Have you read the story of the blind men and the elephant? Recent happenings have made me recall that story which is said to have originated from South Asia. Anyway the gist of the story is that an elephant was brought to the blind men to touch and feel and then share among themselves their experience based on their interaction with the huge animal.

Since the elephant is big, each of them touched only a part, like the tail or the ears or the legs. In the end their findings turned out to be completely different from each other.

So what’s the lesson? Different people have different beliefs and opinions based on what they have experienced. Sometimes we judge and misjudge a person because of one incident and tend to generalize it. Just because one ate a sour apple doesn’t mean all apples are sour; just because it was flooding in January, all the months will be flooding; just because one ate a sweet mango then he concludes all mangoes are sweet… We are blinded by our biases and beliefs and experiences or anger perhaps?

Anyway, here’s the Jain version of the story (from Wikipedia.org) and the explanation of this beautiful story:

A Jain version of the story says that six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant’s body.

The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.

A wise man explains to them
All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned.[1]

This resolves the conflict, and is used to illustrate the principle of living in harmony with people who have different belief systems, and that truth can be stated in different ways (in Jainist beliefs often said to be seven versions). This is known as the Syadvada, Anekantvad, or the theory of Manifold Predictions[1]

Despite of what had happened, I still believe in the goodness of people. I still believe in love and peace and understanding.