Three Blind Men and an Elephant

Yet another recurring story, this one involves how we characterize the truth. Rather than imagining the possibility of a universal Truth made up of a multitude of truths, we often seek to own The Truth either as individuals or as groups. 

This is my version of the tale of the three blind man and the elephant, a teaching story attributed to the Sufi poet, Jalal-ud Din Rumi.

Three blind men encounter an elephant and each has a different story to explain their experience: the first man finds one of the creature’s legs and proclaims that the beast is most like a pillar, the second man calls out that the first is mistaken and, hands grasping the elephant’s trunk, insists that the creature is most like an enormous snake. The third man sadly shakes his head and says neither man has come close to describing the nature of the animal that is clearly most like a leathery fan.

From that day onward, each of them professes that they alone know the entirety of the truth.

By Any Other Name

 I think we all have stories that resurface over the years, our gather round the fire tales that have the potential to illuminate the narrative themes that constitute our lives. They don’t necessarily have to be about our experiences, they can be about anything from any source. The important thing about them is that they re-emerge in our consciousness. They have become archetypical to us and are linked to something that has weight in our philosophy - articulated or not.

This is one of my recurring stories:

Many years ago, in India, a large animal known as a Blue Cow (Nehil Gae) was destroying crops. However, farmers would do nothing to stop the creatures as Hindus consider the cow to be sacred.

The problem became so devastating that the Indian government officially changed the animal’s name to Nehil Goa which means “Blue Horse.” The farmers were then free to kill the animals to protect their crops.