AS ONE TRAVELS over the world and observes the appalling conditions of poverty and the ugliness of man's relationship to man, it becomes obvious that there must be a total revolution. A different kind of culture must come into being. The old culture is almost dead and yet we are clinging to it. Those who are young revolt against it, but unfortunately have not found a way, or a means, of transforming the essential quality of the human being, which is the mind. Unless there is a deep psychological revolution, mere reformation on the periphery will have little effect. This psychological revolution - which I think is the only revolution - is possible through meditation.
     Meditation is the total release of energy, and that is what we are going to talk over together this morning. The root meaning of that word is to measure. The whole Western world is based on the idea of measurement, but in the East they have said, "Measurement is maya, illusion, therefore one must find the immeasurable." So the two drifted apart culturally, socially, intellectually and religiously.
     Meditation is quite a complex problem, we have to go into it slowly and approach it from different angles, bearing in mind all the time that a psychological revolution is absolutely necessary for a different kind of world, a different kind of society, to come into being. I do know how strongly you feel about this. Probably most of us, being bourgeois, comfortable with our little incomes, our family and so on, would rather remain as we are and not be disturbed. But events, technology, and all those things that are happening in the world, are producing great changes outwardly. Yet inwardly most of us remain more or less as we have been for centuries. That revolution can only take place at the very centre of our being and requires a great abundance of energy; meditation is the release of that total energy and we are going to talk that over.
     We have got a great many ideas about what meditation is and what it should be; we import it from the East, or interpret it according to our own particular religious inclination, as contemplation, acceptance, prayer, keeping the mind still or open - we have all kinds of fanciful ideas about it. And especially lately, people have come from India propagating meditations of various forms.
     First of all, how is one to have this quality of energy which is without friction? We know mechanical energy, which is friction mechanically, and the friction in us which produces energy through conflict, through resistance, through control and all the rest of it. So there is a kind of energy caused by mechanical friction. Is there another kind of energy which has no friction whatsoever and is therefore completely free and immeasurable? I think meditation is the discovery of that. Unless one has great abundance of energy, not only physically but much more so psychologically, our action will never be complete, it will always produce friction, conflict and struggle. Seeing the various forms of meditation, of Zen, of Yoga brought over from India, and the various contemplative groups of monks and so on, in all that, there is the idea of control, acceptance of a system, practising a repetition of words, which is called mantra, and various forms of breathing, hatha yoga and so on. I suppose you know all this. So first of all let us dispose of them altogether by investigating. Not accepting what they say, but investigating it, seeing the truth or the falseness of it. There is this repetition of words, of sentences, mantras, a set of phrases given by a guru, being initiated, paying money to learn a peculiar phrase to be repeated by you secretly. Probably some of you have done that and you know a great deal about it. That is called mantra yoga, and is brought over from India. I don't know why you pay a single penny to repeat certain words from somebody who says, "If you do this you will achieve enlightenment, you will have a quiet mind." When you repeat a series of words constantly, whether it is Ave Maria or various Sanskrit words, obviously your mind becomes rather dull and you have a peculiar sense of unity, of quietness, and you think that will help to bring about clarity. You can see the absurdity of it, because why should you accept what anybody says about these matters - including myself? Why should you accept any authority about the inward movement of life? We reject authority outwardly; if you are at all intellectually aware and observant politically you reject these things. But apparently we accept the authority of somebody who says, "I know, I have achieved, I have realised." The man who says he knows, he does not know. The moment you say you know, you don't know. What is it you know? Some experience which you have had, some kind of vision, some kind of enlightenment? I dislike to use that word "enlightenment". Once you have experienced that, you think you have attained some extraordinary state; but that is past, you can only know something which is over and therefore dead. When these people come over and say they have realized, "Do this" or "Do that" for so much money, this is obviously absurd. So we can dispose of that.
     We can also dispose of this whole idea of practising a system, a method. When you practise a method in order to achieve enlightenment, or bliss, or to have a quiet mind, or to achieve a state of tranquility, whatever it is, it obviously makes the mind mechanical, you repeat over and over again. This not only implies suppression of your own movement and understanding, but also conformity and the endless conflict involved in practising a particular system. The mind likes to conform to a system because then it gets crystallized and it is easy to live that way. So can we dispose, now, of all systems of meditation? But you won't, because our whole structure of habit is based on that demand to find a method, so that we can just follow and live a monotonous, dull life of routine; not to be disturbed, that is what we want, and so we accept authority.
