Three Little Rules of True Understanding of Life
I have a weird question for you, one you have probably been asked ten times before, – Do you see a glass as half-full or half-empty? My friend’s daughter asked me the same question yesterday and when I said, “half full” without even thinking she laughed and said, “No!” I was puzzled…“Why not?”… “Because it is both!”What?! I was not expecting this from an 8-year old!
But later when I got home I thought about it. And she was right! It is both… and neither… because objectively the glass just is and water in it just is. And only our busy mind, feels the need to make distinctions and evaluate everything.
There is an old Indian story that demonstrates the same point:
One day a rajah’s son came to him and asked “Father, what is the truth of things?”
“A wonderful question!” the rajah said, “Let me show you the answer.”
He commanded his royal elephant and 3 blind men to be brought forth into the palace. As soon as his order was completed, he asked 3 men to examine the elephant and describe it to his son.
The blind men had never known an elephant before and were excited to feel one for the first time in their lives. One found his way to the elephant’s tusk and said, “It is like a spear”, another examined the leg and declared, “Oh noble Rajah, he is quite wrong, it is like a tree”. The third man touched the tail and exclaimed, “Most noble Rajah, they are both wrong, the elephant is like a rope!”
While three blind were bickering amongst themselves, each telling the others why he alone was right, the rajah asked his son, “Do you understand it now? The elephant is like the truth of all things and we are like the blind men.”
Similar, most of us struggle every day to make sense out of situations, to explain our own and other people’s decisions and actions, stumbling blindly, touching only small parts of the reality, and coming away with a narrow and fragmented understanding of what it all means.
Here are 3 Little Golden Rules of Understanding that you can apply immediately to find inner balance and get a more objective understanding of life:
