Nasrudin Tales (1)

All the Nasrudin stories presented on this blog- site are taken from the published collections of Sayed Idries Shah. Although they can be read for entertainment value, dervish schools over the centuries have used them as mechanisms for the awakening of deeper perceptions in the consciousness of students:

Someone saw Mulla Nasrudin searching for something on the ground.
“What have you lost, Mulla?” he asked. “My key,” said the Mulla.
So they both went down on their knees and looked for it.
After a time the other man asked: “Where exactly did you drop it?”
“In my own house.”
“Then why are you looking here?”
“There is more light here than inside my own house.”


Nasrudin gave his wife some meat to cook for guests.
When the meal arrived, there was no meat. She had eaten it.
“The cat ate it, all three pounds of it,” she said.
Nasrudin put the cat on the scales. It weighed three pounds.
“If this is the cat,” said Nasrudin, “Where is the meat? If, on the
other hand, this is the meat --- where is the cat?”


Nasrudin was throwing handfuls of crumbs around the house.
“What are you doing?” someone asked him.
“Keeping the tigers away.”
“But there are no tigers in these parts.”
“That’s right. Effective, isn’t it?”


“How old are you, Mulla?”
“Forty.”
“But you said the same thing last time I asked you,
two years ago!”
“Yes, I always stand by what I have said.”


Nasrudin went to see a rich man.
“Give me some money.”
“Why?”
“I want to buy---- an elephant.”
“If you have no money, you can’t afford to keep an elephant.”
“ I came here,” said Nasrudin, “ to get money, not advice,”


“ If you want truth,” Nasrudin told a group of Seekers who
had come to hear his teachings, “ you will have to pay for it.”
“ But why should you have to pay for something like truth?”
asked one of the company.
“ Have you not noticed,” said Nasrudin, “ that it is the scarcity
of a thing which determines its value?”


Nasrudin went into a bank with a check to cash.
“ Can you identify yourself?” asked the clerk.
Nasrudin took out a mirror and peered into it.
“ Yes, that’s me all right,” he said.