Hazrat Inayat Khan tells this story: I came to Hyderabad, a young musician without any letter of recommendation, without any help to go to the Nizam [the ruler or king] of Hyderabad.  And I had great difficulty, such difficulty that I could net even speak about it to anyone. They thought, “What a presumption for a young man who has not yet made his name and built his reputation to even imagine such a thing!”  Then I gave up seeing people and asking them for help.  But the motive was there.

And then I happened to come in a place where a woman lived under the shade of a tree.  They say she was in age more than a hundred years; some said she was three hundred years old, but I do not know. And she never spoke with people; she just sat there. A friend brought me to see this woman, and I at once felt that there was something wonderful about her. At that moment she had an earthen bowl in her hand, and she was eating from it. As I went near to greet her, in answer to my greeting she took a little food in the same hand she was eating with and gave it to me.  She had no fork.  As she held it before me I first looked here and there, but my friend said, “Take it,” so I at once stretched out my hand and took what she gave.

And the same week I was called to the court.  I was presented at the court and had what I desired.