Fortune

[unixronin]

Nasrudin was carrying home a piece of liver and the recipe for liver pie.  Suddenly a bird of prey swooped down and snatched the piece of meat from his hand.  As the bird flew off, Nasrudin called after it, "Foolish bird!  You have the liver, but what can you do with it without the recipe?"

Comments

[databeast.livejournal.com]

hrm, that's from the Idries Shah translations..

you familiar with the Nasiruddin stories directly? or is this being ref'ed through a third point?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I have several Nasrudinisms in my /usr/games/lib/fortunes database. That once just happened to pop up this morning. :) I think I've come across them directly once, but I don't recall for sure.

[databeast.livejournal.com]

hrm, had a hunch, what with fortune ,and all.

These are Sufi stories, specifically, all of them are allegorial religious teachings, in the shape of humorous anecdotes...

Nassiruddin is usually my first response to accusations of 'Muslims dont have a sense of humour' :-P

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

I was introduced to Nasiruddin at primary (elementary) school in New Zealand, believe it or not! We were given several Nasiruddin stories to read when I was a little girl. I don't remember many of them, but I do remember the one about the two glasses of milk, the salt and the sugar.

[databeast.livejournal.com]

LOL@your icon

(I lived in Auckland between `94-97 before hopping on once again to the US), and that icon just sums up my feelings towards kiwifruit before and after (rare and expensive outside NZ, inside 'oh not kiwifruit again!')

Nasruddin stuff I find myself reading to people interspersed with Robert Anton Wilson and Hakim Bey, always amusing when people realize they've heard several of the stories told before as jokes.

[databeast.livejournal.com]

heh, so I had do go and do some detective work on you now.. pretty sure we might know a few of the same people too.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

[holds up hand] Uh, yo. :)

[databeast.livejournal.com]

you dork, I mean in NZ !

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I know that. But I couldn't resist the straight-line. :)

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

The other thing you could have meant was LJ people (other than Alaric.)

[databeast.livejournal.com]

yeah, but I could verify that easily, so it wouldnt be a surety, it would be a certainty

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

DearHeart, how much you wanna bet he's talking about NZ folks they know in common? :-)

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

ZOMG I have teh st4lkz0r! unixronin, sa3v m33!