On ultimate Truth

Recently I read about Bodhidharma, an Indian Buddhist sage who travelled to China and sparked the Chan / Zen Buddhist movement. When he died, Bodhidharma was buried in a cave in China and the mouth of the cave was sealed with a boulder.

Three days later a traveller met Bodhidharma walking along a road. Bodhidharma was carrying a single sandal. When the traveller asked where he was going, Bodhidharma replied that he was returning to India.

When the traveller arrived at the village where Bodhidharma had lived he mentioned having met Bodhidharma on the road.

‘That can't be, he died three days ago, we buried him,’ said the villagers.

But the traveller was insistent, so they rolled back the boulder and found the cave empty, except for a single sandal.

Sounds like a familiar story, doesn't it?

I feel like these synchronicities and overlaps appear all over the place in spiritual teachings.

I wonder if ultimate Truth is like a crystal sphere - with many faces, all cut in the same shape. Each religion, each path, gives its followers a glimpse of one face of the sphere (little t truth). Just as each face mirrors the others, so too each truth mirrors the others, as all are aspects of ultimate Truth.

If this is so, can we know the whole Truth? How?

Do we step back, not attached to any one path, until the entire Truth comes into view?

Or do we follow our chosen path so far that we penetrate Truth’s very heart, and see the glittering whole from within?