Rajahumundry 3rd Public Talk 4th December, 1949

There will be a discussion tomorrow morning at 7:45, and also on Tuesday at the same time; but there will be no talk next Sunday. This is the last talk.

I have said that there is an art in listening, and perhaps I can go a little more into it, because I think it is important to listen rightly. We generally hear what we want to hear, and exclude everything that is disturbing. To any expression of a disturbing idea we turn a deaf ear; and specially in matters that are profound, religious, that have significance in life, we are apt to listen very superficially. If we hear at all, it is merely the words, not the content of the words; because most of us do not want to be disturbed. Most of us want to carry on in our old ways; because to alter, to bring about a change, means disturbance: disturbance in our daily life, disturbance in our family, disturbance between wife and husband, between ourselves and society. As most of us are disinclined to be disturbed, we prefer to follow the easy way of existence; and whether it leads to misery, to turmoil and conflict, is apparently of very little importance. All that we want is an easy life - not too much trouble, not too much disturbance, not too much thinking; and so, when we listen, we are not really hearing anything. Most of us are afraid to hear deeply; but it is only when we hear deeply when the sounds penetrate deeply, that there is a possibility of a fundamental, radical change. Such change is not possible if you listen superficially; and if I may suggest, at least for this evening, please try to listen without any resistance, without any prejudice - just listen. Do not make tremendous effort to understand, because understanding does not come through effort, understanding does not come through striving. Understanding comes swiftly, unknowingly, when the effort is passive; only when the maker of effort is silent does the wave of understanding come. So, if I may suggest, listen as you would listen to the water that is flowing by. You are not imagining, you are not making an effort to listen, you are just listening. Then the sound conveys its own meaning, and that understanding is far deeper, far greater and more lasting, than the mere understanding of words that comes through intellectual effort. The understanding of words which is called intellectual comprehension is utterly empty. You say, "I understand intellectually, but I cannot put it into practice; which means, really, that you do not understand. When you understand, you understand the content; there is no intellectual understanding. Intellectual understanding is merely a verbal understanding. Hearing the words is not the understanding of their content. The word is not the thing. The word is not understanding. Understanding comes when the mind has ceased to make an effort, which means, when it does not put up a resistance, when it is not prejudiced, but listens freely and fully. And, if I may suggest, that is what we should try to do this evening; because then there is in listening a great delight like listening to a poem, to a song, or seeing the movement of a tree. Then that very observation, listening, gives a tremendous significance to existence.

Religion, surely, is the uncovering of reality. Religion is not belief. Religion is not the search for truth. The search for truth is merely the fulfilment of belief. Religion is the understanding of the thinker; for what the thinker is, that he creates. Without understanding the process of the thinker and the thought, merely to be caught in a dogma is surely not the uncovering of the beauty of life, of existence, of truth. If you seek truth, then you already know truth. If you go out seeking something, the implication is that you have lost it, which means you already know what it is. What you do know is belief; and belief is not truth. No amount of belief, no amount of tradition, none of the religious ceremonies in which there are so many preconceptions of truth, lead to religion, Nor is religion the belief, the God of the irreligious, of the believer who does not believe.

Religion, surely, is allowing truth to come into being, whatever that truth is - not the truth that you want, for then it is merely the gratification of a particular desire which you call belief. So, it is necessary to have a mind that is capable of receiving whatever the truth is; and such a mind is possible only when you listen passively. Passive awareness comes into being when there is no effort, no suppression or sublimation; because, after all, to receive, there must be a mind that is not burdened with opinion or busy with its own chatter. Out of an opinion or a belief the mind can project an idea or an image of God; but it is a projection of itself, of its own chatter, of its own fabrication, and therefore it is not real. The real cannot be projected or invited, but can come into being only when the mind, the thinker, understands himself. Without understanding the thought and the thinker, there is no possibility of receiving truth, because the maker of effort is the thought, which is the thinker. Without thought, there is no thinker; and the thinker, seeking further security, takes refuge in an idea which he calls God, religion. But that is not religion, that is merely an extension of his own egotism, a projection of himself. It is a projected righteousness, a projected respectability; and this respectability cannot receive that which is truth. Most of us are very respectable, in the political, economic, or religious sense. We want to be something, here or in another world. The desire for different form, is still self-projection, it is still the worship of oneself; and such a projection is surely not religion. Religion is something much wider, much deeper than the projections of the self; and after all, your belief is a projection. Your ideals are self-projections, whether national or religious, and the following of such projections is obviously the gratification of the self, and therefore the enclosing of the mind within a belief; therefore it is not real.

