Observations placeholder
Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness - 12 The parable of the blind men and the elephant
Identifier
018778
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The parable is about those who are blind to the spiritual world but also very narrow in their focus of study.
A description of the experience
Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness - 12 The parable of the blind men and the elephant
As long as the difference in the perceptive faculty of observers exists, disputes must necessarily go on.
It is as if some blind men, hearing that an elephant had come to their town, should go and examine it. The only knowledge of it which they can obtain comes through the sense of touch: so one handles the animal’s leg, another his tusk, another his ear, and, according to their several perceptions, pronounce it to be a column, a thick pole, or a quilt, each taking a part for the whole.