At the foot of a great snow-capped mountain stood three friends who had grown up in the same village. On its highest peak, the elders said, lived an old sage who had seen the Self and could point the way. The three friends agreed to climb — but each chose a different trail.

The first was Dhruva, quiet and patient. He took the steep eastern path that wound through silent pine forests. He stopped often, sat very still on flat grey rocks, closed his eyes, and breathed slowly until the chatter in his mind went quiet as the windless trees. Step by step, in long calm silences, he climbed. This was the path of meditation — seeing the Self by stilling the mind.

The second was Maitreya, sharp and full of questions. He took the rocky northern path and argued his way up. "What is real and what only seems real? Which part of me changes, and which part watches the changing?" He turned each idea over like a stone in his hand, sorting the true from the false, until his thinking grew clear as mountain air. This was the path of Sankhya — finding the Self by reasoning and discernment.

The third was Gautami, warm and tireless. She took the long southern path that passed through villages on the lower slopes. She could not walk past anyone in need. She carried an old woman's water, mended a broken fence, fed a hungry traveller, all without asking for thanks — and somehow, with every kind act done freely, her heart grew lighter and her selfishness fell away like loosened pebbles. This was the path of karma yoga — finding the Self through selfless work.

For days they climbed by their separate trails. And then, near the very top, the three paths curved together and met at a single sunlit clearing just below the peak. There the friends found one another, laughing in surprise, and there sat the old sage, waiting.

"You came by three roads," he said, "the still mind, the clear thought, and the giving hand. But look — there is only one peak. The Self you each sought is the same Self, and now you stand together upon it."

The three friends turned and gazed out from the summit. Below them the whole world spread golden in the evening light, and they saw that it had never mattered which trail they took. What mattered was that each had truly climbed.