WHEN THE WATERS WERE
CHANGED
From: ‘Tales of the Dervishes’ by Indries Shah
Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses,
called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in
the world that had not been specially hoarded would disappear. It would then be
renewed with different water, which would drive men mad.
Only one man listened to the meaning of this
advice. He collected water and went to a secure place where he stored it, and
waited for the other water to change its character.
On the appointed day the streams stopped running,
the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went
to his retreat and drank his preserved water.
When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls
again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He
found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from
before, yet they had no memory of what had happened, or of having been warned.
When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought he was mad, and
they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.
At first he drank none of the new water, but went
back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day.
Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the
new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and
thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water, and
became like the rest. Then he forgot all about his own store of special water,
and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been
restored to sanity.
Keith and Marnie
Elliott’s “REMEDY” Site
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