Conscious Evolution: The story of Abu Kasem’s Slippers

Transcript of Conscious Evolution: The story of Abu Kasem’s Slippers

Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and what myth can offer us today. I’m your host and personal mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle. 

Today I want to tell the story of Abu Kasem’s Slippers. I found this Persian tale in a collection by Heinrich Zimmer (edited by Joseph Campbell), called The King and The Corpse: Tales of the Soul’s Conquest of Evil. This book contains another of my favorite stories, called “The King and the Corpse,”  which was the topic of episode 19 in Season 2. October of 2020, if you want to track it down. 

“Tales of the Soul’s Conquest of Evil” has a rather ominous sound and I don’t want to give anything away before I tell this story, so I’ll offer these words from Sri Aurobindo as context:  “Always you will find that within you the shadow and the light go together… It is up to you to know how to utilize the one to realize the other.” -Sri Aurobindo

It’s up to you to know how to utilize the one to realize the other. An astute and provocative observation. Each of us is responsible for our conscious evolution, and work with the psychological shadow is an integral part of this process. This work is typically catalyzed by forces beyond or outside the ego, however. After all, the dynamic relationship between what we are and want to be, what is deemed acceptable or safe, and what is judged unacceptable or felt to be scary or useless, that gives rise to what we call the “ego” and the “shadow” in the first place.

Considered in the abstract, I think these psychological concepts are rather hard to grasp, hence this story about Abu Kasem and his slippers, which is humorous and profound. I’ve reflected on it many times and I hope that is of value to you too.

So, I invite you to relax and listen. Let your imagination roam and take you where you need to go right now. If a detail or moment in the story snags your attention or feels significant, make a note. This can open up the meaning that this story holds for you right now.

Abu Kasem’s Slippers 

There was once a wealthy merchant named Abu Kasem. Abu lived in the city of Baghdad, where he was very well known for his miserliness and ability to drive a hard bargain. Equally famous were his slippers, which were old, worn, patched, and stained. The lowliest of servants would have been ashamed to wear them but Abu wore these shoes everywhere, even in the bazaar. They were inseparable from his public character. A defining accessory you might say, his personal statement.

One day Abu Kasem made two especially good business deals in a row. First, he acquired a collection of beautiful crystal bottles from a shopkeeper who had to declare bankruptcy, and close his doors. Next, he purchased a batch of fine, sweet rose oil from a perfumer who had fallen on hard times. Word of Abu’s latest bargains went around the marketplace. Everybody knew. 

Abu himself was very excited at the prospect of large profits. Now, another merchant might have hosted a dinner party for his friends, to celebrate such good fortune. But Abu made other plans. Although he rarely spent any extra money on anything, he decided to treat himself to a soak and a steam at the public baths.

When he arrived at the bath house, Abu met a fellow merchant in the dressing room. The man congratulated him on his good fortune. The two got undressed and his companion noticed Abu’s old slippers. “Surely you will replace those awful old shoes now,” the man said, “It’s unseemly. I advise you to buy a new pair before you become a complete laughingstock.” Abu contemplated his tattered slippers. “I have been thinking about this myself,” he said,” but I do think they have a few more miles in them.” Then he went in to enjoy his bath.

While Abu was relishing his rare treat, the Cadi  (a judge and high official) of Baghdad also came in to take a bath and steam. Abu finished first. When he returned to the dressing room he couldn’t find his slippers. They had disappeared, and in their place was a lovely new pair of shoes. The new slippers were beautiful and well made. “Well,” Abu thought to himself, “My friend must have decided to honor me with a gift. Maybe he thinks it’s good business to win the favor of a rich man like me.” Abu put on the new slippers and went home feeling quite pleased.

When the Cadi emerged later there was quite a scene. His servants looked high and low and could not find his slippers. In their place was a tattered, disgusting pair that everyone knew belonged to Abu Kasem. The judge was furious and immediately sent for the culprit. When the police arrived, Abu didn’t have much of a defense. The Cadi’s missing slippers were on his feet. Abu spent the night in jail and paid a very heavy fine. And he got his beloved slippers back.

Abu went home, feeling upset and sorry for himself. Those damn shoes! In a fit of temper, he threw his treasured slippers out the window. They landed with a splash, in the river Tigris.

The next day, a group of fishermen strained with their heavy nets. They thought they’d caught a particularly heavy fish. Alas, to their dismay, they found Abu Kasem’s slippers in the net. The slippers had ripped a hole in it and they were very angry. They hurled the sodden slippers though Abu’s open window.

The shoes landed smack in the middle of Abu’s dining room table, where he had set up his lovely crystal bottles and was busy filling them with the sweet rose oil. Now the bottles, the oil, and his dream of big profits lay in a dripping, glittering mess of broken shards on the floor.

“Those wretched slippers!” cried Abu. He grabbed them up, took a shovel, and went out into his backyard. There he dug a deep hole and buried the offending pair of shoes. Ah, that should be the end of those troubles!

