An elephant took a bath in a river and was walking on the road. When it neared a bridge, it saw a pig fully soaked in mud coming from the opposite direction. The elephant quietly moved to one side, allowed the dirty pig to pass and then continued its onward journey.
The unclean pig later spoke to its friends in arrogance, “See how big I am; even the elephant was afraid of me and moved to one side to let me pass”.
On hearing this, some elephants questioned their friend, the reason for its action. Was it out of fear? The elephant smiled and replied, “I could have easily crushed the pig under my leg, but I was clean and the pig was very unclean. By crushing it, my leg would have become dirty and I wanted to avoid it. Hence, I moved aside.”
Moral of the story: Realized souls will avoid contact with negativity not out of fear, but out of desire to keep away from impurity though they are strong enough to destroy the impurity.
*–Akhand jyoti March-April 2017*