If you do not listen to your mind but instead heed the witness within, you will be able to remember what you have come into this world for, what you have come to buy from the marketplace of sansara. That remembrance will become your goal, then you will gain the ability to throw off the fragments that besieged your mind. To practice self-restraint involves the ability to leave the chaff for the wheat, to let go of the useless and worthless in favor of the useful and worthwhile.

The worthless has no value; it serves no purpose in life, brings no peace or joy. It is not designed to reveal the truth, but it has its own attraction, its own temptation and excitement. You can tell yourself: What harm is there in leaving the road to pick some flowers? I can always get back again. But when you take the first steps off the road towards the flowers, you see so many flowers up ahead, and your journey changes course as you shift a little this way or that to savor a little of the fascination of things that are perishable. Lean a little towards them and you are gone!

There are thousand of paths on which to go astray, but only one to reach the right place; therefore you need a very strong memory – uninterrupted remembrance is required. There are many devices and tricks for losing the path, but only one way to reach the destination. There are millions to lead you astray, but only one who can lead you right. If you want to go astray and wander, go ahead. You can err for lives on end. That is what you did, and that is why you are here now, and that is what you still are doing. But there is one path.

Always remember: truth is only one, not many; untruths are infinite, countless. Only the one is worth attaining; the untold others are only worth discarding. It is like a children’s maze with many, many paths, but only one exit; the paths all look as if they lead somewhere, but ultimately they arrive at a dead end.

Life is such a puzzle. Whereas children’s puzzles are small and contained on a single piece of paper, life’s puzzle is endless. It has no beginning and no end; therefore the need for a guru. If you try to solve life’s mystery and persist in walking on your own, you will wander for millions of lives.

There is the danger that you might feel that there is no way to get out of the rut of the mundane world; you have tried so many times that you may be disheartened. You might become so despondent you will give up all hope. There is another danger, that you get habituated to wandering. When we do something so many times we become quite efficient at it. Then it doesn’t matter what the work is; you’ve become such an expert wanderer that even if you come across the right path you will shun it.