There’s a great story I heard the other day about an elephant (turns out it’s The Parable of Blind Men and an Elephant described on Libretexts) and I’d love to share it with you.
The story goes that there are six blind men, all standing around an elephant. Each one is describing the part of the elephant that is before him. They begin to argue with one another about what an elephant is – as one experiences a flexible trunk, one felt a column of a leg, and one held a slender tail. Finally a man with sight comes along and explains they are all correct, just experiencing the same thing differently.
It was a neat little reminder that we are all perceiving the same world, but from different vantage points and through our own biased lenses.
So while we all may have been present for one shared event, we each had our own unique experience of it – coloured by our perspective, upbringing, beliefs, past events etc.
But at the end of the day I think it’s helpful to remember that it’s all the same elephant.
It had me thinking, as I took out my yoga mat, that yoga & meditation can be approached from so many different angles too.
Yoga and meditation can be done with the lens of Christian faith or with a building of faith within oneself.
We could call meditation by the name of prayer.
We could call our yoga practise a meditation.
We can view meditation from a lens of gratitude for the present, or from a lens of God or gods providing, or from the lens of energy or vibration.
So whatever lens you have, I hope you were similarly delighted to remember that we all have different shades on – and we can take them off too. Or at least, remember that the same elephant is before us, so our neighbour’s point of view can be true too.
Wishing you an incredible weekend, and a happy long weekend to my American friends.
With Love,
Esta
with love , Esta 