Symbolic Elephant Meaning Quotes

Psychologists say the best way to handle children at this stage of development is not to answer their questions directly but instead to tell them a story. As pediatrician Alan Greene explained, “After conversing with thousands of children, I’ve decided that what they really mean is, ‘That’s interesting to me. Let’s talk about that together. Tell me more, please?’ Questions are a child’s way of expressing love and trust. They are a child’s way of starting a conversation. So instead of simply insisting over and over again that the object of my son’s attention is, in fact, an elephant, I might tell him about how, in India, elephants are symbols of good luck, or about how some say elephants have the best memories of all the animals. I might tell him about the time I saw an elephant spin a basketball on the tip of his trunk, or about how once there was an elephant named Horton who heard a Who. I might tell him that once upon a time, there was an elephant and four blind men; each man felt a different part of the elephant’s body: the ears, the tail, the side, and the tusk . . .

Shiva’s world-destroying dance is another potent symbol that can be understood both cosmologically and psychologically. From a yogic perspective, the dance disentangles all the mental webs by which we have imprisoned ourselves through our incessant karmic activities or volitions. Shiva, as Natarāja (“Lord of Dance”), is the destroyer of our delusions and illusions. He is an inner force that undermines our laboriously created conceptualizations of the world, so that we may see reality “as it is” (yathā-bhūta). The Goddess Mohinī (“She who deludes”) is thought to tempt us with misconceptions and delusional fantasies, so that only serious spiritual seekers can find their way to Reality. The elephant-headed, pot-bellied God Ganesha, again, is traditionally called upon to remove all such obstacles. Each deity represents a particular symbolic function whose depth we can plumb only when we delve into our own psyche by means of Yoga. The artistic representations of the numerous deities of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism all are full of yogic symbolism. That symbolism is most prominent in the profound teachings of Tantra. To appreciate this fact, we just need to look at the esoteric meaning of hatha—as in Hatha-Yoga, a branch of Tantra. The dictionary meaning of the term hatha is simply “force” or “power,” and the commonly used ablative hathāt means “by force of.” Esoterically, however, the syllables ha and tha—quite meaningless in themselves—are said to symbolize “Sun” and “Moon” respectively. Specifically, they refer to the inner luminaries: the “sun” or solar energy coursing through the right energetic pathway (i.e., the pingalānādī) and the “moon” or lunar energy traveling through the left pathway (i.e., the idā-nādī). Hatha-Yoga utilizes these two currents—corresponding to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems respectively—in order to achieve a psychoenergetic balance and mental tranquillity. When this energetic harmony is achieved, the central channel (i.e., the sushumnā-nādī) is activated. As soon as the life force (prāna) flows into and up the central channel, it awakens the serpent power (kundalinī-shakti) and pulls it into the central channel as well. Thereafter the kundalinī rises to the crown of the head, leading to a sublime state of mind-transcending unified consciousness (or nirvikalpa-samādhi, “formless ecstasy”).

In my life I've done more suffering than thinking— though I believe one understands better that way. You see, dogs aren't enough any more. People feel so damned lonely, they need company, they need something bigger, stronger, to lean on, something that can really stand up to it all. Dogs aren't enough; what we need is elephants. . . It seems that the elephants Morel was trying to save were purely imaginary and symbolic, a parable, as they say, and that the poor bastard was really defending the old human rights, the rights of man, those noble, clumsy, gigantic, anachronistic survivals of another age - another geological epoch. . . you announce this salvation as coming *soon’— though I suppose that in the language of paleontology, which is not exactly that of human suffering, the word soon’ means a few trifling hun- dred thousands of years. Earth was his kingdom, his place, his field— he belonged. . The lorry was literally stuffed with ‘trophies’: tusks, tails, heads, skins— an orgy of butch- ery. De Vries, was certainly not collecting for museums, because most of them had been so riddled with shot as to be unrecognizable and in any case unsuitable for the pleasure of the eye. I suppose there are things that nothing can kill and that remain forever intact. It’s as if nothing could ever j^ppen to human beings. They’re a species over which it’s not easy to triumph. They’ve a way of rising from the ashes, smiling and holding hands. "Well, I finally got an idea. When he fails, do like me: think about free elephant ride through Africa for hundreds and hundreds of wonderful animals that nothing could be built—either a wall or a fence of barbed wire—passing large open spaces and crush everything in its path, and destroying everything—while they live, nothing is able to stop them—what freedom! And even when they are no longer alive, who knows, perhaps continue to race elsewhere still free. So you begin to torment your claustrophobia, barbed wire, reinforced concrete, complete materialism imagine herds of elephants of freedom, follow them with his eyes never left them on their run and will see you soon feel better ... " years of isolation in the depths of the jungle have no power against a tenacious hope, and that a hundred acres of land at the height of the rainy season are easier to clear than are certain little intimate nooks of our soul. she understood perfectly well how unconvincing this sounded, but she couldn’t help it: it was the truth. He felt that, at his age, patience was ceasing to be a virtue and was becoming a luxury he could less and less afford. He strove for one last time to look at the affair with all the detachment and all the serenity suitable to a man of science. the immense sky, filled with absence. with the impassive face of a man who feels perfectly sure of having the last word. Of course to the pure all things are pure.

