Writings on Mullah Nassr Eddin, quotes

Writings on Mullah Nassr Eddin, quotes
by : Sufism Comunity

These anecdotes and quotes are from the Beelzebub's Tales 1931 manuscript.Book I - Gurdjieff Quotes Although I have began to write in Russian, nevertheless as the wisest of the wise, Mullah Nassr Eddin would say, in that language "you-cannot-go-far".


Mullah Nassr Eddin, or as he is also called, Hodja Nassr Eddin, is, it seems, little known in Europe and America, but he is very well known in all the countries of the continent of Asia. This legendary personage corresponds somewhat to the German Till Eulenspiegel. Numerous tales popular in the East, akin to wise sayings, are ascribed to this Nassr Eddin; and various witticisms, some of long standing and others newly arisen, still continue to be ascribed to him also.

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I recalled this saying from among the many "infallible" and "indisputable'' sayings of that, in my opinion, universal teacher, the wisest of all the terrestrial sages, one whom I particularly esteem, and one who, again, of course, in my opinion, ought to be esteemed and respected by everybody without exception - Mullah Nassr Eddin, and I have set it down at this point in my Warning, because of my proposed subsequent writings I intend often to touch upon philological questions also.
That Greek language, the spirit and essence of which were transmitted to me by heredity, and the language now spoken by contemporary Greeks, are as much alike, as, according to the expression of Mullah Nassr Eddin, "a-nail-is-like-a-requiem".
...that the so-styled "grammar" of any laguage is compiled by people who not only in respect of knowledge of the given language are those biped "somethings" which His Uniqueness Mullah Nassr Eddin characterizes by the words "all-they-can-do-is-to-wrangle-with-pigs-about-the-quality-of-oranges"...
Meanwhile I boldly or, if you like, impudently, take it upon myself in advance to advise you to absorb with, as might be said, an "intensive-mobilization" of all your perceptive organs, the information elaborating the rest of this story, in order that the crystallization in you of the new impression may proceed normally and not in the manner in which it has already become habitual for this to proceed, that is to say, as the great sage Mullah Nassr Eddin defines and expresses it: "One part is used up for one's own welfare, and that only for today, while all the rest going in at one ear, is exhausted in the process of trying to get out at the other."

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...I cannot do otherwise than as the most exalted great terrestrial sage Mullah Nassr Eddin would say, "tangle-and-entangle" the whole of you, or as he also sometimes says, "put-you-in-goloshes", in full face of the fact that I am counting on your help, or rather on your money, which I shall receive thanks to your purchase of writings; for the full possibility of accomplishing even with a "flourish", my self-imposed and perhaps from your point of view, purely egoistic aim.

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...that since in the present period of my existence I must become a professional writer, I am compelled to employ this new profession of mine, at whatever cost, as our esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin has expressed it, to "tangle-and-entangle" all your, as you call them, "images" and "notions"...

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"Really I do not know how to advise you, my dear captain. Ah, yes... in that solar system where I existed for a long time, there is a planet called 'Earth'. On that planet 'Earth' very peculiar three-centered beings arose and still continue to arise. And among the beings of a continent of that planet called 'Asia' there arose and existed a very wise three-brained being whom they called there 'Mullah Nassr Eddin'.

Mullah Nassr Eddin or, as he is otherwise called, Hodja Nassr Eddin, is, it seems, little known in Europe and America. He is very well known, however, in all the countries of the continent Asia. This legendary personality is like the Russian 'Kusma Prutkov', the American 'Uncle Sam', or the English John Bull'. To this Mullah Nassr Eddin are ascribed numerous popular tales of the East, akin to sayings of the wisdom of daily life. They also now continue to ascribe to him various witticisms recalled from long ago as well as those newly made.
"For each and every peculiar situation, whether great or small in the existence of the beings there, this same terrestrial sage, Mullah Nassr Eddin, had an apt and pointed saying.
"As all his sayings were full of the sense of truth for existence there, I also aways used them in order to have a comfortable existence among the beings of that planet.
"In the given case also, my dear Captain, I intend to profit by one of his wise sayings.
"In such a situation as has befallen us he would probably say:
"You cannot jump over your knees and it's absurd to try to kiss your own elbow.
...while there on the planet which interests you, the action of this astonishing and exceedingly ingenious invention bloomed and blossomed from the very first day, as the wise Mullah Nassr Eddin would say - 'Like the trumpets of Jericho in full blast.'

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"At best they would so thrash you that as our Mullah Nassr Eddin there says: 'You wouldn't recover your senses before the next crop of birches'.

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...the result for him was as the highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin once again says: simply "Roses,roses."

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"But, as a matter of fact, when I was on that planet for the last time and, having heard of the said writer, once went myself specially to see him, on quite another matter, he seemed to me to be not only like all the other contemporary writers there, that is to say, extremely limited, and also as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin would say: 'seeing no further than his nose,' but as regards any knowledge of the real psyche of the beings of that planet in real conditions, he might safely be called 'totally illiterate'.
"And as for the given case, there is no harm in recalling again one of the wise sentences of our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin who says:
"'Struth! What only may not happen in the world! A flea might swallow an elephant!'"

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restrain yourself from such laughter, if only it were to come about that they should suddenly clearly sense, in some way or another, and understand without any doubt whatever, that to their planet from their Sun itself, not only does nothing of any such thing as 'light', 'darkness', 'heat', and so on, come, but that their supposed source of heat and light is itself almost always freezing with cold like the hairless dog of our highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin.

