Bindhi, bindhi for five days

1001 Tales told by the Master

“You should be faithful only to love, not to the lover. Both should be faithful to love, as long as it lasts. If it lasts your whole life, good. If it does not last your whole life that is even better!”

Okra


Mulla Nasruddin was appointed as the advisor of a king. And the advisor had to remain with the king, because any moment, any problem could arise and his advice may be needed. So he was with the king almost twenty-four hours… he was sleeping in the king’s palace and he was moving with the king the whole day.

The first day they were eating, sitting at the dining table. And the cook had made beautiful stuffed bindhis. The king liked them, and he asked Nasruddin, “Mulla, what is your opinion?”

He said, “My lord, bindhis are the best vegetable for health, for long life, for better intelligence… a protection against all kinds of diseases. In the old scriptures they have been described as the best preventive medicine, and your cook is great.”

The cook heard it, so he started making bindhis every day. The second day, the king tolerated. Third day, it was getting too much. Fourth day, he started getting irritated. Fifth day he threw the whole plate on the floor and called the cook: “Are you mad? Every day bindhi, bindhi, bindhi – am I a man or a buffalo?”

The cook said, “I am an ignorant man. I heard your great advisor say that bindhi is nectar, preventive of disease, preventive of old age, giving length to life, intelligence… and I thought if bindhi has so many qualities my lord should be given bindhis as much as possible.”

The king said, “Mulla, what do you say?”

Mulla said, “Bindhis? – they are poison! Never touch them.”

The king said, “You seem to be a very strange person. Just five days before, you were praising them.”

He said, “Listen, my lord, I am your servant, not the servant of the bindhis. Whatever you like I will praise – even if it is poison I will call it nectar. And if you don’t like something, even if it is nectar I will call it poison. I am your servant.”

You want to taste different foods, you want to wear different clothes. You want to visit new places, you want to make new friends. What is wrong if you find a new lover? Who says it is unfaithful? The very idea of unfaithfulness is fascist, because it is demanding, “Go on eating bindhis, bindhis, bindhis…. Because bindhis cannot speak… otherwise they would all have screamed from the floor, “You are being unfaithful to us! For five days we remained married and you are throwing us on the floor – is this your gratefulness?”

As far as I am concerned, you should be faithful only to love, not to the lover. Both should be faithful to love, as long as it lasts. If it lasts your whole life, good. If it does not last your whole life that is even better! There is no crime in it.

 

Osho, The Messiah: Commentaries on Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, Vol 1, Ch 22

Series compiled by Shanti
All excerpts of this series can be found in: 1001 Tales

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