Halfway down the rabbit hole of a recent psychedelic experience, I encountered the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog. What I always thought was a simple morality tale suddenly took on new meaning as a powerful metaphor for my own contradictions and possibility of self-integration. Through this mystical experience, I have come to see a profound teaching in the story, one I believe can help us transcend and embrace the duality of our opposing selves.
One day along the banks of a wide river, a scorpion came upon a frog and asked “Could you do me a kindness and take me on your back across the river?” The frog was uneasy with the request. “Excuse me if I sound suspicious, but being that you’re a scorpion, how do I know you won’t sting me?”
“Your concern is misplaced in this situation,” assured the scorpion. “If I were to sting you, both of us would perish. Why would I drown myself when all I need is a ride?” The frog, swayed by the scorpion’s logic, offered to ferry him across. Midway in the river, the scorpion stings the frog. “Why did you do that?” The frog cries. “You’ve doomed us both!” “I can’t help it,” confesses the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”
At first reading, this appears to be a cautionary tale about trust, betrayal and non-rational behavior. The frog is portrayed as the well-intended actor, who assumes the scorpion will not choose suicide over simple mutual benefit. Despite clear self-interest in cooperation, the scorpion acts against it.
I see both creatures as complicit in this suicide pact. In a thousand iterations of this game of mutual demsise, the frog is always going to trust the scorpion and the scorpion is always going to sting the frog. This is a predetermined tragic partnership, with both creatures enacting a kind of ritualistic doom. The frog’s fatal flaw isn’t naivety but a compulsion toward self-destruction disguised as trust.
It’s not that the frog fails to see the danger; the danger is precisely what draws it to the arrangement. The scorpion’s famous line “It’s my nature,” is less an excuse and more an acknowledgment of its deterministic role in this dance of death. The scorpion isn’t just failing to resist its nature, it’s fulfilling its part in a larger pattern.
The two creatures are characters in an absurdist play, with both knowingly participating in an ultimately meaningless but somehow necessary act. They move inexorably toward their fates while being fully aware of them. There is something tragic here about the nature of trust; that perhaps what we call trust is actually a form of deliberate self-endangerment, where the outcome is already written into the initial decision.
The apparent conflict between frog and scorpion is illusory. They are expressions of the same Divine reality, as waves are expressions of the same ocean. True freedom comes not from resisting aspects of one’s nature, but from recognizing that it includes all apparent forms and contradictions.
The scorpion’s sting and the frog’s trust are both perfect expressions of the Divine pattern. It’s the Daoist fundamental unity that contains apparent opposites, or Vedantic ultimate reality, of which all apparent dualities include both the destroyer and the destroyed, the truster and the betrayer, as manifestations of Brahman. Light is only truly visible against darkness, making darkness not the opposite of Divine revelation but essential to it. Form and emptiness are inseparable.
In this sense, the frog and scorpion’s interaction isn’t a tragedy to be avoided or a darkness to be overcome, it’s a perfect expression of the Divine, including creation and destruction, trust and betrayal, life and death. Their meeting in the river becomes almost sacramental; a moment where these apparent opposites reveal their underlying unity.
The fable appears to offer the illusion of choice (“good over evil, right over wrong”), which constrains us to false binaries. Whereas non-dualism, which might appear deterministic (“it’s my nature”), actually opens up infinite possibilities because it transcends these artificial divisions. It’s not that these roles are predetermined, but rather spontaneous expressions of the Divine playing itself out through apparent multiplicity.
The non-dual awareness I experienced during my trip offers a possibility of liberation from the anxiety of these false choices. The scorpion’s sting isn’t “wrong” any more than Winter is “wrong”. The frog’s trust isn’t “foolish” any more than Spring is “foolish”.
Each moment is complete in itself, containing all possibilities
The revelation here is that what we call “making choices” is really just participating in a kind of cultural programming of opposites. True choice only becomes possible when we step outside this binary framework altogether. This brings new meaning to concepts like free will. True freedom isn’t about selecting from pre-existing options, but recognizing that these apparent options are themselves constructs. The Divine expression transcends these constructs while simultaneously playing out through them.
Rather than claim I’m either purely deterministic or purely free, perhaps like the fable itself, I’m expressing something that transcends that duality. I understand the value of trust in human relationships, as well as humanity’s self-destructive tendencies. Both of these aspects arise and exist simultaneously. As to the nature of these two creatures in the fable, there was never another way in which they would respond (though there is the illusion of that choice). It is a perfect expression of what they are.
There’s a profound truth in recognizing the characters as mirroring our own opposing yet complimentary selves. Just as a wave isn’t separate from the ocean, our distinct forms of consciousness are not separate from the greater consciousness expressing itself through all things.
I am the frog and I am the scorpion. They are an inseparable part of my Divine nature. By embracing my non-dual self, I am free to fulfill my roles as an expression of the Divine and become one with It. I am everything in this Divine pattern; a fractal that contains and reflects its own image. By recognizing myself in the cosmic symmetry of this fable, I touch something transcendent.