object:19.05 - The Fool
book class:Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
subject class:Integral Yoga
class:chapter
The Flowers The Wise
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta DhammapadaPaliThe Fool
The Fool
[1]
Long is the night to him who is awake, long is a league to the weary. Long is the cycle of life to the senseless person who knows not the true Law.
[2]
If one does not find in his quest someone superior or even equal to himself, then he must resolutely go on all alone; no help can come from the senseless person.
[3]
I have sons, I have richesso says the senseless man and worries himself. Even one's own self does not belong to oneself, how can then sons and riches so belong?
[4]
The senseless who recognises his senselessness is wise to that extent, but the senseless who considers himself wise is indeed senseless.
[5]
The senseless person may serve a wise man throughout his life, but he will not know the Right Law, even as a ladle does not know the taste of the soup.
[6]
An intelligent person may serve the wise one just for a moment but he will immediately have the knowledge of the Right Law, even as the tongue has the taste of the soup.
[7]
The senseless, wrong-minded as he is, acts himself as his own enemy, he does wrong acts that bear bitter fruits.
[8]
That act is not the right act by doing which you repent, the fruits of which you enjoy weeping and shedding tears.
[9]
That act is the right act by dong which you do not repent, whose fruits you enjoy with a glad and happy mind.
[10]
So long as the evil bears no fruit, the senseless man finds it sweet as honey, he plunges into suffering as soon as the evil bears its fruits.
[11]
Month after month the senseless person may take his food with the tip of a blade of grass,1 yet he will not be worth even a sixteenth part of those who have understood the Law.
[12]
A wrong act done, even like fresh milk, does not at once turn sour, but it pursues the senseless man consuming him like a fire smouldering under ashes.
[13]
Whatever knowledge a senseless man gains serves only to bring calamity to him, turns his head and kills his brighter side.
[14]
The senseless man desires to realise the unreal, to be placed in front among the Adepts, he desires lordship at home and worship abroad.
[15]
"Those who are in the world and those who are outside it both must applaud whatever I do, they must obey me"thus the desire, thus the conceit of the senseless one goes on increasing.
[16]
One way leads to gain, quite another towards Nirvana. The Bhikkhu, the disciple of the Buddha knows this and does not seek honour, he cultivates withdrawal.
Kusa grass has in India a sacred character. To eat food with the tip of Kusa-blade is taken symbolically here as an act of asceticism.
***
The Flowers The Wise
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