omplementarity This duality might leave you feeling a bit unsettled. “At the end of the day,” you might ask, “which is it really, fundamentally?” Is your body a unitary entity or is it a phenomenon arising from its smaller parts, the interacting cells? The answer is, of course, both, equally and unequivocally. This kind of doubling of reality is a form of what quantum physicists call a complementarity. Perhaps the most famous example of complementarity is embedded in the now well-known, if perhaps not well-understood, notion that “light is both a wave and a particle.” Complementarity was originally framed in regard to the “double-slit” experiment,4 which showed that streams of light behave like beams of individual particles if observed in one way, but behave like continuous, undulating waves if observed in a different way. This dependence on the experimental setup, on the method of observation, for whether light appeared as waves or particles was called wave-particle duality. It became clear that either description, on its own, was incomplete, insufficient to describe the nature of light in its totality. These two partial descriptions—waves and particles—complemented each other. Only together could they capture the full nature of light, each view providing information the other excluded. Their relationship was recognized as a complementarity. Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, thought the most deeply about this concept after he announced it in 1928. It had become clear that no single experiment could ever demonstrate both aspects of wave-particle duality at the same time. All agreed that, at the quantum level, the impossibility of capturing both states at once was a fundamental principle of the nature of existence. Bohr, however, went further, asserting that complementarity was fundamental not just for describing existence at the incredibly minute scales of the quantum realm but for describing living beings at our normal everyday scale as well.1 Furthermore, Bohr saw complementarity as a fundamental property of existence at every scale. It was so central to his thinking that, when he was awarded Denmark’s highest honor, the Order of the Elephant, he designed a coat of arms for himself that featured a perfect symbol for complementarity, the yin-yang. Alas, perhaps due to the increasing subspecialization across all fields of science as the twentieth century rolled forward, these ideas about generalized complementarity were explored only in small corners of philosophy and science. Nonetheless, they remain very much alive. The coat of arms of Niels Bohr. “Contraria sunt complementa” means “Opposites are complementary.” Here is another way to envision complementarity, the classic black-and-white image of two profiles viewed in silhouette and the space between them looking like a vase. Which is it? Two faces? Or a vase? Of course, it is both, equally. Neither view describes the whole image, each one leaving out something essential. A complete description requires both opposite views to be united in a single complementarity. In just the same way, whether a body is a singular entity in itself or a phenomenon arising from the nimble interactions of cells is a question easily answered. It is a complementarity as well. It is both, equally, though which of these it appears to be depends on your observational stance. Are you seeing it at the everyday scale or at the microscopic scale? At the everyday scale your body is a unitary whole. At the microscopic scale, that whole disappears into its parts—the ceaseless, dynamic cellular dance; cells in cooperation with other cells, in space and in time.

