Four Questions

There was once a great scholar.
Everybody in the kingdom
appreciated him because he
was
so learned. Unfortunately, in
spite of his great learning he had great pride. One day this
scholar put on a
gold necklace and went to the
palace of another king. He said,
"Whoever can defeat me in
wisdom will get this necklace. I challenge everybody!" All the
scholars in that
particular kingdom had heard
about this scholar and they
were afraid that they would
lose. So they would not accept his challenge. The king was
very sad that nobody would
accept the challenge.
Finally, the court jester said, I
accept your challenge."
The king had almost surrendered to the scholar but
thought it would be amusing to
see his jester compete. He
believed he was only a joker
and would not be able to win
the necklace. The court jester said, "I will
ask you four questions. if you
answer any of my questions
correctly, then you will lose,
but if all your answers are
incorrect, then I will accept defeat and the king will give
you anything you want."
Then the court jester asked his
first question: "Where do you
come from?"
The scholar said, I live here." This was incorrect, since he
came from another kingdom.
So
by giving the wrong answer
the
scholar passed the first test. The jester's second question
was, "How long have you been
here?" "Three years," the
scholar said,
which was also incorrect. Still
the court jester was unable to trick him.
The third time the jester
asked,
"Our king is good, kind and
generous. Do you agree?"
The scholar said, "Your king? What you are saying is totally
wrong. Your king is undivine
and very unkind." So again the
scholar passed the test. The
court jester said, "It seems
that I can't defeat you. How many questions have I asked so
far?"
The scholar said, "You have
asked me three questions; you
have one more. If I do not
answer it correctly you will lose. "
The court jester cried out,
"Look! The scholar has lost. He
has answered this question
correctly."
So the scholar gave his necklace to the court jester,
and the jester immediately
gave it to the king. The
scholar's pride was totally
smashed. He said, "I will never
come to your kingdom to challenge anybody again."
All the scholars were very
impressed by the court jester's
cleverness. They knew that
they would not have been able
to defeat the great scholar. The jester said, "You see, when
great scholars are not alert,
they lose. Had he been alert, he
could have saved himself."

from
Garden of the Soulby Sri
Chinmoy Published by Health
Communications