The elephant is always in the room...yet can never be completely seen.

There is an ancient story about the meeting of six blind men and an elephant.

One day many moons ago, word came that a mysterious being called an elephant was coming to the village where these men lived. Now these men had never heard of or interacted with an elephant before and were very excited to have this encounter.

When the arrival day finally came, they were all very eager and were the first in line to “see” this elephant.

Now being blind, they knew that they had to get closer to this animal to fully investigate it and know what it was all about.

Fortunately, the elephant's handler was a kind man, so they were each allowed to move around and touch it.

The first man grabbed its trunk and said, “this being is like a thick snake”. Another reached for the ear and said, “this being is like a fan”. Another who grabbed its leg, said, “this being is a pillar similar to a tree-trunk.” The other, who grabbed its tail, said “no, it is like a rope”. Still another reached for its side and said “it is a wall”. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant “is hard, and smooth like a spear.”

After accessing their part of the elephant each man started explaining to their friends what this elephant was.

Now these men were old friends and were all very strong minded and when they had a good feeling about something, they were not afraid to share it.

Now due to their differing opinions about the elephant, a consensus could not be reached about what it truly was. As happens with many people in situations like this, they all started to raise their voices to convince the others that they were right.

This back and forth went on for the rest of the day and late into the night, with an agreement never being reached. The discussion got so heated that they even started fighting, each man unable to tolerate the ignorance of the other to the obvious truth of what this elephant was.

Eventually after this back and forth of yelling and swinging of fists, they all got tired and fell asleep.

When they awoke the next day, there was an eerie silence. Each man stewing in their thoughts with feelings of embarrassment, for how they had behaved the previous night.

In their silence they each contemplated what they truly understood about this elephant. Eventually feelings of compassion started to arise towards each other and an openness to understanding their friends' perspective came into their body and mind.

When they allowed themselves to deeply hear what their friends had to say about the elephant, they were able to get a clearer image in their mind of what this being was.

It eventually dawned on all of them that their truth about the elephant had simply been an aspect of truth. Nothing more, nothing less.

As many stories conclude with a happy ending, this tale was no different. The six blind men were able to continue with their friendship and had learned an important lesson. No one person can know anything completely.

***

I share the above story, as I have spent part of my life as the blind man, thinking that I had discovered the truth about this thing or that thing. This way of seeing the world led me to judge others around me as being stupid, ignorant and just plain wrong.

Luckily, I have gained some wisdom, albeit with a lot of thrashing in my mind.

This biggest kernel of “truth” that I have extracted, is that all my knowledge has come from my human experience. Now this seems obvious or “duh, of course”, as how else can anyone learn anything other than living one’s life. Yet when I dove deeper into this idea of who I am and what is truth, something else arose.

Who am I, is made up of what I have read, seen, listened to, touched, smelt and felt in my body from my time in my mothers womb, right up to this present moment. The reality is, I am just one human walking around with a big bag of “aspects of truths''. I may know a lot about a certain subject, some about another and completely nothing about most things that surround me. The totality of what I have learned in my life, is merely a fraction or sliver of truth of what is contained in the entire universe.

So after being humbled by this knowledge, I then had to grapple with the feeling and understanding that I am so insignificant, relative to the vastness of the universe?

What shifted for me is that I stopped pursuing and sharing what I thought were big “T” truths. Truths that I thought were absolutely right, that were beyond or even needed to be debated with anyone else.

I have finally succumbed to sharing small “t” truths. Topics that I have thought about and which I feel are the most truthful perspectives based on the information available to me now and my direct experiences in this human body. I am continually open to new ideas that ultimately may debunk some of my ideas or small “t” truth’s that I have been carrying around.

As I heard from someone a long time ago, it is great to have strong opinions, be passionate when sharing your ideas and ideals and constantly be pursuing the highest truth with whatever is present in your life.

Yet never forget to hold these opinions/ideals loosely, as you never know when you may get to touch another part of the elephant and expand your awareness and get a little bit closer to what something truly is.