Article - The Remover of All Difficulties
from Awareness Journal, Vol II, No 2, Winter 1994
Dear Christine, It would be interesting to tell you what happened after I left the hospital and returned to work. The owner of the golf course where I am employed was kind to me. He paid $20,000 of my medical bills since I have no health insurance. I could never repay him, of course, so I decided to attempt to find a way to express my thanks. The one and only way I could show how I felt was to do a drawing of one of his golf holes. Well, while in the process of completing the drawing (I did it on site), several member of the club became interested in my artwork. To make a long story shorter, I just completed a painting for $900 and I am starting another drawing for $500. It even looks like another member will want me to paint a golf landscape for him too! Yea! Heck, I just wanted to say thanks. D.S.
I was tickled to receive your letter and am going to include it in our book of Mushkil Gusha stories.
“Muskhil Gusha” is the Persian wording of “The Remover of All Difficulties.” There are elaborate stories told of people getting into all sorts of fixes and when they let go, the Remover of All Difficulties appears and does His thing … and everything works out in the end.
I was first exposed to Mushkil Gusha in Caravan of Dreams by Idries Shah (please do read that book someday), where he presents a long, convoluted, and thoroughly interesting version. Once you say the story, you are to commit to repeat it (or a version of it) every Thursday night from then on.
When Harmony Workshop had space available, we would have a social gathering and read the story of Mushkil Gusha on Thursday nights. Someone would bring a dessert made with dates. It is traditional to share dates. (We found we grew a little tired of dates every week so started making concoctions with them.) Dates were highly prized in the time and place of the origination of the story, so they represent the Teaching in the context of Mushkil Gusha, and that is the point of sharing dates.
If there is not a formal gathering, wishing someone “Happy Mushkil Gusha Day” on Thursday sometimes suffices. You would be amazed at the responses you get when doing this, and you always get an opportunity to tell the story (although often a shortened version is appreciated when you have just wished your waitress Happy Mushkil Gusha Day).
According to my Middle-Eastern friends, there are countless versions. My friend Mitra tells me that when she was a little girl in Iran, women would go around from house to house with sweets on Thursday evenings (the night of Mushkil Gusha) and everyone would honor and celebrate The Remover of All Difficulties.
Rhondell is quite fond of this story and has boiled it down, in his inimitable fashion, to this: Don’t make anything important and keep the mood up. The official version is “When your need is greater than your want, Mushkil Gusha will appear and remove all difficulties.” California-style: “Don’t sweat the small stuff. P.S. It’s all small stuff.” Or: Let go, it’ll all be okay.
What our artist let go of, here, was that B-side Not-I that would have loved to weigh him down with guilt, the feeling of debt, unworthiness, the “want” to pay back so he would look good, and so on. He said, instead, “I will just say thank you, using the talents that I have at hand.” His need to say Thank You was greater than his want to even the score. He let go and just did what he could do.
He didn’t make “balancing” important, he knows it will all balance out, thank you, on its own accord. A mood of thankfulness is a lot higher than one of burden. And then he acted on it, not just “thought about it.” And look what’s happening.
I hear so many sad stores, all the time. If people only knew that it will all work out, if they just let go. (Actually, it will work out in any case - they just don’t recognize it.)
Thank you for sending in your Mushkil Gusha story. I hope that it inspires someone to just let go and say Thank You.
