What’s Wrong in Being a Fool?-   Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

We want to find a reason for everything, a purpose for everything. We want to anlayze and understand everything. People even try to understand their dreams. What is the use? Whatever dream you have had, so what? Whether you are sitting on horseback or on top of a train in your dream; whether you see a crow or a duck or a pigeon or swan or a mouse or a cat in your dream, what does it matter? Why do you waste so much time interpreting dreams, understanding dreams, trying to know something about dreams? We call ourselves wise because we want to understand. We want to do something only if we get something out of it.

A fool is somebody who does something and doesn’t get anything out of it. Their foolish acts, even those you can interpret into meaning and purpose, you see they do them without any purpose, without any meaning. Since childhood we have been told, "Don’t be a fool." What is wrong with being a fool? What is wrong with standing alone, apart from the crowd? "Let the crowd act however it wants. I stand apart from that. I act my way."

© `Deccan Chronicle’ dated June 12, 2002. Reprinted with permission.

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