"Once a caretaker of an elephant took it to the River side and gave it a nice bath for more than an hour. He applied loads of soap and scrubbed the whole body of elephant nicely with water. Caretaker was fully satisfied with the cleaning of the elephant. He took the elephant out of the water and was driving it home. The moment elephant reached the bank of the River, it too k with its trunk a large quantity of dust and dirt and smeared its whole body with it. The caretaker realized that all his effort has gone in waste. He took the elephant back to the forest and made it lift logs of wood. Caretaker extracted lots of work from the elephant. Whatever effort he put forth in this direction was not wasted at all! He realized that the elephant was fit only to do the hard work, and it was wiser to take work from the elephant than to waste time in bathing it."
In religious sense same is the case with people of bad nature. Bad people who are given to all kinds of vices are comparable to elephant in the story. The caretaker is a saintly soul. The saint tries to clean the bad habits of the vicious people with the soap of scriptural knowledge and bathes them with divine knowledge, divine songs like Japa, Kirtan, etc. But the moment he finds a chance, the bad, vicious person sprinkles the dust and dirt upon himself with his bad habits & bad karmas.
The saint understands the vicious man's nature. He puts him to hard work only & not imparts the divine knowledge to him. He extracts much useful work from him. The vicious man works like the elephant. Work eventually purifies the bad person.
Bhagwat Gita also says that we should not unnecessarily teach & preach the people of vicious nature:
"idam te natapaskaya
nabhaktaya kadachana
na chasusrusave vacyam
na cha mam yo ’bhyasuyati"(Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Eighteen verse 67)
"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, This confidential divine knowledge should never be explained to those who are not pure, austere, or are not devoted to God, or are not engaged in devotional service, nor to one who is envious of God."
"ya idam paramam guhyam
mad-bhaktesv abhidhasyati
bhaktim mayi param kritva
mam evaishyaty asamsayah" (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Eighteen verse 68)
"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, one who explains this supreme divine knowledge secret to the devotees of God, pure devotional service is guaranteed to that person, and at the end he will surely achieve the God."
So we should not unnecessarily teach & preach the people of bad nature who hate God. Such people cannot be changed of their bad nature as they are engrossed always in bad karmas & are always envious of God. We should let such people live in their own world. But if we shall impart divine knowledge to the people who are devoted to God then it shall be the real beneficial service to God. In this way God shall endow us with devotional energy through which we shall finally attain Him.
Jai Shri Krishna
How to know this kind of elephants because everybody will show interest in front and would like to hide himself as an elephant.
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