The Elephant in the Room

[Alex Tang]

“Now let me tell you about the three blind men and an elephant,” Abba
Ah Beng begins his daily teaching session with his disciples.

“I know the story! I know the story!” disciple Ah Lian rudely
interjects, “My father told me this story before.”

“Okay then, tell us the story,” Abba Ah Beng said with a gleam in his
eye.

“A long, long time ago, in a country far, far away …,” begins Ah Lian.

“Sounds like the beginning of a Star War movie,” stage-whispered
disciple Ah Kow.

“…there lived three blind men who have never seen an elephant. Why?
Because they are blind, so cannot see, see?” continued Ah Lian while
glaring daggers at Ah Kow.

“But they want to know what an elephant is because they have heard so
much about the mighty elephant from their friends. So one day, their
friends brought them to an elephant. ‘Why, the elephant is like a tree
trunk’, said one blind man hugging a leg of the elephant, ‘and all
along I thought the elephant is a large great animal.’

“ ‘No,’ said the second blind man feeling the elephant’s trunk, ‘an
elephant is like a slimy eel. See it is long with a lot of mucus.’ The
elephant was having a runny nose that day,” explained Ah Lian.

“ ‘Alamak,’ said the third blind man tugging at the tail. ‘It is like
a vending machine with a rope. You pull it and something smelly falls
out.’

“ ‘Ha, ha, ha’ laughs the first blind man. ‘What is so great and
fearsome about an elephant? It is just something like a tree trunk.’
‘No!’ the second blind man countered, ‘it is like an eel.’ ‘You are
both wrong,’ the third blind man shouted, ‘it is a rope!’ The three
blind men started arguing, shouting and pushing at each other.

“The elephant became exasperated and sat on the three blind men. They
were squashed instantly. End of story.” Ah Lian looked up only to be
confronted with the shocked and mystified expressions on his fellow
disciples’ faces. “What?”

“The story does not usually end like that but it is a good ending
anyway,” said Abba Ah Beng gently, “and you can close your mouth, Ah
Kow unless you want to catch flies. Now, my disciples, what lessons
about God can we learn from this story?”

“Our perception of God is limited by our senses,” volunteered disciple
Muthu before Ah Kow can open his mouth again to answer. Muthu is part
of the disciple-exchange program where monasteries arrange for their
disciples to have cross-cultural exposure and to get rid of some their
really troublesome disciples at least for a short time. “God is big
and we can only perceive a small part of Him with our finite minds,”
added Muthu.

“We can only know God through what we are familiar with and what our
senses tell us,” Ah Kow adds, recalling the hilarious way Muthu is
learning to eat with chopsticks. “But I don’t understand why the blind
men have to fight.”

“That’s the way of men who thinks that they know everything about
God,” sighs Abba Ah Beng who is a veteran of many theological battles
where the learned Abbas fight with words, books and kung-fu. “They
forget that we ‘see through a glass darkly’ as St. Paul reminds us in
1 Corinthians 13:12. They also forget that no one person can know God
fully. All of us know God in different ways and even so, we know only
a small facet of Him. So why do we act as if only we have the whole
truth of God and no one else? And why do we fight insisting that our
perspective is correct? Will God be pleased?”

“God will flatten them!” boomed a loud voice from the back of the hall
as a large hand slapped the wooden floor. All the little monks
literally jumped out of their skin. They all turned. Standing
sheepishly at the back is the cook who had snuck into the hall.

“Maybe not,” said Abba Ah Beng. “Like the blind men arguing over their
perceptions of the elephant, the elephant remains an elephant. If the
blind men took more time to feel the elephant more rather than making
snap decisions, maybe they would have widen their perceptions. Instead
of opening themselves to discover what an elephant is, they have
instead created an elephant in the image of what they know, like an
eel, a tree trunk or a rope.

“So it is the same with us who try to know God. Let us make sure that
we are open to learn of God’s greatness rather than remaking God in
our own image. There is the danger of remaking God like us, for
example like Santa Claus, that we commit idolatry.”

“What about those people who do not believe that God exists?” asks
Iskandar, another exchange disciple from the Middle East.

“There are some people who claimed that God does not exist. Others
said that he is dead. There are those who claim that it is impossible
for God to exist and that he is a figment of our imagination. God
waits and smiles,” concludes Abba Ah Beng, adding, “the elephant in
the room.”

Reflection questions
(1) What are some of the ways we can use to get to know God?
(2) In what ways do we remake God in our own image?
(3) How do we keep ourselves from narrowing instead of expanding our
perception of God?

Blessings,

Alex

website: www.kairos2.com
blog: www.draltang01.blogspot.com
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