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* * *
The Wise Fool attended a banquet. He stepped inside the door dressed casually. He had not been told this was a dress-up event. A host met him. He said, "Sir, I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave. You're not dressed for this occasion."
The Wise Fool returned home and put on an expensive suit, shiny shoes, and a tie, attire he rarely wore and preferred not to. He returned to the banquet. The host seated him at a table.
After receiving his meal, the Wise Fool stood. He untied his tie and placed it beside the plate. He took off his coat, put the sleeves on the plate, and exclaimed while looking at the sleeves, "Okay! Eat coat! You were welcome here tonight, not I!"
* * *
The surface level of reading this story is about equality. The soul is the same in everyone. Forms of the soul are appearances. We are equal in one soul.
This is a subtle truth, so I take this moment to focus on it. "Soul," with other words, refers to the essence that is the same in everyone. "Form" refers to the body. Bodies are diverse, we are not diverse. Forms are many, we are one. Again, as to the field, the field is one, the flowers diverse. God is the whole, we are parts of that whole.
* * *
When a young lad in South Georgia, USA, I would ride a school bus to the town - our rural school burned down. This was shortly after the schools were integrated, white and black students together. I lived near Elijah, Lilly Mae, and Roberta. They had dark skin. They were assigned to sit on the first left seat on entering the bus. The white students could sit where we wished to. Here we were in a deeply religious community claiming to follow the teachings of Jesus and not welcoming persons of another color among us. These people of different skin color, like the three on the bus, were to remain on our periphery. We had not been taught that not only did Jesus teach inclusion, not merely tolerance ~ Elijah, Lilly Mae, and Roberta were tolerated, not included ~, we whites are those who appeared different from us. They were different from us, as to form. They were us, as to essence. Only the form ~ black or white ~ was different. Diversity is the Field, for being an epiphany of the Field.
In Christian terms, three Christs were not allowed to be with the other Christs.
* * *
When we exclude others from our presence, without reasonable motive, can this be for they represent something in us that we are not including in our consciousness? I think so. I believe Elijah, Lilly Mae, and Roberta were signs of something the white community and particular white persons were afraid of, disdained, something hiding within the white race. This is projection. What we do not welcome of ourselves, we see in others.
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