Smuggling Donkeys

Source: "Smuggling Common Sense" from the blog, This Reminds Me of a Story.
Keyword: Sufi, paradigm, questions, blindness

It used to happen when Nasrudin was still young and his beard was still black and cheeky, before his pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca.

Season after season, day in day out and even three or four times a day, he would ride his donkey through the toll gate up the valley. Time after time the customs officers would check his load, saddlebags and even his turban.

They never found more than loads of hay. They knew there had to be something but just couldn't find what.

This ploy continued under their nose, for several years, to the despair of the captain.

Many years later, the retired captain leaned over the table at the tea house in Aksehir, closer to the Mullah's now respectable white beard and asked:

"Just tell me Hoca, before we die in our old age and your skilled trick gets lost. What were you hiding? I checked you so many times and your donkeys never carried anything other than hay. What was it that you smuggled?"

The Mullah stared at him with his round innocent eyes:

"Donkeys, what else my good man?"