A millenium thanks to our princess for translating such a lengthy and enchanting tale, and in equally if not more intoxicating Chinese!
Perhaps you'd already have guessed from my previous jocular poem as to my response to this story, the richness of which is "beyond simple confirmations" as is pointed out by Shah. I remember being puzzled by its "message" when reading it a few years ago myself and couldn't make out what it was trying to convey, racking my brains.
However, with this reading assisted by your excellent translation, inspirations do begin to dawn on me:) As much as it is a traditional moral tale, our response depends much upon our feeling with and feeling for Ibrahim, who is both childish and childlike. Like most of us, he is a fool, but he is a holy fool, because he is seeking the divine truth, though in his own foolish ways. His trusting God is both real and his own fabrication, honest and conditioned by his own needs. He thinks of himself as totally submitting to Providence by challenging the worthiness of his holy job, but doesn't realize that in shrugging off his worldly duty assigned by Allah, he is making a common mistake in trusting God for the wrong reason. One only needs to turn around to see how useless many religious institutions have become in the name of renunciation. One has to keep in mind the frame of the story: triggered by the story-teller's humorous remark "I said I was going to do nothing for my living since Allah has promised to feed the Faithful", the same idea that started off Ibrahim on his adventures, leading finally to his realization that, "Allah surely gives food to everyone; but its quality and kind are dictated by what man deserves!"
Such a poignant remark brings out the age-old debate on divine will and free will. Of course the most compassionate God wouldn't let his faithful ones starve to death, but it is also said that "Have trust in God, but tether your own camels." Real spirituality does not lie in escaping from life or worldly duties, but in love and service. Taking responsibilities is real freedom, however seemingly boring or unheroic such responsibilities are (even like instructing blockheaded students;). The Mullah tries to seek the easy path towards God, which, of course, proves to be no easier than being a teacher in an affluent society;) Despite his resolution, his instinctive fears and doubts when starving and upon seeing the hermit show that even his submission is an illusion. If he had had total submission, he wouldn't even have dreamed of receiving food from paradise, since paradise is already here and now.
But as I said earlier, because he is a holy fool, and his search is sincere and out of deluded conviction, he commands our sympathy. Like most of us who are not completely aware of the consequences of our actions, the lovely irony is that Ibrahim is engaged in service without realizing it, through the act of rescuing the princess from the spell-bound castle. The essence of life is in relations. Life is for living but not for leaving, and we are all givers as well as receivers. Gratitude helps him to break the spells of the castle to rescue the princess from bondage. This could also be seen as eliminating the fortress of our ego, including all subtle and mental obstacles between our false self and real self. "Alas, good Mullah!" cried the princess. "Curses on the day on which I cast as halwa as you call it, on the waters of the river." Even that is illusion, but an illusion that hopefully leads to self-knowledge and the real food of paradise.
Life is a great teacher itself. Like Ibrahim, one has to learn about life through mistakes and delusion and humility and acceptance. Stories like this unite the feeling and thinking parts of our brain, balancing with humor, which, together with wonder and surprises, structures the present story more than any particalar moral. All these work together to break down the dualistic compartments of our mind: earth-heaven, reality-illusion, chance-providence, food-discarding, even good and bad. Everything in the world of illusions is shown to be relative: when Ibrahim is hungry, the millet porridge seems so delicious, and what is to the princess rubbish becomes food from paradise for him. Instead of "attaining a merit such a consummation would undoubtedly add to his repute as a holy man", he finds out how insignificant his place is in the scheme of things.
But the story is not just about undermining of pride, but also about undermining the assumptions we make. In the same way, every explanation we make makes us feel we have made an abstraction and a substraction, pulled a thread out of a cunningly woven carpet. It is a lesson in humility not only for Ibrahim the wise but for all web commentators as well:) Like the hermit, we know part of the story only, and like Ibrahim, we are driven by our hopes and our credulity. Our submission (the meaning of Islam) to the divine mystery is, it goes without saying, both partial and ludicrous, but ever hopeful that this poor tree may bear some fruit.
Thank you He Zi again for such a wonderful and selfless job, and for dragging me out of last century's halwas and this new year's champagne:)
"Alas, good tian xin," she cried, wringing her hands. "what is this you tell me?"
Agree with you on the analogy and your insight on science, history and religion.
Spiritual truths are revealed rather than researched or created. However, they need vehicles to express themselves, and stories like "The Food of Paradise" and "The Pumpkin" act like time machines, taking those who respond across time and space to experience these truths. The story is used not so much to inculcate a truth but to help to recognize an experience--when our highest inward states of "divine joy" are recognized to be nothing but the by-product of something higher, just as with Ibrahim, realizing the food of paradise to be castings by the princess helps him to recognize something much deeper about Allah's mercy.
After all, spiritual seeking is not about looking for paradise from outside oneself, but a journey inward, what Meher Baba calls "involution". Hectic search for exhilarating experiences leads inevitably to disappointment and more craving; but even that is not wasted in the long run, step by step, one will come to realize that love is all that matters and that when the false food is recognized, the real food is found:)
Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary highland lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with her sound,
No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travelers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands; A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings? -- Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago; Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of today? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again?
Whate'ver the theme, the Maiden sang As if her song could have no ending; I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending;-- I listen'd, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced: but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed - and gazed - but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.