A yogi finishing his meditation on the bank of the Ganges River noticed something curious.<\/p>\n
A scorpion was in the river struggling to get to land.<\/p>\n
The yogi being wise and spiritually advanced understood a vital truth:<\/p>\n
Spirit lives in all<\/em> creatures, great and small.<\/p>\n So he arose from the lotus position, reached into the river and gently grabbed the scorpion to help him to land.<\/p>\n Immediately, the scorpion stung the yogi… and an autonomic nervous system reaction caused him to drop the scorpion back into the water.<\/p>\n The yogi then gently rescued the scorpion from the water with his other hand.<\/p>\n The scorpion then stung the Yogi\u2019s other<\/em> hand, which again caused him to drop the creature back into the water.<\/p>\n Seeing that the scorpion would soon drown, without more than a couple seconds hesitation the yogi again<\/em> reached into the water to rescue the scorpion.<\/p>\n You can probably guess what happened. The scorpion stung the yogi a third time.<\/p>\n As he reached into the water to save the scorpion a fourth time, his chela<\/em> who had watched this entire event unfold shouted, \u201cLet the wretched creature drown or he will sting you a fourth<\/em> time, Guruji.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course he will sting me again, my son,\u201d said the yogi. \u201cHe is a scorpion. That is his dharma. My dharma is to save him.\u201d<\/p>\n You’ve probably heard of “karma,” haven’t you? But do you really know what it is? Karma is the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.<\/p>\n Many believe that you can never escape your karma. But the Bhagavad Gita reveals that there are<\/em> ways to be free of karma.<\/p>\n However… you can NEVER really get away from your dharma.<\/p>\n For example:<\/p>\n I was so na\u00efve when I first joined the Dayton Police Department. I believed that I could be a blue knight, swooping in at the nick of time to save people.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t take long for that<\/em> delusion to get jolted back to reality. In fact, it hapened during one of my first family trouble calls.<\/p>\n I barreled through the front door to see a guy beating his wife who was on the floor in a fetal position with her hands protecting her head.<\/p>\n I grabbed him by his belt, threw him against the wall and started issuing some strategically positioned blows to his solar plexus and thighs with my PR-24 baton to \u201cloosen him up\u201d for\u00a0handcuffing.<\/p>\n As soon as I got the first cuff on, I felt a heavy “thud” on the back of my head. A lamp had been broken over the back of my pretty lil’ noggin.<\/p>\n Trying to regain my balance… with blood gushing from my head (head wounds always look scary because they bleed a LOT)… I turned around to see who broke a lamp over my head. I assumed the bad guy had an accomplice who was helping him escape.<\/p>\n Take a wild guess at who attacked me from behind using a lamp as a weapon.<\/p>\n Yup… the guy\u2019s wife I just saved from a brutal beating.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s just one of HUNDREDS of stories that made me realize that I sure as hell wasn\u2019t ever<\/em> gonna live this delusion of being a knight while working as a Dayton Police officer.<\/p>\n Fast-forward 25 years to 2011. The year the Marketing Camelot was founded.<\/p>\n Finally… my dharma of knighthood was at last fulfilled.<\/p>\n And MUCH more important, I\u2019ve knighted thousands of others.<\/p>\n My point?<\/p>\n