Short, short: Parables

For ages wise men, sages, rishis, prophets, men embedded in the Sacred, men of God have used Parables to make their point. A parable is 'a usually short...story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle' (Merriam-Webster's).

Parables are a good way to shed light on issues that are difficult to grasp, especially by those with a lesser type of philosophical spirit but maybe possessing another faculty that comprehends the same truth when told in the form of a tale, a story. Children come to mind.
"A parable is a brief story that is true to life, comparing the point of commonality between two unlike things, given for the purpose of teaching spiritual truth."

A parable is a story in prose or verse that is told to illustrate a religious, moral or philosophical idea. A parable is like a metaphor that has been extended to form a brief, coherent fiction. Unlike a simile, its parallel meaning is unspoken, implicit, but not ordinarily secret, though "to speak in parables" has come to suggest obscurity.

Parables are the simplest of narratives: they sketch a setting, describe an action and its result; they often involve a character facing a particular moral dilemma, or making a questionable decision and then suffering the consequences of that choice. Aside from providing guidance and suggestions for proper action in life, parables offer a metaphorical language which allows people to discuss difficult or complex ideas more easily. (Wikipedia)

Ignorance and forgetfulness/heedlessness (ghaflah/nissyan) have many aspects and layers and they are sometimes identified and addressed using different approaches, some clearly understandable and some not easily graspable.

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There is a proverb that 'the "opposition" of the man of knowledge is better than the "support" of the fool.'

The Sufi master Salim Abdali bear witness that this is true in the greater ranges of existence, as it is true in the lower levels.

A horseman from his point of vantage saw a poisonous snake slip down the throat of a sleeping man. The horseman realized that if the man were allowed to sleep the venom would surely kill him.

Accordingly, he lashed the sleeper until he was awake. Having no time to lose, he forced this man to a place where there were a number of rotten apples lying upon the ground and made him eat them. Then he made him drink large gulps of water from a stream.

All the while the other man was trying to get away, screaming, crying, cursing: 'What have I done, you enemy of humanity, that you should abuse me in this manner?'

Finally, when he was near to exhaustion, and dusk was falling, the man fell to the ground and vomitted out the apples, the water, and a snake. When he saw what had come out of him, he realized what had happened, and begged the forgiveness of the horseman.

This is our condition. In reading this, do not take history for allegory and allegory for history. Those who are endowed with knowledge have responsibility. Those who are not, have none beyond what they can conjecture.

The man who was saved said: 'If you had told me, I would have accepted your treatment with a good grace.'

The horseman answered: 'If I had told you, you would not have believed. Or you would have been paralysed by fright. Or run away. Or gone to sleep again, seeking forgetfulness. And there would not have been time.'

Spurring his horse, the mysterious rider rode away.

The dervaish master Haider Gul says: 'There is a limit beyond which it is unhealthy for mankind to conceal truth in order not to offend those whose minds are closed.'

(Source: from Idries Shah, 1969, 'Tales of the Dervishes', E.P Dutton and Co: NY.)

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Says Shakespeare in Hamlet:

I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady. (3.4.174-181)