From the Gospel of Sage Ramakrishna:Once upon a time a doll made of salt went…

From the Gospel of Sage Ramakrishna:

Once upon a time a doll made of salt went up to the sea with a view to measure its depth. The salt doll had a sounding line and lead in its hand. It came to the edge or the water and looked on the mighty ocean that was before it. Up to this point it had continued to be the salt doll that it actually was, keeping its own individuality. But no sooner did it take one step forward, and put its foot to the water, than it became one with the ocean — lost— entirely lost to view! Every particle of the salt doll now melted away in the sea-water. The salt of which it was made had come from Brahman. The ocean, and behold, it came back once more to get reunited to the original salt of the ocean!
The ‘ Differentiated ‘ once more became one with the ‘Undifferentiated.’
The human soul is the salt doll — the Differentiated Individualized Ego. The Absolute, the Unconditioned — is the Infinite Salt Ocean — the Undifferentiated Ego. The salt doll could not come back and tell of the depth of the Mighty Ocean. Such is he who is fortunate enough to realize God the Absolute in the unfathomable depth of Samadhi which wipeth out all individuality. Undifferentiated as he is, he comes not back out of the deep to tell the world the nature of God, the Absolute and Unconditioned. For if it be ever possible, my Mother willing, for the salt doll to come back differentiated again, it must speak in the terms of the finite — in the language of the Differentiated. It must behave as an inhabitant of the relative phenomenal world.