If God is Everywhere
(Adapted from the Gospel of Ramakrishna)
A sage had a number of disciples. He taught them his deepest belief that God is everywhere and dwells in everything. So the disciple should treat all things as God and show devotion towards everything.
One when a disciple was walking on a road, he saw a mad elephant rushing towards him from the other side.
The elephant driver was shouting, “Get out of the way! Fast! Runaway! This is a mad elephant.”
The disciple remembered his guru’s teachings and refused to run. He thought the elephant was also God in another form. Then why should he run away from it? He stood still, bowed before the animal, and began to sing its praises.
The elephant driver kept shouting, “Runaway! Runaway!”
But the disciple didn’t move an inch.
The mad animal seized him with its trunk, swung him around and threw him in the gutter. Hurt and bruised, the disciple lay unconscious on the ground.
When his guru and the other disciples came to help him and take him home, he said, “You said God is in everything! Look what the elephant did to me!”
The guru said, “It’s true that God is in everything. The elephant is certainly God. But so was the elephant driver, telling you to get out of the way. Why didn’t you listen to him?”
In this witty story, there is a word of caution for spiritual seekers against tendencies of misinterpretation and blindness of the mind. Often a message is interpreted according to one’s own convenience without grasping the whole truth. This can be dangerous for both worldly good and spiritual evolution.