The thirteenth sutra:
Seek out the way.

Pause and consider awhile. Is it the way you desire, or is it that there is a dim perspective in your visions of great heights to be scaled by yourself, of a great future for you to compass? Be warned. The way is to be sought for its own sake, not with regard to your feet that shall tread it.
Seek out the way. The way is not known, and the way cannot be made known to you by others. The way cannot be given; the way cannot be stolen; the way cannot be transferred. You have to seek it.
Ordinarily, we think that we have to seek the goal – the way is already given. “There are so many ways,” people go on saying, “and they all reach the same goal. The goal has to be discovered, the goal has to be reached – but the way? The way is available. In fact, it is too available, there are too many ways.”
But it is not so, because the goal and the way are not two things. The way becomes the goal. The first step is also the last, because the way and the goal are not two things. The way, as you proceed on it, transforms itself into the goal. The real thing is not to think about the goal, the basic thinking has to be about the way. Discover the way: Seek out the way.
But our minds are so conditioned that everyone thinks that he has been given a way by birth. Someone is a Christian, someone is a Hindu, someone is a Mohammedan: they think that the way has been given to them by society, by the culture, by their education. No, the way cannot be given by anyone. Neither the society nor the culture nor education can give you the way.
You will have to seek it because, through seeking, you will be transformed.
A borrowed way is a dead way. You cannot travel on it, it will not lead you anywhere. You can believe in it, you can have consolation in it, you can postpone because of it – because you know the way, you can travel on it any day – but the moment you start traveling, the way that is borrowed, given, will be of no help.
You will have to seek your own way.
It is difficult to seek it: errors are possible. But nothing is gained without errors, so be courageous enough to err. You may move on the wrong paths, but it is better to move on wrong paths than not to move at all, because at least you will learn movement, and you will learn what is wrong. That too is good, because elimination will help. You will move on this path and find “This is wrong.” You will move on another path and find “This is wrong.” And through knowing what is wrong, you will come to understand what is right.
So don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to err; don’t be afraid to move on the wrong path, because those who are too afraid of being in error and of moving on the wrong path become paralyzed. Then they remain where they are, they never move.
Be courageous and seek your own path. And don’t imitate anyone else’s path. Don’t imitate. Imitation will not lead you to freedom. It is not a question of following, it is a question of seeking. Be a seeker and not a follower – and know the distinction well.
A follower is an imitator. A seeker also follows, but he is not an imitator. A seeker also follows, but he follows in order to seek, to discover. He remains alert, he remains aware.
A follower becomes blind, a follower becomes dependent: spiritually a slave. A follower throws his responsibility on someone else’s shoulders, and then hangs on. A seeker is responsible for himself. He is alert, responsible: discovering every day, experimenting every day, unafraid, vulnerable, open to any new light, ready to move into any dimension that comes to his vision. Unafraid but always ready to change. If he feels “This is wrong,” he will not say “But I have invested so much on this path. Now I cannot change.” He will throw away the path, all the investment in it; he will move to his previous state and start learning again from A-B-C.
A seeker is always ready to change; a follower is stubborn. He will close his eyes rather than see the light because he has invested so much.

A Jaina monk came to me and he said, “I have been a Jaina monk for thirty years and I know well that I have chosen a path that is not for me, but now I cannot change it, because then what would I do? I have no education. I was initiated into monkhood when I was just a child, and these thirty years of monkhood have made me totally dependent on others. I cannot do anything, I cannot do any physical labor.
“And I am so respected, even big capitalists come to me and bow down their heads. Leaders come to me and they bow down their heads. If I leave this monkhood – and I know now that this is not for me – the same people who touch my feet will not employ me even as a peon. So what am I to do?”
There was much investment: all the prestige, respect, honor was at stake.
So I told him, “If you are really a seeker, throw all this away! Be a beggar or be a peon, but don’t be false. When you know this path is not for you, then throw away all that which comes to you through this path. Don’t be false, don’t be inauthentic.”
He said, “I will think about it, but it seems difficult.”