     One has to find out for oneself, not through anybody. We have had the authority of the priest for centuries upon centuries, the authority of teachers, saviours and masters. If you really want to find out what meditation is, you have to set aside all authority completely and totally; not the authority of law, of the policeman - law, legislation, you may understand later, when your own mind is orderly and clear. Now what is meditation? Is it control of thought? And if it is, who is the controller of thought? It is thought itself, isn't it? Our whole culture, both in the East and in the West, is based on control of thought and concentration, in which only one thought can be pursued to the end. Why,should one control at all? Control implies imitation, conformity, it implies the acceptance of a pattern as the authority, according to which you are trying to live. That pattern is set by the society, by the culture, by somebody who you think has knowledge, enlightenment and so on. According to that pattern one tries to live, suppressing all one's own feelings and ideas, trying to conform. In that there is conflict, and conflict is essentially a wastage of energy.
     So concentration, which so many advocate in meditation, is totally wrong. Are you accepting all this, or are you just listening out of boredom? Because we must go into this question, whether thought can function where necessary, without any form of control. Can thought function when necessary as knowledge, in action, and be completely still at other times? That is the real issue. The mind which is cluttered up with so many activities of thought and is therefore uncertain, is trying to find clarity in that confusion, forcing itself to control, to conform to an idea; it therefore brings about more and more confusion within itself. I want to find out whether the mind can be quiet and only function when necessary.
     Control, because it implies conflict, is a great waste of energy; that is important to understand, because I feel meditation must be a releasing of energy in which there is not the slightest friction. How is a mind to do this? How is it to have such energy in which every form of friction comes to an end? In enquiring into that, one must understand oneself completely, there must be total self-knowing - not according to any psychologist, philosopher or teacher, or the pattern set by a particular culture - but to know oneself right through, both at the conscious level as well as at the deeper levels, is that possible? When there is complete understanding of oneself, then there is the ending of conflict - and that is meditation.
     Now, how am I to know myself? I can only know myself in relationship; the observation of myself takes place only when there is response and reaction in relationship; there is no such thing as isolation. The mind is isolating itself all the time in all its activities, building a wall round itself in order not to be hurt, not to have any discomfort, unhappiness, or trouble; it is isolating itself all the time in its self-centred activity. I want to know "myself" as I want to know how to get from here to a particular town; that is, clearly, watching everything that is involved in myself, my feelings, my thoughts, my motives, conscious or unconscious. How is that possible? The Greeks, the Hindus, the Buddhists have said: know yourself. But apparently that is one of the most difficult things to do. We are going to find out this morning how to look at ourselves; because once you know yourself completely, that prevents all friction, and therefore out of that comes this quality of energy which is totally different. So to find out how to observe oneself, one must understand what is meant by observing.
     When we observe objective things like trees, clouds, the things outside of us, there is not only the space between the observer and the observed - the physical space - there is also the space of time. When we look at a tree there is not only physical distance, but there is also psychological distance. There is the distance between you and the tree, the distance created by the image as knowledge: that is an oak tree, or an elm. That image between you and the tree separates you.
     But when the quality of the mind of the observer is without the image, which is imagination, then there is quite a different relationship between the observer and the observed. Have you ever looked at a tree without a single word of like or dislike, without a single image? Have you noticed what then takes place? Then, for the first time, you see the tree as it is and you see the beauty of it, the colour, the depth, the vitality of it. A tree, or even another person, is fairly easy to observe; but to observe oneself that way - that is to observe without the observer - is much more difficult. So one must find out who is the observer.
     I want to watch myself, I want to know myself as deeply as possible. What is the nature, the structure of that observer who is watching? That observer is the past, isn't it? - the past knowledge which he has collected and stored up; the past being the culture, the conditioning. That is the observer who says, "This is right, this is wrong, this must be, this must not be, this is good, this is bad." So the observer is the past and with those eyes of the past we try to see what we are. Then we say, "I don't like this, I am ugly", or "This I will keep". All these discriminations and condemnations take place. Can I look at myself without the eyes of the past? Can I watch myself in action, which is in relationship, without any movement of the past? Have you ever tried this? (I don't suppose you have.)
