The story about the elephant - the elephant in the room?

Yoga as a way to see the whole and to experience the whole

Once there was a large elephant being held at different parts of its body by a number of blind people. Each of the blind in turn attempted to describe the elephant. One held the tail and said: ”The elephant is just like a snake.” The second blind person held one of the legs and cried: “No, the elephant is like a large pillar.” “You’re both wrong’, said the third who was holding one ear, “The elephant is exactly like a big fan.” The fourth blind person who was running the hands along one of the tusks, couldn’t understand what the others had said and declared: “This elephant doesn’t resemble in any way the descriptions you have given, it is like a horn.”

“You’re all crazy”, said the fifth who was pulling the trunk. “The best description of an elephant is that it is like the trunk of a banana tree.”

These five people saw the one elephant in different ways. The elephant itself did not change, and had the blind been blessed with eyesight they would have seen the reason for the differing descriptions. They would have realized they were talking about different aspects of the one thing.

This is the same concept that most of us have regarding our identity. We see separation; we see ourselves as distinct from our surroundings and other people, because we are really like the blind, not seeing or knowing ourselves and our environment as they really are.