Complementarity. This duality might leave you feeling a bit unsettled. “At the end of the day,” you might ask, “which is it really, fundamentally?” Is your body a unitary entity or is it a phenomenon arising from its smaller parts, the interacting cells? The answer is, of course, both, equally and unequivocally. This kind of doubling of reality is a form of what quantum physicists call a complementarity. Perhaps the most famous example of complementarity is embedded in the now well-known, if perhaps not well-understood, notion that “light is both a wave and a particle.” Complementarity was originally framed in regard to the “double-slit” experiment,4 which showed that streams of light behave like beams of individual particles if observed in one way, but behave like continuous, undulating waves if observed in a different way. This dependence on the experimental setup, on the method of observation, for whether light appeared as waves or particles was called wave-particle duality. It became clear that either description, on its own, was incomplete, insufficient to describe the nature of light in its totality. These two partial descriptions—waves and particles—complemented each other. Only together could they capture the full nature of light, each view providing information the other excluded. Their relationship was recognized as a complementarity. Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, thought the most deeply about this concept after he announced it in 1928. It had become clear that no single experiment could ever demonstrate both aspects of wave-particle duality at the same time. All agreed that, at the quantum level, the impossibility of capturing both states at once was a fundamental principle of the nature of existence. Bohr, however, went further, asserting that complementarity was fundamental not just for describing existence at the incredibly minute scales of the quantum realm but for describing living beings at our normal everyday scale as well.1 Furthermore, Bohr saw complementarity as a fundamental property of existence at every scale. It was so central to his thinking that, when he was awarded Denmark’s highest honor, the Order of the Elephant, he designed a coat of arms for himself that featured a perfect symbol for complementarity, the yin-yang. Alas, perhaps due to the increasing subspecialization across all fields of science as the twentieth century rolled forward, these ideas about generalized complementarity were explored only in small corners of philosophy and science. Nonetheless, they remain very much alive. The coat of arms of Niels Bohr. “Contraria sunt complementa” means “Opposites are complementary.” Here is another way to envision complementarity, the classic black-and-white image of two profiles viewed in silhouette and the space between them looking like a vase. Which is it? Two faces? Or a vase? Of course, it is both, equally. Neither view describes the whole image, each one leaving out something essential. A complete description requires both opposite views to be united in a single complementarity. In just the same way, whether a body is a singular entity in itself or a phenomenon arising from the nimble interactions of cells is a question easily answered. It is a complementarity as well. It is both, equally, though which of these it appears to be depends on your observational stance. Are you seeing it at the everyday scale or at the microscopic scale? At the everyday scale your body is a unitary whole. At the microscopic scale, that whole disappears into its parts—the ceaseless, dynamic cellular dance; cells in cooperation with other cells, in space and in time.

Complementarity. This duality might leave you feeling a bit unsettled. “At the end of the day,” you might ask, “which is it really, fundamentally?” Is your body a unitary entity or is it a phenomenon arising from its smaller parts, the interacting cells? The answer is, of course, both, equally and unequivocally. This kind of doubling of reality is a form of what quantum physicists call a complementarity. Perhaps the most famous example of complementarity is embedded in the now well-known, if perhaps not well- understood, notion that “light is both a wave and a particle.” Complementarity was originally framed in regard to the “double-slit” experiment,4 which showed that streams of light behave like beams of individual particles if observed in one way, but behave like continuous, undulating waves if observed in a different way. This dependence on the experimental setup, on the method of observation, for whether light appeared as waves or particles was called wave-particle duality. It became clear that either description, on its own, was incomplete, insufficient to describe the nature of light in its totality. These two partial descriptions—waves and particles—complemented each other. Only together could they capture the full nature of light, each view providing information the other excluded. Their relationship was recognized as a complementarity. Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, thought the most deeply about this concept after he announced it in 1928. It had become clear that no single experiment could ever demonstrate both aspects of wave-particle duality at the same time. All agreed that, at the quantum level, the impossibility of capturing both states at once was a fundamental principle of the nature of existence. Bohr, however, went further, asserting that complementarity was fundamental not just for describing existence at the incredibly minute scales of the quantum realm but for describing living beings at our normal everyday scale as well.1 Furthermore, Bohr saw complementarity as a fundamental property of existence at every scale. It was so central to his thinking that, when he was awarded Denmark’s highest honor, the Order of the Elephant, he designed a coat of arms for himself that featured a perfect symbol for complementarity, the yin-yang. Alas, perhaps due to the increasing subspecialization across all fields of science as the twentieth century rolled forward, these ideas about generalized complementarity were explored only in small corners of philosophy and science. Nonetheless, they remain very much alive. The coat of arms of Niels Bohr. “Contraria sunt complementa” means “Opposites are complementary.” Here is another way to envision complementarity, the classic black-and-white image of two profiles viewed in silhouette and the space between them looking like a vase. Which is it? Two faces? Or a vase? Of course, it is both, equally. Neither view describes the whole image, each one leaving out something essential. A complete description requires both opposite views to be united in a single complementarity. In just the same way, whether a body is a singular entity in itself or a phenomenon arising from the nimble interactions of cells is a question easily answered. It is a complementarity as well. It is both, equally, though which of these it appears to be depends on your observational stance. Are you seeing it at the everyday scale or at the microscopic scale? At the everyday scale your body is a unitary whole. At the microscopic scale, that whole disappears into its parts—the ceaseless, dynamic cellular dance; cells in cooperation with other cells, in space and in time.