Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Have you heard the famous anecdote about Jalaluddin Rumi, a Sufi mystic?

A woman came with a child, and the woman said, “Maulana, Master, I have tried every way and this child won’t listen. He eats too much sugar. And I know now only one way is possible: if you say something to him, he will listen, because he respects you. He does not understand what you are and who you are, but he respects you. And when I told him, ‘Come with me to Maulana,’ he said, ‘Okay, if he says, I will stop.’”

Maulana looked at the child, at his trust. He said, “Wait, come after three weeks.” The woman was puzzled. Such a simple thing. And Maulana is known all over the world. People come from faraway countries to ask him great problems, and he solves them immediately — and such a silly thing. He could have said, “Yes, don’t eat,” and the thing would have been closed. Three weeks?

 After three weeks the mother came with the child, and Maulana said, “Wait three weeks more.”
The mother said, “What is the matter?” He said, “Wait, come after three weeks.”

When they came back, he said to the child, “Okay, listen. Stop eating sugar.” The child said, “Okay, I will stop.”
The mother said, “Now one question arises in my heart — and I will not be at rest. Why did you take six weeks for this?”

Maulana said, “I like sugar myself. So how can I advise this child? That would have been untrue. So for three weeks I tried — and I failed! Then for three weeks I tried again, and now I have succeeded. Now I can say, ‘Please, you can also stop. Look, I am an old man — even I can stop. You are a child, a young child; you can do anything.’”
“Now I can say….”

This is the way of the mystics; this has always been their way. They believe in experience.