A very old man used to meditate early every morning under a large tree on the bank of the Ganges River in India. One morning he saw a scorpion flailing helplessly in the strong current of the river, tangled in a complex network of tree roots.
The old man immediately reached out to rescue the drowning scorpion. The panicked animal tried to sting him, but the man persisted. For several minutes his hand darted back and forth, evading the scorpion’s deadly stinger as he tried to rescue it.
A passerby saw the struggle and called out. “Hey, old man, what’s wrong with you? You’re going to get yourself killed. Just let it go.”
The man sat back and looked calmly into the stranger’s eyes. “Friend,” he said. “It is the nature of the scorpion to sting. It is my nature to save the helpless. I do not expect him to change his nature to suit me, nor will I change my nature to suit him.”
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