When a rushing stream reaches an impassable desert, it discovers that its familiar ways will only lead to disappearing into a stagnant marsh. Idries Shah’s famous Sufi allegory reveals that true transformation requires letting go of our rigid identity, allowing ourselves to be carried by higher forces to reach our ultimate destiny.
“A stream, from its source in far-off mountains, passing through every kind and description of countryside, at last reached the sands of the desert. Just as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream tried to cross this one, but it found that as it ran into the sand, its waters disappeared.
It was convinced, however, that its destiny was to cross this desert, and yet there was no way. Now, a hidden voice, coming from the desert itself, whispered, “The wind crosses the desert, and so can the stream.”
The stream objected that it was dashing itself against the sand, and only getting absorbed; that the wind could fly and this was why it could cross the desert.
“By hurtling in your own accustomed way, you cannot get across. You will either disappear or become a marsh. You must allow the wind to carry you over to your destination.”
“But how could this happen?”
“By allowing yourself to be absorbed in the wind.”
This idea was not acceptable to the stream. After all, it had never been absorbed before. It did not want to lose its individuality. And once having lost it, how was it to know that it could ever be regained?
“The wind,” said the sand, “performs this function. It takes up water, carries it over the desert, and then lets it fall again. Falling as rain, the water again becomes a river.”
“How can I know that this is true?”
“It is so, and if you do not believe it, you cannot become more than a quagmire, and even that could take many, many years; and it certainly is not the same as a stream.”
“But can I not remain the same stream that I am today?”
“You cannot in either case remain so,” the whisper said. “Your essential part is carried away and forms a stream again. You are called what you are even today because you do not know which part of you is the essential one.”
When he heard this, certain echoes began to arise in the thoughts of the stream. Dimly, he remembered a state in which he — or some part of him, was it? — had been held in the arms of a wind. He also remembered — or did he? — that this was the real thing, not necessarily the obvious thing to do.
And the stream raised his vapour into the welcoming arms of the wind, which gently and easily bore it upwards and along, letting it fall softly as soon as they reached the roof of a mountain many, many miles away.
And because he had had his doubts, the stream was able to remember and record more strongly in his mind the details of the experience.
He reflected, “Yes, now I have learned my true identity.”
The stream was learning. But the sands whispered, “We know, because we see it happen day after day: and because we, the sands, extend from the riverside all the way to the mountain.”
And that is why it is said that the way in which the stream of life is to continue on its journey is written in the sands.
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Postage stamp titled World Natural Heritage – Karst of Southern China. Image courtesy: Guilin China on X
Note: The Tale of the Sands is one of the most celebrated allegories popularised by Idries Shah (1924–1996), a prominent author and teacher who brought traditional Eastern parables into modern literature through classic works like The Sufis (1964) and Tales of the Dervishes (1967). Born in India to an Afghan-Indian family of Sufi lineage and raised in England, he collected, translated and adapted hundreds of traditional Eastern parables and teaching stories—most famously featuring the folklore figure Mulla Nasruddin—to make Sufi philosophy accessible to modern readers.
Read another story of Idires Shah at https://wellsprings.in/long-journey-home-fruit-heaven-sufi-story/
Acharya Rajneesh (1931-1990), known later as Osho, was an Indian godman, philosopher, mystic and founder of the Rajneesh movement. He was viewed as a controversial religious leader during his life. He rejected institutional religions, insisting that spiritual experience could not be organised into any one system of religious dogma. He advocated meditation and taught a unique form called dynamic meditation. Rejecting traditional ascetic practices, he asked his followers to live fully in the world but without attachment to it. Pic courtesy: https://www.sannyas.wiki