I am sorry you can't see the sunset. I think we said that we would talk over this evening the question of meditation. The meaning of that word - dictionary meaning - means to ponder over, to consider, to think over something, and also it means to measure. The root meaning of that word, to measure. And meditation, in that sense, to ponder over, to think over, to consider very deeply, and also the measurement which is the material process of thought. All that is implied in that word. I wish, if one may say so, that you had never heard that word, that you didn't know a thing about meditation - either the Indian form with all its systems and philosophies and gurus and all the rest of it, or the Tibetan or the Zen. If you didn't know a thing about it then you would be curious to find out. But unfortunately most of you have heard it or practiced some kind of meditation and so your mind is already conditioned. And being conditioned, when one uses that word, you are already caught in a pattern, already caught in the network of concepts, conclusions. So if one could start anew, if you can, as though you didn't know a thing about it, like a boy or a girl who doesn't know mathematics, then we can go into it together. We can enquire into the structure and nature and the beauty of it and all the deep significance, what is implied in that word. Because I don't know why one should meditate at all. I know that's the fashion. There are all kinds of schools, not only in this country but they are spreading like mushrooms in America and in Europe with their gurus, with their systems, but one never asks why one should meditate at all, and what is implied in that word and its action and its movement.

Politically there is only one problem: the unification of man, the unity of man all over the world. Really, that's the deep problem of a politician, if he is at all a worth his salt. And the religious mind - not the orthodox religious mind which is no mind at all, which merely repeats endlessly, mechanically what it has learnt from books or through propaganda and so on - we are using the word 'religion' in its original sense, that is gathering together all your energy to give total attention to action. To action, and also to give one's daily life to an order that is irrevocable - at least to me, to the speaker. That is the meaning of religion, and much more involved in it. That is, gathering together all our energies, all our attention, an inward state of deep order, so that that order is morality and which doesn't vary according to circumstances. And so in that order, which is not a pattern to be followed - I'm going to go into that - there is the infinite subtlety of the movement of stability. It is rather. I've put a lot into it, sorry. I hope you understand something of it.

We see we live a disordered life, a contradictory life, a life of fragmentation; each fragment, if one has observed oneself, is in opposition to the other and therefore there is this sense of deep, inward disorder. And one of the factors of this disorder is to act neurotically - neurotically in the sense contradictorily: say one thing, do another, think one thing and put on different masks or different environmental demands. So it is an area of the mind in which there is disorder - if you have observed yourself, this is obvious. And the brain - please, this is all part of meditation - and the brain can only function effectively, naturally, easily when it has order, when there isn't contradiction, when it is completely stable, when it is not driven by various influences or various desires. You are following all this?

Please, as I said yesterday, we are sharing this together. To share you must be also interested, otherwise you can't share anything. And, if one may suggest, use the words of the speaker as a mirror in which you are observing yourself. Not listening to his words and drawing an abstraction from those words and creating that into an idea and then try to conform or find out how to live according to that idea. Whereas, if you would, if one may suggest, use the speaker's words as a mirror in which you see yourself actually as you are, so that there is no authority, there is no teacher and the taught. And I think this is rather important if one can go into it. We are used to being taught, not only in the schools, in colleges and universities, but also we want to be taught how to live properly, how to live a life without contradiction, without immorality, without all the nonsense that goes on within oneself. So we gradually set up an authority because in ourselves we are disorderly and therefore we want order, and the order, we think, is to follow somebody who pretends or says or you attribute a status of authority. Whereas, what we are trying to do together is not to create a new authority, which would be too silly, but rather to enquire, to observe what one actually is, as one is, not what one should be or imagine what one is. So there is no authority - at least for me - there is no authority in these matters, except in technological matters. Having no authority, either of a book or of a guru, saviour, master, you know, all that, then one can look at this disorder.