Reality comes into being only when the mind is still, not made still. Therefore, there must be no disciplining of the mind to be still. When you discipline yourself, it is merely a projected desire to be in a particular state. Such a state is not the state of passivity. Religion is the understanding of the thinker and the thought, which means the understanding of action in relationship. The understanding of action in conduct is religion, not the worship of some idea, however gratifying, however traditional, whoever has said it. Religion is understanding the beauty, the depth, the extensive significance of action in relationship. Because, after all, life is relationship; to be, is to be related - otherwise you have no existence. You cannot live in isolation. You are related to your friends, to your family, to those with whom you work. Even though you withdraw to a mountain, you are related to the man who brings food; you are related to an idea which you have projected. Existence implies being, which is relationship; and if we do not understand that relationship, there is no understanding of reality. But because relationship is painful, disturbing, constantly changing in its demands, we escape from it to what we call God, which we think is the pursuit of reality. The pursuer cannot pursue the real. He can only pursue his own ideal, which is self-projected. So, our relationship and the understanding of it is true religion and nothing else is, because in that relationship is contained the whole significance of existence. In relationship, whether with people, with nature, with the trees, with the stars, with ideas, with the State - in that relationship is the whole uncovering of the thinker and the thought, which is man, which is mind. The self comes into being through the focus of conflict; the focussing of conflict gives self-consciousness to the mind. Otherwise there is no self; and though you may place that self on a high level, it is still the self of gratification.

So, the man who would receive reality, not seek reality, who would hear the voice of the eternal, whatever that eternal is, must understand relationship; because in relationship there is conflict, and it is that conflict which prevents the real. That is, in conflict there is the fixing of self-consciousness, which seeks to eschew, to escape conflict; but only when the mind understands conflict is it capable of receiving the real. So, without understanding relationship, the pursuit of the real is the pursuit of an escape, is it not? Why not face it? Without understanding the actual, how can you go beyond? You may close your eyes, you may run away to shrines and worship empty images; but the worship, the devotion, the puja, the giving of flowers, the sacrifices, the ideals, beliefs - all that has no meaning without understanding the conflict in relationship. So, the understanding of conflict in relationship is of primary importance and nothing else, for in that conflict you discover the whole process of the mind. Without knowing yourself as you are, not as you are technically supposed to be - God enclosed in matter, or whatever the theory is - , but actually, in the conflict of daily existence, economic, social and ideological without understanding that conflict, how can you go beyond and find something? The search for the beyond is merely an escape from what is; and if you want to escape, then religion or God is as good an escape as drink. Don't object to this putting drink and God on the same level. All escapes are on the same level, whether you escape through drink, through puja, or whatever it be.

So, the understanding of conflict in relationship is of primary importance and nothing else; because out of that conflict we create the world in which we live every day - the misery, the poverty, the ugliness of existence. Relationship is response to the movement of life. That is, life is a constant challenge, and when the response is inadequate, there is conflict; but to respond immediately, truly, adequately to the challenge, brings about a completeness. In that response which is adequate to the challenge there is the cessation of conflict, and therefore it is important to understand oneself, not in abstraction, but in actuality, in everyday existence. What you are in daily life is of the highest importance; not what you think about or what you have ideas about, but how you behave to your wife, to your husband, to your children, to your employees. Because, from what you are, you create the world. Conduct is not an ideal conduct. There is no ideal conduct. Conduct is what you are from moment to moment, how you behave from moment to moment. The ideal is an escape from what you are. How can you go far when you do not know what is near you, when you are not aware of your wife? Surely, you must begin near to go far; but nevertheless your eyes are fixed on the horizon, which you call religion, and you have all the paraphernalia of belief to help you to escape.

