A Sufi Folktale
One night a thief, trying to climb through the window of a house which he intended to rob, fell because the window-frame broke, hit the ground and broke his leg.
So the thief went to court to sue the owner of the house.
The owner of the house said: “Sue the carpenter who put the window in.”
The carpenter said: “The builder did not make the window-aperture properly.”
When the builder was called, he said: “My fault was caused by a beautiful woman who was passing while I was working at the window.”
The woman was found, and she said: “I was wearing a beautiful gown at the time. Normally, nobody looks at me. It is the fault of the gown, which was cunningly dyed in multi-coloured stripes”
So the judge finally declared: “Now we have the culprit! Call the man who did the dyeing, and he shall be held responsible for the harm done to the leg of the thief.”
When they found the dyer-man, he turned out to be the husband of the woman. It so happened that this was—the thief himself!
The story is a metaphor for our tendency to blame others when our desires are not fulfilled. We feel hurt. With the pain of our broken dreams, we complain and cry. But if we contemplate deeply we will slowly discover the reason for all our pain is our own desiring self. Mostly we ourselves are responsible for our own suffering.