Man likes complexity. He does not want to take only one step; it is more interesting to look forward to millions of steps. The one who is seeking the truth gets into a maze, and that maze interests him. He wants to go through it a thousand times more. It is just like children. Their whole interest is in running about; they do not want to see the door and go in until they are very tired. So it is with grown-up people. They all say that they are seeking truth, but they like the maze. That is why the mystics made the greatest truths a mystery, to be given only to the few who were ready for them, letting the others play because it was the time for them to play.
Man loves complexity so much! He makes a thing big and says, ‘This is valuable’. If it is simple he says, ‘It has no value’. That is why the ancient people, knowing human nature, told a person when he said he wanted spiritual attainment, ‘Very well; for ten years go around the temple, walk around it a hundred times in the morning and in the evening. Go to the Ganges, take pitchers full of water during twenty or fifty years, then you will get inspiration’. That is what must be done with people who will not be satisfied with a simple explanation of the truth, who want complexity.
But Naaman was wroth, and went away...And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Hazrat Inayat Khan
ibid.
But Naaman was wroth, and went away...And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?
2 Kings 5: 11-13
Micah 6: 7-8
--multiple sutras