As we know Socrates was a good philosopher and a good teacher as well.
One day a man came to him and said, “Do you know what I have heard about your friend?”
“Sure”, Socrates replied.
But before this man could elaborate further, Socrates stopped him, and asked, “before you tell me about my friend, for which you came for, I would like to test you with three questions”
“Three questions?”, the man asked, “what kind of questions?”
“Yes”, said Socrates, and continued in the same interrogative tone, “Are you sure and verified that whatever you are going to tell me is absolute true?”
“Ehhhhh I don’t think so”, said the man, “I just heard about it from someone”
“So you are not sure, nor verified the information”, replied Socrates, “what you are going to tell me is true or not? Anyways, here is my next question – Is it something GOOD that you are going to tell me about my friend?”
The man again replied with hesitation, “No, I am afraid, it is opposite to it in fact”
“So you are going to tell me a BAD thing about my friend”, Socrates continued, “and you are not even sure if it is TRUE either”
While the man kept looking in haze, Socrates continued, “anyway, still the third question is there and I hope you can pass this test”
“OK”, the man said, “what is it?”
“So, the information you have for me about my friend, is it something useful or worthy for me in any sense”, Socrates asked his third question.
“NO”, the man said with almost intrigued humiliation, “I don’t think so”
Now Socrates concluded and said to this man, “So what you wanted to tell me about my friend is neither TRUE, nor a GOOD thing, and it is not either useful to me in any sense – so why were you so eager to tell about this information to me”
While the man was looking at him with stunned silence, Socrates had his message clearly delivered.
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Many of us today have the same attitude in our lives. We keep on gossiping and calling or talking to each other, without even verifying things, if it true, good or useful to others
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Your words will follow you till your grave, and chances are you may not be able to correct them while you have the time, because the time that you have is being wasted in gossiping and sharing something not worth.
************** BUDDHAM **SHARNAM ** GACHHAMI**********
