Part 7 – no one knows? Elephant Story

Story of 5 blind men explaining the elephant.

One blind man is touching the legs of the elephant says elephant is like a tree. An another touching the belly says elephant is like a wall.

The story appears first in Buddhist text Udana.
The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people’s limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true.

The story explains beautifully the subjective (relative) nature of truth.

This is at core of indian philosophy. God is so big, that anyone’s obsolute (only) claim is at most ignorance.

Buddha himself, when asked said let not talk about meta physics. How can a blind man talk about the elephant. It seems foolish and a waste of time.

Interesting! seems right and logical.

But we are missing 3 things from the parable.

1. There is a sixth person. The narrator of the story.

2. There is an obsolute elephant. (Obsolute truth)

3. And the narrator is able to see the elephant (absolute truth) and the blind men. He confirms it by telling the story.

Damn.. the whole story falls on itself. It is the blind men that are not able to see. There is a man (not of this world, who came from above) is able to see the obsolute truth.

So the presute and claim of obsolute (only) truth is possible.

You get the point, the blind are better to listen to the man (who came from God) who sees and ask him to show them how to see…

Each one of you, are born with a spiritual eye to see. Will you harken unto the One who created you.

Will you listen to Him?

The very purpose of life is this.. to know the One , who created you..

Will you my children? Will you listen? Will you see?