Human beings are conditioned by propaganda, by the society in which they have been brought up - each religion asserting that its own path is the best. And there are a thousand gurus who maintain that their method, their system, their way of meditation, is the only path that leads to truth. And, if you observe, each disciple tolerates, condescendingly, the disciples of other gurus. Tolerance is the civilized acceptance of a division between people - politically, religiously and socially. Man has invented many paths, giving comfort to each believer, and so the world is broken up.

"Do you mean to say that I must give up my guru? Abandon all he has taught me? I should be lost!"

But mustn't you be lost to discover? We are afraid to be lost, to be uncertain, and so we run after those who promise heaven in the religious, political or social fields. So they really encourage fear, and hold us prisoners in that fear.

"But can I walk by myself?" he asked in an incredulous voice.

There have been so many saviours, masters, gurus, political leaders and philosophers, and not one of them has saved you from your own misery and conflict. So why follow them? perhaps there may be quite another approach to all our problems.

"But am I serious enough to grapple with all this on my own?"

You are serious only when you begin to understand - not through somebody else - the pleasures that you are pursuing now. You are living at the level of pleasure. Not that there must not be pleasure, but if this pursuit of pleasure is the whole beginning and end of your life, then obviously you can't be serious.

"You make me feel helpless and hopeless."

You feel hopeless because you want both. You want to be serious and you want also all the pleasures the world can give. These pleasures are so small and petty, anyway, that you desire in addition the pleasure which you call "God". When you see all this for yourself, not according to somebody else, then the seeing of it makes you the disciple and the master. This is the main point. Then you are the teacher, and the taught, and the teaching.