CELESTIAL FRUIT,

Once upon a time there was a man who

was completely obsessed with the

search for Truth. He was so determined

to find it that he alternately spent his

time in praying to be granted Truth and

following any clue which he might hear of about it.

But so anxious was this man to find Truth that he

did not bother himself to try to improve his own ways

of thinking; and he would never stay long enough

with one teacher to learn all that he could teach him;

always someone else seemed to beckon.

One day this man was walking through the streets

of Istanbul when he saw a man in luminescent green

walk into a mosque. He remembered that it was said

that such a man might be Khidr, and that one should

seize his garment and ask him to grant a favour.

He went into the mosque, found Khidr near a pillar,

held on to his sleeve, and said: 'Great Khidr, Man of

Beyond, grant me the vision of Truth!'

Khidr looked at him and said gently, 'You are not

ready for Truth yet.'

But the man insisted, and Khidr said: 'Since you

have seized my sleeve, and because some may one Copyright © The Estate of Idries Shah

day benefit from your story, I shall let you experience

Truth. But your fate will be upon your own head.'

Khidr conducted the seeker to a certain house.

There in a special room they spent some time in

contemplation. Then Khidr took the eager disciple to

meet a mysterious robed figure, dressed like a king,

and together they travelled in a mysterious boat for

illimitable distances, visiting places which one could

never describe, and seeing things which man has in

the past only dreamed about, but which really do exist

in the Reality of Realities.

One day the man said to the King: 'I feel that I would

like to return to visit my kindred, and see how man has

behaved since I have been away.'

The King said: 'Holy Khidr, my representative, has

already told you that you were not ready for Truth.

Now you have arrived at the condition in which you

may find that you have not understood that there is

the eternal and the temporary. If you return now, you

will find that there is seemingly nothing left of what

you knew.'

'What talk is this?' asked the man. 'For was it not only

a few months ago that I left my own village? May I not

see my own family again? How can things change in

such a space of time?'

The King said: 'You will find out; but you will never

now be able to return to us; and Truth, although you

have found it, is of no use to you. Perhaps if others

can hear of these facts through you, however, it may

help you in some way at some time.'

With these cryptic remarks, he gave the disciple a

celestial fruit, saying: 'Eat this when you have no other

course open to you.' And he instructed

lieutenants to return the traveller to his home.

When he arrived there, he found that endless ages

had passed. His house was a ruin, and there was

hardly anyone who could understand his language.

People crowded around him, and he told them his

story. They thought that he was either a deranged

saint or someone who had descended from heaven.

He could make nothing of the mystery as to why

he had not himself aged during what turned out to

be many thousands of years' absence. And so, in his

perplexity and dissatisfaction, he ate the celestial

fruit. No sooner was it in his stomach than he started

to become old, and, before the eyes of the people who

had found him, he died of old age.

Now there are only a few people who remember this

story, and they all imagine that it is nothing more than

a legend.

THE END