So, what is important is not how to escape, because any escape is as good as another - the religious escapes and the worldly escapes are all the same, and escapes do not solve our problem. Our problem is conflict, not only the conflict between individuals, but the world conflict. We see what is happening in the world - the increasing conflict of war, of destruction, of misery. That you cannot stop; all you can do is to alter your relationship with the world, not the world of Europe or America, but the world of your wife, your husband, your work, your home. There you can bring change, and that change moves in wider and wider circles; but without this fundamental change there can be no peace of mind. You may sit in a corner or read something to put yourself to sleep, which most people call meditation; but that is not the uncovering the receiving of the real. What most of us want is a satisfying escape; we do not want to face our conflicts because they are too painful. They are painful only because we never look to see what they are all about; we seek something which we call God, but never look into the cause of conflict. But if we understand the conflict of everyday existence, then we can go further, because therein lies the whole significance of life. A mind that is in conflict is a destructive mind, a wasteful mind, and those in conflict can never understand; but conflict is not stilled by any sanctions, beliefs, or disciplines, because the conflict itself has to be understood. Our problem is in relationship, which is life; and religion is the understanding of that life, which brings about a state in which the mind is quiet. Such a mind is capable of receiving the real. That, after all, is religion - not your sacred threads, your pujas, your repetition of words, phrases and ceremonies. Surely, all that is not religion. Those are divisions, but a mind that is understanding relationship has no division. The belief that life is one is merely an idea and therefore has no value; but for a man who is understanding relationship there is no `outsider' or `insider', there is neither the foreigner nor the one who is near. Relationship is the process of under standing oneself, and to understand oneself from moment to moment in daily life is self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is not a religion, an ultimate end. There is no such thing as an ultimate end. There is such a thing for the man who wants to escape; but the understanding of relationship, in which there is ever-unfolding self-knowledge, is immeasurable.

So, self-knowledge is not the knowledge of the self placed at some high level; it is from moment to moment in daily conduct which is action, which is relationship; and without that self-knowledge there is no right thinking. You have no basis for right thinking if you do not know what you are. You cannot know yourself in abstraction, in ideology. You can know yourself only in relationship in your daily life. Don't you know that you are in conflict? And what is the good of going away from it, of avoiding it, like a man who has a poison in his system which he does not reject and who is therefore slowly dying? So, self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, and without that self-knowledge you cannot go far; and to seek the absolute, God, truth, or what you will, is merely the search after a self-projected gratification. Therefore, you must begin near and search every word that you speak, search every gesture, the way you talk, the way you act, the way you eat - be aware of everything without condemnation; then in that awareness you will know what actually is and the transformation of what is, which is the beginning of liberation. Liberation is not an end. Liberation is from moment to moment in the understanding of what is - when the mind is free, not made free. It is only a free mind that can discover, not a mind moulded by a belief or shaped according to an hypothesis. Such a mind cannot discover. There can be no freedom if there is conflict, for conflict is the fixing of the self in relation ship.

Many questions have been sent in, and naturally it is impossible to answer them all. We have therefore chosen some which seem to be representative, and if your question is not answered, don't feel that it has been overlooked. After all, all problems are related, and if I can understand one problem in its entirety, then I can understand all the related problems. So, listen to these questions as you would listen to the talk; because questions are a challenge, and only in responding to them adequately do we find the problems resolved. They are a challenge to you as well as to me, and therefore let us think them out together and respond fully.

Question: What is right education? As teachers and as parents we are confused.

