Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself.

You must know for yourself, directly, the truth of yourself and you cannot realize it through another, however great. There is no authority that can reveal it.

In this country, unfortunately, as all over the world, we care so little, we have no deep feeling about anything. Most of us are intellectual-intellectuals in the superficial sense of being very clever, full of words and theories about what is right and what is wrong, about how we should think, what we should do. Mentally we are highly developed, but inwardly there is very little substance or significance; and it is this inward substance that brings about true action, which is not action according to an idea.

Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery.

Find out for yourself what are the possesions and ideals that you do not desire. By knowing what you do not want, by elimination, you will unburden the mind, and only then will it understand the essential which is ever there.

To ask the 'right' question is far more important than to receive the answer. The solution of a problem lies in the understanding of the problem; the answer is not outside the problem, it is in the problem.

A man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.