The futility of intellectual reasoning in the spiritual realm was illustrated by Shri Nathji by the following parable:
Someone asked a blind man whether he would like to eat kheer, rice pudding.
The blind man asked:
What does kheer look like?
It is white.
And what is white?
White is like a stork.
And what is a stork?
The other man bent his hand into the shape of a stork and asked the blind man to feel it. The blind man ran his fingers over the hand of the other person and said:
Good God! If this is what kheer is, you can eat it yourself – I don’t want it! It will get stuck in my throat!
“Aisee kheer tum hee khaanaa! Ye to mere gale men atak jaayegi!”
Those who seek God through the intellect alone are led astray by reason.
Shri Nathji often quoted the Vedas in which it was written:
Yato vaacho nirvartante
Apraapya mansaa sahaa.
He is that, who is beyond words,
Thoughts and intelligence.
How then can the intellect seek to grasp Him, or thoughts and words seek to describe Him? If the thoughts, words and intellect of man could grasp God, then God would become limited because these faculties of man are limited. However He is infinite.
Vo arzo samaa kahaan jo teri vusat ko paa sake
Meraa hee dil hai vo ki jis men too samaa sake
The skies and the earth cannot contain Thee;
It is but my heart in which Thou canst reside.
Lock your intellects, Shri Nathji would say, “and bring your hearts before me.