Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (Arkana S.)

by Ramana Maharshi

The ten foolish men in the parable forded a stream and on reaching the other shore wanted to make sure that all of them had in fact safely crossed the stream. One of the ten began to count, but while counting the others left himself out. ‘I see only nine; sure enough, we have lost one. Who can it be?’ he said. ‘Did you count correctly?’ asked another, and did the counting himself. But he too counted only nine. One after the other each of the ten counted only nine, missing himself. ‘We are only nine’, they all agreed, ‘but who is the missing one?’ they asked themselves. Every effort they made to discover the ‘missing’ individual failed. ‘Whoever he is that is drowned‘, said the most sentimental of the ren fools, ‘we have lost him.’ So saying he burst into tears, and the others followed suit. Seeing them weeping on the river bank, a sympathetic wayfarer enquired about the cause. They related what had happened and said that even after counting themselves several times they could find no more than nine. On hearing the story, but seeing all the ten before him, the wayfarer guessed what had happened. In order to make them know for themselves they were really ten, that all of them had survived the crossing, he told them, ‘Let each of you count for himself but one after the other serially, one, two, three and so on, while I shall give you each a blow so that all of you may be sure of having been included in the count, and included only once. The tenth missing man will then be foun...