He has been thinking about it for three years. He has not come back to see me. He won’t come: he is a follower, he is not a seeker. A seeker can throw away everything the moment he comes to realize that something is not for him. There is no hesitation.
This sutra says: Seek out the way. Be a seeker, don’t be a believer.
The fourteenth sutra:
Seek the way by retreating within.
Whenever you find something that appeals to you, to your reason, to your logic, to your mind – that looks rational, looks to be true – that is not enough. Your reason may say it is true, but it may not be. Unless you experiment with it, unless you experience something through it, nothing has been discovered. Nothing is discovered by using only logic. Logic is a help, but don’t make it the ultimate criterion. The ultimate criterion is always within: experiment and experience. And unless you experience something, don’t believe that you have found it, that the way has become revealed to you. Only through experience do theories become truths.
Seek the way by retreating within. Whenever you have found a technique, a way, retreat within, go within. Experiment with it there, in your subjectivity, in your heart. Experience it. Don’t just go on thinking about what meditation is. Do it! Only then will you know what it is. A technique may not give you any experience, then throw it away and try another. There are hundreds of meditation techniques; one technique is bound to fit you.
Humanity has been struggling for millions of years, and every type of man has attained liberation. Every type of technique has been found. You are not new, you have been before. And many like you have been before and they have traveled the path. Many techniques have been discovered. Try a technique, but be authentic, sincere when you try it. And try it with your total energy. If nothing comes out of a particular technique, then throw it away and move to another.
In the old days, when disciples came to a teacher, the first thing the teacher would try to observe would be whether the disciple suited him, and whether he suited the disciple. If the teacher thought that the disciple was not meant to be with him, if he felt that the disciple would be helped more by someone else – even by someone who was against him – he would tell the disciple, “Go to that master!”
The disciple would say, “But I have heard that he is against you. He says that you are wrong.”
The teacher would say, “Don’t bother about what he says. He will suit you, his way will suit you. First go there and try.”
Go on trying different techniques, but try with your total heart. Otherwise you may throw away a technique that was right for you. So try with your total heart. If something happens, good. Move on it, move deeply. If nothing happens and you have tried with your total mind, then throw it away; it is not for you. But don’t throw it away before you have tried it – before you have tried it with your totality. Seek the way by retreating within.
And the fifteenth sutra:
Seek the way by advancing boldly without.
Even if you experiment and experience something within, there is every possibility that it may be just a delusion. It may be just a projection of the mind, it may be just a dream, may be just wish fulfillment. Don’t think that you have achieved the way. Now, whatsoever you have achieved within, try it without. Whatsoever you know within your heart, now transform it into your character; now live it. You have experienced it, now live it, make it your life.
If you feel that silence has occurred to you through an experience, now allow that silence to move, allow the ripples of the silence around you to move beyond you. Let your silence reach others. Let others also feel that you have become silent.
If you go on being angry outwardly and you say “I am a great meditator,” you are in a delusion. Don’t delude, don’t deceive, because only you will lose, no one else. Whatsoever has happened within you, if you feel that you have experienced the inner light… What is the criterion to know whether it is a delusion or a reality? – the criterion is that your outer life will change accordingly.
If you have really experienced the inner light, sex will disappear. Love will happen to you, but sex will disappear, sexuality will disappear. Love, a very loving personality, will take its place. There will be no desire for sex. If the desire for sex remains, you have not experienced the inner light. Then the inner light is just a projection of the mind.
And so on and so forth. Whatsoever you have experienced within must come out. It must be allowed to move into your life because the real test, the real criterion is there. If you have come to a deep silence, hatred will go. If hatred remains, and it has not been totally transformed into love, then you have not felt the inner silence because with hatred, inner silence is impossible. So you may have felt something cultivated, you may have cultivated a stillness.
If you go on repeating a mantra you will create a stillness that is cultivated, false, but your outer life will remain the same. If the inner changes, the outer must change. The reverse is not true: you can change the outer, there is no necessity for the inner to change. That’s what hypocrisy means. You can change the outer: you can be outwardly very loving, and filled with hatred within. You change the outer, you create a false mask, a facade.
You can see it everywhere, particularly in this country where so much religion has been taught. The only end result is a hypocritical society: masks, not real faces. Look at any face and you will find that it is unreal. Something else is hidden behind it, something quite the contrary.
You can change the outer and there is no necessity for the inner to change. But if the inner changes, it is inevitable that the outer must change. When the inner changes, the outer automatically changes. If it is not changing, then your inner change is just a delusion.
These three sutras are very meaningful:
Seek out the way.

