Having these two microphones you will be able to hear clearly. You can hear properly, can you?

Audience: No.

Krishnamurti: Not properly? I will try - is that better?

Audience: Speak up.

K: Speak up, all right.

Audience: You are quite muffled. I can't understand the words.

K: What am I to do, I don't know.

Audience: Speak closer to the microphone.

K: Is that better?

Audience: Yes.

K: At last!

If we may we will continue with what we were talking about yesterday morning. We were saying, weren't we, that religion, in the sense we are using that word, is of the utmost importance to bring about a different culture. We were saying religion is the gathering of all energy to bring about a psychological revolution, or the regeneration of the mind. We said also that a world in disorder, however much it may bring about or try to bring about order, must essentially be the furthering of that disorder. We also said, didn't we, yesterday morning, that life is relationship. All living must have some kind of relationship with another. There is no escape from that relationship, only human beings have made such a colossal mess of relationship and unless we bring about order in our relationship we shall inevitably be unhappy, frustrated and all the mischief that arises from disharmony. That is what, more or less, we were talking about yesterday morning. And if we may we will go into further, into the question of freedom, security, intelligence, and if the mind can ever be free from fear and this pursuit of pleasure, which is so very different from joy and enjoyment. So we are going to talk about all those things this morning. Because unless these basic things are understood, not intellectually or verbally but understood and lived and acted upon every day of one's life, meditation and the flowering of goodness can never exist. So it is very important, if I may point out, that we must understand and live what it means to be free.

Our brain - not that I am an expert or specialised in the structure of the brain, but one has observed very closely the operations of one's own mind, the activities of one's own brain, and has observed through all these years how people think, what is their reaction and so though we may not use technological terms with regard to the brain it is fairly obvious that the brain needs total security, otherwise it cannot properly function efficiently. That's a fact. But that sense of security is denied when there is no freedom. Security can be had in any function of thought with all its images. Security can be brought about through thought. Thought can bring about belief, images of reality, symbols of otherness and every form of neurotic belief - and all beliefs are neurotic in one sense. And in those beliefs, images, structure of thought in action, one finds, tries to find security.

Can thought give security? And all our culture, all our religious activity, political, economic, social and intimate relationship is based on thought. And through thought we try to find complete inward security.

Please, as we said yesterday, we are trying to share this thing together. That means you must be also interested in the problem. It isn't that you merely listen to a series of words or draw a conclusion from what is being said, which would be most unfortunate, but sharing a problem that concerns all of us, whether in the East or in the West, a problem of security, not only outwardly but specially inwardly. Because when there is inward security completely, total security inwardly, then the outward security can be organised, brought about for the whole of mankind. But to understand this inward security we must understand the operation and the activity of thought which tries to create areas of security, areas in the world of belief, security in a conclusion, security in ideals, security in personal relationship. Those are all the operations of thought. And that's a fact. And can thought bring about intelligence and freedom, and can thought establish security? That's the problem we are going to discuss.

Because without freedom personally there is no such thing as security, the freedom itself is security. Not that one must have freedom in order to be secure, but rather the understanding and the implication and the structure and the nature of freedom in itself is security. And to find that out, to investigate into that question of freedom one must enquire very deeply into the whole mechanism of thought. Thought with its reason and unreason, thought with its superstitions, thought with its fears, pleasures and desires and feelings, thought which has brought about a social structure which is essentially immoral, thought which has divided people as Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and so on and thought which has divided people into nationalities and therefore war and all that. All that is the product of thought. Thought is the response of knowledge. Thought is the response of experience stored up in the brain as memory. Please observe it in yourself.

Please do not, I beg of you, accept this as authority because the speaker has no authority, because authority in investigation destroys investigation. If you want to find reality, that thing that we have called god, which is only a name and therefore not a reality, and if you want to find out something beyond the measurement of thought we must understand thought in its relationship to knowledge and where knowledge ends, and a freedom from it begins. This is going to be rather difficult and if you don't mind please do pay a little attention because what we are talking about is very important and requires serious attention, a choiceless awareness of not only what is being said but also observing what is being said in ourselves, using the words of the speaker as a mirror in which you are observing yourself. And when you are observing yourself then the mirror becomes useless, and that mirror should be broken.

