You can tell a fool as soon as they open their mouth. If they remain silent, and perhaps dress smartly or have a big wallet, you might assume they were cultured. You can’t tell by the externals. Yet just hear them speak their mind and instantly you can tell if they are a fool. It’s visible in the writings of everyone too. Let them put their thoughts into writing and you can tell where their head is situated, or what is on their mind.
What about a self-realized soul? Can you see their condition based on the externals? Perhaps, but not always. Sometimes the wise person appears outwardly poor, dishevelled or covered in some way. We judge so easily by the externals. If a person has a big wallet then we rank them as more intelligent or worthy of befriending. We are all incentivised after all and want to gain from others. I see it here. However, the externals are not a true indicator of the consciousness of any person.
Their speech and writing is however a clear indicator of where their consciousness resides. Look at their output and you will know their mind. And mind is a symptom of consciousness. The youth enjoy playing games. They have a lifetime ahead of them and no worries. The nurturer enjoys feeding people and has all the time to prepare recipes. The adventurer like to explore the great outdoors and capture the scenes which are like pretty butterflies that uplift the viewer as much as the one who goes looking for them.
All of us are motivated to earn from our creations so we share them with the hope of reward. No other reason really keeps us creating and sharing. We aim to attract profit. And the herd tends to flock together in communities where they share interests with like-minded others. Yet where is the community of enlightened beings? Where is the community of philosophers? Where is the sadhu sanga? I struggle to find them. Where are the wise and sober persons who pursue the ultimate goal of life? Perhaps you wont find them at a profit-chasing club like this where finance fuels the feeders.
Well profit is secondary to the philosopher and one who has found something higher and is already a millionaire in consciousness, to coin a phrase. The mind of a self-realized soul is unimpressed by the allure of profit. When you are situated in transcendence, your actions are motivated and incentivised by a higher love, a higher goal, namely that of sharing your vision with all the other fallen souls struggling under the crushing effort of life on earth. The boddhisattva wishes to not only walk through the door of liberation but also to assist all the other living souls in also finding that door and exiting the hard struggle of repeated birth and death.
The symptoms of an enlightened soul are clearly described in the books on enlightenment. The process of self-realization is also presented, step by step and easily understood, yet most of us are too busy chasing coin or struggling to survive and feather our nest for the long haul. Stuck on the lower rung of animal existence we chase better eating, better sleeping, better mating and better defending. Add to that recreation and you have the picture of the person on the lower rungs of life, just above animal mentality. That’s us today here on earth.
Out of millions of people, one may endevor for enlightenment. And out of millions who endevor, one may succeed. Yet the tools are freely available for everyone to achieve this topmost goal of life. The problem is that no one knows about it. Those that made it to a position of leadership in government or education are not in it for the welfare of all of the rest. They are there because they were better at the animal propensities of pursuing profit and power. So they don’t steer the entire society under them in the direction of enlightenment but in the direction of being a better animal and a servant of the senses and a servant of those who want to stay in power.
The blind are leading the blind. So there are no role models of enlightened people for the rest of us to emulate. All we see are our leaders chasing coin and so we learn how to follow suit. Yet the information on liberation from the illusion of scarcity or poverty is available to us all for free. When you are liberated, you feel no lack, no poverty consciousness, no fear of hunger, no lust for indulgence. You are independent and free. That’s what liberated means. You are fee from the shackles of the material world, which chain us via our own five senses plus the mind.
Seldom do the enlightened ones come into the company of the masses and their pursuit of coin. When they do, they are sometimes laughed at or ridiculed. Either the leadership fears them since they will remind the herd that they are free. Or the masses judge them by their externals and see that they don’t have the trappings of a materialist, and so they belittle them. Such is the nature of the herd led by the wolves and not by the shepherd.
Sometimes we get pretenders or charlatans who pose as enlightened because they glimpsed a little of the bigger picture – just enough to see how under illusion we all are – and yet themselves are still bewildered by name and fame. They become tricksters and showmen, conning the ignorant out of their coin or their very minds. Since the masses have little clue regarding the symptoms of enlightenment or liberation, they are easily fooled by pretenders, of which there are many throughout history.
Still, sometimes one rare soul does achieve enlightenment, samadhi or liberation while still walking the earth, and sometimes we come across them. And they are not seen so much as heard. For speech is the primary indicator of the sate of consciousness of anyone. Their external dress can be deceptive, whether in rags or suits. But let them speak and you will understand their state of being. But you need to know what to look for, or should I say listen out for. So it’s not easy. Knowledge, even in theory, of consciousness and reality will help one to know what to look for, in others as well as in oneself. Discernment is key. And education in knowing the fool from the wise or even better, the enlightened, is available in literature on the subject, like the Veda and Bhagavad Gita. It’s all here, if you are interested.
Bhagavad Gita ch2:54
अर्जुन उवाच
स्थितप्रज्ञस्य का भाषा समाधिस्थस्य केशव ।
स्थितधीः किं प्रभाषेत किमासीत व्रजेत किम् ॥ ५४ ॥
arjuna uvāca
sthita-prajnasya kā bhāṣā
samādhi-sthasya keśava
sthita-dhīḥ kiṁ prabhāṣeta
kim āsīta vrajeta kim
arjuna uvāca—Arjuna said; sthita-prajnasya—of one who is situated in fixed Kṛṣṇa consciousness; kā—what; bhāṣā—language; samādhi-sthasya—of one situated in trance; keśava—O Kṛṣṇa; sthita-dhīḥ—one fixed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness; kim—what; prabhāṣeta—speak; kim—how; āsīta—does remain; vrajeta—walk; kim—how
TRANSLATION
Arjuna said: What are the symptoms of one whose consciousness is thus merged in Transcendence? How does he speak, and what is his language? How does he sit, and how does he walk?
COMMENTARY
As there are symptoms for each and every man, in terms of his particular situation, similarly one who is Kṛṣṇa conscious has his particular nature—talking, walking, thinking, feeling, etc. As a rich man has his symptoms by which he is known as a rich man, as a diseased man has his symptoms, by which he is known as diseased, or as a learned man has his symptoms, so a man in transcendental consciousness of Kṛṣṇa has specific symptoms in various dealings. One can know his specific symptoms from the Bhagavad-gītā. Most important is how the man in Kṛṣṇa consciousness speaks, for speech is the most important quality of any man. It is said that a fool is undiscovered as long as he does not speak, and certainly a well-dressed fool cannot be identified unless he speaks, but as soon as he speaks, he reveals himself at once. The immediate symptom of a Kṛṣṇa conscious man is that he speaks only of Kṛṣṇa and of matters relating to Him. Other symptoms then automatically follow, as stated below.
Reference: Bhagavad Gita As It Is, translation and commentary by Swami A. C. Bhakivedanta, original 1972 Macmillan edition 9www.prabhupadabooks.com)
Image: photo open source edited using Canva