Travels with Nasrudin

Well worth reading more than once.One overt lesson here is to dare to be different, dare to be yourself. Tahir remembers his Aunt Amina lecturing him “To Know Yourself, Be Yourself ” -- an insightful corollary to Plato, and to Shakespeare’s “To thine own self be true.” Tahir later recalls his father’s surprise at people in the free-thinking West wanting a guru, and his elation at the lines in “The Life of Brian” -- “You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody.” This is one of a number of fascinating insights Tahir shares into the mind of Idries Shah.Another great lesson is the punch line to a “rats to riches” story from India, complete with success recipe: "The secret to anything is respect."Tahir Shah is famous for his travel books based on his own daring adventures off the beaten paths especially in remote parts of South America, Africa, and South Asia. His father Idries Shah, the foremost exponent of Sufism in modern times, was known for popularizing awareness of linear and holistic thinking, and reintroducing the figure of the jester, the wise fool Mulla Nasrudin, to the West -- earlier familiar to us as the figure of Puck, of “What fools these mortals be.”The book made me see a possible tie-in between the motley wise fool role of Nasrudin and the Sufi theory of the fragmented self, recently verified clinically by Prof. Gazzaniga. Nasrudin may be a mirror to help us notice and eventually reconcile contradictions in our thinking, moods and behavior.Throughout, Tahir proclaims a “back to front” way of thinking, and that may be just what we need to survive. Behind a mask of normality and rationality, this really is a back to front world.“Travels with Nasrudin” brings these strands together in a compelling way. Tahir interweaves paradoxical episodes from his own life journeys with linked Nasrudin tales, in a manner reminding of Saadi or Rumi, whose works mingle alternating patches of different materials, perhaps to foster flexibility of thinking.His zig-zag globetrotting and writing itself is a non-linear way of life in action.

Given his prodigious output, there are many paths into Tahir Shah’s sublime work. My current favorite is “Travels with Nasrudin”. Of course, readers who are familiar with Tahir’s father, Idries Shah, will be familiar with Nasrudin through his series of books in the 1970’s. If you don’t know those books, don’t worry: Tahir does a fine job of introducing the wise fool, along with an array of entertaining stories of some of his own journeys, friendships and conversations with the unusual characters that he comes across in his many travels. The book’s structure is simplicity itself: each chapter begins with a Narsrudin story. From there Tahir jumps around in time, sometimes relating a story about his own far-flung travels, sometimes a tale of his father’s or his grandfather’s. Among my many favorite chapters is one in which Tahir fondly talks about the “English gentlemen” whom he came into contact with through his family. Through it all is a theme. The Nasrudin tales are for learning a different way to see yourself and the world around you in a new way. Just a delightful book.

Tahir Shah’s TRAVELS WITH NASRUDIN is not just an immensely enjoyable read; it’s also a wonderful introduction to an unlikely hero who has real potential to help us get through these troubled times. That hero is Mulla Nasrudin, an age-old folk figure who goes by various names the world over as he plays the “wise fool” in jokes and stories told from Rabat to Rawalpindi. Shah grew up hearing these jokes and stories from his father, the celebrated Sufi author Idries Shah, who published them in a series of books that have been translated into multiple languages and are still in print. The Sufis hold that Nasrudin jokes can be understood on multiple levels and can help to broaden one’s perception and understanding. Tahir Shah took Nasrudin as his guiding principle as he set out on a life of travel and adventure that produced a slew of previous highly acclaimed books. Laced with memories of growing up as well as encounters with colorful and unforgettable characters – some of them well-known – TRAVELS WITH NASRUDIN draws on these adventures, but always in the context of Nasrudin’s “inside-out, back-to-front” perspective. In so doing, Tahir Shah not only entertains and edifies the reader, but does his father – and Mulla Nasrudin – proud.

In this marvelous book, Tahir Shah shares with us his journey through Nasrudin Land. In a series of vignettes, each beginning with a Nasrudin tale, followed by stories from his own life, and the various events and characters that represent the authors personal journey. The journey is at once personal, intimate, humorous, touching, magical, and revealing of a world that is out of touch for most of us, yet closer than our own jugular vein when our perceptions are trained. The Nasrudin tales pop up frequently in our everyday lives and have the unexpected function of revealing us to ourselves. I highly recommend this book for readers of all ages and stations of life---I'll be sending one to my son. As Dr. Grimes, one of Tahir's influences, writes: 'The reason to go on an expedition is not to learn about the place you are traversing, 'he said. 'But as a method by which to know yourself. Know yourself inside and out, and you'll be the man you're destined to be.'

