In a forest school long ago, a wise old guru sat under a banyan tree with his students gathered around him on the swept earth. The boys had been learning all kinds of things — how to read the stars, how to chant the old verses, how to count the seasons and name the herbs that heal.

One bright morning, the eldest student asked, "Teacher, of everything you have taught us, which is the most important to learn?"

The guru smiled. He reached into the cloth bag beside him and took out a handful of stones. He laid them on the ground one by one.

"Here," he said, "is the knowledge of the stars. Useful. Here is the knowledge of medicine. Precious. Here is the knowledge of music, of farming, of building. Each one is a jewel, and each one shines."

The students nodded. The stones did look like little jewels in the morning light.

Then the guru reached into his bag once more and took out a single shining gem, and he set it gently above all the others.

"But this," he said, "is the king of all knowing. This is the secret of the one truth that holds up everything else — the Divine that lives inside all things and inside you. Call it the crown jewel. All the other jewels are real and good, but this one sits above them all, and it makes the others shine brighter too."

"Why is it the king, Teacher?" a small boy asked.

"Three reasons," said the guru, holding up three fingers. "First — you do not have to believe it because I say so. You can come to know it yourself, right in your own heart, as plainly as you see this gem before your eyes. Second — it is not hard and joyless. It is easy and full of gladness; doing it feels like coming home. And third — it never wears out. The other jewels can be lost or broken or used up. This one never runs out, never dims, not in a thousand years."

The boy reached out and touched the bright gem with one finger.

"Then I want to learn that one most of all," he whispered.

The guru closed the boy's hand around it. "That," he said, "is exactly why Krishna saved it for the friend he loved best."