Mullah Nasrudin immigrated to the USA and became a university professor. One day he arrived at the weekly university talk open to all the public. Typically these talks were given by visiting professors and attended by the university staff and their spouses, as well as few students and general public.
As Nasrudin entered the huge lecture theater the university president took him to the side and said, “You are giving the talk.”
The Mullah replied, “I’m not ready for a lecture. What happened to the guy who was supposed to give the talk?”
The president informed him that the visiting professor had been delayed because of a snow storm and he had to give the talk.
Nasrudin asked, “Why me and what’s the topiv?”
The President told him, “You talk on the subject of sex because you are the only one who’s spouse is not here,” and before he could complain he pulled Nasruding with him to the podium and they announced that professor Nasrudin was going to give a talk on sex and marital bliss.
So Nasrudin started to wing it and soon he was quite enjoying himself and got into a stride. Everyone really enjoyed the talk. Forty five minutes later he finished and received a standing ovation.
That evening when Nasrudin got home his wife asked how the day had gone? The Mullah said that he had given a talk.
“Really,” asked his wife, “What was the talk about?”
The Mullah did not wish to tell his wife that he had been talking about sex and marital bliss and perhaps reveled some information about their sex life and bedroom happening. So he replied, “I talked about sailing.”
His wife was incredulous. She said, “But you don’t know anything about sailing?”
“I know that, but they didn’t,” and that was the end of the conversation.
The next day Nasrudin’s wife bumped into a couple of ladies who had heard the talk. One of then told her, “I didn’t know your husband was such an expert in the subject.”Nasrudin’s wife said, “Oh, no he really isn’t such an expert. In fact he’s only done it twice, and the first time he lost his hat and the second time he fell over the side.
***
I heard the above teaching story in a seminar and changed it and put it in my own words as a Mullah Nasrudin story. As I have mentioned before when I find a teaching story with the right kind of absurdity that it could be a Nasrudin story I make it into one.
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So the story goes:
In the nineteen sixties or seventies some Japanese behavioral biologists were conducting a research project on a group of monkeys which lived around the shores on a series of islands off Japan.
They fed the monkeys some kind of tuber roots (yams. sweet potatoes or something similar). The roots were not washed and covered by dirt from the ground. This made them less desirable to the monkeys.
However, soon some of the younger monkeys learned that they could drop the roots in the ocean water and the sand and grit would wash away and the food would be tastier. These adventurer younger monkeys taught the skill of washing the sand and grit off to the others in their tribes and even the elder monkeys learned the trick.
Slowly, the monkeys on the different islands learned to wash the tubers.
Until one day…
The original book wrote that “say” after ninety nine monkeys had learned the washing trick – the next day when the hundredth monkey had learned the trick the researchers had observed something totally unexpected and exiting. Even though some of the islands were hundreds of miles from the other, the next day every single monkey had learned the behavior. It was as though once a critical mass had learned the skill they all learned it through ESP or some other way.
The above story is the hundred monkey phenomenon.
The idea is that once enough people understand that peace, love, compassion and so on are the way, suddenly all will get the wonderful ideas.
Only one problem…
The story is not true. In fact when you examine the original paper, you notice that the elder monkeys typically learned the activity and then taught it to the younger ones in the tribe. There was no critical mass and suddenly the number of the animals which had learned the skill increasing.
I love the story if it was told as a metaphor, as a teaching story. In fact given modern media and Internet viral marketing and viral memes do take place. It is not through ESP or anything else but through technology and communication.
Moreover, we do affect the others near us. So if you go around smiling and being kind to others, they will smile more and tend to be kind.
My only complain is that many self improvement gurus retell this story even today (more than thirty years after the truth has been known by anyone who wishes to know) quote the story as scientific truth. But then there are human beings who believe every single word in a certain English translation of the bible is true…
As Einstein said, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”
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Mullah Nasrudin was walking in the countryside with a priest and a minister. It was a hot day and they were sweating profusely. Nasrudin cried aloud, “Dear God, we are three of your hard working servants, please let us find solace from this heat.”
Just then they came to a large pond. Since there was no one around and they had no swimming custumes, they quickly disrobed and began cooling themselves as God had created them.
Unfortunately some mischievous children discovered their clerical robes and took them for fun and started screaming for the villagers to come and look.
The priest and the minister ran out of the pond covering their genitals. Nasrudin too ran out but he covered his face. The minister said, “Don’t you have any shame. Why do cover your face?”
