THE ELEPHANT, ACCORDING TO SIX BLIND MEN

Once upon a time, six blind men lived in a village in India. One day, they heard that there was an elephant in the village. Having no idea what an elephant was, they decided to go and feel it. The first man touched the elephant's leg and said, "Hey, the elephant is like a tree trunk!" "Oh no, it's like a rope!", declared the second, who grasped its tail. The third man happened to take the elephant's squirming trunk in his hands and spoke, "I see that the elephant is like a snake." The next man felt the tusk and cried, "This wonder of an elephant is very like a spear!" One man happened to fall against the elephant's broad side and declared, "The elephant is like a wall." And the sixth man, touching the ears, said, "Even the blindest man can see that this elephant is like a fan." And so they argued on and on about who was right, until a wise man came along and explained to them, "You are all wrong, because each of you touched a different part of the elephant...and yet you are all right, since the elephant is very like all those things you said." And so they were all happy that they were right! The moral of the story is that there may be some Truth to what everyone thinks; sometimes we cannot see it because we view from a different perspective. The ancient teaching of Jainism explains that Truth can be stated in seven different ways, which suggests that we be more tolerant of each other's points of view and live in harmony with those who think differently. We come together at our Center for Spiritual Living, not to expound upon a doctrine or dogma that attempts to explain all that God is, but to experience the Presence and Power of God at work in our lives, recognizing that all we will ever know of God is what we personally experience of It. As Ernest Holmes says in The Science of Mind, "No man has ever plumbed the depths of either the conscious or subconscious life.........we reach out to Infinity, and since we cannot encompass Infinity, we shall always be enlarging our capacity to know and to experience."

At the Center For Spiritual Living, we believe that the quest for understanding is never ending, and that the joy is in the journey. You're invited to join us and grow with us.

Namaste, Rev. Jay