The bogus spiritual master Guru Paramartha had five disciples. These disciples were obedient, but unfortunately not very intelligent.

On one occasion, Guru Paramartha was riding a horse, and he was very nicely dressed. As his horse rode under a tree, a low branch happened to knock Guru Paramartha's hat off his head. The disciples saw the hat fall to the ground, but they neglected to pick it up.

After some time, Guru Paramartha realized that his hat had fallen off, and he turned around to his disciples, who were walking behind the horse. "Where is my hat?" Guru Paramartha asked his disciples. "It fell off, guruji," they replied. Guru Paramartha inquired from one of his disciples, "Why did you not pick my hat up, if you saw that it had fallen off?" One disciple replied, "You never told us to pick it up, guruji." Guru Paramartha then said, "Look, if something falls off the horse, pick it up."

After a while, the guru's hat happened to fall off again. Obediently, the hat was picked up. But being completely devoid of any trace of common-sense, they also picked up the stool that the horse passed later on. This was placed within the hat, and when Guru Paramartha later on asked for his hat, he got a nasty surprise. "You fools!" he yelled at them. "Don't you have one brain between the five of you? Look, here is a list.

If something falls off the horse, only pick it up if it is on the list."

So after riding for a while, the hat fell off again. His disciples saw it on the list, so they picked it up. The guru's cane then fell from the horse, so after checking the list, the disciples picked it up.

After some time, the horse sped up to a gallop, and the disciples had to run behind to keep up. The horse rode under a low branch, and this branch knocked Guru Paramartha to the ground unconscious. When the disciples looked at the list, they couldn't find "Guru Paramartha" anywhere, so they walked off and left him.

One could ask what the Guru was doing riding a horse with fine clothes on in the first place. But besides that, the qualification of a Guru is that he should not accept disciples who do not think for themselves.

The qualification of a disciple is that he knows how to please his spiritual teacher without the teacher needing to always give a detailed explanation.