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Passages similar to: The Masnavi — The Elephant in a Dark Room
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Sufi
The Masnavi
The Elephant in a Dark Room (Summary)
Some Hindoos were exhibiting an elephant in a dark room, and many people collected to see it. But as the place was too dark to permit them to see the elephant, they all felt it with their hands, to gain an idea of what it was like. One felt its trunk, and declared that the beast resembled a water-pipe; another felt its ear, and said it must be a large fan; another its leg, and thought it must be a pillar; another felt its back, and declared the beast must be like a great throne. According to the part which each felt, he gave a different description of the animal. One, as it were, called it "Dal" and another "Alif."
Christian Mysticism
The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite
The Celestial Hierarchy, Caput XV (8)
The Image of the Ox denotes the strong and the mature, turning up the intellectual furrows for the reception of the heavenly and productive showers;...
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Buddhist
Chapter XXIII: The Elephant (321)
They lead a tamed elephant to battle, the king mounts a tamed elephant; the tamed is the best among men, he who silently endures abuse.
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter IV: To Prevent Ambiguity, We Must Begin with Clear Definition. (2)
Such, then, is the method of the discovery [of truth]. For we must begin with the knowledge of the questions to be discussed. For often the form of...
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Taoist
Man Among Men. (11)
Also, that whole animals are not given, for fear of exciting the tigers' fury when rending them? The periods of hunger and repletion are carefully wat...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter III: Demonstration Defined. (3)
In strict propriety, then, that is called demonstration which produces in the souls of learners scientific belief. The other kind is that which...
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Western Esoteric
Inferno: Canto XXV (6)
The one uprose and down the other fell, Though turning not away their impious lamps, Underneath which each one his muzzle changed. He who was...
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Jewish Apocrypha
Chapter XXXIII (1)
And from thence I went to the ends of the earth and saw there great beasts, and each differed from the other; and (I saw) birds also differing in appe...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter VI: Definitions, Genera, and Species. (24)
Now in definitions, difference is assumed, which, in the definition, occupies the place of sign. The faculty of laughing, accordingly, being added to...
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Christian Mysticism
The Three Principles of the Divine Essence
Chapter 16: Of the noble Mind of the Understanding, Senses and Thoughts. Of the threefold Spirit and Will, and of the Tincture of the Inclination, and what is inbred in a Child in the Mother's Body [or Womb.] Of the Image of God, and of the bestial Image, and of the Image of the Abyss of Hell, and Similitude of the Devil, to be searched for, and found out in a [any] one Man. The noble Gate of the noble Virgin. And also the Gate of the Woman of this World, highly to be considered. (29)
Every Beast has a Mind, having a Will, and the five Senses therein, so that it can distinguish therein what is good or ill for it. But where remain...
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Western Esoteric
Purgatorio: Canto XXXII (7)
The first were horned like oxen; but the four Had but a single horn upon the forehead; A monster such had never yet been seen! Firm as a rock upon a...
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Jewish Apocrypha
Chapter LXXXVI (4)
And I looked at them and saw, and behold they all let out their privy members, like horses, and began to cover the cows of the oxen, and they all beca...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter 14: How Lucifer, who was the most beautiful Angel in Heaven, is become the most horrible Devil. The House of the murderous Den. (84)
When God had thus gently incorporated it, or compacted it together, then it found and felt itself to be mighty and powerful, and saw that it had or...
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Zoroastrian
Chapter XIX (1)
Regarding the three-legged a ass they say, that it stands amid the wide-formed ocean, and its feet are three, eyes six, mouths nine, ears two, and...
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Taoist
Autumn Floods. (15)
Then Chuang Tzŭ went to see Hui Tzŭ, and said, "In the south there is a bird. It is a kind of phœnix. Do you know it? It started from the south sea...
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Mesoamerican
Part II, Chapter 6 (6)
They have made fun of us. Our field, which we had worked, has been turned into a field of stubble and a thick woods. Thus we found it, when we got the...
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Gnostic
YALDABAOTH CREATES HEAVEN AND EARTH AND BEARS THREE SONS (YALDABAOTH CREATES HEAVEN AND EARTH AND BEARS THREE SONS)
When the ruler saw his greatness, he saw only himself; he saw nothing else, except water and darkness. Then he thought that he alone existed. His...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter VIII: The Method of Classifying Things and Names. (5)
For those are Univocal terms, to both of which belongs the common name, animal; and the same principle, that is definition, that is animate essence. A...
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Zoroastrian
Chapter XIV (4)
First, two oxen, one male and one female, and, afterwards, one pair of every single species was let go into the earth, and was discernible in...
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Taoist
The Circling Sky. (5)
He is in relation with its variations and follows the same eternal law. "When no machinery is set in motion, and yet the instrumentation is complete, ...
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Neoplatonic
How the Multiplicity of the Ideal-forms Came Into Being: and Upon the Good (8)
Yet what was that there to present the idea of the horse it was desired to produce? Obviously the idea of horse must exist before there was any planni...
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