Once a great saint attracted aspirants of different religious faiths around him. They all discussed the question whether it was possible to find any common basis of all the religions of the world although they differ widely in their rites and rituals, dogmas, creeds and conventions. Though they discussed the matter for several days they found no solution, whereupon they approached the saint and asked him to solve the problem for them. The saint said, “The different religions of the world, though they may differ widely in several matters, are not opposed to one another fundamentally. They have a common meeting ground. There are three parts in each religion-philosophical, mythological and ritualistic. If you examine the philosophical parts of the religions, you will find that the fundamental truths inculcated by all of them are more or less the same. Mythology presents the truths of a religion and culture through legends and stories, angels, sages and saints, and the truths that they seek to represent are essentially the same as inculcated by the philosophical parts of the religions. As to rituals, rites, conventions and dogmas, they are merely introduced for the benefit of the masses who are unable to understand and appreciate even the mythological stories, far less the philosophical truths. Thus if we start from the ritualistic parts of the religions we find them differing widely, but if we come to the mythological stories we find that their implications or underlying messages are similar; and if we finally examine the philosophical part or the background of the religions we find that they are essentially the same. All religions have, therefore, a common meeting ground in their philosophies.”