The frog in the well

What is Universality? How can all the religions be true, when there are so many divergent dogmas? The great Swami Vivekananda sought to address this question by telling the following story at the World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893.

Once there was a little frog who lived in a well. He grew up in the well, and ate the food he found in the well. One day, another little frog fell into the well. The first frog asked, “Where did you come from?”

The second frog responded, “I come from the great sea.”

The first frog said, “Is it like this well?”

The second said, “How can you compare the sea to a well?”

The first little frog leaped across his well, and asked, “Is it so big?”

And the second little frog said, “Such nonsense you speak, to compare a sea to a well!”

The first frog became indignant and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There can be nothing bigger than this well. You are a liar.”

There are many wells in this world; Christian wells, Islamic wells, Hindu wells, Pagan wells, Buddhist wells, and Jewish wells. But from where comes the source of this water in our well? Can we transcend these walls, and swim our way into the great sea that nourishes us all?

Religion is the form that brings explanation and context to the divine experience, but even this form can be transcended to the universal truths that lie beyond. This transcendence is the path that the Vedas teach, that the mystics meditate, that the yogi’s breath, and the Sufi’s whirl. It is the path of transcendence to the heart of God that lives within each of us.

Truly, you hold the sea within you. Dare to travel from beyond your well, and find the source of that water within you, and within us all. Dare to find out just who you really are.