05/14/2024
THE PARABLE OF THE ELEPHANT.
There was a noble and mighty elephant, an elephant white in color, with a strong trunk and long tusks, trained by a good master.
The wise men and teachers of the blind came to the place where the elephant was and every one began to investigate his shape and figure and form.
Group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, they came to investigate. Each of them are touching a different part of an elephant, getting a certain impression of what an elephant is.
The person standing at the elephant's leg describes the elephant as being like a tree.
The person at the tail says the elephant is like a rope. The elephant is like a spear, says the one standing at the tusk. If one touches the ear, it seems the elephant is like a fan. The person touching the side is adamant that the elephant is like a wall.
Every one proposed his view and they disputed and controverted, and wrangled, and litigated, and bickered, and quarreled, and they anathematised and excommunicated, and finally every one of them swore that every one else was a liar and was cursed on account of his heresies.
Not one of these sectarians observed the fact that the elephant was perfectly white and a marvel to see, for all of them were purblind. Yet they were either dishonest or hypocrites. They had investigated the truth to the best of their ability.
The problem is they touch their piece of the elephant and they believe their experience is the only truth. They don't acknowledge or appreciate that each person's experience is a different facet of the same animal.
"The master of the elephant is the the Buddha. He has brought the white elephant representing the truth, the noble and mighty elephant, symbolising strength and wisdom and devotion, into the land of the blind, and he who listens to the Tathâgata will understand all the schools, and all the sects and all the factions that are in possession of parcels of the truth.
