A lesson half-learned
Updated: Oct 17, 2019
Once there was a man who listened to an enlightened teacher explain the meaning of the Sanskrit expression Aham Brahm Asmi. He was told that this translates, more or less, as 'God is in me'. On hearing this, the man asked the teacher 'what about me?' 'God is in you too', came the reply.
Delighted, the man went on his way, brimming with this news. Soon he met an elephant coming the other way. He stood his ground, thinking that the elephant must recognise the divinity in him, and was promptly swatted to one side by the pachyderm's enormous trunk. Battered and bruised, he trudged back to the teacher to complain.
'You are a fool', the teacher said. 'You forgot to recognise the divinity in the elephant'.