When a country is in disorder, then out of this disorder comes a dictator, whether a form of political tyranny or a democratic tyranny. But when one observes, disorder in oneself produces or brings about an authority who we hope will put order give us order. This is happening all the time. So please bear in mind, right through all the talks or whatever you do, that in these matters, in the matters of the mind, the spirit, in the matters of truth, there is no authority ancient or modern, because the one who follows destroys truth, and the one who says, 'I will show you the path', destroys truth. So, as we live in disorder, the brain can only function when there is real order, effectively and therefore harmoniously, non-contradictorily. Right? And this order is not a blueprint to be sketched out and then conform to it, but rather the understanding of the disorder, being aware of the disorder in one lives: in our relationships, personal or our relationship to society, to our neighbour and so on, so on. In all that there is disorder, contradiction. And part of meditation - only a small part of it - is to bring about this order which is virtue. Without that you cannot meditate, it has no meaning. It's like going and sitting and breathing and doing all kinds of tricks and standing on your head or trying to awaken your kundalini or all that kind of stuff, it has no meaning. But what has meaning is to bring order in one's daily life, honestly, deeply. And you cannot bring about order without understanding the disorder in which one lives.

And, as we said, meditation means measure, not only to ponder, to think over, to consider profoundly but also it means measure, to measure. And one has to understand this whole technological structure in which we live, which is part of measurement, which the Greeks have handed over to the Western world. Right? May I go on with it? I am not a professor, I don't read books, thank god. I read occasionally detective stories (laughter) and weekly magazines to keep up with the world, but I don't read the Gita, I have never read the Gita or the Upanishads or philosophies and - because somehow I am bored by it. Is that all right, my saying so? You won't throw bricks at me? Right. And I have noticed, I have observed, because I've seen a great many people, so-called intellectuals and so on, so on, so on, it has been observed that the whole of the Western world is based on this technological principle of measurement, because without measurement you can't have technique. And the Asiatic world including India said measurement is an illusion, and to find the immeasurable you can't use measure. But they use measure as thought to find the immeasurable. You follow? You understand this? So they are both the same, though one says measurement is necessary, the other says measurement is an illusion, and therefore to find the immeasurable, thought measurement must come to an end, and to bring about an end to measurement, control thought. You understand this?

Now, what is the instrument of measure? It is obviously thought. Measurement implies comparison. Measurement implies distance. Measurement implies conformity - I conform to the pattern, the pattern being either I have created it or society has created it or propaganda has created it. So, measurement is the movement of thought - please listen, I am just exploring - is a measurement of thought is the movement of thought in time. Right? All this sounds too elaborate, does it? Because, please, this is really important to understand with regard to meditation. If you are really interested in it, and you must be because the problem: can one live daily life without a single control? You understand my question? Because control implies measurement. Control implies domination. Control implies a division between the controlled and the controller. Right? This is obvious. And can one, in daily life, not theoretically or in abstraction or as a theory of ideas, actually live without measurement and therefore no comparison, no conformity, no movement from here to there - that is, being ugly to become something - you follow? - all that is implied in measurement. And the instrument of measurement is thought. Right? Please look at yourself. Thought is, as we said, is the response of memory, experience, knowledge. So thought is always has its roots in the past. Isn't that so? It can project a future but that future is still from the past. The future, the present and the past are the measurement of time as a movement of thought. I wonder if you get all this. Is this all Greek to you? Or Chinese or what is it? - Tamil, no, Hindi. So, can thought, which is measurement - measurement implies conformity, comparison, adjustment to a pattern, adjustment to a tradition - can thought end?

I do not know if you ever tried to control thought. That is part of your meditation, your meditation. That has been one of the edicts or one of the traditions, if you are meditating, that you must control thought. But we never asked who is the controller. We have accepted it mechanically that we must control thought. From childhood in every school: control your thought. That's been told to us, that's is the pattern, but we have never asked ourselves or another, who is the controller. Is not the controller part of the thought? Of course. Right? Please see this for yourself. The controller is the controlled. I'll show you. Thought wanders - you sit quiet and you observe, and thought wanders off in various directions, and you have this pattern established through tradition that you must control it. And you spend the rest of your life controlling thought. And you think when you have tremendously controlled it, at last you have got something. And one questions this whole control, not only of thought, of desire, of every movement of desire, of pleasure and so on. We are educated to control, and I question this whole principle.

