Saturday, February 23, 2013

Inspiration Bytes: The Lion and the foolish Brahman


The Lion and the foolish Brahmins

Four Brahmins who were very good friends once lived in a village. While three were great scholars, the fourth was illiterate but had lots of practical knowledge.

One day, all the friends decided to go to another country to earn money. The three got a lot of rewards from the king. However, one of them decided not to give anything to the fourth friend from whatever he received from the king, saying, “He is not a scholar and has not read any scriptures .He has only some practical knowledge, which does not entitle him to rewards from the king.” So the second friend advised the fourth to turn back, as he was not a scholar. The third, however, convinced the others to allow him to accompany them, saying: “Friends! He is too our friend. We must not abandon him like this.

All of them then agreed to take him along and proceeded on their journey. As they were passing through a forest, they saw some bones on the ground and decided to test their knowledge. One collected the bones and erected the skeleton through the powers of his mantra. The second added flesh, skin and blood to the skeleton through the powers of his mantra. As the third was about to infuse a new lease of life into the animal through the the powers of his mantra, the fourth friend said, “Stop! This is a lion. Do not resurrect it, because it will eat all of us.”

All the friends laughed at him, saying that he was unduly concerned and they would certainly test their knowledge. When the fourth Brahmin realised that his friends were adamant on resurrecting the lion, he climbed a tree to save his life. As soon as the lion was brought back to life, he devoured all the Brahmins. When the lion went away, the fourth Brahmin came down the tree and quickly returned home.

Insight –The theoretical knowledge without practical abilities and common sense is useless and even harmful. To exploit scientific / technic knowledge you also need to know how to control it otherwise it will control you.

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