Ibrahim was a great king of Balkh. He had everything that the world could give. He was a master of pleasures, possessions and power. Yet he was not happy; there was within him a sense of emptiness. His soul was in quest of something higher.
One day, as he was sitting in his court, a strange man entered the premises, and behaved in a peculiar way. He entered the king’s presence and spreading his carpet on the floor, lay down on it.
The king was naturally offended by the peculiar behaviour of this stranger, and said to him, “How dare you behave thus in my presence?” The stranger said to the king, “O king, I thought this was a travellers’ inn— a musafirkhana.”
In sheer wonder the king expostulated, “You must be out of your mind! How can you call my palace a travellers’ inn?”
To this the stranger replied, “O king, pray do not be angry with me, but answer my questions. Tell me, who lived in this palace before you?”
“My father, of course,” answered the king.
“And where is your father now?”
“My father is dead and gone,” said the king.
“And who occupied the palace before your father?”
“My grandfather,” said the king impatiently.
“And where is your grandfather, today?”
“He too is dead and gone.”
“And before your grandfather?”
“My great grandfather lived in the palace”
“Where is he, today?”
“My great grandfather is dead and gone”
“Then surely,” said the stranger to the king, “in this that you call a palace, men have come and men have gone. Am I wrong then in calling it a travellers’ inn? You call it a palace, I call it a musafirkhana. You too, O king, are a traveller and a day will come when you too, will have to move on.”
So saying, the stranger vanished, but his words continued to linger in the heart of the king until the blessed day came, when renouncing his palace, its luxuries and comforts, the king donned the garb of a mendicant and set out in quest of God.
(Dada J.P. Vaswani is humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader.)