Nasrudin replied, “That’s the part of my anatomy my congregation knows.”
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Most of these Mullah Nasrudin stories I remember from my childhood. I heard them in Iran from oral traditions. I recreated them from my memory into English (not translation but recreation since I do not always remember the original Persian stories). Others I have got from a few Persian books I have gathered over the years (whenever my family visits Iran and asks me what they can bring me I ask for any Mullah Nasrudin books they can find) and also from the wonderful books of Idris Shah.
A few stories I have made up myself based on the fact that Nasrudin has the function of showing up human stupidity or paradoxes of language and the facts of human existence.
To understand this story you have to know that some religions believe in predestination. This is taken to its logical extreme (stupidity if I dare write) in Calvinism. The Calvinists believe that the “elect” have been predestined to receive grace and hence be saved and hte rest of us have been predestined to be damned to hell no matter what we do.
And now for:
Mullah Nasrudin the Calvinist
Mullah Nasrudin emigrated to the USA and much to his Chagrin he ended up living next door to an evangelical Christian. Nasrudin minded his own business and faced Mecca five times a day saying his prayers without trying to convert anyone. His neighbor however would visit him every single day telling him about the mercy and generosity of his God and how he should believe in Jesus as his personal savior, else he would spend eternity in hell.
Nasrudin each day would reply that he believed in the one God of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad and he was satisfied that his good deeds would serve him well at end of times. The neighbor went on and on explaining that his deeds could never save him but would condemn him to firs and brimstone as only faith in Jesus as his personal savior could save him.
This went on for six months and then one day Nasrudin greeted his neighbor, “Good friend I have great news for you. I have become a Christian. I have accepted Jesus as my personal savior.”
The neighbor replied, “I’m so glad you have seen the light but what I don;t understand is why are you still turning to Mecca and praying in your infidel ways.”
Nasrudin replied, “You see, my friend, I have become a Calvinist and we believe that God predestines some to be saved and te rest to be damned. Alas I’m not one of the elect. I am predestined to go to hell. So I’m making sure that I do God’s will by praying in my heathen ways so I will go to hell.”
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I heard one of my heroes in the field of self-improvement tell this insincere story of sincere:
The etymology of sincere is that the word comes from the Latin sine cera (without wax). It derives from the fact the the Romans loved marble statues. These were very difficult to sculpt without breakage. So the typical sculptor would re-attach broken parts (limbs and so on) with wax (cera) and cover it up so the wax would not be seen.
However, the best stores would only sell the best statues, the ones which were whole and unbroken. They had a huge sign above the store saying: “Sine Cera,” without wax.
In the same way when you are sincere you have integrity and you are whole.
***
Beautiful teaching story. The only problem is that it is not true. In fact the person saying this story was not sincere at this time. Why do I say this because he was a best selling author and public speaker. He had the resources to check his story and discover that it was not true. Even in those pre-Internet days this self-improvement guru had the resources to send an assistant to the nearest dictionary and discover the true etymology of sincere.
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I was talking to a friend yesterday about seminar leaders and self-improvement gurus who use untrue stories to back up their point. I told the story of one of the most popular (and hence richest) of these authors and how he claimed that the word desire comes from the Latin roots “De Sire” meaning of the father.
I have studied Latin for seven years at schools in England and also love etymology, so this sounded wrong. I spent less than a minute online and discovered:
Desire - Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French desirer, from Latin desiderare, from de- + sider-, sidus heavenly body – Date: 13th century
Later I discovered the source of this mistake from someone the new age movement I really love and respect. This person wrote about desire fifty years ago when research was not so easy but today with Internet there is really no excuse for such mistakes.
Anyway, I’m going to start a series of such untrue stories and urbane tales. These are not true but there are teaching values in them anyway. The problem is when people talk about these puns being true linguistic etymology.
I mean it would be wonderful if desire meant of the father and meant that whatever you desire your heavenly father (or mother) would provide. It is a great story, a very useful lie but still a lie. I call it a pun since it is a matter of coincidence in English language and has no bearing with the Latin source or the word.
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This afternoon we had one of those typical Southern Californian earth quacks. It reminded me of a time about twenty five years ago when there was another Lakers/Celtics rivalry. Those were the times of Magic Johnson and Kamal Abdal Jabbar on our side and Larry Bird on theirs.
Anyway at the time I worked for a company which had just been bought by another from Boston. So we amplified that rivalry between us and the people from our parent company.
