Daily Meditation: Wednesday, July 17, 2002

The Bulgarian fairy-tale Tsar Troïan tells the story of a …

07/17/2002

The Bulgarian fairy-tale Tsar Troïan tells the story of a king who woke up one morning to find he had grown a pair of goat's ears. He then tried to do all he could to hide them and so no-one knew about them except for his barber who shaved him every day and who had promised to say nothing. But the barber was a simple man and he found it very difficult to keep such a secret. So one day, unable to bear the silence any longer, the barber went into the forest, lay down on the ground and whispered his secret to the earth. Some time later a tree grew in the very same spot. But this was an unusual tree because the children who made whistles from the wood of its branches found that when they blew into their whistles, they heard the words: 'Tsar Troïan has goat's ears! Tsar Troïan has goat's ears!' The king came to hear of this and called the barber, who tried to exculpate himself saying he had only whispered his secret to the earth. Yes but he should not have said anything to the earth either. This initiatic tale is also found in Greece, in the legend of king Midas, although he was given ass's ears. And of course we have the saying: 'The walls have ears.' This means that all matter is a medium on which everything is recorded and from which, consequently, all is transmitted. It is a law that every word, every thought, every feeling is recorded, firstly in ourselves but also on everything around us, and may one day be known by everyone.