ONCE upon a time, there lived a king in a prosperous land. One day, on his way to the palace in his coach, the king saw a beautiful handmaiden sitting by the road. The stunning slave girl stole his heart, and the king desired to have her. So he sent a servant to recompense her master and then brought her to his palace.
As the days passed, the poor maiden in captivity became sick, lost weight, and grew paler every day. Every time the king went to see her, she refused him. And so the king sent for the royal physicians, who were the best doctors in all the land, offering valuable gifts and rewards to whoever could cure the girl – but to no avail. Not one of them could diagnose the illness, let alone prescribe an effective treatment.
Deeply discouraged and worried about his beloved, the king ran to the temple to pray. He wailed for hours, imploring God from the depths of his heart to cure his beloved. Finally, exhausted from weeping, he fell asleep. The Lord, Who had heard his prayers, spoke to him in a dream: “Tomorrow a Divine Physician will come to your town. He has the cure for the girl.” The next morning, the king went with his companions to the gates of the city to await the Doctor. In the distance they spied a man approaching. When he drew closer and the king saw his face, his body began shaking. The radiant presence of the Doctor had taken over his soul, and he began to cry, saying, “I realize now that I have been seeking You, not the girl. She was but an excuse, and the cause of my awakening now.”
The Doctor was brought to the palace, and he asked to be alone with the maiden. After talking gently to the girl and reassuring her that her secrets would be safe with him, the Doctor asked about her past. While he felt her pulse, the girl told him where she was from and what her duties had been before the king bought her. There was no change in her pulse. Then the doctor asked about the places to which she had travelled. When he asked about Samarkand, her pulse beat faster. He asked more about that city and about the people she had met there. Finally, her pulse still beating rapidly, the girl mentioned a certain goldsmith for whom she had worked for a couple of years. The doctor had discovered her illness.
“Her problem is of the heart, not of the body,” he pronounced to the king. “To cure this girl, you must follow my instructions.” The king said that he would obey the Doctor wholeheartedly. So the goldsmith was sent for with an offer of money and property on the king’s land. Tempted by the windfall, the goldsmith left his family, home, and work immediately and moved to the new town.
With the king’s blessing, the handsome young man was married to the beautiful maiden, and they took up residence in the royal palace. The couple enjoyed their new life together for six months, by which time the girl had fully recovered from her illness. At that point, the Doctor ordered a potion made for the goldsmith to drink every morning. The concoction made him pale and weak, and he became so ugly that his wife eventually fell out of love with him. Finally, one day, the goldsmith, who had not gotten out of bed for months, died, and the girl became free of his bond.
—o—
What lessons can we draw from this strange story? Obviously, that any love which arises for the sake of outward beauty is not true love: in the end it is but a disgrace. Yet this moral that worldly love is transient is not the only message to be found in Rumi’s tale. The deeper meanings, addressed to the Sufis, may be gleaned from the following key to symbology:
King = Spirit
Companions of the king = Love
Handmaiden = Heart
Royal physicians = Intellect
Divine Physician = Sufi Master
Goldsmith = Ego
Potion = Mortification
The human Spirit, with its companion, Love, descends from the higher world to bring the Heart towards the Unity. The purpose of the Spirit is to encompass the Heart, to rid it of [unnecessary] material desires so that it can bear God’s secrets. However, it finds the Heart trapped by [excess] Ego. By creating desires and wants, the Ego has taken complete possession of the Heart. The Heart is pulled one way by the Spirit and the opposite way by the egotistical desires. Since the Heart cannot choose between the two, an imbalance is created, and the body becomes sick.
Intellect tries curing the Heart by treating the body. However, since the treatment has to be for the Heart, not the body, Intellect’s efforts are useless. Therefore, the Spirit turns to its Divine Source for help. The Compassionate One sends the Master, in the form of a Doctor, to help Spirit. The Divine Physician, who knows that the disease of the Heart is the result of this imbalance, immediately realizes that the problem lies within the Ego.
Now, it is often true that a physician trained in diseases of the body is unable to treat a patient who has psychological problems. However, a Master – who is a doctor of the Spirit – can diagnose and cure such an imbalance.
After the Master discovers the problems that Ego has created for the Heart, he decides to bring Ego face to face with the Heart. Thus, the Heart meets with the complexes, the clusters of worldly impressions, desires, and attachments which make up the Ego. As a result, desires are fulfilled and the illness disappears.
Now comes the time for transformation. To accomplish this, the Master, with the aid of mortification, weakens the Ego. Eventually the Heart, which was trapped in the tempting illusions of Ego’s desires, finds itself no longer interested in such superficiality. Finally, in fulfillment of Spirit’s aim of redeeming the Heart, the Heart is released from the bonds of egotism. Thus, the Heart, now free, can serve her king, the Spirit, and begin to learn the secrets of ["]God["].
{from “Tales from the Land of the Sufis”, Mojdeh Bayat and Mohammed Ali Jamnia, Shambala}
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