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I am the Soul
figure out who was lost. Didn't even see anybody flowing away with the waters. What do we do now?' They were really worried.
An old man was passing by. He saw the young men standing around with worry writ large on their faces. He asked, 'Brothers! What is the matter?"
'Oh, Uncle! Ten of us stepped into the river and one of us was lost.' The old man asked, 'Are you sure? Did you see him flowing away?"
'Well, that is the problem! We are unable to understand. There were ten of us when we started and now there are nine. Can't make out the one whom we lost'.
The old man was wise. He said, 'Wait, let me count', and he counted and found ten of them. He said, 'Ah, Brothers! You are ten'.
'What! Are we ten? Uncle, when we counted it was only
'Count again, let's see!'
One of them counted again, and again there were nine. The old man said, 'You fool! You are leaving out yourself. Were there ten including you or without you?'
'No, no, ten including me.'
nine'.
'Then include yourself! You are counting all others and forgetting yourself."
Brothers! While rejecting the existence of the atma, the ignorant jiva also makes a similar mistake. It only accepts things that are visible to the eye. Gurudev also says the same thing, 'You accept the pots and pans and but do you not accept the one who knows them?'
The disciple realised his folly, and went deep into contemplating over the principles told by the Gurudev. What he tells the Gurudev on coming out of his thought, forms the opening pages of the next volume.
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