six blind man and the elephant by john godfrey saxe

How might seeing from multiple perspectives offer a fuller understanding and a fuller response that might be both helpful and more healing? …and what might we learn from them? and what if we put them together? but, again, what of the other six ways of understanding this situation? If you have a powerful, convincing voice that is telling you something, that information might be useful to you -but it’s also worth consifdering what else do you know? what can you learn from the other six ways of seeing the situation you’re in?īe curious, ask, take the time to find out, then decide what’s best.Īlso, if a person is in distress and struggling, the biomedical diagnosis from a “healthcare factory” would most likey be some version of “broken-brain-chemical-imbalance:drug-em-up.” This is a very different way than the tradition of “I’m right you’re wrong, shut up” which, since we are so immersed in it, we may come to regard as the one way – when it is not: there are likely at least another six. So, if you have information from one: what do the others say? In the Jainian tradition there are at least seven ways of seeing any given situation. As it is for voices so it is for psychiatry This version below is a short but artful animation by a Mumbai arts-house Phat-Phish and set to the words of the 19th Century poem by John Godfrey Saxe. “Though each were partly in the right, and all were in the wrong” We can see this easily in the tale but it is not so easy to see in the situations that we encounter and are immersed in. In this way our information may be accurate but it is incomplete, lacks breadth, context or connection with other perspectives: so it is as “wrong” as it is “right”. Each is each equally convinced that they, and only they, are right only they can be right. In the tale the six take turns to feel the elephant with their hands, each encountering a different part, discerning the qualities of that part. It is a tale of how, when we focus on only a narrow aspect of a situation, we see only part of the evidence – which is fine but we tend to assume that it is all the evidence there is. The blind men and the elephant is an ancient folklore tale from India that has been told many ways and incorporated into teachings of Jain, Hindu, Buddhism, and Sufi traditions.

Six blind man and the elephant by john godfrey saxe