Mind Without Measure

We first begin by asking what is the significance of death. It is the question of all humanity whether we are very young or very old. What is the meaning, the significance, of the extraordinary thing called death? Yesterday evening, we talked about several things including what is love, compassion; what is the relationship of life which is not only the whole human existence, what is its relationship to love, to death and to the whole search of man for thousands of years to find something that is beyond all thought. We have to understand the meaning of death because we are all going to die. That is absolute certainty. We are so afraid of it or we rationalize it. You say `yes', I accept it, I accept death as I accept pain, as I accept sorrow, as I accept loneliness; I also accept death, which is to submit, to suffer death, to allow the whole of existence of a human being to come to an end, either through disease, through old age or through some incident. We never find out while we are living what it means to die, to understand the depth of it. You are looking at it as an incident of life, as a fact of life, as violence is a fact of life, as hatred is a fact of life. If we are at all reasonable, sane, we must look at this question of death in similar manner, not accept it, not just say it is inevitable or try to find out what lies beyond death, but to observe the nature of dying.

Where there is love, there is no loneliness. Where there is love in your heart, there is no problem. Having stated that, don't make it into a problem. Look at the fact. The fact is that we are not sensitive, that we don't have the depth of beauty. The fact is that we don't love; we don't look at it, try to remain with it, to see `that is so', not try to rationalize it. It is so, that I don't love my wife; you know what it means to say that to yourself. You should cry. I want to cry for you all. Sirs, it is like two parallel lines never meeting and therefore increasing conflict day after day till you die. See the fact that there is no love in your heart, to have the mind in your heart. We think love can be achieved, cultivated. Love is not something to cultivate. Either there is or there is not. If there is not, look at it, hold it, realize what you are without love in your heart; it then becomes a machine - insensitive, vulgar, coarse, only concerned with sex and pleasure. Sirs, please, I am not harassing you, I am not scolding you. I am just pointing out what is happening. Your knowledge, your books, have destroyed you because love is not found in the books. It does not lie with knowledge. Knowledge and love don't go together. Then you say: `I know my wife', but that is your knowledge which is your image about her. That knowledge is put together by thought, and thought is not love. So, having stated all this, do you have love in your heart or is it something romantic, nonsensical, impractical, valueless? It does not give you any money; that is so. Having heard all this, is there a comprehension of the depth of that word so that your mind is in the heart? Then you have right relationship. When you have right relationship, which means love, you can never go wrong.

Then that is relationship, but if you are ambitious, you follow the path, becoming noble, ignoble and all the rest of it, and she also follows another path. Naturally you may be married, you may have children and all the rest of it, but you never meet. That breeds a sense of desperate loneliness. Don't you know all this? I have no relationship with anyone - with my wife, with my boss, with my foreman - I have no relationship at all with anybody, because I am self-centred. So that self-centredness and the lack of relationship brings about great loneliness. Discovering that loneliness, we then make out of that loneliness a problem - what am I to do when I am lonely? Your brain is ready to solve the problem. But you never rest with the loneliness, you never enquire the cause of it.

relationship is one of the most important things in life. Why have we made it such a confusion and such misery? What is relationship? The word implies being in contact, not only physical contact, not sexual contact - that you all know - but to be in contact mentally, emotionally, inwardly, with another so that there is no division in that contact. That is relationship. But we have not got that contact. You are ambitious and your wife also is ambitious. You want this and she wants something else. She may be right and you may be wrong. She wants to live in a marvellous house and you say `Please, for god's sake; she wants to be popular and you don't care. You are a scholar, a professor in your own little groove, and she has also her own little groove. So you are never in contact with each other except sexually. This is a fact. And you call that relationship. You have an image about her or she has an image about you. Where does love come into all this? Do you understand my question? When one says to one's wife, I love you, what does it mean? I don't know whether you say it at all. I doubt it. But if you do say it, what does it mean to love another? relationship means to love another. What does that word mean? I love this or I love that, I love god, I love my guru. What does that love mean? Is it based on reward and punishment? Look at it sirs, because we are always caught between the two - reward and punishment. I follow the guru because he is going to promise me heaven, give me comfort. We are caught in this. Is relationship a reward and punishment process? Is love a movement of that? Think it out.

Now, are you being drowned by a lot of words or do you catch instantly the depth, the beauty, the quality of relationship without more explanation, more analysis, see the extraordinary importance of relationship? Do you see the beauty of relationship? Where there is no relationship, there is disorder. So let us look at it together in order to arrive at or listen to something serious. You know most of us have homes, have houses, flats, and we own them and possess them. It is our home. We never realize that we are also guests in that house. Do you understand the meaning of that? You can be a guest in a house, in your own house. Do you understand what it means? That means one must be a teacher as well as a disciple. There is no teacher outside of you. You are the teacher and also you are the disciple who is learning from the teacher, not from the teacher as a guru. But you are learning and teaching. You are the owner of your house and also you are the guest of your house. That means you look after the house, you care for the house, you care for whoever is in the house because you are a guest. The speaker has travelled all over the world for the last sixty years, and wherever he is, he is a guest. That means he is always adjusting himself like a river with great volume of water behind it, and every boulder, every rock, it goes round it. The guest is like that. Let us get back.

