Intellectual reasoning and practice.

Swami Rama in his book "Living with the Himalayan Masters" tells us this beautiful story narrated to him by his Guru about theory and practice.

Once, there was a disciple who did not know how a cow looked . He went to his master and asked him about the cow. The master explained to him in detail as to how a cow looked and about its milk - its nutrition value to humans etc. ,

When this disciple was going through a village he saw a statue of a cow and thought "Ah, here is a cow". He saw a bucket of sunna (lime) which was white in color kept near the statue. The sunna had been used for whitewashing the statue and was left there .
The disciple mistook it for milk, drank it and fell ill seriously .

After a few days , he met his master and told him about the incident . He got angry with his master who had told him that milk was good for health .

Then the master asked him "Did you milk the cow? "
The disciple said "No" .
The master said "That's where the problem is. You depended on knowledge that was someone's experience . You have to have direct experience of the truth and should not depend on intellectual reasoning ."

There is a large gap between theory and practice. Mere intellectual knowledge is of no good and is dangerous.