But Abu’s neighbor was watching and he imagined something quite different. Why would a rich, rich man like Abu Kasem perform such a menial task, he wondered? Kasem had servants. His stingy neighbor must have buried a secret treasure, the neighbor thought, a treasure that he did not want to report so he could avoid the required taxes. 

The neighbor reported Abu to the judge. No one could believe that a person would dig a big hole in their backyard just to bury a ratty old pair of slippers. Abu was thunderstruck when he heard the amount of his fine.

Now Abu was really desperate to get rid of his old shoes. He decided the best plan was to take them far out of town where they could do him no more harm. He drove out into the country and came to a deep pond. Perfect. He dropped the slippers into the water and watched as they sunk down below the surface.

Abu went home with a sense of sweet relief.  But wouldn’t you know it, the pond fed the city’s water supply. The slippers found their way into the pipes and clogged them up. When the workers came to fix the mess they immediately recognized the shoes as Abu’s. Abu went to jail again, this time for befouling the town’s water supply. And he paid another large, large fine. And his slippers were returned to him. 

By God, these once-dear slippers had done enough damage. Abu had tried losing them, burying them, and drowning them. Now, he resolved to burn them. But they were wet. Abu laid the shoes out on his balcony to dry. 

A dog on the neighboring balcony saw the slippers and jumped over to play with them. The dog tossed the slippers up in the air and oops—one went sailing into the street below, where it hit a pregnant woman on the head and knocked her down. 

The woman had a miscarriage. Her husband went to the judge and demanded damages from Abu, who was no longer so rich. But, what could he do? Abu was forced to pay.

Abu was flat broke and desperate to be rid of his shoes. He stood before the judge and raised the slippers aloft in a gesture so solemn and earnest that the judge almost laughed at the absurdity of it. “Please your honor,” begged Abu, “do not hold me further responsible for the evils caused by these slippers.”

The Cadi felt he could not refuse. He granted Abu’s wish and Abu Kasem went out to buy a new pair of shoes.

The story of Abu Kasem and his slippers could be read as a simple morality tale. There is a rich miser who has a run of bad luck, faces disgrace, and loses his money. Moral: greed is bad. Bad things happen to people who love money too much and take advantage of the misfortunes of others.  The miserly Abu simply gets what he deserves.

We’ve heard this important message many times and it is a theme in the story. But Kasem’s tale is pretty elaborate and outlandish to convey such a straightforward lesson. I think we’re missing the juice if we don’t question this story more closely. Let’s think about the slippers. His shoes.

Kasem’s downfall is the result of an absurd chain of events that revolve around a pair of slippers. Slippers that almost seem to behave don’t you think, in a peculiar manner, as if they have a mind of their own. When Kasem tosses the old beat-up slippers out of the window and they get caught in the nets of the fishermen and rip holes in those nets, we think “bad luck.” When he tries to bury the slippers in his backyard and is reported by a snoopy neighbor, we might think the same thing. But honestly, when the dog tosses the slipper off the balcony and it hits a pregnant woman on the head! And she has a miscarriage! Please.

Kasem tries and tries to get rid of his old slippers and they keep coming back. They keep finding him, like a loyal dog. So, what are these slippers?

Shoes are a common metaphor for identity, right? When we talk about understanding someone and their life, we say that you need to walk a mile in their shoes, for example. What about the saying,” if the shoe fits, wear it,” meaning do you recognize and see yourself  the way that I see you? And at the beginning of this story, we’re told that the old slippers were inseparable from Kasem’s public character. Indeed, they are so well known and so closely identified with him that every problem they create is immediately traced back to him. 

The miser is, in a sense, these miserable, nasty slippers. They are his persona, that well cultivated sense of himself that he holds dear and offers as his public face. 

Having a persona, or a number of them, is a natural feature of psychological life. We each play different roles in the world, and playing them well matters. And yet, these roles are not our true and complete identity, our “self.” There is also a private self or selves, and of course, the shadow, and the vast unconscious. You have to remember this to keep a proper perspective on yourself, to be true to yourself, and to change. To evolve as life requires.

Abu is over identified with his persona, his slippers. As a result, he resists change. His shoes are a kind of fetish for him. He cherishes them and what he thinks they say about him. Which illustrates yet another problem here, the blind spots that we develop when we maintain the narrow view and vocabulary of the persona as we see it. To Abu, the tattered old slippers are a symbol of his incredible thriftiness. To others, they symbolize his astonishing stinginess, a miserly lack of concern for others that marks his business dealings and his friendly acquaintances. 

Despite his wealth, we remember that Abu was all set to make a big profit in bottled rose oil at the expense of the desperate shopkeeper and the perfumer. This tells us something about personas and the way our cherished sense of how we appear to others can blind us to the truth. We also sense something important about the brightly polished persona and the shadow. The brighter the one becomes in our imagination, the darker the other becomes in our psyche. This is part of that one-sided consciousness that Jung and others, have warned us against.