Now, who is the controller? Is it not one of the fragments of thought who says, 'If I control my thought I will achieve peace' - whatever that is - or, 'I will experience some extraordinary state', and so on. So thought creates this division as the controller and the controlled and then the conflict between the controller and the control begins. Right? So one asks, if one is serious, is it possible never to control? And this requires tremendous, not just a childish sense of, 'Oh, I have no control, I can do what I like', that's too silly, but to find out a way of living in which there is not a shadow of control. I'll show it to you. Please listen, not copy. Is it possible never to compare yourself with another, which is measurement, compare not only physiologically but much more psychologically. We are talking psychological, inward comparison. The comparison is: you know, I don't know. You are the guru or the saviour or the master or somebody high up on the ladder, and I am just on the lowest ladder and I must have you as an example, so I want to compare myself to see that I am progressing. Right? That is comparison. I am greedy and I compare myself to an idea of non-greedy. And having established an ideal, a pattern of behaviour or a pattern of conduct, I compare myself all the time, and that's called growth, progress, evolution and all the rest of it.

That word 'progress' is rather interesting. I was told the other day the word originally meant 'to enter the enemy's country fully armed'. You understand? You don't smile at it, do you? (Laughs) So, can one live that way? Not only intellectually, but in relationship, because life is relationship; without relationship there is no life. You may live in isolation but you are related. You may withdraw but you are still related to man; you are part of man, part of humanity. Can one, in daily life, in all kinds of relationship, live a life in which there is no comparison? Then the problem arises: what happens when I don't compare? I have compared myself with you, who are very clever, bright, intelligent, nice-looking, have a tremendous reputation, blah, and I compare myself with you. And therefore I say to myself, 'I am rather dull. I am rather stupid compared to that chap'. This is how we are educated in schools. And what happens when there is no comparison? Do I become a vegetable? Do I stagnate? Or something totally different thing takes place. You try it now, please, as I am talking. Try this. You are used to compare, that's part of your tradition, by stories which is memory, which is thought, and as you are listening now try to find out what happens if you don't compare. Don't you then realise that you have carried all along a tremendous burden, and when you don't compare you are free of that burden. Therefore you can look at yourself without comparison. I don't know if you are following all this. It's really

So, what you are. Not what you should be or what you have been or what you will become but actually what you are. Which means when there is no comparison you don't know what you are. Right? Good. You don't know what you are, therefore from there you can start. I don't know what I am, but I am going to find out, and therefore from that arises this question whether you can live in daily life - please listen - in daily life without any control, without any comparison. Which doesn't mean that you do what you like. Of course, you are doing that anyhow. But actually to live without a single direction; which is to control. Right? This demands a skill in action, which is an art to be learnt and in the very learning the very learning of it is its own discipline. You don't bring a discipline upon it, but in the very observation of how to live without control itself brings its own order. Do it - you will see how extraordinarily simple it is. Putting into words makes it complicated, but it's really very, very simple. You see, I don't know what I am, I know people have told me what I am - I am an atman, I am Freudian, all the rest of the thing - but I see that I live in a life of comparison and when I don't compare I am at a loss. For the first time in my life, I am altogether lost. Right? Uncertain, unclear, confused, and I must be lost, otherwise I can't find.

So that's one point. That is, thought is material process in time as measurement. The next question is: is it possible for thought, which brings about fragmentation because in itself it is a fragment-maker, can that thought come to an end? Uncontrolled, not driven to make itself come to an end - that is what you are all doing in meditation, and so you live in perpetual conflict. So can thought end and yet thought function when necessary? You understand? We said, thought is measurement. Measurement is knowledge, experience, memory, and from that background every reaction is the movement of thought, as material process. It is fairly clear. Thought must function in the technological world as knowledge, in the scientific world where there is accumulation of knowledge for the last two or three hundred years or five hundred years, and you can't just say, 'Well, that's not worth it' - it's part of our life. Knowledge, not only technologically, you must have knowledge to speak a language, to find out where your house is. So knowledge is absolutely essential. It's obvious. And we use that knowledge to try to bring about psychological change in ourselves.