Anyway, one day they sent a new manger to see how we laid-back Californians were working and how could they make our operation more efficient.
As it happened when this manger first arrived at our office we had one of those earth quakes. This guy got so scared that he nearly caught the next plane back to Boston.
We teased him and he teased us and we became great friends. I cannot remember who won that specific year’s NBA final.
***
And now for the Mullah Nasrudin story.
Mullah was making love to his when exactly at the moment of climax an earth quack shook the whole ground.
Next day he was in the caravansary (tea-house) and he bragged to his friend, “I know this is pure love with my wife. Last night we made love and not only did I feel the ground move, my wife felt it too.”
His friends told him, “You fool, we all felt it move.”
At which Nasrudin said, “Wow, I’m so good, even you guys felt it.”
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My family spent the summer of 1960 in Geneva Switzerland. The apartment we rented for the summer overlooked Lake Geneva and one could see Mont Blanc from the same window too.
We had great time walking by the lake and took lots of photos. We would drive for day trips to France on the other side in Lake Leman (the French name for Lake Geneva – go figure).
The local delicacy was filette de perche. And the swimming was fantastic…
Anyway that’s all great memories for me but nothing to do with the story:
That summer a cult of some kind had predicted that on a certain day the world would end in a flood and the only people who would survive would be their followers (about thirty in total) who were camped on Mont Blanc. Of course no one outside Geneva heard about these crazies (after all there are all sorts of idiots predicting the end of the world at all time).
But the cult was big funny news in Geneva and for the week before the predicted end of times flood the TV news kept talking about it and people were laughing at the idiots. As I mentioned we could see the mountain top which was snow covered even in August. Si we looked out toward the place the cult was encamped and laughed at them. Made no sense to stay on the mountain rather than swim in the lake…
So eventually the allotted day came. The world was to end at mid day.
That morning started as a very sunny day. But by ten a storm came by and soon it was raining.
And the rains intensified. By eleven it was one of the biggest downpours I have ever seen (the strongest in my first thirteen years – my age at the time). It was raining so hard that we could hardly see the lake less than fifty meters away from us, let alone Mont Blanc ten twenty kilometers away.
As I mentioned, I was only thirteen. As it rained harder and harder. I came to think, “Perhaps they are onto something.”
Soon midday came and passed and the world was still there. The lake had not flooded. There were cars driving in the street between our apartment and the lake.
And time still moved forward inexorably. Slowly the rain slowed down.
By two it was sunny again. We were laughing again and in time the cult members had to climb down back to their homes.
***
They asked Mullah Nasrudin the timing of Akhar-E-Zaman (end of time). Nasrudin replied which one the small or large end of times.
They said, “What do you mean? We only know of one end of times.”
Nasrudin replied, “The small end of times is when my wife dies and the large one is when I die!”
***
I laughed at the above Nasrudin story when I first heard it more than fifty years ago, but I still don’t get. I laughed because everyone else laughed.
Oh well.
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This is a true story. In 1953 the people of Iran threw out Mohamad Reza Pahlavi, the puppet of Angelo Iranian oil company (later to be known as British Petroleum – BP of Gulf of Mexico fame). Unfortunately the British government had convinced the ignorant US government that the democratically elected nationalistic government was pro-communist. It wasn’t but just mentioning the word communism to the Dulles brothers (Secretary of State and CIA chief) was akin to waving a red flag (pun intended) in front of a mad bull…
So there was a meeting in Geneva and ten million dollars were given to the Shah’s sister, General Zahedi and assorted mobsters (Shaboon without a brain among others) and there was a CIA organized coup d’etat.
And the Shah returned as an absolute dictator and American puppet…
Enough history and preamble – now for:
The man who gained weight in prison
After the 1953 coup d’etat all the usual suspects (intellectuals, honest journalists, nationalists) would be rounded up whenever the political temperature would get too high and the dictator or his CIA handlers got paranoid…
My father was among those who was jailed a few times between 1953 and 1956. Given that he was a famous surgeon with his own hospital and the son in law of the chief judge my father was never tortured but he did the screams of those who were tortured under the supervision of CIA. Many teachers, nationalistic armed forces officers and other not so famous people had their finger nails pulled off their nails and testicles electrocuted (Abu Graib was typical CIA savagery to me).
But my father, thank God, was a VIP and was just jailed and kept away from his family. Among the other VIP inmates was Mr. T (I don’t wish to give his full name).
