{"id":636,"date":"2021-11-13T16:15:54","date_gmt":"2021-11-13T16:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/?p=636"},"modified":"2021-11-13T16:15:54","modified_gmt":"2021-11-13T16:15:54","slug":"a-place-called-ananda-chapter-6-six-blind-boys-and-an-elephant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/a-place-called-ananda-chapter-6-six-blind-boys-and-an-elephant\/","title":{"rendered":"A Place Called Ananda — Chapter 6: Six Blind Boys and an Elephant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Master enjoyed telling the fable,<\/strong> after so many years now well known in this country, of six blind brothers who received from their father the task of washing an elephant. Each boy was assigned to a different part of the beast: the tusks, the trunk, the ears, the sides, the legs, the tail. Each of them, unable to see the whole elephant, thought he could describe the animal from the part he was washing. Comparing their experience afterward, one of the boys said, \u201cThe elephant is like two long bones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you say that, brother?\u201d protested the second. \u201cThe elephant is like a long rope hanging down from the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, no!\u201d expostulated the third. \u201cThe elephant is like a couple of large fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how you can make such ridiculous statements,\u201d cried the fourth, \u201cwhen the elephant so clearly resembles a large wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsurd!\u201d shouted the fifth. \u201cI know from experience that the elephant is four sturdy pillars.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBrothers! Brothers!\u201d complained the sixth, \u201cI can tell you are all making fun of me. I know from my own<\/em> experience that the animal you\u2019re making out to be such a marvel of complexity is like nothing but a piece of string dangling from heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this point their father entered the room. Hearing the altercation, he cried, \u201cBoys! Boys! You are quarreling over nothing. All of you are right, and all of you at the same time are wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRespected father, how,\u201d they demanded, \u201ccan we be both?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am able to see the whole elephant. Each of you has been washing only one part of it. You\u2019ve been speaking from experience, I grant you, and to that extent all of you are right. But your experience is limited. It is only by pooling your knowledge, not by using what you know against one another, that you will arrive at an understanding of what the elephant really looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back over my years in SRF, I am forced to the conclusion that all of us were like those six boys. Each of us saw one, or perhaps even several, aspects of Master\u2019s work without comprehending its entire scope.<\/p>\n

Tara\u2019s influence on Daya Mata, and through Daya on SRF, increased steadily \u2013 determinedly, on Tara\u2019s part. In the process, it gradually neutralized my own influence. She telephoned Daya almost daily and instructed her, speaking as a senior disciple, in the attitudes her junior must hold as president. If Daya demurred, Tara would accuse her of disloyalty.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe can dish it out,\u201d Daya commented to me one day, \u201cbut she can\u2019t take it.\u201d Tara was resolved that her own view of the work be accepted as the proper view, to the exclusion of all other views. Tara even said to me once, \u201cI\u2019ve come to realize that those who are against me are against Master. And that means, they are against God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daya Mata had only me to influence her toward a people-oriented mission. In this position I see now that I stood virtually alone. True, Meera Mata did agree with me, but her agreement didn\u2019t amount to active participation. Practically speaking, she sat on the sidelines. The resistance to my philosophy was growing on the part of certain other disciples who had lived with Master more years than I. It was like a seesaw: Daya Mata at the fulcrum point; I at one end, never realizing that I was alone; the others grouped at varying distances on the other side of the fulcrum. Tara, the heavyweight in this analogy, sat firmly at the opposite end; she represented the polar south to my north.<\/p>\n

Tara\u2019s influence stiffened a predilection already growing in the work. There had been a tendency anyway, seldom voiced of course, to consider public teaching and lecturing as a dance with delusion. The monks, whose responsibility it was to go out and teach, were generally looked upon by the nuns as second-class citizens, spiritually speaking. Daya Mata actually said once to Brother Anandamoy and me, \u201cLet\u2019s face it, women are more spiritual than men.\u201d To remain behind the scenes, guiding and developing the organization through correspondence, and by sending out the lessons by mail, seemed to most of the renunciate disciples more in keeping with the deep-seated desire I suppose we all felt to devote ourselves to communing with God in meditation. If our role in this life was to serve Master\u2019s work, then the best way, surely, was to do it as much as possible from a position of obscurity.<\/p>\n

Often, when a person feels duty-bound to do something that goes against his natural grain, he will hurl himself into it with even greater zeal than if such an action were natural to him. The one who pursues wealth out of personal desire will be less likely to deprive himself of other natural interests such as home, family, social position, and innocent pleasures. It is the one who doesn\u2019t want money, but feels in some way obligated to devote himself to its pursuit, who is the most likely in the process to become one-sided. This is all the more likely to happen if the assigned duty involves serving God.<\/p>\n

Much as I wanted to cooperate with Daya Mata and to go along with the understanding Master\u2019s closest disciples had of his wishes for the work, I couldn\u2019t dismiss from my mind the things he had told me, personally. And I couldn\u2019t help becoming growingly aware that there was a discrepancy somewhere. My natural reaction was to question my own understanding of his wishes. Yet I knew<\/em> what he had said. And I couldn\u2019t help wondering why he had encouraged me in a way so opposite to their priorities if there was a chance that I would fundamentally misunderstand his true wishes for me. I had never asked for that encouragement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWalter, you have a great work to do.\u201d On all but one of the occasions on which he said this to me, we were alone. On that single exception, the other person was a man who never really figured in the development of the work, and who later left it. When Rajarsi said to me, \u201cMaster has a great work to do through you, Walter, and he will give you the strength to do it,\u201d there were other monks present, but Rajarsi spoke so softly that even I had to strain to hear him. He uttered those words when I approached him for his blessing. (We were taking turns doing so.) It never dawned on me on any of these occasions that this information was being given to me privately for a reason. Yet the fact that it was so given has emboldened leaders in SRF to comment in recent times, \u201cKriyananda has a \u2018great work\u2019 to do, all right \u2013 on himself!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour work is writing and lecturing.\u201d Considering the fact that Tara wasn\u2019t even getting out Master\u2019s books, what chance had I of getting any of my own works published through SRF? Everything that was intended for publication had necessarily to pass through her hands, and was editorially screened by her.<\/p>\n

