At certain stages of the journey, your faith is strong, but then sometimes it quivers a little bit, so you have to find ways to explore your doubts.

You may lack the faith to strengthen yourself, and what is traditionally suggested is that you seek out the company of other beings who are on the journey, which is true for anything. If you’re a psychologist, instead of losing faith in psychology, regain it by hanging out with other psychologists. It’s called Satsang in spirit.

Many of us have experiences that strengthen our faith with possibility. For some of us, drugs and chemicals have played a key role.

Miracles and gatherings of Satsang, reading or hanging out with holy books, they are all traps, but they are useful because they keep strengthening your faith. Faith can touch that place inside, which is called the Atman. It’s naive to think that any one route will bring you faster than any other route, other than what is supposed to be your route. In Zen, they say, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”

Your work on yourself starts exactly where you are at this moment. Like, at this moment, if you’re thinking about the future or the past, if you’re planning, if you’re collecting this for later, what about right here? Now. This is what it is all about. Everything you have ever done in your life and all your incarnations are for this moment. This isn’t for that, this is it – this is what it’s about.

What about all these things like joining ashrams, or joining temples or spiritual clubs, or going on retreats?

All of it has its function, but the only way you know that it is what you need is because your heart tells you, and it pulls you towards it. Take what teachings you are able to get and go on. Don’t get hung up. I don’t feel any loyalty to any teacher I have had other than to become as conscious as I possibly can in order to alleviate human suffering and bring all beings to Maya, because there’s nothing else to do, and when I get all done, nothing happened at all anyway.