"I have loved many stories, but this is something that beats them all.

"One of the greatest mystics India has produced was Bodhidharma. He was born fourteen hundred years ago. He went to China for a strange reason. When asked why he was going to China, he said, 'Because people know too much in India, and I need people who are innocent.'

"In China, he worked for twenty years. Now he was very old, nearabout ninety years. And he said, 'It is time for me to go back to the Himalayas, because there is no other place in the whole world which is better as far as death is concerned – so silent, so eternally silent that you can receive death lovingly, meditatively, consciously. But before I go, I would like to give the mystery school that I have created in these twenty years to one of my disciples. So those who feel that they are capable of running my school should stand up.'

"He had hundreds of disciples. Only five persons stood up. He laughed. He said, 'You are the ones who have missed me, so just get out of the school and get lost.'

"Then he went through the crowd of disciples, looking into each disciple's eyes, and he found four persons. He brought them out and he said, 'I am going to ask a single question. The answer is going to decide who will be my representative when I am gone. What is the essence of my whole mystic approach? Just use the minimum of words.'

"The first man said, 'It is meditation.'

"Bodhidharma said, 'You have my skin. You have penetrated me only skin deep. Just get back to your seat.'

"And he asked the second man, 'What is your answer?'

"The second man said, 'Enlightenment.'

"Bodhidharma said, 'You have my bones; just get back to your place.'

"The third person said, 'Master, I do not know.'

"Bodhidharma said, 'You have my very marrow. It is good, but not good enough; you still know something. Just go and sit down.'

"He looked at the fourth man. The man just had tears in his eyes, no words. He fell at the feet of Bodhidharma."