Krishnamurti: Now, how are we going to find the truth of this matter? Merely forcing the mind into a system, a pattern, is obviously not education. So, to discover what is right education, we must find out what we mean by `education'. Surely, education is not to learn the purpose of life, but to understand the meaning, the significance, the process of existence; because if you say life has a purpose, then the purpose is self-projected. Surely, to find out what is right education, you have first to enquire into the whole significance of life, of living. What is present education? Learning to earn a few rupees, acquiring a trade, becoming an engineer, a sociologist, learning how to butcher people, or how to read a poem. If you say education is to make a person efficient, which means to give him technical knowledge, then you must understand the whole significance of efficiency. What happens when a person becomes more and more efficient? He becomes more and more ruthless. Don't laugh. What are you doing in your daily life? What is happening now in the world? Education means the development of a particular technique, which is efficiency, which means industrialization, the capacity to work faster and produce more and more, all of which ultimately leads to war. You see this happening every day. Education as it is leads to war, and what is the point of education? To destroy or be destroyed. So, obviously, the present system of education is utterly futile. Therefore, what is important is to educate the educator. These are not clever statements to be listened to and laughed off. Because, without educating the teacher, what can he teach the child except the exploiting principles on which he himself has been brought up? Most of you have read many books. Where are you? You have money or can earn it, you have your pleasures and ceremonies - and you are in conflict; and what is the point of education, of learning to earn a few rupees, when your whole existence leads to misery and war? So, right education, surely, must begin with the educator, the parent, the teacher; and the enquiry into right education means enquiry into life, into existence, does it not? What is the point of your being educated as a lawyer if you are only going to increase conflict and maintain litigation? But there is money in that, and you thrive on it. So, if you want to bring about right education, you must obviously understand the meaning, the significance, of existence. It is not only to earn money, to have leisure, but to be able to think directly, truly - not `consistently', because to think consistently is merely to conform to a pattern. A consistent thinker is a thoughtless person; he merely repeats certain phrases and thinks in a groove. To find out what is right education, there must be the understanding of existence, which means the understanding of yourself; because you cannot understand existence abstractly. You cannot understand yourself by theorizing as to what education should be. Surely, right education begins with the right understanding of the educator.

Look at what is happening in the world. Governments are taking control of education - naturally, because all governments are preparing for war. Your pet government, as well as the foreign government, must inevitably prepare for war. A sovereign government must have an army, a navy, an air force; and to make the citizens efficient for war, to prepare them to perform their duties thoroughly, efficiently, ruthlessly, the central government must control them. Therefore, they educate them as they manufacture mechanical instruments, to be ruthlessly efficient. If that is the purpose and end of education, to destroy or be destroyed, then it must be ruthless; and I am not at all sure that that is not what you want. Because, you are still educating your children in the same old fashion. Right education begins with the understanding of the educator, the teacher, which means that he must be free of established patterns of thought. Education is not merely imparting information, knowing how to read, gathering and correlating facts; but it is seeing the whole significance of education, of government, of the world situation, of the totalitarian spirit which is becoming more and more dominant throughout the world. Being confused you create the educator who is also confused, and through so-called education you give power to destroy the foreign government. Therefore, before you ask what right education is, you must understand yourself; and you will see that it does not take a long time to understand yourself if you are interested to find out. Sir, without understanding yourself as the educator, how can you bring about a new kind of education? Therefore we come back to the eternal point which is yourself; and you want to avoid that point, you want to shift the responsibility onto the teacher, onto the government. The government is what you are, the world is what you are; and without understanding your self, how can there be right education?

Question: What do you mean by living from moment to moment?

Krishnamurti: A thing that continues can never be new. Just think it out and you will see - it is not a complicated problem. Surely, if I can complete each day and not carry over my worries, my tribulations, to the next, then I can meet tomorrow afresh. Meeting the challenge afresh is creation, and there can be no creation without ending. That is, you meet the new with the old; therefore there must be an ending of the old to meet the new. There must be an ending every minute, so that every minute is a new one. That is not a poetical imagination or indulgence. If you try, you will find cut what happens. But, you see, we want to continue. We want to have continuation from moment to moment, from day to day, because we think without continuation we can not exist.

Now, that which is capable of continuing, can that renew itself? Can that be new? Surely, there can be a new thing only when there is an ending. Your thought is continuous. Thought is the result of the past, thought is founded upon the past; it is a continuance of the past which in conjunction with the present creates, modifies, the future. But the past, through the present, to the future, is still a continuity. There is no break. It is only when there is a break that you can see something new. Merely to continue the past modified by the present is not to perceive the new. Therefore, thought cannot perceive the new. Thought must end for the new to be. But, you see what we are doing. We are using the present as a passage from the past to the future. Are we not doing that? To us, the present is not important. Thought, which is the present action, which is the present relationship, we do not think is important. We think what is important is the outcome, the result of thought, which is the future or the past. Have you not noticed how the old look to the past and also how the young sometimes look to the past or to the future? They are occupied with themselves in the past or in the future, but never give their full attention to the present. So, we use the present as a passage way to something else, and therefore there is no consideration, no observation of the present; and to observe the present, the past must end. Surely, to see what is, you cannot look through the past to the present. If I want to understand you, I must look at you directly, I must not bring up my past prejudices and through those prejudices look at you. Then I am only looking at my prejudices. I can look at you only when the prejudices are not; therefore there must be an end to prejudices.

