Is there a Jain on DU?

[formercia]

http://www.jainworld.com/literature/story25.htm

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today."

They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.















"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg.

"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.

"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.

"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.

"It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.

"It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?" They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said."

"Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.

The moral of the story is that there may be some truth to what someone says. Sometimes we can see that truth and sometimes not because they may have different perspective which we may not agree too. So, rather than arguing like the blind men, we should say, "Maybe you have your reasons." This way we don’t get in arguments. In Jainism, it is explained that truth can be stated in seven different ways. So, you can see how broad our religion is. It teaches us to be tolerant towards others for their viewpoints. This allows us to live in harmony with the people of different thinking. This is known as the Syadvada, Anekantvad, or the theory of Manifold Predictions.

[hootinholler]

1. Personally I haven't noticed any Tarzans either.

:shrug:

-Hoot

[liberal N proud]

2. ::

:rofl:

[Jackpine Radical]

5. You should swing for that one.

What's purple, hangs from a vine, and screeches while beating its chest?

Tarzan of the Grapes.

[formercia]

17. What ever happened to the cheetah?

Even then, Junior was a crook.

[PVnRT]

3. The hero of Canton?

[willing dwarf]

4. The man we call Jayne...

I guess we are all mudders now. Happy mudders day.

[Morning Dew]

11. Shiny! nm

[No.23]

6. I've never met a Jain who was eager...

to identify himself or herself as one.

Wouldn't that be putting on a mask that would, later, have to be discarded?

Like any other mask.

[formercia]

7. I see your point

There is truth in what you say.

[No.23]

8. Speaking of masks...

ever cross paths with this one?

[formercia]

9. I must plead ignorance.

I live a very isolated existence.

[No.23]

10. But you have access to...

a computer, so you are not as isolated as you may feel you are.

Here are a few morsels from that mask:

http://www.atmapress.com/Articles/Ramana/Ramana_1.htm

[formercia]

14. Thank You.

Food for thought.

[woo me with science]

12. Yeah, but you forgot the one who said it was an alien from a past life,

the one who said its tusks will kill cancer, and the one who said he was satanically ritually abused by it. :)

[formercia]

13. The moderator obviously doesn't understand the point of this post.

It has nothing to do with religion.

So, why put it in a religion forum, except to prevent people from seeing it.

[trotsky]

19. Your last 5 sentences are basically a sales pitch for Jainism.

I can see why it was moved.

[Silent3]

15. Ah, yes... the old elephant and the blind men fable.

I take this tale as nothing more than an example of how to diplomatically paper over disagreements.

A lot of other people seem to take it to mean everyone has a piece of the truth no matter what they claim, but that certainly isn't always going to be true, and some of these "pieces of the truth" are really no different than being absolutely wrong in your observations, especially if you don't make any distinction among "is", "is like", and "has at least one aspect that sort of seems like".

[Uncle Joe]

16. What you said, has some truth in it. n/t

[EvolveOrConvolve]

18. "Oh my god, it's Shaquille O'Neal,"

said the seventh blind man who touched the elephant's penis.

I see what you're saying - I think it's bullshit - but I do see it as admirable if a little naive. Not all viewpoints have equal value, and they never will.

[trotsky]

20. Or, the six blind men could each walk around the elephant to touch every part of it.

Or they could ask a sighted person for help.

An elephant is not even close to incomprehensible to a blind person. There are certain facts about it that are indisputable, and obvious to even a blind deaf mute.

[cosmik debris]

21. "truth can be stated in seven different ways"

Un-truth can be stated in more ways than that.

The issue for me is how you tell the difference.

Does Jainism have a systematic way of determining what is false?

[rrneck]

22. I seem to be

telling a lot of people about this book lately.

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Suroweicki

From Publishers Weekly
While our culture generally trusts experts and distrusts the wisdom of the masses, New Yorker business columnist Surowiecki argues that "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." To support this almost counterintuitive proposition, Surowiecki explores problems involving cognition (we're all trying to identify a correct answer), coordination (we need to synchronize our individual activities with others) and cooperation (we have to act together despite our self-interest). His rubric, then, covers a range of problems, including driving in traffic, competing on TV game shows, maximizing stock market performance, voting for political candidates, navigating busy sidewalks, tracking SARS and designing Internet search engines like Google. If four basic conditions are met, a crowd's "collective intelligence" will produce better outcomes than a small group of experts, Surowiecki says, even if members of the crowd don't know all the facts or choose, individually, to act irrationally. "Wise crowds" need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions. The diversity brings in different information; independence keeps people from being swayed by a single opinion leader; people's errors balance each other out; and including all opinions guarantees that the results are "smarter" than if a single expert had been in charge. Surowiecki's style is pleasantly informal, a tactical disguise for what might otherwise be rather dense material. He offers a great introduction to applied behavioral economics and game theory.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[Fozzledick]

23. My understanding is that this is a mystical parable

The elephant represents God (think of Brahma and Ganesha) and each of the blind men is a mystic who has had a revelation that is genuine and true, but is inherently limited to what they are individually able to perceive since the whole is too great to comprehend.

I find this strikingly similar to the Kabbalic concept of Ain-Soph-Aur, that however much one knows of the Lord, even through direct mystical experience, it's impossible to ever fully understand the whole since it's simply too huge to be encompassed by the limitations of the human mind.