In front of an elephant

  An oriental prince, to teach his subjects a lesson in the search for God, brought together many blind people one day. Then he ordered them to be shown the largest of their elephants without telling them what animal they had in front of them. Each blind man approached the elephant and touched him in different parts of his body. In the end the prince asked what each one had felt.  

  The one who had touched the legs said that a wrinkled trunk of a tree. The one who had touched the nose (trunk), a thick knotty branch. The one who had touched the tail, an unknown snake. A wall, said the one who had touched the belly. A small hill, the one that had touched the back. As they did not agree among themselves, they began to argue.  

  The prince interrupted the discussion: 

- This small sample will make you see how we know very little about great things, and almost nothing about God.  

  Hindu parabola