So, to understand what is, which is action, which is relationship at every moment, there must be a freshness; therefore there must be an ending of the past; and this is not a theory. Experiment with it and you will see that this ending is not as difficult as you think. While you are listening, try it and you will see how easily and completely you can end thought and so discover. That is, when you are not induced, when you are interested in something vitally, profoundly, you are looking at it anew.The very interest drives away the past. You are only concerned to observe what is and to allow what is to tell its story. When you see the truth of this, your mind is emptied from moment to moment. Therefore the mind is discovering everything anew, and that is why knowledge can never be new. It is only wisdom that is new. Knowledge can be taught in a school, but wisdom cannot be taught. A school of wisdom is nonsense. Wisdom is the discovery and the understanding of what is from moment to moment, and how can you be taught to observe what is? If you are taught, it is knowledge, then knowledge intervenes between you and the fact. Therefore knowledge is a barrier to the new, and a mind full of knowledge cannot understand what is. You are learned, are you not? And is your mind new? Or is it filled up with memorized facts? And a mind which becomes more and more a mere accumulation of facts, how can such a mind see anything new? To see what is new, there must be an emptiness of past knowledge. Only in the discovery of what is from moment to moment is there the freedom which wisdom brings. Therefore, wisdom is something new, not repetitive, not something which you learn out of a school book or from Sankara, the Bhagavad Gita, or Christ.

So, knowledge which is continued is a barrier to understanding the new. If in listening you bring in your previous knowledge, how can you understand? First you must listen. Sir, an engineer has knowledge of stresses and strains; but if he comes to build a bridge, he must first study the location and the soil. He must look at it independently of the structure which he is going to build, which means he must regard it anew, not merely copy from a book. But there is a danger in similes, so use it lightly. What is important is that there be a renewal in which there can be creation, that creative impulse, that sense of constant rebirth; and that can come into being only when there is death every minute. Such a mind can receive that which is truth. Truth is not something absolute, final, far away. It is to be discovered from moment to moment, and you cannot discover it in a state of continuity.

There can be no freedom in continuity. After all, continuity is memory, and how can memory be new? How can memory, which is experience, which is the past, understand the present? Only when the past is wholly understood and the mind is empty is it capable of seeing the present in all its significance. But most of our minds are not empty. They are filled with knowledge, and such a mind is not a thinking mind. It is only a repetitive mind, a gramophone changing the records according to circumstances. Such a mind is incapable of discovering the new. There is the new only in ending; but you are afraid of that. You are afraid of ending, and all your talk your accumulation of facts, is merely a safeguard, an escape from that. Therefore, you are seeking continuity, but continuity is never new in it there can be no renewal, no emptiness in which you can receive. So, the mind can renew itself only when it is empty, not when it is filled with your worries from day to day; and when the mind has come to an end there is a creation which is timeless.

Question: The more I listen to you, the more.I feel the truth of the ancient teachings of Christ, Sankara, the Bhagavad Gita and Theosophy. Have you really not read any of them?

