"You will never feel satisfied. You will never come to a situation where you can feel, 'Now, the field is ready.' So many have wasted their lives.

"If your mind becomes obsessed with the outer – with the food, with the clothes, with the behaviorI am not saying to neglect them. No, what I am saying is, don't get obsessed with them. They can be helpful, but they can become great hindrances if your mind becomes obsessed. Then it becomes an escape, then you are just postponing the inner change. And you can go on changing the outer. The inner is not even touched by it, the inner remains the same.

"You might have heard one old Indian fable. In Panchtantra it is said that a mouse was very much afraid of a cat; constantly in fear, anxiety. He couldn't sleep: he would dream about the cat and he would tremble. A magician, just out of pity, transformed the mouse into a cat. The outer was changed, but immediately the mouse within the cat now became afraid of a dog. The anxiety was the same; only the object had changed. Previously it was the cat, now it was the dog. The trembling continued, the anguish remained, the dreams were still of fear.

"So the magician changed the cat into a dog. Immediately the dog became afraid of the tiger, because the mouse within remained the same. The mouse was not changed; only bodies, the outer. The same anxiety, the same disease, the same fear remained. The magician changed the dog into a tiger. Immediately the mouse within the tiger became afraid of a hunter. So the magician said to the mouse, 'Now be a mouse again, because I can change your bodies, I cannot change you. You have the heart of a mouse, so what can I do?' The heart of a mouse.

"You can go on changing the outer, but the heart of the mouse remains the same. And that heart creates the problems. The shape will change, the form will change, but the substance will remain the same. And it makes no difference whether you are afraid of a cat, or of a dog, or of a tiger."