So what we are discussing, enquiring into, is this question of freedom from knowledge and the security in intelligence. You know, the speaker has spent over fifty years going into this question, into this problem because all tradition has become meaningless, it is a betrayal. One must discard totally everything that man has put together to find out for oneself what is truth. In finding out what is true for oneself then that truth is not for oneself, it is the truth. And enquiring into this is also a part of meditation. Which is, what place has knowledge in the transformation of man. Has it any place at all? Or there must be freedom from the known and that freedom is intelligence, and in that intelligence there is total security. So we are going to enquire together, take the journey together into this problem.

We said thought is the response of knowledge, response of experience stored up in the brain as memory, and all action, all response, is born out of that memory. So knowledge is always the past, in the past. And most of us live in the past because knowledge for us has become extraordinarily important. Not only the knowledge of riding a bicycle or learning some technological knowledge but also knowledge in relationship, between human beings. Knowledge has become extraordinarily significant and all important. If you observe yourself as the speaker is talking about it, you will see how you are living in the past, and from the past projecting into the future. But it still has its roots in the past. And can there be freedom from knowledge and yet function in the field of knowledge, always living in that freedom and at the same time operating in the area of knowledge. Am I making myself somewhat clear? I will go into it as we go along.

You see, as one has observed, measurement, which is thought, is the explosion of Ancient Greece over the West. Measurement was necessary and it was essential in Greek thought. And that has been carried on into the West. If you observe, all your activities, technological, non-technological, social, the endeavour to be virtuous, all that is based on measurement - the 'better', the 'more'. Which is the measurement of thought as time. I am going into it, I am going to explain it as well as I can.

That is, the whole of the West is based - all its activities, its religions, its morality - is based on measurement, which is thought and which is time. Time means movement and thought in its movement is always measuring. I hope you are following all this. Now go to the East, specially to India, which exploded at one time over the whole of Asia, there they said, measurement - through measurement you can never find the immeasurable. Please listen to it. I am just describing, don't accept it. They said to find that which is timeless, which is not measurable, measure becomes an impediment. And therefore, they said, thought must be controlled. But they never enquired, who is the controller. They said the controller is the higher self, the atman, the soul, which is still the product of thought. So they were caught in the trap, as the West is caught in the trap of thought so is the East caught in the trap of thought, though they began to enquire into the immeasurable denying thought.

Thought, as we said, cannot exist without the thinker. The thinker is the product of thought. And the thinker is security according to thought. Thought has invested security in the thinker. And the thinker is the product of thought. And the thinker has invented all these beliefs, beliefs in religion, in all the trivialities of religion, as rituals, the saviours, the gurus, the masters, everything. And always saying, 'I will be better', which is measurement, which is comparison. That is, always operating in the field of knowledge, in the field of the known. Thought cannot possibly operate in the field of the unknown because it doesn't know what it means. It can invent the unknown, it can imagine the unknown, but actually it is incapable of entering into the unknown. So it plays with the unknown; all kinds of tricks and gimmicks. And as long as thought is functioning in the field of the known it cannot possibly understand what it is to be free. Are we meeting each other? Good. Some of us, at least, I hope, understand this. Because this is a very, very serious thing, what we are talking about. Because in understanding thought then you will begin to understand the meaning of fear, which we are going to now.

Because a mind that is frightened, a mind that consciously or unconsciously has fears cannot possibly understand what is love, cannot possibly come upon that thing which is not measurable. So it is absolutely imperative, if one is serious at all, to find out if the mind can be utterly free from fear. Because for most of us fear is very close to us, we live with it, we accept it, it has become part of our life both outwardly and inwardly. Fear of loss and gain, fear that comes through attachment to a person, and the fear of detachment which means standing alone, the fear of not gaining, not achieving, not being successful, the fear of losing a job, the fear of loneliness, the fear of suffering, the fear of pain, the pain of yesterday being repeated tomorrow, the fear of sorrow and the fear of not sustaining pleasure. And ultimately there is the fear of death. Under this burden we walk the days of our life, in one form or another; fear which may be conscious, which can be observed, investigated, looked into, and the unconscious fears, deep rooted, unknown, secret fears which you may not even know exist. So there are these conscious as well as unconscious fears, of which I am quite sure you are aware. And what a mess it makes of life, how it has corrupted our life, what a life we lead with these burdens, with these unresolved fears, from which violence, neurotic ideas and activity take place.

