There is an old story, told in many traditions and in many forms, about a tortoise and a scorpion.
A tortoise was preparing to cross a river when a scorpion came to the water’s edge and asked, “Will you carry me to the other side?”
The tortoise refused. “You are a scorpion. If I carry you, you will sting me.”
“Why would I sting you?” the scorpion answered. “If I sting you in the middle of the river, I will drown along with you.”
The tortoise considered this. It was reasonable. No creature would destroy itself so pointlessly. “Very well,” he said. “Climb on.”
They set out across the river, and as they neared the far bank, the scorpion stung him. As they both began to sink beneath the water, the tortoise asked, “Why did you sting me? Now we will both drown.”
And the scorpion answered, “I could not help it. It is my nature.”
The story works on several layers. The first layer is the simplest: understand the nature of the beast. A person is very likely to act according to their nature, even when it makes no sense in the moment, even when it costs them everything, as it cost the scorpion. This is not cynicism. It is clear sight. The story does not tell us to refuse the scorpion a ride. It tells us that if we carry him, we must carry him with our eyes open. The tortoise failed because he was surprised. He was stung in the middle of the river and could not understand why, because he had not taken into account the nature of the scorpion.
That points to the second layer: the tortoise believed the scorpion would not sting him, because the sting would drown the scorpion itself. His reasoning was sound, and still it failed him. Intellectual reasoning, however careful, cannot see what the intelligence of the soul can see. The intellect can weigh what a person says and calculate what a person should do. Intuition perceives the nature of the person and of the situation before us. It is not a guess and it is not a hunch; it is the intelligence of the soul reaching the conscious mind. When the two disagree, the story tells us which one to trust.
A question naturally follows: can the nature of the beast change? Yes. People do grow, and natures do change over time; that is the whole purpose of our being here. But notice that this does not release us from the first lesson. At any given moment, a nature is what it is, and our responsibility is to see it as it is, not as it was, and not as we hope it will become. Awareness of someone’s nature is not a judgment against their growth. It is simply refusing to be the tortoise in the middle of the river, astonished by what was in front of us all along.
There is a second story, told in the Hindu tradition, that completes the teaching.
A master sat on the bank of a river, and as he looked out over the water he saw a scorpion caught in the current, struggling and drowning. Without hesitating, he reached into the river and lifted it out, and the scorpion stung him. The sting made his hand jerk, and the scorpion fell back into the water.
The master reached in and lifted it out again. Again the scorpion stung him, and again it fell back into the river and began to drown. A third time the master reached into the water, and a third time he was stung.
A disciple had been watching all of this. Finally he asked, “Master, why do you keep saving him? Don’t you see that he will keep stinging you?”
The master replied, “Of course. It is the dharma of the scorpion to sting. It is the dharma of man to save him.”
In this context, dharma implies the essence of a thing, that which makes it what it is. Dharma is the personal responsibility and the sacred duty that flows from it. In the Universal Understanding of the God Consciousness, it is the responsibility we have toward one another.
Notice what the master does not do. He does not demand that the scorpion change before he helps. He does not stop when he is stung, and he is never surprised by the sting; he knows exactly what the scorpion is, and he reaches into the water anyway. His compassion does not depend on the outcome. He saves the scorpion not because it will work, and not because the scorpion has earned it, but because saving is his dharma, his duty and his nature. The stings are simply the cost of that duty, and he pays it without complaint and without expectation.
This is the responsibility we carry toward one another. Each of us is asked to keep reaching into the water, to give others the room and the opportunity to work through their karma and, in time, to outgrow the nature they have acquired, while accepting that we may be stung for it, and that the changing is theirs to do, not ours to demand. And when someone who has stung us shows sincere change, our responsibility is to offer another chance, without forgetting the nature we once saw. We reach out the hand again; we simply reach with our eyes open.
It is service without a scorecard. The moment we begin keeping account of our stings, or waiting to be thanked, we have stepped out of dharma and back into the tortoise’s situation.
Held side by side, the two stories become one teaching. Walk through the world with your eyes open to the nature of every being you meet, so that nothing that comes can surprise you, and let that clear sight deepen your service rather than harden your heart. Open the door to your mind, and the door to your heart shall open.
Go in light, and grow in peace.
