Ponder on This

This is a story by Jalal-ud-din Rumi a Sufi. Many of us would have read this but it is what follows from this story that is important.

There was a country where there was a city entirely inhabited by blind people. One day the news came that an elephant was passing outside the walls of the city. The citizens held a meeting and decided to send a delegation of three men outside the gates so that they could report back to the city what an elephant was. The three men left the town, found the elephant and felt the animal with their hands. Then they all returned back to their town to report what they had felt.

The first man said:"The elephant is like a snake, but it can stand vertically upright in the air!"

The second man said:"The elephant is like a pillar. It is firm and round and solid. No matter how much you push you cannot knock it over."

The third man said:"The elephant is like a broad pankah (a fan). It is wide flat and leathery. "

All the three men stuck to their story and argued with each other till they vowed to never speak to each other. Each professed that they and they alone knew the whole truth.But we know that each person had felt only a part of the elephant. The first had felt the tail, the second the leg and the third the ear. All had a part of the truth, but none of them had begun to grasp the totality or the greatness of the beast. If they had listened to each other, they might have realized the true nature of the beast. But they were too proud and instead they preferred to keep to their half truths.
So it is with religion. Muslims see Allah in one way, Hindus have a different conception, and the Christians have a third. To us, all our different conceptions seem incompatible and irreconcilable. But what we forget is that to God we are like blind men stumbling around in total darkness.