We all know that thinking and feeling are not the same. How, then, can our thoughts be so important to what we feel? Our answer to that question, begins with a story…
Once upon a time, there were five blind brothers living together in a peaceful little village. Surrounded by lush vegetation and bright tropical flowers, their village was nestled in a beautiful valley protected by majestic mountains. A babbling brook running through the valley provided cool, clear water for all. The rich soil made farming easy and productive. Days in the valley were warm and sunny; nights, just right for restful slumber. All in all, life was good.
Almost as if to compensate the brothers for their lack of vision, nature had granted them great intelligence. As respected wise men, they were asked to teach at the village school. The villagers, in return, provided the brothers with hearth and keep. Now, being very smart, the brothers knew a great deal about a great many things… a great many things that is, except elephants. Amazingly, they knew almost nothing about elephants. They had heard of them, of course, but they had never actually encountered one, and the fates had seemingly conspired to keep them from learning about them in other ways. But that was about to change.
On a particularly fine day, while taking their usual afternoon walk about the village, the five brothers stumbled upon a friendly elephant the villagers had left in their path. As luck would have it, each brother encountered a different part of the elephant. The first, found the elephant’s trunk. “Finally!” he exclaimed, “Now, I understand elephants. They are just like big snakes.” The second wise man, holding the elephant’s ear, had made a different discovery. “What are you talking about, brother? Isn’t it obvious to you that elephants are actually like giant leathery leaves?” The third wise man, having wrapped his arms around a leg of the elephant, piped in, “Say what?! Are you both screwy? How could you delude yourselves into believing that an elephant is anything other than a tree-like creature… that hops!”
By this time, the fourth brother was relaxing against the elephant’s side. “I’m surprised and disappointed by you three,” he said, sadly shaking his head. “Have you taken leave of all your senses? Can you not see that an elephant is like a huge, breathing drum”? The unfortunate fifth brother had come upon the elephant from the rear, and was reluctantly holding its tail. “Any realistic view of an elephant,” he pontificated, “will admit that an elephant is nothing more than a hairy rope that smells bad and produces falling chunks of odoriferous, mushy paddies. Yuk!! Icky!”
At this point, the brothers, each having stated his honest opinion based on objective observation, proceeded to argue about who was right. The elephant, having more important things to do, happily shuffled off in search of some nice ripe fruit… leaving the five brothers to their deliberations.
As far as I know, they are arguing to this very day.
What meaning does our story illustrate for you?
If we use our story as a model, we might imagine that our experience will typically be limited to a particular point of view. Like the blind brothers in the story, we may grasp one particular aspect of a situation and ignore all others — as if there is only one “truth” and any other point of view is, at best, “wrong”. Unlike the story, in real life we do not randomly select our point of view. Rather, we come to situations full of predisposing biases, or beliefs, that we carry with us.
In our story, each brother has a valid perspective on, or understanding of, the elephant. What makes the brothers look ridiculous is not so much their limited perspective as it is their inflexibility. Each seems incapable of accepting the idea that there might be other valid aspects of an elephant. One of the tell-tale symptoms of mental health problems is inflexibility. And in this case, what is true for individuals is also true for relationships: inflexibility can create serious issues for a relationship.
I will leave you, for now, with this question: what might the brothers have done that would have improved their understanding of elephants?