There was once a King who had been consumed with grief over the death of his wife and first-born son, who had died in childbirth. The king was a benevolent and generous ruler, but every night he wept in his chambers trying to make sense of the tragedy that had befallen him.
In the midst of his mourning, the king asked his grand vizier for a ring to be made for him, but no jeweler or vizier was able to create one to his liking. For the ring was to be a special one, with clearly-defined yet seemingly impossible specifications.
The ring, the king demanded, must carry an inscription such that if one felt sad, he could look at the ring and it would make him happy, and if he was happy, he could look at the ring and it would make him sad.
Many men and women came forward with suggestions for the ring, but the king liked none of them. So the grand vizier wrote to the infamous Sufi dervish, informing him of the king’s woes and asking for help.
A few weeks later, a box made of satin made its way to the king. A gift, the messenger said, from a wise man in the Maranjab desert. The satin box was presented to the king, and inside it a golden ring laden with tiny Indian rubies. The king, who had been depressed for months, reluctantly put the ring on his finger and inspected it carefully.
He peered down and read an inscription carved delicately along the band of the ring. He paused for a moment, contemplating the words, then started to smile for the first time in months, and a few moments later, he was laughing, a joyous, bittersweet and heart-rending laugh. “What does it say?” the vizier asked, shocked that the dervish had managed to do what had till now seemed impossible. The speechless king, overcome with emotion, wiped tears from his cheeks and held the ring up for the vizier to read.
And illuminated in the candlelight of the king’s chambers, the vizier was able to make out the inscription.
It read, in four simple words,
“This Too Shall Pass.”.
