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Truth is one. Even if it is said differently, it is the same truth. Languages may differ, metaphors may differ, parables may differ, but if you really look a little deep, all parables, all languages, all metaphors, culminate in one truth. Truth is one – what can buddhas do?

Although each buddha speaks in his own way, his expression has his signature on it. His expression is just his and no one else’s. But still those who can see will always find that it is the same diamond – maybe we have been shown only one aspect of it by Krishna, another aspect by Christ, still another by Mohammed, but those are aspects of the same diamond.

The diamond is one, this universe is one. All the buddhas have been saying the same thing, in different languages, in different ways. Those differences come from their individualities, not from their experience. The moment of experience is wordless, the moment of experience is thoughtless. So when Buddha experienced it, it was the same purity of consciousness as when Jesus experienced it.

Two purities cannot be different; two impurities can be different. Two healths cannot be different; two diseases can be different. Two silences cannot be different; two noises can be different. The truth is known in silence, but you cannot utter it in silence – you have to use words, language, noise. And immediately… When Buddha speaks, he speaks in Pali; that is the language that he knows, that is his mother tongue. Jesus speaks in Aramaic; that is his mother tongue. If Jesus and Buddha had met, they would not have understood each other’s language at all, but they would have looked into each other’s eyes and would have understood each other totally.

A Sufi story…

One evening, Mulla Nasruddin is sitting in the village square plucking the strings of a sitar. Little by little, an expectant circle of villagers gathers around him. He keeps on playing just one note. Finally, one villager inquires, “That’s a very nice note you are playing, Mulla, but most musicians use all the notes. Why don’t you?” “Those donkeys,” retorts the Mulla, “they are searching for the note, but I have found it!”

Truth is one – when you have found it, you can go on repeating it, you can find different ways to repeat it, unique ways to express it. You can devise your own methods. Many methods have been devised, because of the compassion of the enlightened ones. Strange methods, very contradictory to each other.

If you go to a Sufi saint, he will be very polite to you, he may even touch your feet – because the Sufis respect God in all forms. That is their device. When a Sufi master touches your feet, just think of that moment, contemplate over the moment – a Bahauddin, a Jalaluddin, a Farid; great masters, diamonds of the purest water. A Bahauddin touching your feet, it is a device. In that moment when Bahauddin touches your feet, you are bound to fall silent, however noisy your mind. When Bahauddin touches your feet, a great silence will descend on you. He is giving you a taste of his meditation in this way; this is his device.

A Zen master is just the opposite. When you go to him, you have to bow down seven times. You ask some innocent question and he jumps on you, hits you on the head – so unexpectedly. A very different device, but just think: a Bodhidharma, a Rinzai, a Bokuju, jumping on you, hitting you on your head. For a moment all thinking stops – so unexpected. You had asked a simple question, “Is there a God?” and he became furious. You cannot figure it out – why? And he gives you no time to figure it out; he gives you no time to escape either.

It happened once that when Bokuju met his master and asked something about Buddha, the master took him physically and threw him out of the window – and from a three-story building! The poor fellow fell onto a rock and smashed himself. The master was looking from the window and asked, “Do you understand now?” The whole ridiculousness of it; the silence of the garden, the silence of the accident – the shock. The master’s smiling face, those compassionate eyes and his asking, “Now do you understand?” In that moment, Bokuju became enlightened. He said, “Yes, yes, master. Can I come in and touch your feet in gratitude?” “You are welcome,” the master said, “to have a cup of tea with me.” And they are sipping tea together.

Something immensely valuable has happened. In that moment, in that dangerous moment when you are falling, it is almost as if you are going to die – you are finished. How can you think? In dangerous moments thinking stops. When you come across a snake, suddenly thinking stops. You don’t decide to jump out of the way, remember – you jump first and then you decide; then you can think over it, then you can afford to think over it. But you jump first.

Gurdjieff used to say that the mind is very slow in action. He is right. The body is far quicker. The mind is very lethargic. It goes round and round in circles. So whenever there is some urgency, your existence does not allow your mind to go round and round through logical processes to come to a conclusion because it will be too late. By the time you have decided…

For example, if a snake is passing by and you give it to the mind, there is trouble. First the mind will say, “Ninety-seven percent of snakes are nonpoisonous, so there are only three chances out of a hundred that this snake is poisonous. Out of a hundred people who are bitten by snakes, they don’t all die. Only five percent die, ninety-five percent are saved. And those five persons who die, maybe they were going to die anyway. So what is the hurry? Why bother? One has to die one day.”

Such great philosophical ideas about death and the immortality of the soul – and snakes don’t care about these things. They are absolutely nonphilosophical; they won’t give you that much time. The snake may strike you before you have come to any conclusion. Gurdjieff is right. He says that whenever there is any urgency, the body immediately takes over from the mind. It does not give the mind any chance to do – it does it on its own. The body has its own wisdom, it jumps out of the way. It is almost an inbuilt response, so no thinking is needed. That’s what Zen people have been doing with their disciples.

A Zen master had this habit that whenever he would talk of God, of Buddha, of the higher dimensions of life, he would raise one of his fingers toward the sky. It became so characteristic of him that one of his small sannyasins, a young boy – must have been about the age of Siddhartha – became very interested in this one finger pointing upward. And he was always in attendance just to do something for the master – if he needs some tea, he would run and bring it, or just to be by his side and to help him get rid of the mosquitoes.

He learned the trick and playfully, whenever the master was not looking at him, he would show one finger to the audience. The master knew. The people would laugh, or smile and he would know who was doing the trick. One day – and this can be done only by a Zen master – he simply caught hold of the child when he was making the gesture of one finger pointing to heaven and cut the finger off with a sharp knife. Now, just think of doing such a thing to poor Siddhartha… The child cried, screamed and the master said, “Stop! Put the finger up!” And his shout was such, it was such a thunder-like shout, that the child forgot all about his finger – that it had been cut off and blood was oozing out – and he showed the finger which was no longer there because the master had ordered it. In that moment when he was showing the finger which was no longer there, he became aware of the invisible. The master was not pointing to something visible, but something invisible. And the child started laughing and the master took him into his embrace and said, “You have understood.”

It is said that the small child had his first satori. And later on became a famous enlightened master.

Different approaches, but the truth is one. The truth is silence – a single note of silence. Be silent and know and you will also know the same thing that the buddhas have always known and will always know: truth is eternal. It has nothing to do with time, it never changes.