So is it possible - just listen, please - is it possible to be free of fear? Not how to be free of fear, a method, a system, but can the mind observe the fears it has without wanting to go beyond it, without the desire to suppress it, to escape from it, just to observe and remain with that fear? Now there are many fears - shall we take one fear after another - please listen - you may have ten fears, will you take one fear after another, look at it, observe it, observe it with total attention, with choiceless awareness and so take one after the other? And that involves time. Or is there a totally different way of doing it? You are following all this? That is, suppose I have ten fears, or any number of fears, which is destroying the very existence of my life. I am aware of certain fears and I see how my actions are coloured by those fears, my actions are so incomplete, so regrettable, so small, petty, shoddy. And I have got so many of them, not only the conscious fears but also I know deep inside me there are other fears - racial fears, accumulated fears, inherited fears, fears which have been put upon me by my parents, by society, you know, dozens of fears I have. Shall I go through one by one, like peeling off the onion, shedding tears? Or is there a way of dealing with it so that the mind comes out of it entirely free from fear?

Now before we go into that we must understand first what is implied in analysis because unless we understand this thing called analysis our inclination instinctually is to analyse - the cause, the effect and the effect becoming the cause. So we must understand the significance of analysis. Right? Are we going together in all this? Please. In analysis several things are implied: the analyser and the analysed. The authority of the analyser and the subjugation and the examination by the analyser, the thing he analyses. He assumes the authority. So there is a division between the analyser and the analysed. Right? And the analyser in analysing every analysis must be completely finished and completely true, otherwise he carries over what he has not understood to the next analysis. You are following this? So if there is no clear analysis, complete ending of the problem then, you take over what has not been completed to the next analysis, therefore the next analysis isn't complete, so every analysis becomes incomplete. You are following this?

And also in analysis is implied time. It will take me days, years, to analyse all the fears that I have. And each analysis of each fear must be completely understood, there must be no distortion. If there is a distortion when I analyse the next time that distortion becomes greater. So in analysis is implied the division between the analyser and the analysed, in analysis is implied time, it may take me my whole life to analyse all my fears and by the end of it I am dead. And it may take me... and in analysis there is no action. Analysis, as I pointed out yesterday, is a form of paralysis, so I am stuck with this. So I say to myself, how utterly false this is, this is avoidance of action with regard to fear. Right, you are following this? Action means the doing now, the ending of fear now. And through analysis I am postponing it therefore there is a total inaction through analysis. I see that as truth, not as an idea or a conclusion but as a fact. Right? Do you understand this? Is it a fact to you so that your mind will never analyse? You may be influenced by the speaker now not to analyse, but the moment you go outside your old habit comes forward to analyse. So do you see the truth of this now, not tomorrow, that through analysis no problem is solved? The problem is solved only when the mind is capable of looking, observing without any movement of choice, just to observe. Which means to look, to listen without interpreting 'what is', without translating 'what is', without trying to go beyond 'what is', just to be choicelessly aware of 'what is'. That requires tremendous attention. And attention brings its own discipline. Discipline in the sense, not conformity to a pattern, conformity to authority, imitation of an example, forcing one's mind to be something or other but the discipline of learning. The word itself means to learn. And in observing my fear I am learning, not analysing. In observing, learning means action, observation is action, not, I have learnt and act from what I have learnt. Is this all too difficult? Right.

So I have got all these fears, now what is the origin of fear? Origin, the beginning. Are there many fears or only one fear which spreads out as a tree with many branches, with many leaves, and when you are lopping off one branch there are a dozen other branches. Is it possible to go to the very root of fear? Do you understand my question? That is what we are going to do. Not how to get rid of fear, which is too childish, but rather see what the root of fear is and in observing that root fear itself disappears. You will see it if you do it.

Is fear time? That is, I had pain yesterday or a week before and that pain is over but the memory of that pain remains. And from that memory the response is thought which says, 'I hope I shall not have pain next week'. You are following this? The memory of that pain of last week, its response is thought and thought says, 'I do hope I will not have pain tomorrow'. The memory, the response which is thought and the fear of it happening again tomorrow. Right, do you see this? Please, it is very simple. And so I am asking myself, and I hope you are asking yourself, is fear part of time, part of measurement? It has measured, as it has measured the pain that it had a week ago, and it said, measure is time, and hoping that it will have no pain next week. Therefore it is thought, thought as measure, thought as future, thought which comes from the memory of having had pain. So I am asking, can that memory remain - of course it must remain because it is there - but have no response? You understand? I had pain last week - please listen - I had pain last week and it's over, the memory of it is there but it is over, it has not taken over. Can that memory remain but not project as a reaction, thought, which says, 'I mustn't have it tomorrow'? Can you do that? You understand my question? That is, can there be freedom from knowledge and yet knowledge remain?

So I am asking myself and I hope you are asking yourself, is fear the product of thought? You will naturally say, 'Of course it is'. Fear of not having a job, though you are having a job you might not have it tomorrow, fear of loneliness, fear of so many things. So is fear the measurement of thought as time? This is part of meditation, please. If you don't understand this when I talk about meditation you will not grasp the whole meaning of that word. That is, there was a happy incident a week ago, the memory of it remains, thought picks up that incident and wants it repeated next week. Haven't you noticed it? So thought is the factor of fear and also thought gives and pursues pleasure. Right? And is pleasure different from joy, from real enjoyment of a beautiful sunset? Now when joy comes to you you haven't invited it, it comes. Have you noticed it? When you are happy for no reason at all, the moment you are aware that you are happy thought has taken over, and thought says, 'I must have more of that happiness', and so thought nurtures that incident which gave you a happiness, and that incident and that happiness has now become the pursuit of pleasure. Right, you are following all this?

So I see thought is responsible for fear. Thought which says, 'I am and I may not be'; thought which says, 'I have achieved and that achievement has not produced the fruit of applause'; thought which says, 'I have lived and in living I am not fulfilled', and out of that business cynicism, anxiety, depression and all the rest of it.

So can thought, which is the response of knowledge, which is the past, can thought remain in that area of knowledge and operate and not enter into any other area? Am I making something clear? Look sir, if my mind is only operating in the field of knowledge there is no freedom, I am a slave to the past, the mind is a slave to the past, for knowledge is always the past. You may have a future knowledge, future intimation but it is still born from the past. As long as the mind functions within the field of knowledge, and it must because otherwise I wouldn't be able to speak English, I wouldn't be able to know where my house was, I wouldn't be able to drive, I wouldn't be able to write and so on and so on, so can the mind function within the field of knowledge and yet be free from that knowledge to enquire further.

I wonder if you are getting this. That is, can knowledge and freedom live harmoniously together? That is - you know all this is so difficult to explain to people who have not thought about this at all or briefly thought about it. All this, which takes an hour or so to explain, is perceived in a second and the ending of it. The explanation takes a long time, the description may take volumes but the action is never in the description, is never in the explanation, but the action is instant perception of the truth of that and the very perception is the action which ends. That is, to see the false as the false and to see the false in the truth. Or see that which is false and see that which is true, not as opposites. This requires a mind that is capable of real enquiry, capable of being totally impersonal.

So freedom from knowledge and operating in the field of knowledge can only take place when there is intelligence. So we are asking, what is intelligence? That word in the dictionary means, intelligere, which means to read between the lines. To read between the lines, so that what you read between the lines must be accurate, not what you would like to read between the lines. And intelligence comes only when the mind is very sensitive. And it becomes sensitive in exploring this problem of fear, freedom, knowledge. Which is enquiry into the field of thought, whether there can be freedom at all for a mind that has become mechanical, because knowledge is mechanical. And that knowledge has shaped our mind, which has become mechanical. And where the mind is mechanical - and it must be in a certain area - can such a mind ever find freedom, or must it always function within the field of knowledge and therefore always a slave to knowledge? You understand my question? Now they, in ancient India, they tried to escape from that by inventing a super-self which is free to observe apart from the 'me' who is the general observer.

So I am saying, as long as thought functions within the field of knowledge, and that is its proper place, there freedom cannot exist. Freedom exists outside the field of knowledge. Look sir, it is very simple, if you want to find something, something uninvented, unthought of before, you must put aside all that you know otherwise you can't find anything new. To find anything new you can't carry on with the old, there must be an ending to the old to find something new. And you can only find something new when the mind is not mechanical, not caught in the area of knowledge, when it is free. And when it is free, in that freedom is knowledge, is intelligence, and that intelligence is total security. Have I conveyed anything?

So you see we are seeking security not in intelligence, in ideas projected by thought, in beliefs created by thoughts, we are seeking security in relationship of images, which has been put together by thought, so in thought we have sought security, inward security, psychological security. And we have not been able to find it. And that is all our misery. But there is complete security when thought knows its limitation and functions within the field of knowledge effectively, sanely, rationally and realises its boundary, its limitation. And in that realisation of its limitation there is freedom, and when there is freedom with knowledge then there is intelligence. And that intelligence operates at every level. And in that there is total inward security.

I hope you got your money's worth! You see the speaker has worked and I am afraid you have not worked. You haven't worked upon yourself as we are talking, completely, with absolute seriousness, with great attention. If you have, and I hope you have, then you will be a different human being. That is the operation of religion, that's the only function of it, to bring man, to free him from his idiocies and superstitions so that he can see something totally new, something immeasurable, which we will go into when we talk about meditation.

Now would you like to ask questions?

Questioner: How do you observe without the observer?

K: Right. How do you observe without the observer. Take a breath!

First of all, please find out for yourself what is the observer. You are sitting there and the speaker is up here, unfortunately, on a platform, and apparently the platform, a little higher gives one authority - and there is no authority. So you are sitting there and the speaker is here, how do you look at the speaker? Who is the observer who is looking at the speaker? Right? The observer is what you have read about him, what his reputation is, what other people have said about him, how you are impressed or not impressed by what he has said. You have created an image of the speaker, haven't you? No? So the observer is the maker of images. Right? The observer is the tradition which is the past, it may be one day old or ten thousand years old. So the observer with his judgements, with his images, with his conclusions, with his abstractions, that constitutes the observer.

Now can you observe the speaker without the observer? Can you look at him as though for the first time you are seeing him? For the first time, without a single word, without a single image in which there is no past but only now, the present that you are looking. That is - look, take another thing: look at the mountain, or your wife, or your friend, how do you look at them? Do you see them with words? With images? With conclusions? With hopes? With fears? That is, all that is the observer. Is there a looking without the observer? You can look at the mountain or a tree or a river without the observer, that's fairly easy. You can look at that flowing water, the sparkling, the murmur, the sound, and the beauty of the mountain and the valley and the line, the depth and the magnificence of a mountain, and the beauty of a tree. You can observe it without the observer, that's fairly simple. But when you come closer, that is, can you look at your wife or your husband or friend without the observer? The tree, the mountain, the river will not criticise you, will not tell you what a fool you are or a great man you are, but your friend, your neighbour, your wife, your husband will tell you, 'Don't be an ass'. And that hurts. So that's much more difficult to observe somebody outside of yourself who might hurt you, who might displease you, who might insult you. And so the observer protects himself not to be hurt, not to be insulted, resists and therefore isolates himself. Now can you observe without that isolation? You know this requires not only listening to what is being said but listening to yourself, watching yourself, whether you can look without the past at life.

Have I made it clearer, sir?

Q: Is enquiring the same as observing without the observer?

K: Is enquiring the same as observing without the observer. Enquiry, investigation means to trace out, to go into very deeply, into a problem, into anything. Can you investigate if the observer, who is opinion, who is built on opinions, on what other people have said, is he capable of enquiry? Do you understand? If I am prejudiced, as most people are, is it possible to enquire? Or there must be freedom from prejudice to enquire. And the freedom from prejudice is the freedom from the observer. And only then there is a movement of enquiry, which is movement of learning. I think there is a difference between learning a technique, acquiring knowledge, and a learning that is constant movement. Learning in which there is no accumulation, that is living from moment to moment. Do you understand? I won't go into all that.

Q: If you don’t believe in the super-self how do you define intelligence? And how does man relate to intelligence without god?

K: What is the relationship - please correct me if I am misrepresenting your question - what is the relationship between knowledge and intelligence? Is that it?

Q: What do you consider intelligence?

K: What do I consider intelligence. I don't know. (Clapping) I don't consider, I have no opinion what intelligence is. If I had an opinion then you would oppose that opinion by your opinion. This opposition would be lack of intelligence. (Clapping) But if you and I had no opinions, which is extremely difficult, because we live by opinions, if you and I had no opinions we would meet, our minds would meet not at the level of words, opinions, judgements but at the level of freedom to observe, at the level of real enquiry. And through that enquiry comes intelligence which cannot be put into words. What is love? Can you put it into words? You know there was a philosopher, I was told once, who said, 'What cannot be put into words doesn't exist at all'. And one day a friend of his said to him, 'Will you put into words this gesture?' But it exists! That is the lack of intelligence.

Intelligence comes into being when the mind is sensitive, not sensitive to one's own desires, not sensitive to one's achievements, but sensitive altogether, sensitive to my neighbour, to my wife, to my children, sensitive to all the things that are going on in the world. And out of that sensitivity comes intelligence. And that sensitivity comes through observation.

