After seeking out the law which is hidden under the visible objects, the next step in the search after truth consists in the endeavor to realize the hidden law of human nature. Man first begins by ascertaining the law of human character and human personality. Then he arrives at a time when he experiences the need to solve the mystery behind birth and death: why man comes, roams about for a while, and then departs, whither he goes, and whence he came. And since the quest springs from the soul, he begins to seek for religion. "What is the true religion?" he asks.

But unless a person tries to find out this ultimate truth from within himself he will never succeed in finding it. He cannot find it out from the objects and things at which he looks. It is because of the absence of the knowledge of the ultimate truth that man gropes in the darkness, has many beliefs, many different faiths and lights for his own religion, saying, "Mine is the right religion, yours is the wrong one: my doctrine is right, yours is wrong." When one realizes the ultimate truth, one comes to understand that one single underlying current to which all the different religions, philosophies and faiths are attached. These are all only different expressions of the same truth, and it is the absence of that knowledge which causes all to be divided into so many different sects and religions.

In India there is a well-known story exemplifying this fact: that some blind men were very anxious to see an elephant. So a kind man one day took them to see one. There, standing by its side, he said, "Now, here is the elephant, see what you can make of it." Each one tried to make out by touch what the elephant looked like, and afterwards when they met together they began to discuss its appearance. One said, "It looks like the big pillar of a palace," another said, "It looks like a fan." And so they differed and discussed amongst one another, then they quarrelled so much as to come to a hand-to-hand fight. Each one said, "I have seen it, I know what it is; I have touched it." Then the man who took them to the elephant came and said, "You are every one of you right, but you have each seen only a part of the elephant."

So it is with the religions. A person says, "This religion is the one, this doctrine is the only one, this truth is the only truth possible."

That shows a lack of knowledge of the ultimate truth. As soon as one comes to the realization of the depth of truth, one begins to discern that it is the same truth which the great ones have tried to express in words. They could not put it fully into words. They have done their best to help humanity to evolve and reach to a point at which it is able to understand what can never be explained in words.

Religion is the help to realize the truth, whereas it is made into the truth by people who do not see that the means to attain an object is not the very object itself; that the path cannot be the goal. The goal is further still. The path is the means of reaching the goal. But when people argue over the path they take, and dispute over the differences, when can they reach the real realization? Life is an opportunity, and this material frame is the means which enables the soul to come to a realization of the ultimate truth. If one does not make use of this frame - that is, the human body - for the purpose for which it was created, then whatever one attains by living on this earth, will only be an utter disappointment in the end, because that is not reached that which the soul has always longed for and searched after. If there be an object to be really called the real object of every soul, it is just this very "seeking after truth."

Although one cannot explain and point out the truth, at the same time even a faint shadow of the truth makes it appeal to human nature. Think what effect sincerity has upon mankind. The personality of a sincere man, so to speak, emits a fragrance which one can feel, assuring you that "here is a sincere person." His reliance can give you ease. What is the explanation? It is that we have in him not the ultimate truth, but a shadow of the truth.

Think, too, of what an honest person brings you - the sense of confidence, the desire to trust. It draws out from you yourself something which even the falsehood of humility senses in your nature, namely, the readiness to trust, the willingness to give someone confidence. What an ease then comes into one's nature, and that is just a little glimpse of "truth." That which we call real, or imitation, simply in regard to objects - for instance, real gold compared with imitation gold, a really precious stone compared with an imitation one - think of the difference one experiences in looking at them.

What impression a really precious stone makes as compared with the impression on the soul produced by an imitation gem. Can we ever compare an imitation with a real flower? It can never give the same satisfaction because our soul is always seeking for truth, truth in all things, in objects, in personality, in character, in everything. Consciously or unconsciously, man seeks the reality in all things, and it is the reality, which is the only answer to the soul. The man who is insincere, or dishonest or keeps truth far away from him, never gives comfort either to himself or to others. He cannot give ease to others, still less to himself.

This all shows that the secret of happiness, the secret of peace, and the secret of everything that man seeks, is "truth." But the truth which we see in the form of honesty, sincerity, goodness, trustworthiness, is like the horizon, the further we go towards it, the further it recedes. So with ultimate truth, all things which appear as ultimate truth are steps to it only; they lead us to the ultimate truth, but ultimate truth is still greater; it is the greatest of all things.