This is an old Hindu fable about a group of blind people who come across various different parts of an elephant. Each one grabs a piece and starts to describe their impression of how the entire animal would be.

The first blind person grabs a leg of the animal and proclaims with satisfaction: "It is tall straight and big; the creature must be like a tree."

"No, no you fool! It is like a hard, thin rope!" indicated the one having examined the tail.

"Both of you could not be further from the truth. For you see;" says the third, who holds the elephant’s ear. "It is more like a huge, flat, leathery leaf."

Scoffing, the fourth declares, "How can you all be both blind and stupid? An elephant is most obviously like a very thick and flexible, strong snake!" — this, of course, from the one holding the trunk.

Of course none of the four had any realistic idea of what the elephant truly was as a whole. Each person had their own partly true judgment of the giant animal. Yet none alone was sufficient as to fully understand the mystery of its being.

The elephant is a metaphor for Life and its entire vastly mysterious entirety. In addition, the four blind people symbolize the numerous views of perception; religion, philosophy, science, art, etc. Each vein of perception carries a tiny piece of relevance. And similar to the blind people, we are all tempted to mistake that relevance as the whole truth.