THREE FRIENDS AND THE TIGER

ONCE, three friends were going through a forest,
when a tiger suddenly appeared before them.
"Brothers," one of them exclaimed, "we are lost!"
"Why should you say that?" said the second friend,
"Why should we be lost? Come, let us pray to
God." The third friend said: "No. Why should we
trouble God about it? Come, let us climb this
tree."
The friend who said 'We are lost!' did not know
that there is a God who is our Protector. The
friend who asked the others to pray to God was a
jnani. He was aware that God is the Creator,
Preserver and Destroyer of the world. The third
friend, who didn't want to trouble God with
prayers and suggested climbing the tree, had
ecstatic love of God. It is the very nature of such
love that it makes a man think himself stronger
than his Beloved. He is always alert lest his
Beloved should suffer. The one desire of his is to
keep his Beloved from even being pricked in the
foot by a thorn.