My first spiritual teacher, Royce Morales, shared a story one night in the class she taught in her living room in Hollywood, California. It is an old story that has it's roots in India, yet many versions exist in other cultures and religions. It is the story of the "Six Blind Men and an Elephant." It goes something like this:
Six blind men were asked to describe an elephant. In order to do so, they had to feel the elephant. One man felt the elephant's trunk. The next one felt the elephant's tail. Another man felt the elephants ear, another the elephants side, one felt it's leg and the last one, the elephant's tusk.
The first man said, "An elephant is like a giant snake". The next one said, "No. You are wrong. An elephant is like a rope". The man who had felt the elephants side said, "No you are both wrong. It is like a rough wall." The one who had felt the elephant's leg said, "An elephant is like a tree trunk." The man who felt the tusk said, "You're all wrong. It's like a spear." they were in complete disagreement.
The story is used to indicate that reality may be viewed differently depending upon one's perspective, suggesting that what seems an absolute truth may be relative due to the deceptive nature of half-truths. They were each correct according to their piece of the elephant, yet all so wrong about the whole or holistic point of view.
