~~OM~~

Remember the story about the disciples who were out collecting wood in the forest? One mahout, who was taking care of an elephant, cried out loudly in the forest, "Everybody off the path, everybody out of the way, there's a mad elephant running down the path!"

One of the disciples said, "Guru said God lives in everything, why should I be afraid of God?" And he stood in front of the path, right in the middle of the path, and he raised his hands in salutation to the mad elephant. And the mad elephant came charging down the path, the caretaker was crying, "Out of the way! Out of the way!"

And the disciple thought, "Well, I'm God, God resides in the elephant, why would the God in the elephant want to hurt the God in this uniform?" And as circumstance would have it, the elephant charged down the path and struck the disciple, threw him into the air off the path and kept on his way.

The other disciples gathered around the injured man, and they picked him up and they bandaged his wounds. They carried him to the ashram and when he regained consciousness, Guruji said, "What happened to you?" And the disciple replied, "Guruji, you told me that God was in me, and God was in the elephant, and why would the God in the elephant want to injure the God that's in the disciple?"

And the Guru replied, "But I also told you that God was in the caretaker of the elephant, and why didn't you get out of the way when he told you to?"

~~OM~~

~~OM~~

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With the blessings of our Gurus, we continued to make japa of the Sharanagata Mantra in 2008 and have offered more than 550,000 mantras. Thank You! The Japa totals as of April 15th 2008 are as follows: