strings: Let us examine first this idea that a guru can clear up our confusion. Can anyone clear up our confusion ?—confusion being the product of our responses. We have created it. Do you think someone else has created it—this misery, this battle at all levels of existence, within and without ? It is the result of our own lack of knowledge of ourselves. It is because we do not understand ourselves, our conflicts, our responses, our miseries, that we go to a guru whom we think will help us to be free of that confusion. We can understand ourselves only in relationship to the present; and that relationship itself is the guru, not someone outside. If I do not understand that relationship, whatever a guru may say is useless, because if I do not understand relationship, my relationship to property, to people, to ideas, who can resolve the conflict within me ? To resolve that conflict, I must understand it myself, which means I must be aware of myself in relationship. To be aware, no guru is necessary. If I do not know myself, of what use is a guru? As a political leader is chosen by those who are in confusion and whose choice therefore is also confused, so I choose a guru. I can choose him only according to my confusion; hence he, like the political leader, is confused.