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106. SCIENCE OF READING SIGNS
(An excellent example to illustrate the right and wrong ways to respond to the process of education. Much depends on how well a student cooperates with his teacher and how freely he uses his own initiative. It is of course not correct to leave it all to the teacher.) - GSB
In a certain city, there lived a Siddha. He had two disciples studying the science of reading signs. One of them was very modest, paid careful attention to everything that the teacher taught, pondered over it well and if he had any doubt, got it clarified from him. Since he studied most sincerely, his knowledge of the science became thorough. The other disciple however was not endowed with these qualities and his interpretative abilities never developed, as they did in the first pupil.
Once the guru asked the two of them to go to a nearby village. On their way they saw some big footprints. The patient and observant pupil asked his colleaque whose footprints they could be. The other said, they probably belonged to an elephant. The careful student remarked that this much observation was not enough. They should know precisely whether it was a male elephant or a female and also understand all about it, why it was going into the woods, who could be riding it and for what purpose. The other student confessed that he could not draw any conclusion about the elephant and the rider by merely looking at the footprints. The two of them therefore walked the whole way that the elephant had taken. The inquisitive student observed every thing on the way
d concluded that the elephant was a female, a queen must be riding it, probably she had her husband with her, the queen appeared to have been in a fairly advanced stage of pregnancy,
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