So, a question arises from that, which is: can knowledge transform man and his society? Because that's what we are concerned too. And we see knowledge has never transformed man, psychologically. Look: there have been thousands and thousands of wars. Since history began there have been thousands of wars and have we learnt anything from it? We have learnt how to kill more, more - not how not to kill. We know the cause of our suffering but we go on suffering. We know from various professors, various books and so on, the obvious fact that where there are divided people there must be conflict and yet we go on.

So basically, fundamentally, knowledge is not the factor of transformation of man. There must be other factor. And that is the process of meditation, part of it. So can thought come to an end? You know, that's what all the people who have gone into the question of meditation have tried to do, tried to stop it, control it, subjugate it, force it and therefore their mind is twisted, is a tortured mind. This is obvious, isn't it? And a tortured mind, a distorted mind, a neurotic mind, an imbalanced mind, a mind that is not whole, how can that find truth? Obviously it can't. You may pretend, you may say, repeat Gayatri or god knows what else and it is still there. So it is imperative for a man who really is serious and wants go into this question of meditation to find out whether thought has its own place and never moves into other realms. That is, that is only possible when the controller realises that which he tries to control is the same; the controller is the controlled. And you will see, if you have gone into it sufficiently deeply, that thought cannot possibly understand what truth is. That thing cannot be described. When that thing is described, it is not the truth, it is a verbal description of something. The description is not the described, and we are caught in the description, and we say, 'Well, I heard you the other day, very good talk. You are talking pure Vedanta', or some other thing. You follow? Which is, their pattern is repeating. They haven't listened and they just continue in their old way because that's the easiest way to live.

So, to find out without effort whether thought has its own place, doesn't move in any other direction. Which means we have to go into the question of time. Sorry, this is all part of meditation if you are interested. Time is movement - right? - from here to there. Physically you need time to go from here to your house - may be two minutes or an hour but it from here to there is a movement in time - in time by the watch or in time psychologically. 'I will be', 'I will attain', 'I will succeed', 'I will become nobler' - all that is a movement from here to there, which is the movement in time. That means direction. Right? And to achieve that end you must exercise will, and the exercise of will to achieve is the movement of thought or desire in time. Right? So can the mind be free of this movement, from here to there, psychologically, inwardly? And it can find out only when you see the fact that this movement from here to there psychologically is the illusion of thought which has projected an idea and wants to conform to that idea which is measurement. Right?

To have an insight into it and therefore no movement from here to there but only 'what is'. Right? To go beyond 'what is' you need energy. May I go on, if you are not too tired? You need energy - I'll go on and you come with me as much as you can - you need energy, but that energy now is dissipated in conflict, in imitation, in conformity, in the movement of trying to overcome it, in the movement of escape from what you are. So when there is no escape and there is no suppression, when there is no rationalisation of what actually is, and to remain with it, then you have the energy to go beyond it - not 'you have' - there is energy to go beyond it. Therefore there is a transformation of 'what is' without effort. I wonder if you see it. This is really very important to understand because we make effort, all our life from childhood till we die we are making tremendous struggles, effort. And where there is effort there is violence. And to be free of that violence, of that effort, to see that all movement of thought from 'what is', is a wastage of energy, obviously. And when you have when you see the truth of it, you have that energy to go beyond, without a single control or conflict. This is not a trick, this is not a gimmick which you learn and practice. It's a thing that moves, lives all the time.

So, in meditation there is no direction. Right? Direction means from here to there - 'there' being enlightenment, truth or whatever you like to call it. So, a mind that has no - in meditation - no direction. The moment you have there is direction, the space - space - is restricted. Right? Of course. One has to go into this question of space.

I don't know if you have ever realised when you are looking at your own mind, how little space there is in the mind in ourselves. Our consciousness, our mind, is constantly being bombarded, by the gurus, by the politicians, by the union leaders, through education, through propaganda, it's all the time being bombarded, and one has very little space. And having little space, one sets a direction to have space, which you call freedom, enlightenment. You follow? So where there is no direction and the exercise of will to achieve the goal of that direction, then out of that deep realisation, insight, there is space. You know, space is necessary. When you are living in a flat with two thousand people - you know, these high buildings - you are living in a drawer, with all the noise - you follow? - all around you, and inevitably, because there is no space you become violent. I do not know if you have not noticed of an evening all the swallows sitting on a wire, telephone wire, and if you watch them they have got exact space between each other. And space is necessary, otherwise you can't see, otherwise you can't feel and you are not free. And this freedom is absolutely necessary, otherwise you are a prisoner of thought forever.

