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The Scholar and the Boatman

Though a mass of gray was moving in across the northwest sky, the sun was still shining. As he ambled down the shrubby slope to the beachfront below, the man felt a chilly breeze coming through the trees. He turned up his collar and made his way more quickly to the little boat dock, with its slats of soggy old wood.

"Boatman! Take me across!"

"Yes sir—climb aboard!"

Professor Perkins wasn't what you'd call an old man—graying, to be sure; but still sprightly, even athletic-looking. In the subcontinent's academic circles, he had long been a man to watch. There was perhaps no one who could match his fertile wit, his sweeping command and instant recall in practically every field of higher learning.

The boatman’s body was bent from thousands of hours' paddling in the sun; he was carrying on, to keep his family fed and a roof over their heads. As the scholar leaped onto the deck and seated himself down beneath the hooped, cabin roof, the boatman bowed from the waist. He recalled an old adage: a king is respected in his own realm, but a learned man is respected all over the world.

"Boatman,” the scholar said, “the water is becoming rather choppy. While you're out here have you ever thought about the relationship between total torque and crosscurrent impact?"

"No, sir, I can't say that I have."

"For one thing, a more streamlined apparatus should likely yield a greater mechanical advantage. But then, I don't suppose you've studied much about physics, have you?"

"None at all, sir. I just row this boat across the bay."

"Hmmm. Boatman, it appears that you've wasted twenty-five percent of your life."

A little later, the scholar asked, "Boatman, have you ever looked into statistics and probability?—I'm thinking here of Gaussian or possibly Poisson distribution. With all these dark clouds coming in over us; do you have any idea what a graph of storm probability would look like?"

"No sir, I never have studied whatever it is you're talking about. I don't know what you mean."

"You mean you've never studied advanced mathematics? Ah, then, my dear fellow; you should know that you've surely wasted fifty percent of your life."

"You're probably right, sir. I just row this boat across the bay. By the way, there seems to be a big storm coming."

As the boat began to heave and the sky took on a dark glow, the scholar said, "Tell me, boatman, do you know anything about gauging deviations from the STP—standard temperature and pressure—to forecast wind velocity in a storm center?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I really don't."

"You're a bit dense, boatman, aren't you? Are you telling me that you've never learned anything about meteorology?"

"I guess I haven't, sir."

"Well, then, you've wasted a full seventy-five percent of your life! What do you have to say for yourself?!"

"I just row this boat across the bay—say, hold on tight! It's really raining and blowing hard!"

Just then the boat capsized. While the boatman floated and readied himself to finish the crossing, the scholar shouted "Boatman!"

The boatman said "Sir! We'll have to swim the rest of the way!"

"But…I can't swim!"

"Then, Sir, it looks as though you've wasted a hundred percent of your life!”

This story illustrates that:
Whatever else we may learn in our life's voyage, there's one thing we all need to know: how—when death "capsizes" our material body—to cross safely to the spiritual world.

Information on the material platform is always becoming obsolete because this material world is only temporary, both in its totality and in its parts. Whatever is here is here for some time only, and then it passes away. So this human life with its valuable asset of developed consciousness should not be wasted in dabbling at mental play.

Srila Prabhupada instructs:

“The idea is that we are making progress, certainly, in technology, in economics, in so many other departments of human necessities. But Bhagavad-gita says that real problem of this world, or real problem of our life, is janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi-duhkha-dosanudarsanam [Bg. 13.9]. If you are intelligent enough, then you should see the real problem is birth, death, old age and disease. Janma means birth, and mrtyu means death. Janma-mrtyu-jara. Jara means old age, and vyadhi means disease. So actual material problem is this, janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi. The solution for these problems is “Krishna consciousness”.

So Krishna consciousness movement is not a new movement. Lord Caitanya, He started this movement in the fifteenth century.

We do not ask you to stop your technological advance. You do it. But at the same time, you try to understand this technology, the science of soul. As science means two plus two equal to four, similarly Krishnaconsciousness means mitigating the all problems of life.

Lord Caitanya says that in this age, when our life is very short, we are not very much enlightened in spiritual matters and we are very lazy at the same time, and at the same time we are unfortunate, so under these conditions the people are recommended simply to chant Hare Krishna.

Simply this vibration: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

There is no loss on your part, but the gain is immense.”