very important note from Swami Vivekananda

[Guest guest]

At The World’s Parliament of Religions

Chicago, 15th September 1893

I will tell you a little story. You have heard the eloquent speaker who has

just finished say, “Let us cease from abusing each other,” and he was very sorry

that there should be always so much variance.

But I think I should tell you a story which would illustrate the cause of this

variance. A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was

born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course,

the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes

or not, but, for our story’s sake, we must take it for granted that it had its

eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that

lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists.

In this way it went on and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another

flog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well.

“Where are you form?”

“I am from the sea.”

“The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?” and he took a leap from one

side of the well to the other.

“My friend,” said the frog of the sea, “how do you compare the sea with your

little well?”

Then the frog took another leap and asked, “Is your sea so big?”

“What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!”

“Well, then,” said the frog of the well, “nothing can be bigger than my well;

there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out.”

That has been the difficulty all the while.

I am a Hindu. I am sitting in my own little well and thinking that the whole

world is my little well. The Christian sits in his little well and thinks the

whole world is his well. The Mohammedan sits in his little well and thinks that

is the whole world. l have to thank you of America for the great attempt you are

making to break down the barriers of this little world of ours, and hope that,

in the future, the Lord will help you to accomplish your purpose.

 

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