So, in meditation, the understanding of disorder and order, and therefore order, order which is not blueprint but a living thing, because you understand the depth and the structure of disorder in which it lives, and in the very observation of it, not in denying or resisting it but just observing it, comes mathematical order. And then the brain can function beautifully because there is no resistance, there is no contradiction. Then, that order means not only virtue, morality, but also in relationship between man and woman, in all relationship, order. And that order is denied when - please listen to this - when our relationship is based on image. When you have an image about your wife or the woman or the girl or the boy, about the other, the relationship is between these two images. The images are the ideas, conclusions, the picture, and therefore there is no relationship at all - please see this - and hence conflict.

So, order in relationship. And where there is order there is harmony and therefore there is compassion. Please, without compassion you can sit for ten thousand years breathing rightly, doing all kinds of peculiar tricks, you will never come to that thing which you call truth. And no control whatever, therefore there is space in the mind. When you have space the mind becomes silent, naturally. And this is important. You understand? Not all the tricks we play upon ourselves to make the mind quiet, by repeating mantrams, by, you know, transcendental meditation, or this, that, the other. You can make your mind quiet by taking a pill - much easier. Drug yourself, take a tranquilliser and the mind becomes very quiet. And you call that meditation. Whereas, when the mind has space, which means no direction, no operation of will and therefore no fear, then in that space there is silence. Mind is really quiet. Not made quiet, not through tortuous means brought about silence but actual silence, of which you are not aware. Because the moment you are aware that you are silent it is not silence. Therefore meditation is part of this freedom from the experience of being silent.

So meditation takes place when you are not there. You understand this? And we try through various means to wipe ourselves away, to destroy the 'me', which is to identify myself with the nation, which is another form of destroying myself, or identifying myself with an ideal, or identify myself with a cause - you follow? - we play all these tricks in order to get rid of myself. There are no tricks. The ending of the 'me' is to look at myself without the observer who is condemning, judging, evaluating, all the rest - just to look at myself, to observe without the observer. You know, it's one of the difficult things to do because when you see the river, of a morning or in the evening, with its light and the beauty of those extraordinary nuances of light and colour, it leaves a mark, an imprint on your brain. That becomes the memory. Then that memory is operating the next time when you observe. To look at that river but not let it make an imprint. Just to look at it. That is beauty. Beauty is not a memory, like love is not a memory.

So, this space in which silence exists is necessary, because it is only in silence in which there is no 'me' as the experiencer, a totally different energy or activity, a movement takes place, which is not time. Therefore the mind operating in the field of technology and at the same time silent. You understand? It is like two streams running together, harmoniously, all the time - not 'all the time', that's a wrong phrase, sorry, I withdraw that phrase - like two streams running together. And it does take place if you've gone into it very, very deeply. And this whole thing is meditation.

And the question further is: is there a reality which the mind has not created? Is there something immeasurable, unnameable, which thought has never touched? But thought says, 'I would like to find it', because in that there is an absolute security, in that there is absolute safety, psychologically. That is, creating an image, the creator is thought and creating the image and making that image into something real - as god or as whatever you like to call it, saviour and all that - and that gives to thought a sense of balanced harmony, a sense of security. But that security is the movement of thought in time and therefore invariably brings fear.

Now, is there something which thought has never touched? How can that be answered? Because truth is not an experience, it is not something that you have remembered, recognised, called it experience, or saying, 'I have found it'. Therefore truth has no abiding place - you understand? - it is not something static to which many paths can come. That is one of our tricks, that we have so many paths. You take your path, I take my path, we will eventually meet there. 'There' is a fixed point. A living thing is not a fixed point. You are not a fixed point. You are a fixed point only when you have an image about yourself. Right?