     When there is no observer then there is only the observed. Please see this: I am envious, or I overeat, I am greedy. The normal reaction is, "I must not overeat", "I must not be greedy", "I must suppress", you know all that follows. In that there is the observer trying to control his greed, or his envy. Now when there is an awareness of greed without the observer, what takes place? Can I observe that greed without giving it a name, as "greed"? The moment I name it I have already fixed it as greed in my memory which says: I must get over it, I must control. So is there an observation of greed without the word, without justifying it, without condemning it? Which means, can I observe this thing called greed without any reaction whatsoever?
     To so observe is a form of discipline, isn't it? Not imposing any particular pattern, which means conformity, suppression and all the rest of it, but to observe the whole series of actions without condemning, justifying or naming just to observe. Then you will see the mind is no longer wasting energy. It is then aware and therefore it has energy to deal with that which it is observing.
     Questioner: May I ask, Sir, whether the "me" observing the "me" without naming it as the "me", is the same as observing the past, also without naming it as the past?
     Krishnamurti: Quite right, Sir, that's it. But once you understand the whole mechanism it does not become difficult. Once you see the truth of it, then that truth, that fact, acts. One can do that at the conscious level. There are a great many unconscious responses, motives, inclinations, tendencies, inhibitions and fears. How is one to deal with all that? Must one go through analysing layer after layer of hidden accumulations, exposing all that through dreams? How is all that to be exposed totally so that knowing oneself becomes complete?
     Apparently it cannot be done by the conscious mind. I can't investigate consciously the unconscious, the hidden. Can you? Don't say "no" - sec the difficulty of it, because I don't know what is hidden, and the hidden may intimate through dreams, but the dreams need to be interpreted and that will take a lot of time, won't it?
     Questioner: I think it is possible under certain drugs to know myself - there is no conflict.
     Krishnamurti: Does any drug really expose the totality of the content of consciousness, or does it bring about chemically a certain state of mind, which is totally different from the understanding of oneself? I have watched many people in India taking drugs and I have also watched students at universities in America, and others, who have been taking psychedelic drugs. These drugs do affect the mind, the brain cells themselves - they destroy the brain. If you have talked to those who have taken drugs, you see they can't reason, they can't pursue a logical sequence of thought. I am not asking you not to take drugs, it's up to you; but you can see the effect of it on people. They have no sense of responsibility, they think they can do anything they like - and how many hospitals are full of people who are mentally unbalanced through drugs. We are talking of something which is non-chemical. If LSD, or any other drug, could bring about a state of mind in which there is no conflict, and at the same time one could maintain complete responsibility and a logical sequence of thought and action, that would be marvellous.
     We are asking: how is one to expose the whole hidden content at one glance? Not through a series of dreams, not through analysis, all that implies time and wastage of energy. This is an important question because I want to understand myself - myself being all my past, the experiences, the hurts, the anxieties, the guilt, the various fears. How am I to comprehend all that immediately? To understand all that immediately gives immense energy. Now how do you do that? Is that an impossibility? We have to ask the impossible question to find a way out of it. Unless we ask the most impossible question we shall always be dealing with what is possible, and what is possible is very little. So I am asking the most impossible question, which is: to have this whole content of consciousness exposed and understand it, see it totally, without time - which means without analysis, exploration and seeing layer after layer, which is an expenditure of time. How is the mind to observe this whole content with one look?
     If that question is put to you, as it is being put now, if you are really listening to that question, what is your response? You obviously say "I can't do it". You really don't know how to do it. Are you waiting for somebody to tell you? If I say to myself, "I don't know", am I waiting for somebody to inform me - am I expecting an answer? When I am expecting an answer, then I already know. Are you following this? When I say, "I don't know, I really don't know" - I am not waiting for anybody to tell me, I am not expecting anything because nobody can answer it. So I actually don't know, What is the state of the mind that says "I really don't know"?, I can't find it in any book, I can't ask anybody, I can't go to any teacher or priest, I really don't know. When the mind says "I do not know", what is the state of the mind? Please, don't answer me. Do look at it, because we always say we know. I know my wife, I know mathematics, I know this, 1 know that. We never say, "I really don't know". I am asking; what is the state of the mind that honestly says, "I don't know"? Don't verbalize immediately. When I really mean I don't know, the mind has no answer. It is not expecting anything from anybody. It is not waiting, it is not expecting. So what happens? Is it not completely alone? It is not isolated - isolation and aloneness are two different things. In that quality of aloneness there is no influence, there is no resistance, it has shed itself from all the past, it says, "I really don't know." Therefore the mind has emptied itself of all its content. Have you understood this?
