The Frog and the Well

There once lived a frog in a well. One day, a bird flew into the well and started talking to the frog about a fantastic world outside the well’s parameters, with oceans and blue skies and endless forests. The frog was confused. “How big is the world outside?” he asked. “Is it a little bigger than the well?”

“Much, much bigger” replies the bird.

“Ten times as big?” queries the puzzled frog.

The bird laughed: “The outside world is infinitely vaster than this well. It is totally beyond your imagination.”

At this the frog gasped in astonishment, and then started to get angry, for the bird’s description was not only inconceivable to the frog, but it also made him feel secretly embarrassed at the narrowness of what he took to be his entire reality. He also felt somewhat afraid at the thought that the infinitude of the outside world, like some unbelievably enormous creature, might swallow him up as if he was nothing more than a piece of dust. The confines of his familiar home, on the other hand, felt comforting and pleasant.

“Well…where’s the proof?” the frog stuttered.

“I can’t show you from here. You’ll have to visit this world and see for yourself”.

A mixture of emotions; fear, pride and confusion enter into the frog and he refused to budge an inch. “I’ve had enough of this. You can’t prove anything to me. Get out, you liar, get out! I will not listen to such nonsense!”

With a knowing smile and a brief flutter of its wings the bird soared into the air, not to be seen again.

When confronted with ideas about the existence of a higher reality, sometimes we react by refusing to even investigate the possibility, perhaps out of a sense of fear or pride. But if we approach life with a truly scientific and adventurous spirit we will constantly want to expand our horizons of awareness, and venture onward to discover the ultimate truth.

If both of us have eyes, then we can see the sun. But for someone to try and describe the sun to somebody without the faculty of sight is practically impossible.

Spiritual masters are happy to share their knowledge with others. Until we have discovered the truth that they have already realized, the master’s job is not complete. The problem is that the teacher and the student are on a different level. The full understanding of reality of has not yet been discovered. We cannot grasp the attainment of the spiritual teacher until we have successfully practised and realised their teachings, which usually involves some form of meditation.

If you want to learn anything from a teacher, it is necessary to have some faith in them, whether the discipline is guitar, tennis, maths or spirituality. Otherwise there would be no point in approaching a teacher in the first place.

There have been many people throughout history who have claimed that by exploring deep within themselves, beyond the bounds of our outer physical existence, they have discovered the bliss and light of their true essence. They have also clearly explained the methods by which other people can also discover the same reality within themselves. We have nothing to lose by following in their footsteps.

"If you want to see something in the outer world, you have to go to the place where it is being shown. In the inner world it is also like that. When a spiritual person says that he is doing this or that, you have to go to his level, to his plane, in order to see it. Everything has to be seen or felt or judged in its own world. I am no judge of science because I have never entered into that world; I am not competent to judge it on its own level. Physical truth has to be seen in the physical world, and spiritual truth has to be seen in the spiritual world." - Sri Chinmoy.