Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), as we begin today ‘let us remember this about ‘Attention’.

Our life experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to. Attention: is important and most of the times we are so indifferent to it. It is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. We feed the hunger blindly. Once the mechanism is brought to our attention and we begin to study it, it is as if a veil has been stripped off ordinary life, and we become freer in our action and choices.

This week I bring to your attention yet another story which is extracted from an interesting and thought provoking work, ‘World Tales’ by Idries Shah.

‘World Tales,’ is divided into five volumes and contains stories from great works like Panchatantra, Thousand and One Nights, Straparola, Boccaccio, Chaucer and Shakespeare and a dozen others which now form the basis of the classic literature of Europe and Asia.

The Desolate Island

There was once a very wealthy man, who was of a kind and generous disposition, and who wanted to make his slave happy. He therefore gave him his freedom, and also presented him with a shipload of merchandise.

‘Go,’ he said, ‘and sail to various countries. Dispose of these goods, and whatever you may get from them shall be your own.’

The freed slave sailed away, across the wide ocean. He had not been long on his voyage before a storm blew up. His ship was driven on to the rocks and went to pieces, and all on board was lost except the former slave himself. He managed to swim to a nearby island and drag himself ashore.

Sad, despondent and lonely, naked and with nothing to his name, he walked across the land until he came to a large and beautiful city.

Many people came out to meet him, crying, ‘Welcome! Welcome! Long live our King!’

They brought a rich carriage and placing him in it, escorted him to a magnificent palace, where many servants gathered around him. He was dressed in royal garments and they addressed him as their sovereign: they expressed their compete obedience to his will.

The ex-slave was, naturally enough, amazed and confused, wondering whether he was dreaming; and all that he saw, heard or experienced was merely passing fantasy.

Eventually he became convinced that what was happening was in fact real; and he asked some people around him, whom he liked, how he could have arrived in this state.

‘I am, after all,’ he said, ‘a man of whom you know nothing, a poor, naked wanderer, whom you have never seen before. How can you make me your ruler? This causes me more amazement than I can possibly say.’

‘Sire,’ they answered, ‘this island is inhabitated by spirits. Long ago they prayed that they might be sent a son of man to rule over them, and their prayers have been answered. Every year they are sent a son of man. They receive him with great dignity and place him on the throne. But his status and his power end when the year is over. Then they take the royal robes from him and put him on board a ship, which carries him to a vast and desolate island. Here, unless he has previously been wise and prepared for that day, he finds neither subject nor friend: and he is obliged to pass a very lonely and miserable life. Then a new King is selected, and so year follows year. The Kings who came before you were careless and did not think. They enjoyed their power to the full, forgetting the day when it would end.’