The thing about shoes, like personas, is they wear out. They need to be replaced or refreshed periodically. If we don’t consciously heed the call to make adjustments, eventually an unconscious demand for change will emerge. In the case of Abu, we note that he is perfectly happy until he takes the wrong pair of slippers from the bathhouse. Did you wonder about his willingness to assume that the beautiful shoes were his? To tell himself that the other merchant, who actually chastised Abu about his shoes, was honoring him with the gift of a fine, new pair of slippers in recognition of his business acumen? And if his old slippers were so precious, why didn’t he keep looking for them? They were obviously right there.

The mistake in the bathhouse sets the rest of the story in motion. Perhaps someone played a trick on Abu and moved his slippers. We don’t really know. But the fact that the Cadi’s servants found the nasty shoes so easily suggests that Abu was ready for a new pair of slippers but he wasn’t yet ready for a new sense of self. He wasn’t ready to give up that persona. That slip revealed the height (or depth) of his delusion and it put something powerful in motion.

In Aion, C. G. Jung writes, “The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.” 

In other words, what we don’t recognize and understand about ourselves becomes the substance of what happens to us in the outer world. What concerns us, our desires and fears, ideas and emotions, unite who and what we are with the events of outer life. One’s fate is put in motion through an uncountable number of tiny movements, barely conscious actions and neglects. In this way the plot of life thickens. We are called to make changes and we are always in dialogue with the mysterious unknown. This is like the Hindu notion of karma, the effects of which are more complex than we can fully grasp. Our being and life circumstances are determined by it, but karma is also altered by conscious choices.

As the story unfolds, Abu’s commitment to destroy the slippers grows. Each plan requires more conscious intention and involvement then the one preceding. But he is repeatedly foiled. And he loses all of his money. He has to be desperate enough to change, and impressed deeply enough by these events, to remember them. Abu has to be willing to buy himself a new pair of shoes this time and the next time, too.

Hiss punishments before the judge and his poverty might seem extreme, as we’re examining this story as a description of what is, for Abu, unconscious. And yet, I think his downfall speaks to the strength of the ego that clings to the polished persona, the one that says “oh, these gorgeous new shoes must be a gift for wonderful me.” Turning to Jung again, he writes “Before the bar of nature and fate, unconsciousness is never accepted as an excuse; on the contrary there are very severe penalties for it.” 

We know that conscious evolution is important and hard work. I do think that we are supported in our efforts, however imperfect they may be. There are variations on Abu’s story with different endings. In one version, Abu is required to take the slippers home, where he carefully stashes them in a closet and goes out to buy new shoes for himself and a whole bunch of other people. The moral message about greed and Abu’s newly found generosity is important, but I prefer the ending that strikes an ambiguous note. The judge releases Abu from responsibility. Who is the judge? Where did the slippers end up? 

I think the judge, like the slippers, is part of the unconscious lived as fate. An image of the mysterious support that we receive as we are made by life and set, through our inner dynamics, to realize what is possible in our selves. “Always you will find that within you the shadow and the light go together… It is up to you to know how to utilize the one to realize the other.” Aurobindo says, and we also have partners in this task, in the outer and inner worlds. 

In the words of M. C. Richards, “Within us lives a merciful being who helps us to our feet however many times we fall.”

Now speaking of partners, I’m excited to tell you about a new workshop offering that will begin in September. It’s called From Adversary to Ally, transform your inner critic. You know that voice, the one that is rarely, if ever, satisfied with you. We all have one. What if this most intimate relationship was a source of clarity, insight, and productive advice? Of support rather than sabotage? 

From Adversary to Ally is a 9-week workshop, all online, to facilitate this reframe. The workshop runs from Sunday September 21, 2022- Wednesday November 16, 2022, and is a combination of group zoom sessions and one on one mentoring conversations with me, supplemented with weekly emails. 

Rare is the person who is not held back in a meaningful way by the admonition of that inner critical voice. What would your life be like if you could count on the support of that intimate aspect of self?

If this sounds interesting head over to mythicmojo.com to learn more. I’m still dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, so be sure to subscribe to the email list to receive details about From Adversary to Ally as I share them. Registration will open Thursday August 25th.

Before we part ways, I want to give a big welcome to new email subscribers: Paula, Jane, Mark, Sue, Sally Ann, and Roger. Welcome! 

If you’re new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website, where you can get on the email list, read a transcript of this episode, and find information about the other work that I do with people to use stories to gain insight into life. From Adversary to Ally is one example.

A shout out of gratitude to the patrons and supporters of this podcast whose financial contributions keep it all going. There are some special benefits to patrons beyond the personal satisfaction of knowing that you’re making a difference here. You’ll find all of those details if you click through the links to my patreon. 

If we have a better understanding of our need for myth, and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and sustainable world. 

And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself, and until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.

Link to The King and the Corpse by Heinrich Zimmer, edited by Joseph Campbell

Link to The King and Corpse, Myth Matters Episode 19, Season 2