Once, several men were crossing the Ganges river in a boat.
One of them, a pandit, was making a great display of his erudition, saying that he had studied various books – the Vedas, the Vedanta, and the six systems of philosophy.
He asked a fellow passenger, “Do you know the Vedanta?”
“No, revered sir.”
“The Samkhya and the Patanjali Yoga?”
“No, revered sir.”
“Have you read no philosophy whatsoever?”
“No, revered sir.”
The pandit was talking in this vain way and the passenger sitting in silence when a great storm arose and the boat was about to sink.
The passenger said to the pandit,
“Sir, can you swim?”
“No”, replied the pandit.
The passenger said, “I don’t know Samkhya or the Patanjali Yoga, but I can swim.”
Parable of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa (1836-1886) was a Hindu mystic from India whose parable-based teachings espoused the ultimate unity of diverse religions as being means to enable the realisation of the same God. After his demise, his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda popularised his ideas and founded the Ramakrishna Order, which provides spiritual training for monastics and householder devotees, and the Ramakrishna Mission, which is involved in charity, social work and education.