I just realised that almost everyone we’ve met this whole week, including yesterday, does not eat dinner. What a blessing to exist in a world where so many conscious people exist, where so many people are so deeply in touch with their bodies.

In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from today morning’s discussion. We were discussing how knowledge is not always an advantage, it more often than not gets in the way. And this story I thought, was worth sharing.

Shankaracharya even, had an ‘attitude’ about being so knowledgeable. One day as he walked to the river for his bath, a cobbler lay in the path. Brahmins weren’t supposed to get anywhere near Shudras, lest they get ‘polluted’. So ‘hey! Move out of the way!’ he screamed.

“Who are you asking to move out of the way?’ the man replied. ‘Is it this body you refer to? Made of merely pancha bhootas, they have no life or will of their own. Or do you refer to my soul, which is infinite? How can something which is omnipresent, move?”

Shankaracharya realised his folly, thanked the man (who is said to be Shiva in disguise) and never made caste an issue again.

So knowledge is useless if it merely comes from books. Sometimes the most profound lessons are taught by the ‘insignificants’ – a child, an uneducated pauper, a rodent, an apple even.