Story of the Blind and the Horse
Beyond Ghor was a city whose inhabitants were all blind. One day a king came to this city with his court and army and set up camp there. This king owned horses, which he used to command the respect of the people. The people were eager to see the horses and some blind men ran ahead to discover what it was. And because they had no idea what the shape or appearance of a horse was, they gathered information by touching part of it. Each of them thought he had understood.
When they returned to their fellow townspeople with the news, they were immediately surrounded by people who could hardly wait to hear from those who had misunderstood what they thought was the truth. They asked questions about the shape and appearance of the horses and listened to what they were told about them.
The man who had touched the ear was asked to describe the nature of a horse and he said: “A horse is a small straight thing, the size of a hand and it blows in the wind all the time.” The one who touched the nose said, “I know what it is. The horse is soft and round and it makes a soft warm wind. It has some long hairs and every now and then a wave passes by just like on the sea.” The one who examined a leg said, “A horse is strong and sturdy, like a pillar.” The latter had felt the tail and said: “I know, the horse is just like a snake but with very long hair on it, like a lion's mane.”
Each of them had examined part of the horse's body by touch, but none of them had obtained an accurate picture of the entire body. Instead, they each formed their own truth of the whole, but those representations were incorrect.”
This story is a free interpretation of a well-known Sufi story from the twelfth century. The moral of the story is this: Our view of reality is limited. Or to put it another way: the image we form of reality based on our sensory observations always falls short. It is therefore an illusion to think that the truth we experience is 'the real truth'. Our perception is by definition incomplete.
It was impossible for any of the blind people to perceive something as large as a horse and to form an image of 'the horse as a whole'. It is therefore impossible for us to oversee the dynamics within the universe and gain insight into the whole. All descriptions of the Universe, the Cosmos, the Source, God, Allah…. that we find in different traditions are in fact all pieces of that whole. That is precisely why no one is wrong, but every perception is limited and incomplete.
And we must take that into account, in ourselves and in our perception of the world around us!
