THERE WAS ONCE a dervish devotee who believed that it was his task to reproach those who did evil things and to enjoin upon them spiritual thoughts, so that they might find the right path. What this dervish did not know, however, was that a teacher is not only one who tells others to do things by acting through fixed principles. Unless the teacher knows exactly what the inner situation is, with each student, the teacher may suffer the reverse of what he desires.
However, this devotee one day found a man who gambled excessively, and did not know how to cure the habit. The dervish took up his position outside the man's house. Every time he left for the gambling-house, the dervish placed a stone to mark each sin upon a pile which he was accumulating as a visible reminder of evil.
Each time the other man went out he felt guilty. Each time he came back he saw another stone on the pile. Each time he put a stone on the pile the devotee felt anger at the gambler and personal pleasure (which he called 'Godliness') in having recorded his sin.
This process continued for twenty years. Each time the gambler saw the devotee, he said to himself:
'Would that I understood goodness! How that saintly man works for my redemption! Would that I could repent, let alone become like him, for he is sure of a place among the elect when the time of requital arrives!'
It so happened that, through a natural catastrophe, both men died at the same time. An angel came to take the soul of the gambler, and said to him, gently: 'You are to come with me to paradise.'
'But,' said the gambler, 'how can that be? I am a sinner, and must go to hell. Surely you are looking for the devotee, who sat opposite my house, who has tried to reform me for two decades?'
'The devotee?' said the angel. 'No, he is being taken to the lower regions, since he has to be roasted on a spit.'
'What justice is this?' shouted the gambler, forgetting his situation, 'you must have got the instructions reversed!'
'Not so,' said the angel, 'as I shall explain to you. It is thuswise: the devotee has been indulging himself for twenty years with feelings of superiority and merit. Now it is his turn to redress the balance. He really put those stones on that pile for himself, not for you.'
'And what about my reward, what have I earned?' asked the gambler.
'You are to be rewarded because, every time you passed the dervish, you thought first of goodness and secondly of the dervish. It is goodness, not man, which is rewarding you for your fidelity.'
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(from the works of Idries Shah)