Once there met two old men. One of them had all his life lived high in the mountains, while the second one had spent his life by the ocean.
The old man from the mountains said, ‘I see how clouds embrace my mountain before they pour with rain on the valleys. Even in summer, at the peak of the heat a snowcap covers my mountain. The mountain and I are above the clouds, we are close to the stars’.
The old man from the ocean coast said, ‘The power of the wave of my ocean destroys shores and gradually turns them into sand. Whatever rivers stream from the mountains and flow across valleys into my ocean, it remains salty. Above our horizon rises the sun’.
It was twilight. Their conversation was interrupted by another sage, ‘Good people, will you let me get warm by your fire? After my long trips in search of God I lost my ship, thrown on coral reefs. With our last savings my team and I decided to buy mules and look behind the highest mountain. However, getting caught in a blizzard high in the mountains all my team froze, among them my son, who had always wished for one thing alone - to be by my side… I, myself, survived by a miracle. That was the seventh round-the-world trip in search of God and this time I realized it was the last’.
While the three of them were warming themselves by the fire, the traveler asked, ‘And how did you spend your lives?’