"He spends the next twenty-five years of his life studying Sufism, Zen, Shakti, Bhakti, Gyana and Prana Yoga; the Kabbalah, the Koran, the Bible, the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Tao Te Chingand whatnotyou name itand learns seventeen martial arts, hangs around with every Teacher worth his capital T; takes every mind control, actualization and transpersonal psychology seminar invented; meditates, levitates and fulminates for godawful months on end; and finally after receiving mucho acknowledgment from his peers that he is one high and mighty dude, hikes back into the mountains and confronts the old sage again.

"'Come on, I am in the club now,' says the seeker; 'I have studied these terrifically enlightening things. I am a guru myself, finally. You can tell me – I mean the real straight-dope-low-down about the secret of life – I am one of the gang now. How about it?'

"The sage giggles, looks him straight between the eyes, and blithers, 'Tat-tvam-asi: Thou art That.'

"The seeker digs it, but his mind won't quit and it is howling mad. 'Cripes!' his mind has him say aloud. 'That's ridiculous. That's the same drivel you told me twenty-five years ago!'

"The sage looks at him nonplussed: 'So? the truth does not change in twenty-five years.'

"The truth does not change in twenty-five years, the truth does not change in twenty-five thousand years, the truth does not change in twenty-five million years. The truth does not change. The truth is one.

"Thousands are the expressions for it, but truth is one. Many are the fingers pointing at the moon, but the moon is one. Don't get lost in the fingers, don't get too much attached to the fingers. Look at the message and forget the medium.

"Mediums are many, truth is not many. Metaphors are many, truth is not many. Truth is one, eternal, timeless, transcendental. About truth this thing has to be understood very deeply. This understanding will liberate you from being a Christian, from being a Hindu, from being a Jaina, from being a Buddhist, from being a Mohammedan. This understanding will make you religious for the first time.

"Religion is not confined to any mediums. Many, many efforts have been made – it is not confined to any effort to express it."