The Elephant Rope As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at any time, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not. He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.” The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were. Like the elephants, how many of us g...
There was once a merchant who employed many workers to build a temple in his garden. Regularly, they would start work in the morning; and take a break for the mid-day meals, and return to resume work till evening. One day, a group of monkeys arrived at the site of the building and watched the workers leaving for their mid-day meals. One of the carpenters was sawing a huge log of wood. Since it was only half-done; he placed a wedge in between to prevent the log from closing up. He then went off along with the other workers for his meal. When all the workers were gone, the monkeys came down from the trees and started jumping around the site, and playing with the instruments. There was one monkey, who got curious about the wedge placed between the log. He sat down on the log, and having placed himself in between the half-split log, caught hold of the wedge and started pulling at it. All of a sudden, the wedge came out. As a result, the half-split log closed in and the monkey g...