The elephant story shows how easy it is for us to get confused if we don’t see the big picture. Especially if it’s really big. This speaks to our entire society too. If nobody sees the entire picture then it’s hard to know what an elephant is, to know what reality is, or to even to know what life is.
This is why the spiritual search gets so messed up. Especially when there’s so many spiritual teachers who are only just teaching a part of it. Each one teaching the tiny part that they can see with their limited vision. That’s why some people are are teaching create your own reality, and some people are teaching meditation, and some people are teaching chanting. It’s because they don’t see the full picture.
It’s also true that an awakened teacher can only teach a small part of reality because the people that the teacher is talking to are only able to grasp small parts. It takes a broad vision to see the whole picture at the same time. To really grasp the entire elephant you gotta become unblind.