Krishnamurti: I will first answer the second part of the question, and then take up the first part. "Have you really not read any of them? No, Sir, I have not read any of them. What is wrong with that? Are you surprised? Are you shocked? And why should you read them? Why do you want to read others' books when there is the book of yourself Why do you want to read the Bible or Sankara? Surely, because you want confirmation, you want to conform. That is why most people read: to be confirmed in what they believe or what they express, to be sure, to be safe, to be certain. Can you discover anything in certainty? Obviously not. A man who is certain psychologically can never discover. So, why do you read? You may read for mere amusement, or to accumulate facts; or you read to acquire what you call wisdom, and you think you have understood everything because you can quote Sankara; you think by quoting Sankara you have got the full significance of life. The man who quotes is a thoughtless man because he is merely repeating what somebody has said. Sirs, if you had no book, no Bhagavad Gita, no Sankara, what would you do? You would have to take the journey by yourself into the unknown, you would have to venture out alone. When you discover something what you discover is yours, then you need no book. I have not read the Bhagavad Gita nor any of the religious, psychological, or philosophical books, but I have discovered something, and that discovery can come only in freedom, not through repetition. That discovery is far greater than the experience of another, because discovery is not repetition, not copy.

Then, the first part of the question. Sir, why do you compare? What is the process of comparison? Why do you say, "what you say is like Sankara"? Whether it is or is not is unimportant. Truth can never the same, it is ever new. If it is same, it is not truth, because truth is living from moment to moment, cannot be today what it was yesterday. But why do you want compare? Don't you compare And order to feel safe, in order feel that you do not have think, since what I say is what Sankara said? You have read Sankara and you think you have understood; so you compare and relax, which is all very quick and effortless. In fact, you have not understood, and that is why you compare. When you compare, there is no understanding. To understand, you must look directly at the thing that is presented to you, and a mind that compares is a sluggish, wasteful mind; it is a mind that lives in security, that is enclosed in gratification. Such a mind cannot possibly understand truth. Truth is a living thing, not static, and a thing that is living is incomparable; it cannot be compared with the past or with the future. Truth is incomparable from moment to moment, and for a mind that tries to compare it, weigh it, judge it, there is no truth. For such a mind there is only propaganda, repetition; and repetition is a lie, it is not truth. You repeat because you are not experiencing, and a man who is experiencing never repeats, because truth is not repeatable. You cannot repeat truth, but your conclusion, your judgment about it can be repeated. Therefore, a mind that compares, that says, "What you are saying is exactly what Sankara said", such a mind merely wants to continue and so is enervated, dead.

Sir, there is no song in your heart if you merely repeat a song and therefore follow the singer. What is important is not whether I have read sacred books, or whether what I say is comparable to Sankara, the Bhagavad Gita, or Christ, but what is important is why you repeat, why you compare. Understand why you compare, then you will be understanding yourself. The understanding of yourself is far more important than your understanding of Sankara, because you are far more important than Sankara or any ideology. It is only through you that you discover truth. You are the discoverer of truth, not Sankara, not the Bhagavad Gita, which has no meaning - it is only a means of hypnotizing yourself, like reading the newspaper. So, a mind that is capable of receiving truth is a mind that does not compare, for truth is incomparable. To receive truth the mind must be alone, and it is not alone when it is influenced by Sankara or Buddha. Therefore all influence, all conditioning, must cease. Only in that state when all know ledge has ceased is there an ending, and therefore the aloneness of truth.

Question: What exactly do you mean by meditation? Is it a process or a state?

Krishnamurti: Though I talk and you listen, let us experience and discover together what is meditation. I am not going to teach you how to meditate, but together let us find out what is meditation. So, listen and experience as we go along, for words have meaning only when we move, when we journey together.

What is meditation? Meditation is the understanding of the mediator; the mediator is the meditation. Meditation is not exclusion, concentration. What do you mean by concentration? I am going to explain. We are taking a journey together: You are discovering and I am discovering, and the important thing is to discover, not merely to copy, to follow. Most of us consider that concentration is meditation, but it is not, and I will show you why it is not. Concentration means exclusion - focussing on one interest to the exclusion of other interests. You concentrate and resist; so, concentration is the focussing of resistance. You try to concentrate on a picture, on an image, on an idea, and your mind wanders to other interests; and the exclusive resistance of the various interests you call meditation. Surely, that concentration is not meditation, because in that effort there is conflict between that which resists and that which encroaches. That is, you spend your time in resisting, in battling, in disciplining against something. You spend days and years in this battle, till at last you can focus your mind on the object of your desire. The object of your desire is self-projected, it is part of the thought process, it is of your own creation, and on that you try to focus; so, you are concentrating upon yourself, though you call it the ideal. Therefore it is an enclosing, exclusive process.

