Tayshaun
New member
- Joined
- May 13, 2007
- Messages
- 172
- MBTI Type
- INTP
- Enneagram
- 5w4
Some Hindus have an elephant to show.
No one here has ever seen an elephant. They bring it at night to a dark room.
One by one, we go in the dark and come out saying how we experience the animal.
One of us happens to touch the trunk."A water-pipe kind of creature."
Another, the ear. "A very strong, always moving back and forth, fan-animal."
Another, the leg. "I find it still, like a column on a temple."
Another touches the curved back. "A leathery throne."
Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk. "A rounded sword made of porcelain." He's proud of his description.
Each of us touches one place and understands the whole in that way.
The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.
If each of us held a candle there, and if we went in together, we could see it.
-As told by Rumi
C. Barks translation
--
All experience is an elephant in the dark.
Our senses and minds touch reality, are immersed in reality, yet cannot grasp reality within their palms.
In complexity, we reduce into simple parts.
In ignorance, we try to know.
For the sake of control, the process of exploration narrows down to an exploration of the parts.
The whole becomes a finite sum of constituents.
Result: dissociation from experience.
No one here has ever seen an elephant. They bring it at night to a dark room.
One by one, we go in the dark and come out saying how we experience the animal.
One of us happens to touch the trunk."A water-pipe kind of creature."
Another, the ear. "A very strong, always moving back and forth, fan-animal."
Another, the leg. "I find it still, like a column on a temple."
Another touches the curved back. "A leathery throne."
Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk. "A rounded sword made of porcelain." He's proud of his description.
Each of us touches one place and understands the whole in that way.
The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.
If each of us held a candle there, and if we went in together, we could see it.
-As told by Rumi
C. Barks translation
--
All experience is an elephant in the dark.
Our senses and minds touch reality, are immersed in reality, yet cannot grasp reality within their palms.
In complexity, we reduce into simple parts.
In ignorance, we try to know.
For the sake of control, the process of exploration narrows down to an exploration of the parts.
The whole becomes a finite sum of constituents.
Result: dissociation from experience.
