When amidst the clouds the sun rose, it was like the awakening of the dormant soul into the premises of love and the beatific vision of God. I woke up and am looking through the window by my bed-side at the men and women walking along the road when a crowd gathering nearby attracted my attention.
I rose from my bed and made my way to the crowd and enquired what it was. A sanyasi was amidst the crowd and the mob were garlanding him and were burning incense before him and camphor and minh. He with a smile was accepting everything.
After a while the crowd dispersed and the sanyasi and myself were remaining. I, after paying obediences prayed to him to illumine me. He with a smile said – “I myself am ignorant and how can I dare to say that I will illumine you?” Aghast I asked him – “ Then why did not you refuse the honours the ignorant were offering?” – He replied – “ Faith is better than doubt and one gains illumination by faith and fervor. Why should I not be instrumental?” – Seeing me laugh he continued “ yes my friend! I am ignorant but I am not laughing at the ignorant for he who laughs at the ignorant is ignorant himself. Each soul is a mirror and you see only what you are in others.”
Then I realized that he was indeed and illumined man and that I have become a fool by taking him to be a fool. I paid my homages which he accepted and said with a smile – “ V…. the world is a kingdom of fools. Each thinks himself to be wise and all other are fools for a while and the next minute thinks that except himself all other are wise. But often one fails to recognize that he need not go to anybody to illuminate himself except to himself and this world is both abode of gods and the kingdom of fools at the same instant”
