Source:
A Year with Rumi, Translations by Coleman Barks, p.362
Some
Hindus have an elephant to show.
No one
here has ever seen an elephant.
They
bring it at night to a dark room.
One by
one, we go in the dark and come out
saying
how we experience the animal.
One of
us happens to touch the trunk.
A
water-pipe kind of creature.
Another,
the ear. A very strong, always moving
back
and forth, fan animal. Another, the leg.
I find
it still, like a column on a temple.
Another
touches the curved back.
A
leathery throne. Another, the cleverest,
feels
the tusk. A rounded sword made of porcelain.
He is
proud of his description.
Each
one of us touches one place
And
understands the whole in that way.
The
palm and the fingers feeling in the dark
are
how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.
If
each of us held a candle there,
and if
we went in together, we could see it.
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