Once upon a time, there was a great emperor ruling Indian subcontinent. His cabinet was filled with intelligent and wise ministers. One day, he invited wisest of his ministers and said, "In my empire, I have met and honored several scholars. They all symbolized excellence and perfection in their respective area of knowledge. But I am now fed up of meeting only wise people. It looks like there are no fools in my empire. So, I order you to bring five fools in front of me tomorrow morning." The minister accepted the order and went in the search of fools.
While searching, he went in a village. He saw that a man was sitting on a donkey carrying a huge baggage on his head. The minister went near him and asked, "Why are you holding this load on your head? Why don't you just keep it on your donkey?" The man stared at the minister and answered, "Have you gone out of your mind? I love my donkey very much. I cannot even imagine putting all this load on him. He is already carrying me and you think I am so cruel that I would also put the load of my baggage on him." The minister smiled and said, "Please be available at the royal court tomorrow morning. The emperor would be very happy to see your kindness and might even reward you."
The minister went a little ahead and entered a forest. He saw that a man was lying down with his feet moving in air as if he was walking and had his hands horizontally lying ahead of him as if it was measuring something. He went near that man and asked, "What are you doing here?" The man said, "What kind of person you are? You should first help me to stand." The minister helped the man to stand. The man said showing towards his hands, "My wife had given this measure of curtains. While walking, I slipped and fell down. However, I thought I should continue walking if I need to reach the market. So, I kept the measure of curtains intact with my hand and kept walking with my feet." The minister said, "Please be available at the royal court tomorrow morning. The emperor would be very happy to see your intelligence and persistence and might even reward you."
It had become dark and the minister came out of forest returning back to palace. On his way, he saw a man trying to search something near lamp-post. He went near that man and asked, "What are you searching?" The man replied, "Today I went inside the forest and lost my diamond ring there. I am trying to search it." The minister said, "If you lost it inside the forest, then you should search it there. How can you find it here?" The man replied, "You are really very dumb. It is so dark now in forest. At least it is bright here near lamp-post. How can I search it in such a dark forest. I am searching here because here is the light." The minister said, "Please be available at the royal court tomorrow morning. The emperor would be very happy to see your intelligence and might even reward you."
The minister along-with those three men went to the court next morning. The emperor looked at the three men and listened their stories. Then he turned towards the minister and said, "I have asked you to bring such five people. They are just three. Where are the rest two?" The minister said, "Your highness, the fourth one is sitting in front of you. It is none other than me who spent whole day searching for fools in the empire." The emperor said, "It still makes it four. Who is the fifth one?" The minister replied, "Your highness, please pardon me. The fifth fool is none other than you, who ordered for searching fools in your empire to me."
The emperor started laughing and said, "Is there anything that we can learn from them too?" The minister said, "This is the reflection of our lives. The first one showed us that how conveniently we forget that the load we have in our minds and hearts does not reach to our loved ones. The second man showed that how rigidly we have just learned things without knowing if we are actually reaching our destination with that knowledge. The third one showed us that the peace and happiness that we search outside is actually not present there, but we keep searching it there because we find our inner-self extremely dark where it actually resides."
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