Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00441)

Monday, March 31, 2003

Dear Friends:

The faculty of instinct ranges from the dullness of the least of
things to the wisdom of the greatest. But the elephant because of
size alone is not wise, its hearing is far more acute than ours. It
may have heard what the temple priests did not, and refused to crush
the kitten. But is it not remarkable ? -- that its insistence on
that, was at last obeyed by the humans ? They too in hinduism do not
believe in killing. Even though some of the abuses of that ancient
religion by use of the ancient tantras do endorse killing specified
animals to achieve psychic and physical results {but that is another
story, and does not take into account the selfishness of mankind, and
violence done to the animals -- and also, the resultant Karma. If one
reads THE LIGHT OF ASIA, ( Sir Edwin Arnold) dealing with the life of
the Buddha, ( p. 85, Book Fifth in my possession )}

I have read for several years that the elephants enjoy a faculty of
hearing deep sounds, inaudible to our range, because below it, and
that they respond intelligently to those sounds -- so one must
conclude that we in human bodies have 1. devised instruments that will
translate those sounds intones we can hear, and 2. we have the
opportunity to develop extended faculties and certainly, the ability
to reason and learn from observation is a great gift to be treasured
and used as far as possible.

I hope this may help,

Dallas

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-----Original Message-----
From: Gopi Chari
Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2003 4:39 PM
To:
Subject: [bn-study] Animal instincts vs human reason


Dear Dallas,

Do you have any comment to make on RP's message?
'In Guruvayur temple recently the temple elephant refused to lower a
huge
wooden pole in to a pit for erection of temporary structures in
connection with temple festival. Persistent effort of the elephant
manager to induce it to do so failed. On investigation they found a
kitten mewing on the floor of the deep pit. After
it was taken out the elephant obeyed the manager. Should we not humans
be
at least as magnanimous as the dumb gentle giant ?'

Gopi

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