There was once a king who had been trying to treat his subjects with enlightened kindness and the minimum of control.
The people showed signs of disaffection and instead of showing co-operation and respect for the administration, became complaining and turbulent.
The king was standing on the ramparts of one of his castles one day in the midst of these preoccupations, when he saw a free dervish in a patched robe sitting on the ground below him.
The king thought:
‘These dervishes are reputed to know all secrets: there will be no harm in seeking his counsel.’
He outlined his problem to the dervish, and said, ‘I want a piece of advice in this matter.’
The dervish said:
I shall give you not one piece, but two pieces of advice.’
‘Thank you,’ said the king, ‘but all I need is one bit of advice.’
‘In that case,’ said the dervish, I would say to you: “If you must rule, then rule.” ’
So the king increased the power of his control over the people, and treated them with such severity that they revolted. Before very long he was forced to flee, and barely escaped with his life, disguised in a dervish robe.
He found himself in a forest where, stopping to wash his face in a stream, he saw the dervish who had advised him, sitting in contemplation. The king said, ‘This is where your advice has brought me!’ ‘Would you like to hear the second piece of advice?’ asked the dervish.
‘I can lose nothing more, so I had better hear it,’ said the
‘The second piece of advice’, said the dervish, ‘is: “Never ask for advice, nor act upon it, without satisfying yourself that the giver of the advice is a qualified person.”
