Written in the 12th century by the Persian poet, Farid ud-Din Attar, the work as a whole depicts the spiritual leader of the birds, the hoopoe, urging his companions to find themselves a king - a quest that they fear will be long and hazardous. Much of it is taken up with the hoopoe's answers to their objections, answers that can also be read as responses to the sufi initiate's fears about following a path that leads ultimately to self-annihilation in a moment of union with Allah.
At one point, the hoopoe is asked a question concerning his own spiritual progress: 'How is it you surpass us in this search for Truth? ...We search and so do you - but you receive Truth's purity while we stand by and grieve.' His answer - that his 'ignorance' vanished when Solomon 'bestow[ed] his glance' upon him - leads him on to discuss the question of how the beneficence of the divine is related to the work of prayer. Solomon himself, it seems, must intervene to bestow knowledge upon the initiate. Thus, progress depends upon his generosity. But, for this to happen, the initiate must pray relentlessly and 'never for one moment cease'. And so, far from being presented as unnecessary, contemplative work becomes the very precondition of Solomon's intervention.
To illustrate the point, the hoopoe tells a story. A boy supports his mother and his six brothers and sisters by haunting the sea-shore, constantly casting his line, and pulling out the water's 'meagre harvest'. King Masoud, out riding, takes pity on the child and, casting the line for him, catches no less than a hundred fish, refusing to take any himself and adding as he rides away, 'Tomorrow when I fish you are the prey / A trophy I refuse to give away'. Next day the king sends for the boy and elevates him to the status of 'partner of [his] throne'. The courtiers are unhappy at the sudden arrival of this upstart but the newcomer has a simple answer: 'To every taunt the boy had one reply: "My sadness vanished when the king passed by."'
This story is, at heart, a drama about the mysterious relationship between human effort and divine benevolence. If the boy had not gone daily to the seashore, he would never have met King Masoud but it is Masoud's generosity and his bountiful nature that produce the change in the boy's condition. Many traditions reflect upon the interaction of these motive forces. (Examples are the debates concerning 'grace' and 'works' that arose in the Reformation or the tensions between tariki (other-power) and jiriki (own-power) that underlie the schools of Japanese Buddhism.) With its pair of images the hoopoe's narrative captures the relationship vividly - the boy scratching a living through daily toil and the king bestowing his bounty with a single cast of the line.
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Beautiful illustrations for The Conference of the Birds by the Czech artist, Peter Sís.
The question as to the nature of the relation between what befalls us and what we do (our agency)lies at the heart of the distinction between idealism and materialism in philosophy. Much contemporary philosophy is ideologically structured to caricature agency as control and, in Heidegger's word, 'Machenschaft'. The idea that meaning has to be given, has the character of a gift, is only half the truth and when presented as all of it, it becomes a whole lie. I think this is a beautiful story which shows us the interdependency of preparation and reception. I thought of the chassidic saying that the Messiah will come when all people of Israel, for once, manage to keep the sabbath.
ReplyDeleteKings, messiahs -- what would this insight, of the interdependence of preparing, waiting and the agency involved in it, mean in a non-hieararchical, non-transcendent philosophy? This is the core of Ernst Bloch's notion of wisdom.