"To be a disciple means to be ready to learn, ready to go into the unknown with someone who has been in it. Alone, very rarely one has attained to truth – not that it has not happened alone, it has also happened, but very rarely, it is just an exception; otherwise one has to learn in communion with a master.

"Then too, it does not happen easily. It is an arduous journey. Dropping the clinging to the known is not easy. That is our whole investment; that is our whole identity. Dropping the clinging to the known is dropping the ego, is committing a kind of spiritual suicide; alone you will not be able to. Unless you see somebody who has committed that suicide and still is – in fact for the first time is You will have to look into those eyes which have seen truth, and a glimpse of the truth will be caught through those eyes. You will have to hold hands with someone who has known, and receive the warmth and the love – and the unknown will start flowing into you.

"That's what it means to be with a master, to be a disciple. If you are really committed to truth you are bound to become a sannyasin. If your commitment to truth is an inquiry then you will have to learn the ways of learning. And the first thing to learn is to surrender, to trust, to love.

"The sannyasin is one who has fallen in love with a person, or a no-person, where he feels a gut feeling, 'Yes, it has happened here.' To be with someone who has known is contagious – and truth is not taught, it is caught.

"Your truth is nothing but an idea in your mind, maybe a philosophical inquiry, but a philosophical inquiry is not going to help. It has to become existential; you have to give proofs in your life that you are really committed. Otherwise you can go on playing the game of words, beautiful games of theories, systems of thought – and there are thousands. You can also make a private system of thought of your own, and you will think this is truth."