Vivekananda Mailing List-9/11/03

[Guest guest]

Bhagavân Ramakrishna used to tell a story of some men who went into a

mango orchard and busied themselves in counting the leaves, the twigs,

and the branches, examining their colour, comparing their size, and

noting down everything most carefully, and then got up a learned

discussion on each of these topics, which were undoubtedly highly

interesting to them. But one of them, more sensible than the others,

did not care for all these things. and instead thereof, began to eat

the mango fruit. And was he not wise? So leave this counting of leaves

and twigs and note-taking to others. This kind of work has its proper

place, but not here in the spiritual domain. You never see a strong

spiritual man among these " leaf counters " .