My Treasure

Seeking The Way

Seeking the Way

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, he becomes dependent – spiritually a slave. He throws his responsibility on someone else’s shoulders and then hangs on. A seeker is responsible for himself. He’s alert, responsible – discovering something new every day, experimenting with something new every day. He’s unafraid, vulnerable, open to any new light, ready to move into any dimension that comes to his vision. If he feels the path he is on is wrong, he will not say, “But I have invested so much on this path. Now I cannot change.” He will throw the path, throw his whole investment in it, move back to where he was before and start learning again from A-B-C.

A seeker is always ready to change, but a follower is stubborn. He will close his eyes rather than see the light because he has invested so much.

One Jain monk came to me. He said that he had been a Jain monk for thirty years. “I know now that I have chosen a path that is not for me, but now I cannot leave it because if I leave, what will I do? I have no education. I was initiated into monkhood when I was just a child. 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.

If I leave the monkhood – and I know now that this is not for me – these same people who touch my feet now will not employ me even as a peon. So what am I to do?”

There is much investment. The whole prestige. respect. honor is at stake now. So I told him, “If you are really a seeker, throw it all out. Be a beggar or be a fool, but don’t be false. When you know this path is not for you then throw everything that 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. not a seeker. A seeker can throw 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.

SEEK THE WAY BY RETREATING WITHIN.

And whenever you find something that appeals to you, to your reason, to your logic, to your mind – something that looks rational, looks to be true – it is not enough. Your reason may say it is true, but it may not be true. Unless you experiment with it, unless you experience something through it, nothing has been discovered. Through logic, nothing is discovered. 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 truth.