The monk and the novice were journeying across the endless steppe. This was a pilgrimage, a quest, which would enable the novice to reach a higher state of spiritual development (although, he had not been told its purpose). Together, this novice and monk would walk thousands of miles.

It was after many long days that they came to a fast flowing river. There stood a beautiful, young woman whose obvious distress only made her seem, in the eyes of the novice, all the more attractive. This alluring maiden told the monk in broken, sobbing sentences that she desperately needed to cross the river, as her mother, who lived alone on the other side, was ill and in need of her help.

The monk took the young woman on his shoulders and waded across the river. On reaching the other side, the monk gently lowered the woman to the ground.

For her part, the beautiful, young woman could not have been more fulsome in her expressions of gratitude. And so, on that happy note, the monk and the novice re-crossed the river and continued on their journey of spiritual discovery.
 
'What ails thee?' the monk asked the clearly disturbed novice after many miles of tortured silence.

'You are a holy man,' responded the tormented novice. 'You cannot so much as touch a woman.'

'Yes,' replied the monk, simply.

'But you carried her across the river?' said the troubled novice.

'I did,' acknowledged the monk, 'and you are carrying her still.'