     I have asked the impossible question and I have said, "I don't know." Therefore the mind empties itself of everything, of every suggestion, every probability, every possibility; so the mind is completely active and empty of all the past - which is time, analysis, the authority of somebody. So it has exposed all the content of itself by denying the content. Do you understand now? As we said, meditation can only begin with the total understanding of myself; that is part of the beginning of meditation. Without understanding myself the mind can deceive itself, it can have illusions according to its particular conditioning. When you know your conditioning and are free of it, then there is no possibility of any kind of illusion, and that is absolutely essential because we can deceive ourselves so easily. So when I investigate into myself, I see that consciousness is emptying itself of all its content through knowing itself, not by denying anything, but by understanding the whole content; that brings about great energy, which is necessary, because that energy transforms completely all my activity. It is no longer self-centred and therefore the cause of friction.
     Meditation is a way of putting aside altogether everything that man has conceived of himself and of the world. So he has a totally different kind of mind. Meditation also means awareness, both of the world and of the whole movement of oneself, to see exactly what is, without any choice, without any distortion. Distortion takes place the moment you bring in thought. Yet thought has to function, but when there is an observation and thought interferes with that observation as image, then there is distortion and illusion. So to observe actually what is, in oneself and in the world, without any distortion, a quiet, very still mind is necessary. One knows that it is necessary to have a quiet mind, therefore there are various systems to help you to control it, and all that means friction. If you want to observe passionately, with intensity, the mind inevitably becomes quiet. You don't have to force it - the moment you force it, it is not quiet, it is dead. Can you see this truth, that to perceive anything you must look? - and if you look with prejudice you cannot see. If you see that, your mind is quiet.
     Now what takes place in a quiet mind? We are enquiring not only into that quality of energy in which there is no friction, but also into how to bring about a radical change within oneself. One's self is the world and the world is oneself - the world is not the fruit separate from me: I am the world. It is not just an idea, but an actual fact, that I am the world and the world is "me". So there is a radical revolution, a change in me that will inevitably affect the world, because I am part of the world.
     In this enquiry into what meditation is, I see that any wastage of energy is caused by friction in my relationship with another. Is it possible to have a relationship with another in which there is no friction whatsoever? That is possible only when I understand what love is, and the understanding of what love is, is the denial of what love is not. Jealousy, ambition, greed, self-centred activity, obviously all that is not love. When in the understanding of myself there is the total setting aside of all that which is not love, then it is. The observation takes a second, the explanation and the description takes a long time, but the act of observation is instantaneous.
     In this observation I have found no system, no authority, no self-centred activity, therefore there is no conformity, no comparison of myself with another; to observe all this the mind must be extraordinarily quiet. If you want to listen to what is being said just now, you have to give attention, haven't you? You can't listen if you are thinking about something else. If you are bored with this, I can get up and go, but to force yourself to listen is absurd. If you are really interested in it passionately, intensely, then you listen completely, and to listen completely the mind must be quiet - this is very simple. All this is meditation; not just sitting for five minutes by yourself, cross-legged, breathing properly - that is not meditation, that is self-hypnosis. I want to find out what is the quality of the mind that is completely still and also what takes place when it is still. I have observed, I have recorded, I have understood and I have finished with that. But there is another enquiry: what is the state of the mind, of the brain cells themselves? The brain cells store up the memories that are useful, that are necessary for their self-protection, memories of what might lead to danger. Haven't you noticed this? I suppose you read a lot of books? Personally I don't, therefore I can look into myself and find out, watch myself, not according to somebody - but just watch. I am asking myself what is the quality of such a mind, what has happened to the brain? The brain records, that is its function. It functions only through memory which protects it, otherwise it can't function. The brain may find security in some neurosis; it has found security in nationalism, in a belief in the family, in having possessions, which are all various forms of neurosis. The brain must be secure to function and it may choose to find that security in something that is False, unreal, illusory, neurotic.
