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Brahmasutra, the Upanishads and the Gita, you will find his innermost feelings expressed in these small verses; here he has opened his heart. Here Shankara does not speak like a scholar or a thinker, here he expresses himself like a devotee.
OH IDIOT! SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE, SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE, BECAUSE AT THE TIME OF DEATH THE MEMORIZATION OF GRAMMAR WILL NOT SAVE YOU.
OH IDIOT! SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE. What is the idiocy? Shankara is not calling you names by addressing you as 'idiot'. In fact it is his very loving expression. OH IDIOT! SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE, SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE, SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE.
What is the meaning of idiocy? Try to understand it. Idiocy does not mean ignorance. Idiocy means to think yourself to be knowledgeable when you are ignorant. Scholars are idiotic and not the ignorant ones. Why call the ignorant an idiot? Ignorant is just ignorant; he does not know, that is all. Many times it has happened that the ignorant one has come to know and the knowledgeable one has not reached anywhere, because the one who does not know has no ego. He is humble. Since he does not know he does not make any claim to know. But the scholar who does not know, thinks that he knows. Because he has learned words and scriptures and he can repeat the rules of grammar, he gets lost in all these things.
There is a Sufi story. To earn his living a Sufi fakir used to work as a ferryman on a river. One day a village pundit wanted to go across the river. The fakir offered to take him across free of charge. He used to charge one or two paisa for the journey. The pundit sat down in the boat and the fakir started rowing. They were the only people in the boat.
The pundit asked him, "Can you read and write?" What else can a pundit ask? He wants to teach others whatever he knows himself. We can give to others only what we have. Pundits are obsessed with their so-called knowledge. He could not see the radiance of the fakir, he took him to be an ordinary boatman. But the fakir was an extraordinary man. The pundit did not know that the godliness about which he had been contemplating, hearing and discussing was
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