Seek the way by retreating within.

Seek the way by advancing boldly without.

The whole nature of man must be used wisely by the one who desires to enter the way. Each man is to himself absolutely the way, the truth, and the light….

Seek it by the study of the laws of being, the laws of nature, the laws of the supernatural: and seek it by making the profound obeisance of the soul to the dim star that burns within. Steadily, as you watch and worship, its light will grow stronger. Then you may know you have found the beginning of the way. And when you have found the end, its light will suddenly become the infinite light….

Be not appalled and terrified by the…
…inner darkness…
…keep your eyes fixed on the small light and it will grow. But let the darkness within help you to understand the helplessness of those who have seen no light, whose souls are in profound gloom.
The whole nature of man must be used wisely by the one who desires to enter the way. This is very significant. The whole of you must be used. Any fragment that is used will create a problem; any fragment that is not used will create a problem.
You can discard something within you, but then you will never be a total man. You can discard anger, for example, or sex, for example. Many teachings, many religions, have taught one to discard sex. They say that sex is the enemy: “Discard it!” You can discard it, but then you are discarding a very significant part of your being. And if you discard it, how will it be transformed? Then you will always be half a man. Whatsoever you become, you will never be total, and without being total, you can never be free. The discarded part will take its revenge. The suppressed part will go on bubbling within, trying to find a way out, and you will always be in trouble.
The wisdom of the ages says: “Use all your energies. Create a harmony.” Every energy can be either destructive or creative: nothing is bad in itself. Everything can be used in such a way that even poison becomes medicine. Wisdom will never discard anything, it will use it in a creative way. It will use your anger, use your sex, use your hatred.
How can you use them? How can you use your sex? It looks as if it is your archenemy. How can you use it?
Three things will be meaningful to remember. One: why this hankering after sex? Why do you hanker for it? What do you gain through it? Observe it. By and by, as the observation deepens, sex will dissolve.
What is the real meaning of it all? Why do you hanker for it so much? – because it gives you a moment of deep meditation. It is a natural process of meditation. In sex, your thoughts cease, your mind dissolves – for a single moment, of course. For a single moment you are no longer a mind. You are there without the mind; you are mindless. That mindlessness gives you a glimpse of bliss.
Observe sex, don’t discard it. Be aware of it. Move into it with full awareness and go on trying to find out what is the innermost core of it. You will come to this innermost core: that sex gives you a sort of natural meditative moment. You become thoughtless, and that gives you bliss. Once you have found it, you can move into this thoughtless moment without going into sex. This innermost core can be attained without moving into sex. And if you can attain this, by and by, sex will disappear. Now the same energy will move into meditation, the same energy will become spiritual.
Every energy has to be used wisely. Nothing is to be discarded.
This is one of the basic things I teach: nothing has to be discarded, nothing whatsoever. You have to enter into spirituality with your total being. We will change your energies, we will change their arrangement. We will make new arrangements, new harmonies. New symphonies will be created – but nothing will be discarded.
Right now you are a puzzle: fragments with no coherence, with no inner unity. And every fragment is fighting with the other. You are a crowd – many notes but no melody. These notes can be put into a melody, and unless you do this, you will remain in misery.
This sutra says: The whole nature of man must be used wisely by the one who desires to enter the way. If you really want to enter the way that leads to the ultimate, you have to use your total energies. Nothing is to be suppressed or discarded. Everything has to be accepted in deep gratitude.
Now get ready for meditation.

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