Vol. 14, The Smiling Forehead The Prophetic Tendency - The Prophetic Mission
In the Northern provinces near Nainital and in Nepal, at the foot of the Himalayas, there is a jungle in which there are elephants. The people have many ways of catching them, and one way is to dig a small pit and cover it over with branches. Then they hang their swing-like nets up in a tree, and they stay for some days and watch for the elephants. They are happy in the trees, because the climate permits it. Then if a herd of elephants happens to go that way and an elephant puts his foot into the pit, he goes down, he cannot help himself. Then he cries out; the other elephants look on from a distance, but are afraid to come near, and the men have a kind of fireworks with which they frighten them away if they do.
Now in a troop of elephants there is always one who walks in front. He holds a stout branch in his trunk and hits the ground with it before every step he takes to see whether there is a pit. He knows a thousand other dangers and he knows this danger too. Then if the ground is safe he goes forward and all the others follow him. They have such confidence in him that wherever he goes they go too.
This shows that the tendency to leadership exists among the elephants, the tendency to self-sacrifice. The elephant who is the leader goes first, thinking, "If there is a pit I may fall in, and the other elephants will be safe." He never goes anywhere where it is not safe, and if some elephant is caught, it is some small elephant which has no sense and does not follow the leader.
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