So, is there something like that? Something which is totally out of time, which cannot possibly be experienced, which cannot thought cannot contaminate? Man has put this question, and perhaps some have come upon that and are silent about it, because the description is not the described and the one who described doesn't know because he is caught in the description, not in reality. So that out of that silence there is nothing to be told. One can never say, 'I know', 'I have reached', 'I have found'. Therefore life is a movement not only in time, but also out of time. And from this arises a great sense of responsibility. Then you are not answerable to anybody - you understand? - to no government, to no guru, to no authority, but you are responsible, which means answerable. And you can only answer when there is compassion. Responsibility implies, freedom is compassion. And the whole of that is meditation.

Questioner: Sir, so long as

Krishnamurti: Just a minute, sir, let me take a breather. (Pause)

Now, before you ask questions, if I may point out, why are you asking the question and who is to answer it? Are you sharing the question with the others, including myself, or your question wants to be answered for yourself? Because if your question is involving human problems, human demands and human suffering and all the rest of it, then you are sharing that question with everybody. And in the sharing that question with everybody, you are sharing the answer with everybody. Therefore it is not your question and my answer but together we are sharing the question and the answer. Right, sir?

Q: So long as the meditator exists in time, can there be a real meditation?

K: Can there be real meditation when there is no

Q: So long as the meditator exists in time, can there be a real meditation.

K: Meditation without time, can it be real meditation. That's right, sir?

Q: So long as the meditator exists in time, can there be a meditation at all.

K: So long as the meditator exists in time, can there be meditation at all. As long as I am moving within the area of time - time being moving from here to there, achieving this, that and the other - as long as my mind is living there, is there meditation at all? Is this, if I may ask, a theoretical question?

Q: Practical question, psychological question.

K: Psychological question. It all depends on what you call meditation. You may give one kind of meaning to that word and I may give, or another may give, a totally different kind of meaning. So, as we said at the beginning of the talk, according to the dictionary, which is after all, a dictionary means which is a common thing to refer to by all of us - there it says, 'to think over, to ponder over, to be concerned with', and also meditation implies measurement. Now, I have one has talked about that, not a meditation which is not that. When this is not, perhaps that is, but with this hanging round my neck, as it were, try to reach the other has no meaning. One lives in a prison, one can imagine that there is marvellous freedom outside. There is freedom outside, but you are living in the prison, therefore you are not free. So, to actually be free of that prison, then there is no question of freedom; there is freedom.

So our concern is not whether meditation doesn't exist as long as I live as there is a movement in thought - to me it has no meaning, if you will forgive my pointing out - what has meaning is, one is caught in the trap of civilisation, in the trap of tradition, in the trap of all that we have talked about this evening. The mind is held in a vice. And to observe this without the observer - we went into all this - and that is part of meditation. And we went further and we pointed out there is a meditation of which you can never be conscious. And that comes into the whole question; one has to investigate the whole problem of sleep. I have no time to go into that, because we were discussing with some scientists and brain specialists the other day. And can there be a state of mind when there are no dreams at all? And what is that state, and what affect has it on the conscious mind? And that state, whatever that is, can that affect our daily life? Because, look sirs, we are concerned with daily life, not with theories, ideas and speculative suppositions. We have to transform our daily life which is so monstrous, because our daily life has created this ugly society. And without changing that society or transforming ourselves, which is our which is society - we are the society - and without deeply transforming my conditioning it has no meaning talking about anything else. Begin there and go through, find out.

Q: Sir, you pointed out that you should not make efforts to go beyond ‘what is’, we have the energy to go beyond ‘what is’. You pointed out, sir, that if we don’t make efforts to go beyond ‘what is’, we have the energy to go beyond ‘what is’. Will you explain it?

Q: If you don’t make an effort to go beyond ‘what is’, then you have the energy to

K: ...go beyond. Right. First, sir, one is greedy, envious. Right? That's a fact, that's 'what is'. Then what do you do, what does one do? One either justifies that envy or tries to modify that envy or try to suppress that envy or try to control that envy or try to escape from that envy by saying, 'I must not be envious'. Right? Now, all that is a movement away from the fact. Right? The movement away from the fact is a wastage of energy. Right? So, when you don't waste energy moving away from the fact, from 'what is', you have that abundance of energy to go beyond it. Right? But you must understand 'what is'. Which is look, sir, I'll show you.