\u201cApart from Saint Lynn, every man has disappointed me. And you mustn\u2019t<\/em> disappoint me!\u201d I never quoted these words to others. Had I done so, it would have given the women disciples only one more reason to look down on the men disciples, though what Master was pleading with me was to understand and accept an aspect of the work that the women, even more than the men, had always ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo more moods, now. Otherwise, how will you be able to help people?\u201d Were the others to try to reconstruct his advice for my benefit or for anyone else\u2019s, they would phrase it quite differently, probably something like this: \u201cNo more moods, now, or you\u2019ll get out of tune.\u201d Their advice would be directed inward, in other words, not outward. Master knew that I\u2019d be motivated more easily by an appeal to my desire to help others.<\/p>\n

Though he encouraged me to meditate, it was on serving others that he placed his main emphasis. \u201cYour life,\u201d he told me, \u201cis one of intense activity and meditation.\u201d The tone of his voice, as well as the secondary placement of meditation in the sentence, suggested that meditation was not his primary emphasis for me. Thus, perhaps I had misunderstood him when he announced, or Divine Mother announced through him, during the all-day Christmas meditation in 1949: \u201cWalter, you must try hard,<\/em> for God will bless you very much.\u201d After redoubling my meditative efforts for several months, I approached him and asked, \u201cSir, I keep trying, but I don\u2019t seem to be getting results.\u201d \u201cYou are trying too hard,\u201d he replied. \u201cIt becomes nervous. That is why, in the beginning, it is better to emphasize relaxation.\u201d His admonishment to \u201ctry hard,\u201d then, may have been intended to urge me toward the \u201cintense activity\u201d that he later predicted for me.<\/p>\n

I am aware that this inference might be argued from more than one point of view. Yet it was evident that he wanted me to \u201ctry hard\u201d also, even if not primarily, in the field of action. And it was in my efforts to obey him in this field that I ran afoul of others\u2019 demands of me. What they wanted of me was that I \u201cslow down,\u201d not be so eager, wait to be told what to do and not keep coming to them with endless ideas for expansive ways of serving people. Novelty was not welcome to them. Every time I came up with a new proposal, their first reaction was, \u201cStudy other organizations and see how they\u2019ve handled this problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Master also told me, \u201cGod won\u2019t come to you until the end of life. Death itself is the final sacrifice you will have to make.\u201d This must mean he saw my life primarily in terms of sacrifice. And what of \u201cdeath itself\u201d as a sacrifice? Did he mean martyrdom?<\/p>\n

In answer to my question, \u201cWill I find God in this life?\u201d he replied, \u201cYes\u2026but don\u2019t think about it.\u201d The unspoken, though guessed-at, inference from this statement was, \u201cMeanwhile, you have a lot of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember,\u201d he told me once, \u201cyou won\u2019t be safe until you achieve nirbikalpa samadhi.<\/em>\u201d These words were, I take it, a warning that I was destined to walk through minefields of temptation in my service to him. Thus, his reference to a life of sacrifice assumes special significance for me. How many times, since leaving SRF, have I had to \u201center the camp of the enemy,\u201d keeping my mind sympathetically open to ways of thinking that were not my own in the hope of learning how to persuade other people to embrace higher ways.<\/p>\n

My life of service to others has not given me much time to think of my own spiritual development. Again and again I have had to \u201cshelve\u201d that primary aspiration in order to obey a deep-seated impulse, as well as Master\u2019s directions to me, to bring others along with me. I find consolation at least in the fact that this apparent sacrifice has kept me from thinking very much about myself and my own needs. And it has brought me to the point of not knowing whether I even have any such needs. At any rate, I am aware of none.<\/p>\n

To others, Master said, \u201cFollow Faye.\u201d He never gave such counsel to me, though I worked more with her than with the others. To me, rather, his counsel one day regarding her was simply to maintain a certain distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir,\u201d I had asked him previously, because my work brought me into frequent contact with her, \u201cmay I go to her for counseling when I can\u2019t come to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

He gave reluctant consent, then added, \u201cBut don\u2019t talk to her about sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Sir,\u201d I remonstrated, shocked, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t! And even if I did, she wouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to say,\u201d he explained, \u201cwhere the monks are concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n

In retrospect, I realize that he saw my sphere of action as lying far from the activities of SRF. Once he tested me to make sure of my loyalty. A certain minister of SRF had left the work and was giving lectures and classes in the city of Long Beach, presenting Master\u2019s teachings as though they were his own. Master sent me to listen to his talks and report back. I think his wish was to see whether there lurked in my subconscious mind any ripple of attraction to what that minister was doing. There was none. I knew I could never be disloyal. Master indicated his satisfaction with me days before he left his body. Gazing into my eyes lovingly, he said, \u201cYou have pleased me very much. I want you to know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Master enjoyed telling the fable, after so many years now well known in this country, of six blind brothers who received from their father the task of washing an elephant. Each boy was assigned to a different part of the beast: the tusks, the trunk, the ears, the sides, the legs, the tail. Each of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Place Called Ananda — Chapter 6: Six Blind Boys and an Elephant - Swami Kriyananda: Lightbearer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda recalls the increasingly rigid and narrow spirit in SRF.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/a-place-called-ananda-chapter-6-six-blind-boys-and-an-elephant\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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