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"Not a single one of those 'sorry scientists' has ever thought that the difference between these two cosmic processes is just about the same as that which the highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin once expressed in the following words:
"'They are as much alike as the beard of the famous English Shakespeare and French Armagnac, no less famous'.

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"It is the same with your favourites on the planet Earth. They also have invented the addition to the name of every other person the word 'mister' or sometimes a whole meaningless phrase expressing such conception as our honourable Mullah Nassr Eddin has the following sentence for:
"And namely, he says:
'All the same, there is more reality in it than in the wise-acreings of an expert in monkey-business.'

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"The following is what happened:
"Gornahoor Harharh with all those unusual heavy appliances which had been put on him as well, suddenly found himself at a certain height above the chair, where he began to wriggle, as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin says, 'like a puppy in a well'.

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"But to the grief of every Individual with Pure Reason of any gradation whatsoever and to the misfortune of the three-brained beings of all succeeding generations who arise on that planet, the first succeeding generation of the contemporaries of this genuine Messenger from Above, Saint Buddha, already also began, owing once again to that same particularity of their psyche, namely, of wiseacreing, which until now is one of the chief results of the conditions of the ordinary being-existence abnormally established there - to wiseacre with all His indications and counsels, and this time to 'superwiseacre' so thoroughly that there reached the beings of the third and fourth generations no more than what our Honourable Mullah Nassr Eddin defines by the words:
"'Only-information-about-its-specific-smell'.

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"And as for the objective reality of the theories of both these 'great' terrestrial 'learned-beings', I am reminded and willy nilly impelled to utter one of the wise sayings of our esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin, namely: 'They both succeeded, though of course not without luck, in finding the authentic god-mother of the incomparable Scheherazade on an old dung-hill'.
"These favourites of yours would in my opinion get quite a correct answer to this question which always excites them, that is, the question how the apes arose, if they were able in the given case to apply one of those sayings again of our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin, who often used to say: 'The-cause-of-every misunderstanding-must-be-sought-only-in-woman'.

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"Well then, it was after these 'partnerships' that those kinds of beings also began to appear in our Great Universe who in themselves are, as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin would say, 'Neither-one-thing-nor-the-other'.

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"As for those beings there who are going to carry out this 'scientific-experiment', and as for any benefit from it for the other three-brained beings there, it can all be pictured if one remembers the profoundly wise saying of our same honourable Mullah Nassr Eddin, in which he says: 'Happy is that father whose son is even busy with murder and robbery, for he himself will then have no time to get accustomed to occupy himself with 'titillation'.

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"The decline of those being-factors by inheritance from generation to generation has brought it about that instead of a real being-psyche, such as should exist in the presence of every kind of three-brained being, there now already exists in the presence of your contemporary favourites, although a 'real psyche' also, nevertheless one that can be very well defined by the wise sayings of our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin, which consists of the following words: 'There is everything in it except core, or even kernel.'
"Note, by the way, that for the definition of the importance of the scientists there, our venerated Mullah Nassr Eddin also has a sentence expressed as follows:
"'Everybody talks as if our learned know that half a hundred is fifty'.

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"As for the information which passed from generation to generation through the ordinary mass of beings of that planet, it either completely disappeared, having been soon forgotten, or there remains of it, as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin expressed himself, only the 'tail-and-mane-and-food-for-Scheherazade!

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"How the contemporary learned beings of the planet Earth concoct their hotchpotch from the scraps of information which reach them, is very well defined by one of the wise sentences of our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin; it consists of the following words: 'A flea exists in the world just for one thing......so that when it sneezes, that deluge should occur which our 'learned beings' love so much the job of describing.'

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"'Every real happiness for man can arise exclusively only from some unhappiness - but also real - which he has already experienced.'

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The Greeks were the cause why the Reasons of the three brained beings there began gradually to degenerate and became at last so degenerate that among contemporary beings it is already as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin says, 'a real nonsense mill'.

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As examples of the very many particularly-maleficent 'inventions' of those German beings, let us just take those five of what are called 'chemical-substances', now existing there under the names of l)Satkaine, 2)Aniline, 3)Cocaine, 4)Atropine, 5)Alisarine, and which chemical substances are used there at the present time by the beings of all the continents and islands, as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin says: 'even without moderation'.

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When their ancestors had that invention in themselves of the Great Angel Louisos, then thanks to it, they were always exactly in the same state as the contemporary beings are when they take this German invention called 'Cocaine'.
I must warn you my boy, of course that even if the action of that German invention was similar to the action of the famous organ Kundabuffer, it happened without any conscious intention on the part of the contemporary beings of the community Germany; the became colleagues of the great Angel Louisos only by chance.
At the present time almost all the beings who become genuine representatives of contemporary civilization very meticulously and with the greatest delight and tenderness introduce into themselves this 'blessing' of contemporary civilization, of course, always to the glory, as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin says, of the 'one-eyed-General'.

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"Hence it is that there just proceeds in them that particularity of their general presence which is expressed thus: that with one part of their essence they always intend to wish one thing; at the same time with another part they definitely wish something else; and thanks to the third part, they already do something quite different.
"In short, what happens in their psyche is just what our dear teacher Mullah Nassr Eddin defines by the word a 'mix-up'.

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