Q: How do we recognize a fool?

As there are plenty of fools in this age of Kali, we have many opportunities to study nature of such often divinely inspired individuals who feel very secure in their stupidity.                           

Here are some  - amongst many, symptoms of a distinct fool:

 

1/  Fool will never understand that he suffers, as matter of fact he will take misery to be his pleasure.

 

2/  Fool, if suspecting that he indeed is afflicted with misery, will fail to recognize where to take a shelter.

As matter of fact he will take shelter in the very same place his misery was generated from: his uncontrolled mind and his senses.

 

3/  On social platform a fool will not recognize from whom he should hear, with whom he should simply share in a friendly way, and whom he should advise, if able to give good counsel at all.

Therefore a fool will be automatically offensive, not knowing how to relate to other jivas properly.

 

4/  Fool will project his own shortcomings into others, calling them to be what he is himself.

 

5/  Even when he is aware on basis of sastra-guru and sadhu, a fool will not know how to apply the knowledge he received to his particular personal situation.

Using it improperly be becomes proud instead of humble.

 

6/  Fool becomes angry when receiving good advice.

 

7/  Due to his inability to understand the limits imposed upon him by his own conditioning, a fool seeks shelter in titles and designations, deriving false identities from them.

 

8/  A fool will expect material benefits from a spiritual process.

 

9/  Fool will interpret speculative pseudo-intellectuality to be knowledge.

 

10/ Fool is ungrateful, not recognizing the origin of benefits he enjoys.

 

11/ One cannot convince a fool about the wrong course of his action, as he obstinately refuse to accept true logic. ”One can never win over fools”

 

12/ Fool may ask you to do something he is incompetent to do, and then criticize what you have done.

 

13/ Fool will think big and do little.

 

14/ Due to his pride fool's knowledge is stolen by illusion, regardless of its academic value.

 

15/ Fool will follow a principle without understanding its meaning.

 

 

Srila Prabhupada distinguished between two kinds of fools, the passive ones and the active ones: "From these two the active one is more dangerous. The passive one mostly harms only himself, but the active one involves and harms others as well."

 

There is a fool who knows what should be done and what should not be done, but he is too obstinate and too lazy to improve his action. Such fool was called by Srila Prabhupada “rascal'.

Srila Prabhupada used the word “rascal” many times as a standard designation of anybody who doesn’t follow laws of God.