
Presence.

But he remembered that he was near to the presence of the king., and the recollection of the Sultan's kindness
to him long ago was still in his mind. Because, however, he had been so long in his state of poverty and distress,
his manners had suffered, and the Master of Ceremonies decided that he would have to take a course in behavior
and self-discipline before he could allow him to be presented at Court.

All this the merchant endured until, three years after he quit Baghdad, he was shown into the audience hall.

The king recognized him at once, asked him how he was, and bade him sit in a place of honour beside him.

'Your Majesty,' said the merchant, 'I have suffered most terribly these past years. My lands were usurped, my
patrimony expropriated, my ships were lost and with them all my capital. For three years I have battled against
hunger, bandits, the desert, people whose language I did not understand. Here I am, to throw myself upon Your
Majesty's mercy.'

The king turned to the Chamberlain. 'Give him a hundred sheep, make him a Royal Shepherd, send him up yonder
mountain, and let him get on with his work.'

Slightly subdued because the king's generosity seemed less than he had hoped for, the merchant withdrew, after
the customary salutation.

No sooner had he reached the scanty pasturage with his sheep than a plague struck them, and they all died. He
returned to the Court.

'How are your sheep?' asked the king.

'Your Majesty, they died as soon as I got them to their pasture.'

The king made a sign and decreed: 'Give this man fifty sheep, and let him tend them until further notice.'

Feeling ashamed and distraught, the shepherd took the fifty animals to the mountainside. They started to nibble
the grass well enough, but suddenly a couple of wild dogs appeared and chased them over a precipice and they
were all killed.

The merchant, greatly sorrowing, returned to the king and told him his story.

'Very well,' said the king, 'you may now take twenty-five sheep and continue as before.'

With almost no hope left in his heart, and feeling distraught beyond measure because he did not feel himself to
be a shepherd in any sense of the word, the merchant took his sheep to their pasture. As soon as he got them
there he found that the ewes all gave birth to twins, nearly doubling his flock. Then, again, twins were born.
These new sheep were fat and well-fleeced and made excellent eating. the merchant found that, by selling
some of the sheep and buying others, the ones which he bought, at first so skimpy and small, grew strong and
healthy, and resembled the amazing new breed which he was rearing. After three years he was able to return
to the Court, splendidly attired, with his report of the way in which the sheep had prospered during his stewardship.
He was immediately admitted to the presence of the king.

'Are you now a successful shepherd?' the monarch asked.

'Yes indeed, Your Majesty. In an incomprehensible way
my luck turned and I can say that nothing has gone wrong -- although I still have little taste for raising sheep.'

'Very well,' said the king. 'Yonder is the kingdom of Seville, whose throne is in my gift. Go, and let it be known that
I make you king of Seville.' And he touched him on the shoulder with the ceremonial axe.

The merchant could not restrain himself and burst out: 'But why did you not make me a king when I first came to
you? Were you testing my patience, already stretched almost to breaking point? Or was this to teach me something?'

The king laughed. 'Let us just say that, on that day when you took the hundred sheep up the mountain and lost
them, had you taken control of the kingdom of Seville, there would not have been one stone standing on top of
another there today.'


======================

Abdul-Qadir of Gilan was born in the eleventh century near the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. Because of his
descent from Hasan, grandson of Mohammed, he is known as Sayedna -- 'Our Prince'. The powerful Qadiri Order is
named after him. He is reputed to have displayed paranormal powers from childhood, studied at Baghdad and spent
a great deal of his time in trying to establish free public education. Suhrawardi, on of the greatest Sufi writers, who
wrote the Gifts of Deep Knowledge, was his disciple. Innumerable wonders are related about both of these men.

He had a large number of Jewish and Christian, as well as Moslem, disciples. He died in 1166. As he lay on his
deathbed a mysterious Arab appeared with a letter. In it was written: 'This is a letter from the Lover to his beloved.
Every person and every animal must taste death.' His shrine is at Baghdad.

Since Abdul Qadir is widely venerated as a saint, numerous hagiographies dealing with his life are current in the
East. They are full of wonders and strange ideas.

Hiyat-i-Hazrat ('Life of the Presence'), which is one such book, begins like this:

'His appearance was formidable. One day only one disciple dared to ask a question. This was: "Can you not give us
power to improve the earth and the lot of the people of the earth?" His brow darkened, and he said: "I will do better:
I will give this power to your descendants, because as yet there is no hope of such improvement being made on a
large enough scale. The devices do not yet exist. You shall be rewarded; and they shall have the reward of their
efforts and of your aspiration."'

A similar sense of chronology is displayed in 'The Man Whose Time Was Wrong'.


---- From Idries Shah, Tales of the Dervishes : Teaching-stories of the Sufi masters over the past thousand years : Selected from the Sufi classics, from oral tradition, from unpublished manuscripts and schools of Sufi teaching in many countries (London: Jonathan Cape, 1967 & NY: Dutton, 1969)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Dervishes
https://idriesshahfoundation.org/books/t...and-years/ Read online.



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"In the sea there are countless treasures,

But if you desire safety, it is on the shore."
---- Sa'di (13th c.)


Questioner: Would you expand upon the concept of the acquisition of polarity by this particular entity, and its use, specifically, of this polarity other than with the simple, obvious need for sixth-density harvest if this is possible, please?

Ra: I am Ra. We would. The nature of the densities above your own is that a purpose may be said to be shared by both positive and negative polarities. This purpose is the acquisition of the ability to welcome more and more the less and less distorted love/light and light/love of the One Infinite Creator. Upon the negative path the wisdom density is one in which power over others has been refined until it is approaching absolute power. Any force such as the force your group and those of Ra offer which cannot be controlled by the power of such a negative fifth-density mind/body/spirit complex then depolarizes the entity which has not controlled other-selves.
It is not within your conscious selves to stand against such refined power but rather it has been through the harmony, the mutual love, and the honest calling for aid from the forces of light which have given you the shield and buckler.
---- Ra channeling session 87 (20th c.)


“Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times.
Come, yet again, come , come.”
---- Jalaluddin Rumi (13th c.)