One is envious - we all know what that means, we don't have to think a great deal about it - envious. How do you know, each time that you are envious, how do you know it is envy? You understand my question? I was envious yesterday and that same reaction arises and I recognise it. Right? I recognise it because I have had it yesterday. So, yesterday's memory recognises it and makes it into the old. You understand? So, can you look at that envy without the recollection of the previous envy? Which means not to name it as envious. You understand? You understand, sir? Try it, sir, it's so good I am envious and I realise the stupidity of escaping from it - I realise it, it doesn't And how do I know that it is envy? Because I experienced it yesterday. So, yesterday's memory entraps it and makes it old. Now, can I can that reaction be looked at without the memory of yesterday? All that requires tremendous attention. The escape, the rationalisation, the suppression, the overcoming, and when that is realised, when that is seen as unnecessary, it's stupid, running off to temple or taking drugs doesn't solve my problem. So, to remain with it, and I can only remain with it not in terms of time as memory but to see that, to be aware of that reaction without any choice, just to look. And then you'll see that it's finished. You'll never have it again. Please, I am not promising you anything.

Q: Sir, to understand envy, as you say, I see that we need energy. But it is this very envy that does not give us that energy. It is this very envy that generalises and makes us escape.

K: Slowly, slowly, sir. What, what, what? (Laughter)

Q: Sir, I see the fact that to understand envy one has to have energy. One has to (inaudible) energy so that one may not escape. But, it is this very envy that makes one escape, that makes

K: No, sir, no, no.

Q: Sir, would you please talk on this.

K: I am going to go into it. I will show it to you, sir.

Q: Sir, one more question relating it.

K: Go ahead, sir.

Q: If thought is the most important factor

K: I wish you would speak English.

Q: (Inaudible)

K: What is envy, sir? Isn't that a factor of energy? Envy is a form of competition, and where there is competition there is ruthlessness. When you are competing, you are ruthless, you are violent. And on that ruthlessness, in the name of god, in the name of peace, in the name of whatever it is, you are living. All that is energy. Right? Then comes the thought, 'I must not be violent', or you justify violence. Or you say, 'How am I to not to live without envy?' All those are factors of distraction of energy. You have dissipated the energy which you need to understand envy and go beyond it.

Q: Energy itself dissipating itself.

K: Of course.

Q: In that event

K: Energy, sir, look, look, it's very simple, look at it, look at it, don't ask me questions, look. Look at your envy - you are envious, aren't you, sir? - can you be aware of it without any movement away from it?

Q: Sir, there is contradiction.... (inaudible)

K: That's not the point now. I am showing it to you, sir. Be aware of it and see how the mind says - the mind moves in traditional channels because it is safer there - therefore it says, 'I must suppress it', or, 'I must justify it'. All that is going on and that is a wastage of energy, obviously. So, when you don't waste that energy, you have the problem is no longer there. It is the inattention which is a wastage of energy that creates, that brings about the reaction of envy. By golly!

The other question is - the last one please - was, measurement of thought? What was your question, sir, would you mind repeating?

Q: If thought is the most important factor, then should it not be channalised in the right direction?

K: Ah, yes.

Q: And if it is channelised then again the control comes.

K: Yes, of course. If thought has brought about this appalling civilisation, this appalling culture - right? - this madness, this mess in the world, should not thought be canalised in the right direction. Right? Now, who is going to canalise it?

Q: (Inaudible)

K: Who is yourself? Yourself is the structure of thought, and that thought says, 'Now, I have done mischief there, now I will do something else' - which is fragmentation. You understand, sir? Therefore, where there is fragmentation there must be conflict. And thought cannot canalise itself in the right direction. The right direction will be projected by thought, therefore that projection as a goal is another fragmentation. So we live in fragmentation, and therefore live perpetually in struggle and conflict. So we are saying thought, which has brought about this crazy civilisation, this society which is so utterly immoral, thought cannot solve it. Only you need there must be a totally different kind of energy which comes when with all this meditation and so on, so on, so on.