There is a beautiful story by Ramakrishna. He used to repeat it many times. He used to say that there was a great gathering near the ocean once – some religious festival, and a great crowd gathered there. Two pundits, two great scholars also came, and they began to discuss whether the ocean is unfathomable or fathomable, whether the ocean can be measured or not. So they discussed around and around – discussions are always around and around, you go on beating around and around the bush. No discussion goes deep and direct, it cannot.
One simple man, just a villager, an innocent one, said, ”I have been listening to your discussion, days have passed, and there seems to be no conclusion. And I think – I am an ignorant man – I suggest that unless you go deep into the ocean, how can you decide whether it is fathomable or not? You remain on the bank and you go on discussing; you go on arguing, quoting scriptures, and authorities. But I am asking a simple question: Have you been to the ocean?”
Those two scholars said, ”Don’t interfere, you don’t know scriptures.” But the poor man said, ”I know the ocean. I need not know your scriptures. You are talking about the ocean; what is the need for scriptures to be brought in? I suggest you take a jump, go to the bottom, and then come back and tell us.”
So those two scholars jumped into the ocean, but they never came back. Ramakrishna says, ”They never came back because those two scholars were really men of salt, so as they went in, they began to melt. They were just salt; their bodies were made of salt.”
The two scholars never came back; the crowd waited and waited and waited. Ramakrishna used to say, ”They cannot come back, because the deeper they went the more they melted, and when they reached the bottom, they were no more. So who can come back and who can say.