This is a fascinating book concerning author Tahir Shah’s travels in search of the rarely-encountered yet ubiquitous “wise fool” Nasrudin. Mulla Nasrudin is a comic trickster figure in Middle Eastern tradition and current usage (the same figure is called Joha in Arab lands like Morocco). Shah is not especially interested in historical or academic aspects of Nasrudin but rather in finding and extracting in real life the “pith” of what this figure represents.This review just contains a few of my impressions, and isn’t intended to be comprehensive.Shah—a renowned world traveler— certainly covers an enormous amount of ground, and over a long period (the book spans five decades, and seems to visit almost every land under the sun). He gives us strange and compelling glimpses into many of his adventures (some of them recounted at length in his previous books like ‘The House of the Tiger King’). This is interspersed with Nasrudin tales, usually at the beginnings of the chapters. Some of these seem obviously linked to the experiences he recounts in the chapter, others less so.Shah’s prose is spare but vivid; he is good at evoking the places and scenes he visits while following the trail of Nasrudin. And there are some lovely little stylistic gems, such as “the rumpus of delight that was her life” or “a dose of frenzy.” The glimpse of Shah and his sisters as children coming to their father (the well-known writer on Sufism and practical psychology Idries Shah) with a request, is just delightful. This interchange ensues:“ ‘Baba, we need chocolate, and we need it badly.’‘How badly?’My sisters and I would exchange pained glances.‘Desperately!’ ”At one point the elder Shah, faced with this request, instructs them in a method of obtaining the funds they need, one of whose almost-immediate results is a pram filled with packets of seeds, carrying the sign, “Finest Seeds For Sale At Discount Prices By Children In Need Of Chocolate.” A further result is that, as their father says, the children have “learned how to think in an original way.”Indeed this book itself works as a kind of primer of how to learn from life – yet it doesn’t present this material in a schematic straitjacket, but in its overall (very-non-conditioning) arrangement, and in packets here and there throughout the short storyscapes that make up the book. A few pieces, which are often expressed by the remarkable people the author meets on his travels:'...thinking you are wise is more dangerous than any minefield....''the secret to anything is respect'That any technique has limits to its usefulnessThat the ultimate secret to life is ‘to keep going at any cost’A takeaway from reading this work is that Shah himself is a sort-of Nasrudin figure, approaching things in an unexpected manner in order to try to get at the “hidden underbelly” of a society, situation, or experience. His specialty is what he calls “Zigzag Think.” He appears to be one of those people who are (thankfully) not caught in our present limited categories. Partly this is due to his sheer exuberance, the degree of which is seldom found these days.A further takeaway, of course, is that Nasrudin and his exploits are sure d**n interesting, and must be one of the most curious, as well as one of the most vibrant, products of human thought.Shah writes that before progress in understanding can be made, “"the dimensions provided by Nasrudin must be visited." Those wishing to spend more time with the wise fool will be happy to learn that Shah has himself composed a number of Nasrudin stories, some of which may be among those recounted in this book. His tales are found in ‘The Voyages and Vicissitudes of Nasrudin,’ ‘The Peregrinations of the Perplexing Nasrudin,’ and ‘The Misadventures of the Mystifying Nasrudin.’

Ho trovato questo libro una miniera di piccole pietre preziose che occhieggiano tra le righe delle pagine.Una volta che si è iniziato è difficile riuscire a smettere di leggere.L’autore intreccia le storielle classiche e nuove dello strampalato Nasrudin, il buffo personaggio del folklore mediorientale un po’ saggio e un po’ idiota, al racconto di vicende personali.Tahir Shah ha in qualche modo ereditato il compito di andare alla ricerca di Nasrudin e del suo curioso modo di guardare alla realtà, dal padre Idries Shah.Apre squarci della sua vita avventurosa, dei suoi viaggi alla ricerca delle varie incarnazioni di Nasrudin in tutte le regioni del mondo in cui a volte sembra essere Nasrudin stesso e a volte gioca ad esserlo.Mi ha ricordato una storiella in cui Un giorno, Nasrudin trottava sul suo asino in tutte le direzioni.Qualcuno gli chiese: "Dove stai andando, Nasrudin?". "Sto cercando il mio asino".In questo libro inoltre troviamo la descrizione stralci dell’insegnamento che Tahir ha ricevuto dal padre.Scopriamo che le divertenti facezie di Nasrudin possono essere un dispositivo altamente sofisticato per predisporre la mente del lettore a funzionare in un modo diverso, più flessibile e olistico. Inoltre le storielle sembrano possedere vari strati di significato. Sono come delle pillole a lento rilascio e la loro capacità di suggerirci qualcosa di utile per il nostro cammino e per la nostra vita, non si esaurisce con la prima somministrazione.Man mano che si progredisce e si affrontano esperienze nella vita, le storielle hanno la capacità di rivelare nuove dimensioni che si attivano, per così dire, soltanto quando si è pronti per afferrarle.

This book is a Treasure Trove full of wisdom. It contains fragments of life memories and observations from journeys in far lands, each a gem in its own right. Woven through these are the stories and sayings of Nasrudin, the wise fool. The Nasrudin character is part of an ancient tradition of stories that have been woven into many cultures under differing guises, used as a catalyst to help free the human mind from the habitual automated thought patterns of social conditioning.

This is a treat for people who have love Mullah Naseeruddin. A must read.

Nasrudin est partout !