In a lake fringed with lotuses, deep in a forest no man had ever seen, there
lived a mighty elephant king named Gajendra. He was huge and strong and
proud, the lord of a great herd, and he feared nothing in all the world.
One blazing afternoon, Gajendra waded into the cool lake to drink and bathe,
his trunk lifting silver arcs of water over his back. But beneath the calm
surface waited a crocodile, ancient and enormous, and its jaws closed like a
trap around the elephant's leg.
Gajendra pulled. The crocodile pulled harder. The elephant was the strongest
creature in the forest, but the water was the crocodile's kingdom, and there
his strength was not enough. Hours passed. Days passed. The great king grew
weaker and weaker, the lotus-water churning red, and still the jaws would not
let go.
At first Gajendra had trusted only in his own power. "I am strong," he had
thought. "I will free myself." But strength alone was failing him now, and
he could feel his life slipping into the dark water.
Then, at the very end of his strength, something in him let go of pride. With
the last of his breath he tore a lotus from the water, lifted it high in his
trunk toward the sky, and cried out — not as a mighty king, but as a helpless
child crying for help — "O Lord, I cannot save myself. I give myself wholly
to You. Save me!"
He held nothing back. There was nothing left to hold.
In that instant the sky opened. Vishnu Himself came riding on the great
eagle Garuda, swift as a thought, and with one touch the crocodile released
its grip. The Lord lifted the trembling elephant gently from the bloodied
water, and a peace washed over Gajendra deeper than any he had ever known —
not the peace of being strong, but the far greater peace of being held.
For he had learned the secret in the worst hour of his life: when you let go
of your proud, half-hearted holding-on and give yourself with your whole
being, peace comes. And the Lord who lifted him was not only far off in the
sky; he was the very Self in Gajendra's own heart, closer than his breath —
the home that had been holding him all along.