     When I have examined myself thoroughly, all this disappears. There is no neurosis, no belief, no nationality, no desire to hurt anybody, nor to recall all the hurts. So the brain then is a recording instrument, without thought using it as the "me" in operation. So meditation implies not only the body being still but also the brain being quiet. Have you ever watched your brain in operation? Why you think certain things. Why you react to others, why you feel desperately lonely, unloved, with nothing to rely on, no hope - you know this tremendous sense of loneliness? Though you may be married, have children and live in a group, there is this feeling of complete emptiness. Seeing it, one tries to escape from it, but if you remain with it, do not escape from it, just look at it completely without condemning it or trying to overcome it, but observe it actually as-it is, then you will see that what you considered to be`loneliness ceases to be.
     So the brain cells record, and thought as the "me" - my ambitions, my greed, my purposes, my fulfilment - comes to an end. Therefore the brain and the mind become extraordinarily quiet and only function when necessary. Therefore your brain, your mind, enters into quite a different dimension of which there is no description; because the description is not the described. What we have done this morning is description, explanation, but the word is not the thing, when one realizes that then one is free of the word. The quiet mind then enters into the immeasurable.
     All our life is based on thought which is measurable. It measures God, it measures its relationship with another through the image. It tries to improve itself according to what it thinks it should be. So unnecessarily we live in a world of measurement, and with that world we want to enter into a world in which there is no measurement at all. Meditation isthe seeing of what is and going beyond it - seeing the measure and going beyond the measure. What takes place when the brain, the mind and the body are really quiet and harmonious - when the mind, the body and the heart are completely one? Then one lives a totally different kind of life.
     Questioner: What is intuition?
     Krishnamurti: One has to be very careful of that word. Because I like something unconsciously, I say I have an intuition about it. Don't you know all the tricks one plays upon oneself through that word? When you see things as they are, why do you want intuition? Why do you want any form of hunch, of intimation? We are talking of understanding oneself.
     Questioner: When one is aware of one's sexual appetites, they seem to disappear. Can that awareness, that attention, be maintained all the time?
     Krishnamurti: Watch the danger of this question. "When I am aware of my sexual desires they seem to disappear." So awareness is a trick which will help me to make things, which I don't like, disappear. I don't like anger, therefore I am going to be aware of it and perhaps it will disappear. But I do like my fulfilment, I want to become a great man, and I won't be aware of that. I believe in God and I worship the State, but I won't be aware of all the dangers involved in that, although it separates, it destroys, it tortures people. So I am going to be aware of the things that are most unpleasant, but unaware of all those things which I want to keep. Awareness is not a trick, it is not something that will help me to dissolve the things we don't want. Awareness means to observe the whole movement of like and dislike, of your suppressions. If you are old-fashioned you don't talk about sex, you suppress it, but you go on thinking about it - one has to be aware of all that.
     Questioner: Sir, can we by understanding our minds, be aware when we are asleep?
     Krishnamurti: This is really a complex question. How am I to be aware that I am asleep? Is there an awareness of what is going on during sleep? Am I aware during the day of all the movements that are going on within me, of all the reactions? If I am not aware during the day, how am I going to be aware at at night when I sleep? If you are aware during the day, watching, attentive to how much you eat, what you say, what you think, of your motives, then have you anything to be aware of during the night? Please find out. If you are not aware, except of that which is going on as a recording in the brain, what takes place? I have spent my day actively, being aware, watching what I eat, what I think, what I feel, how I talk to others. Jealousy, envy, greed, violence - I have been completely aware of all that; which means I have brought order there, not according to any plan. I have lived a disordered life of not being aware; when I become aware of all this, there is order. So when the body goes to sleep, what takes place? Generally the brain tries to bring about order while you are asleep, because during the conscious waking hours you have lived a disordered life and the brain needs order. I don't know if you have watched it - the brain cannot function properly, healthily if there is no order. So if during the day there has been order, the brain is not trying to bring about order when you sleep, through dreams, through intimations and so on - it becomes quiet. It may record, but it is quiet and so there is a possibility of renewal, a possibility of a mind no longer fighting and struggling; therefore the mind becomes extraordinarily young, fresh and innocent, in the sense that it won't hurt and will not be hurt. Questioner: When a man has a message, the relationship between that man and his followers is usually that of a teacher. The teacher often has powers, and his message is a system. Why don't you consider yourself a teacher and your message a system?
     Krishnamurti: I have made this fairly clear, haven't I? Don't follow anybody and don't accept anybody as a teacher, except when you yourself become your own teacher and disciple.