Cutting off the root (of life and death) directly,
This is the mark of buddhahood;
If you go on plucking leaves (of creeds) and seeking branches
(of abstract principles),
I can do nothing for you.

Do not seek for the truth,
Do not cut off delusions.

Trying to get rid of illusion, and seeking to grasp reality,
this giving up and keeping is mere sophistry and lies.

Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate’er you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh, hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception – which is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error; and to know
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.

Yes, these words of Robert Browning are right, absolutely right. Truth is not something outside. Truth is not an object that you have to find, search, seek. Truth is your subjectivity: truth is the one who is seeking. Truth is not the sought, but the seeker himself. To think of truth as something outside is to miss from the very beginning, and once you take a wrong step, you go on taking more and more wrong steps because one step leads to another. It is a chain.

The first step is the most important step. In fact, it is almost half the journey. If the first step is right, you have already arrived; you have moved in the right direction.

Truth is not without but within. And everybody has been seeking it without, hence everybody is missing it. And it is not only true about truth but about all search as such. Bliss is within, so is beauty, so is love, so is joy. All the values that one wants to attain to are within one’s own being.

These words of Robert Browning are of immense significance:

Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate’er you may believe.

And man has believed down the ages in some truth which is somewhere far away in heaven. And one has to travel to it, and one has to go on a long, long pilgrimage. There is bound to be great effort – practicing, cultivating, preparing – and truth is all the time waiting for you within yourself.