Look: from childhood you are hurt, aren't you? Have you noticed it, how human beings are hurt? By a gesture, by a word, by somebody beating you as a child, you are hurt when you are being compared in the school with another, and the teacher says you are not as good as another, you must copy your elder. There are so many ways children are hurt, and we carry that hurt right through life. We are hurt in the office, in the factory when the foreman, when the boss tells you something or other in ugly terms. You are hurt by your wife, by your husband, by your friend, you are hurt by everything about you, aren't you? And so you build a resistance and say, 'I don't want to be hurt any more'. And so you build a wall around yourself and isolate yourself. And this wall when it remains is the very entity that is going to be hurt. Now can you be aware of your hurts without any choice, just to be aware of it, as you aware that the speaker is sitting on the platform, just to be aware of it, not cringe from it, not try to escape from it, not try to build a wall round yourself, but just to observe because the hurts exist because of the image which you have about yourself. If there is no image about yourself you will never be hurt. So to see that, to see that you are hurt and to observe it without the observer, who is the past, who is the builder of the wall of resistance. Just to observe and in that observation comes action, which means the doing away with all hurts, doing away with all the images that you have built about yourself or about another, which is the past. Now to do that there must be a great deal of awareness, attention. I do not know if you have ever attended to anything, give your whole attention to something. When you do give that attention, complete, whole attention, in that there is care, great care, there is great affection, great consideration. It is not, 'I must be considerate', attention itself brings these things out, care, affection, a sense of sharing. In that there is no observer at all.

Q: Sir.

K: Yes, sir?

Q: Identity and the observer and the picture remain after all memory has gone...

K: I haven't caught the meaning of your question, sir. Would you kindly repeat it once more.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: You are opposed to what is being said?

Q: No.

K: I can't hear. What is it? You are giving total attention to what is being said. Right.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: I am afraid I don't understand. I have given my whole attention...

Q: He says the thinker still remains.

K: You and he remain as separate entities, is that it?

Q: No, not separate.

K: I have got the meaning. I have given complete attention to what you have been saying but yet you and the questioner remain as separate entities.

Q: No. That’s not what I am saying, sir.

K: Good, correct me, I don't know what you are saying.

Q: You sir, do think, as an entity, as a being, as a thinker, there is a thinker. What you have said I can’t see to be true. But my identity or your identity which is possibly the same identity...

K: I see. Is it that you are saying sir - are you afraid of losing your identity?

Q: No, I’d be delighted.

K: I don't understand - forgive me - I don't understand what you are saying.

Q: Is there fragmentation and therefore conflict between intelligence and thought?

K: Is that what he is saying, sir?

Q: I think what he is saying is that he has paid complete attention to you and still his identity and your identity remain, therefore he is suggesting that you and he both have the thinker remaining. Is that correct?

Q: Yes, the thinker always remains.

Q: I think he is wrong.

K: Sir, look, I know that much abused word 'identity'. What are you identified with? I am asking generally, not you only.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: I don't know, sir.

Q: Sir, I am very serious, this is a very difficult problem for people.

K: I understand, sir, I understand this question. I am beginning to understand the question.

Q: You use the personal pronoun very much – ‘I’.

K: No, that's only a way of putting it, not 'I'. I am afraid I am rather impersonal about all these things. But I am just - we are trying to understand what you are saying, sir. You have given complete attention but identity as you, identity, as the speaker remain.

Q: The phenomenon of identity remains.

K: The phenomenon of identity remains. I have understood. Now let's look at it. What are you identified with? When we say, 'I must identity myself with' - I identify myself with what? With your furniture, with your neighbour, with the gods that have been created for you, with the ideas, with your nationality, with your flag, with your politician, with your family, with your house, with your name, the quality? Is that what you are identifying with? So you discard all that, then what you are identifying yourself with?

Q: With the hall.

K: With this hall? You are the hall?

Q: Yes.

K: Sir, please. No. When you identify yourself with something you are that. When you identify yourself with your house, you are that house. When you identify yourself with the bank account, you are that bank account. When you identify yourself with a nationality, you are that nationality. And through that identification you go to war, you kill others, you create mischief - you identify with that and another identifies with the other thing so there is a battle. So what are you identifying yourself with, and why should you?

So we have to enquire much deeper than identity. You have to enquire into the question of what is consciousness. Your consciousness. Perhaps we will go into it another time. Briefly: your consciousness is all that it contains, all the identifications, all the hurts, all the memories, all the mischievous activities that one indulges in and the good and the bad; all the content of consciousness is consciousness. Without the content there is no consciousness. And the whole meaning of meditation - please just give two minutes - and the whole meaning of meditation, if we ever go into it very deeply, is to see whether the content can be completely emptied, completely emptied so that it is beyond the limited consciousness.

That's enough, sir.