The story of the spotlight has been told many times with slight variations, but one of the oldest comes from the Islamic Sufi tradition with Mullah Nasruddin.
It goes like this.
Nasruddin was on the walk one night when he came across his friend on his hands and knees, looking for something.
What are you doing? Nasruddin said, Oh, I’ve lost my key. His friend said, I’m looking for it. Nasradin was kind, so he offered to help.
But after over an hour of searching and groping, there was no luck. Can you remember where you last saw it? Nasradin said, Can you retrace your steps?
Oh, I lost it inside my house. His friend said, so why are you looking for it here? Nasradin said, because this is the only place we’ve lied for me to look for it. His friend replied.
The story of the spotlight
The Story of the spotlight is about our quest for knowledge, but it’s also about that human tendency we have to seek only the easy options, even though we know it’s not the right one we look under the lamp, even though we know the key is not there.
Almost all of the most important lessons in life are earned through effort and often a degree of hardship. When we examine and introspect. It’s easy to avoid the dark. It’s easy to avoid looking at our shortcomings, our failures, our vices and the uglier elements of our soul.
But as Nasreddin knew, if we’re to find anything good, we have to go beyond the obvious and the easy. If we’re to have any kind of self discovery or Revelation, we have to get used to looking in the dark.