Now, meditation is not exclusion. We are discovering what meditation is interrogatively: to say what it is, is merely to copy. Only when you say what it is not, you say what it is. So, concentration is not meditation. When a schoolboy is interested in a toy, he has concentration. Surely, that is not meditation. The toy us not god, and the pursuit of virtue is not meditation. Let us see then what that means. The cultivation of virtue - is that virtue? To cultivate goodness - is that virtue? To say, "I am going to be brotherly" and meditate upon brotherliness - is that virtue? Such meditation upon virtue is merely self-calculation. Virtue implies freedom, and you are not free when you are plotting to become virtuous. So, the man who meditates daily to become virtuous, is not virtuous. It is a cloak, which is mere respectability. Sir, when you talk of humility, are you really humble, or are you only taking the cloak of humility? Do you know what it is to be humble? You cannot cultivate it. You cannot cultivate non-greediness. Because you are greedy, you want to be non-greedy. How can stupidity become intelligence? Where there is stupidity, there is no intelligence. Stupidity is what it is under all circumstances. Only with the ending of stupidity is there intelligence; only with the ending of greed is there freedom from greed. Therefore, virtue is freedom, not becoming something, which is endless continuity.

So, we see that concentration is not meditation, that pursuit of virtue is not meditation. Devotion obviously is not meditation, for the object of your devotion is self-projected. Your ideal is the outcome of your own thinking. Obviously, Sir, your ideal is self-projected, is it not? You are this, and you want to become that. The that of your becoming is out of yourself, out of your own desire. You are violent, and you want to become non-violent. The ideal is within yourself. Therefore, your ideal is homemade. Therefore, when you give your devotion to the ideal, you are giving devotion to the thing which you have created. So, your devotion is self-gratification. You are not devoted to something which you do not like, which is painful. You are devoted to something which gives you pleasure, which means, obviously that it is self-created, and therefore that is not meditation. And it is not meditation to search for truth, because you cannot search for something which you do not know. You can only search for that which you know. If you know truth, it is no longer truth. What you know is the outcome of the past, of memory, therefore it is not truth. Therefore when you say, "Through meditation I am seeking truth", you are merely burdening the mind with your own creation, which is not truth. So, concentration, devotion, the pursuit of virtue, the search for truth, is not meditation.

Then, what is meditation? The things that we have been doing regularly, practising, disciplining, forcing the mind - obviously all that is not meditation, because in it there is no freedom; and only in freedom can truth come into being. Nor is prayer meditation, as we have discussed previously. When all that superstructure is removed from the mind - the pursuit of the ideal, the search for truth, the becoming virtuous, the concentration, the effort, the discipline, the condemning, the judging - , when all that is gone, what is the mind? When that is not, the mediator is not; therefore, there is meditation. When the mediator is not, there is meditation, but the mediator can never meditate. He can only meditate upon himself, project himself, think about himself, but he knows no meditation. When the mediator understands himself and comes to an end, only then is there meditation; for the ending of the mediator is meditation. Concentration, seeking truth, becoming virtuous, condemning, judging, disciplining - all that is the process of the mediator; and without understanding the process of the mediator, there is no meditation. Therefore, without self-knowledge there is no meditation. There is no meditation without tranquillity of mind; but tranquillity does not come about through the seeking or the directing of the mediator. When the whole, total process of the mediator is not, then there is a silence that is not brought about by the mind as an idea, as an ideal, which is self-projected gratification.But when the projector, the mediator, the self, is completely absent, wholely ended, then there is silence which is not the product of the mind. Meditation is that silence which comes into being when the mediator and his processes are understood. That silence is in exhaustible; it is not of time, there fore it is immeasurable. Only the mediator compares, judges, measures; but when the measurement is not, the immeasurable is. Therefore, only when the mind is completely silent, completely still, tranquil, not projecting, not thinking - only then does the measureless come into being. But that measure less is not to be thought of. What you think about is the known, and the known cannot understand the unknown. Therefore, only when the known ends does the unknown come into being. Then only is there bliss.

December 4, 1949