Mr. T was the owner and publisher of a satirical political weekly. Now the food in the prison was meager (even in the “VIP” section). Each day we would go to the political jail where my father was interned (arrest without charge or recourse) and take him (and the guards – they were not paid well) food. Even so my father’s weight kept going down as he shared his food with other less lucky political prisoners and the hungry guards.
However, Mr. T kept gaining weight.
I asked my father how come the famous editor kept gaining weight.
Even though polygamy was legal in Iran (you could have four wives and multiple concubines), we did not know anyone who had more than one wife. The educated class were very Westernized and did not believe in polygamy.
However, Mr T did have two wives. They lived in different cities and were not aware of each other.
Mr T who was quite rich bribed the guards to keep the wives away from each other. Each day one wife would visit him from eleven till twelve and the other from one to two. So Mr T had to eat two lunches each day and he gained weight.
Unfortunately one day there was a mix up in the timing. There was a traffic jam or something (I was only seven or eight years old at the time) and the two wives ended up arriving at the jail at the same time. And all the kings horses and all the kings men…
***
By 1957 my father had opened his new larger hospital and he was part of the establishment and was never jailed again. But the jailing and torturing and execution of many patriots continued under the Shah’s dictatorship…
And so it goes…
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This is a very simplistic teaching story that my mother used to tell us when we were little childre4n. We loved hearing my mother talk about the king of the farts…
***
A long, long time ago…
An old humble lady was invited to a banquet given by the third vizier to the Shahanshah.
The banquet was sumptuous. There was gaz (nougat) from Isfahan, sohan from Ghom, venison from Gorgan, sturgeon and caviar from Babolsar (on the Caspian sea), rahat-al-ghum (Turkish delight) from Hashtroud (in Azerbaijan where my ancestors hail from) and delicacies from the rest of the empire (Iran covered a huge portion of Asia in those days).
As the banquet continued festively full of fun, the old lady felt an ache in the stomach. She had an extremely bad case of wind. The old lady did her best to stop the wind. She bent over in pain squeezing ever muscle around her sfinkter.
Alas and alack…
To no avail.
She let out a tiny fart.
In truth no one had heard it, smelled it or noticed in the slightest way.
But she knew. She had farted in the banquet of third vizier to the Shahanshah.
The old lady went pink in the face and then red and redder and shrunk in size out of shame. She became smaller and smaller and eventually she totally disappeared from sight.
The old lady melted into the ground out of shame and next moment found herself in the land of farts.
The farts who normally did not get visitors from the land of humans arrested her and took her in front of their king.
The king of farts had a fantastic palace with bright shimmering multicolored walls. Everywhere you looked you would see rainbows, chimera, and gossamer.
The fart soldiers threw the old lady in front of the fart king, who screamed, “Human, how there you enter our realm?”
The old lady replied, “You majesty, I had no intention of coming here,” and she told her story of how she had farted in the vizier’s palace and had grown smaller and smaller out of shame and the disappeared from the face of the earth…
The king of the farts could see into the heart of people and said, “You tell the truth and you are here for no fault of your own. Since a fart caused you shame we will send you home with one hundred Ashrafis (gold coins the size of sovereigns – I suppose about $100,000 in today’s money)…
The old lady was in here home the next instant with a bag of one hundred gold coins. She gave away half to friends and the poor and kept the other half for herself.
Her nosy neighbor. Eventually manged to discover what had happened. So the next time she was going to a party she ate plenty of beans beforehand and even so she did not have to fart. In the party the nosy neighbor ate as much fruit as could and then when she still hads no wind she started jumping up and down and swallowing air. She did all she could do and eventually she managed to fart.
Even though she had farted on purpose she pretended to be ashamed. She held her breath until she went pink and next red in the face. Still she held her breath and grew smaller and smaller until she melted into the ground and was soon in the land of the farts.
Once more she was taken to the king and when asked why she was there the greedy neighbor replied, “Sire, I could not help myself. I was at a party and I farted. I was ashamed and next thing I knew I found myself in your presence.”
Alas and alack, the king of the farts could see into people’s hearts. He said, “You are a liar. My poor subject was minding his own business. You forced him out and farted shamelessly. You then held your breath and forced yourself into my realm. I order you to get one hundred lashes before being sent home…
***
We loved this story and would laugh our heads off. I suppose the secret was hearing our mother saying the word fart which made it so funny.
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