So, is it possible to live a life without a single problem? We are not talking of mathematical problems and so on, but problems of relationship. To have no problems in relationship - is that possible? You have problems with your wife, with your father, with your mother, with your children. Why? If the daily living is not in order, you can meditate till you are blue in the face, that meditation has no meaning. It is merely an escape; you might just as well take a drug and enjoy yourself. If you don't put your house in order, which is your relationship, if that house is not in order, then your society will not be in order. You must begin near to go very far. The near is your relationship. Why are problems there? Why do you have problems with your wife, with your husband, with your children, with your neighbour, with your government, with your community and all the rest of it, which is, what is relationship? Life is a movement in relationship. There is no escape from that. You may become a hermit, take vows, put on strange garbs and all the rest of it, thinking yourself extraordinary, exceptional, but you are related. To understand relationship is the most important thing in life; not god, not all these scriptures, but to understand the depth, the meaning, the beauty, the quality, of relationship.

As we said earlier, a chattering mind is an unhealthy mind. It perpetually talks, not only about business problems, mathematical problems, and so on, but problems of one's relationship with husband, wife, children, with the neighbour. It is perpetually occupied, and such occupation will inevitably wear down, weigh down, the capacity of the brain. It is obvious. Is it possible not to chatter? When we realize this chattering and ask the question is it possible to stop it, then we make a problem of it. Our brains are trained to solve problems. So we solve it by saying I must not chatter, and I must try to control, and then the problem arises: Who is the controller? Is the controller different from the controlled? When a problem arises, you are ready to solve it, and brains like ours are trained to solve problems. In solving one problem, other problems increase. So, see a fact that you are violent and make the story of violence read itself; and it will, if your mind is quiet. But don't make a problem of it - `How is the brain to be quiet?' Is it possible to look, to observe, without any choice, to look at your greed, envy, ambitions, your arrogance? Have you not noticed how many people are arrogant? Not the politician, that is understood; he wants power, position, prestige. Where there is power, there is evil. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

May we continue with what we were talking about yesterday evening? We said the present condition of racial divisions, linguistic divisions, religious divisions, national divisions as Muslim and the Hindu, the Jew and the Arab, the American and the European, the Russian, the Chinese, and so on has brought about a great many wars. Where there is division there must be conflict, not only division between man and woman in their relationship, but also division as racial, religious and linguistic. Also we went into the question of why does this constant conflict between man and man exist, what is the root of it, what is the cause of all this chaos, anarchy, near anarchy, bad governments, each nation preparing for wars, one guru more important than the other, and so on. We are seeing this division throughout the world, and also historically it has existed for many, many centuries. What is the cause of it? Who is responsible for it? We said thought has divided man against man; thought has also created the most extraordinary architecture, painting, poetry and the whole world of technology, medicine, surgery, communications, computers, robots, and so on. Thought has brought about health, good medicine and various forms of human comfort. But thought also has created this vast division between man and man, and we ask what is the cause of all this, Who is responsible for all this? And we said, where there is a cause, there is an end. When you have a certain disease, the cause can be found of that disease, and the disease can be cured. So wherever there is a cause, there is an end to that cause. That is obviously a fact. If thought has created this confusion, this uncertainty, this perpetual danger, then what will happen if thought is not used?

What is our first issue in life, what is the first movement in our life, in the life of man? We are not talking about the petty little life which you lead, which we will come to presently, but the life that is around us, the vast, immense, complex movement of existence. What is it that strikes you first? What is it that has meaning, that has depth, that has a sense of vitality behind it? What would be your first observation, your first response, your first immediate enquiry? Perhaps you never ask this question. If you look at this vast extraordinary movement of life of which one is a part, what is the thing that you meet first? Would it be relationship, would it be your own particular concern about yourself, would it be your own fear, your own anxiety, your own particular, narrow, limited enquiry, your own search for god? What would be your first natural contact, natural demand? Don't we look at this vast movement of life from a narrow little window, that window being your own little self - your own worries, your own anxieties, your own sexual demands? Are you looking at this vast movement from no particular point of view, from no window, from no commitment, or are you so caught in a system, in a tradition, in knowing as a professor, as a philosopher, as a writer, as a soldier or as a specialist? Or do you look at it as a human being, the human being with so many questions, sorrows, pains, anxieties? How do you look at all this?

The psychological field is the field of our relationship, our fears, anxiety, all the rest of it. We have got the same mentality that these have to be solved: these are problems that have to be solved, which means we look at life, at our daily living, from the point of view of our problems. You are trained or educated to solve problems.

What is the problem? Why have we, throughout our life, problems - from the beginning, when we see the light, till we die? Why do we have problems - social problems, economic problems, mechanical problems, computer problems and our own problems in our daily life, in our relationship? Is it necessary to have problems? Is it possible to live without a single problem? If you have problems, obviously those problems act as friction and wear out the brain, and one gets old and so on. Human beings throughout the world have many, many problems. They live in problems. Their whole life is a movement of problems. Now we are asking: is it possible not to have problems? We are going to investigate the question, not say, `yes, it is possible to live without problems; that is not the point. The point is why do we have it, what is a problem, why the brain is always trying to solve problems. There are mechanical problems, mathematical problems, problems of design, problems in architecture, physics. In the technological field, there are many, many problems. That is inevitable. But why do we, in our life, in our relationship, in our own way of living, in our family, have problems? We see that in the technological world problems must exist. We live in a mechanical world. We are business people: we are doctors, surgeons, physicists, biologists, trained computer experts. And our brain is trained, educated, conditioned, to solve problems. We extend that same attitude to our daily life. Do you understand what I am saying? Suppose one is a computer expert. He has several problems there, and mechanically he has to solve those problems, which means his brain is trained, conditioned, educated, to solve problems. And we extend that same movement of solution of problems to the psychological field.

If one may like to point out, this is not a lecture to instruct on a particular subject or with a view to inform, not to instruct and teach, but we, you and the speaker, are searching out the various issues of our daily lives to see if there are any solutions for them. So it is your responsibility as well as that of the speaker to think together, for each of us to discover, find out for ourselves if we are meeting each other; not merely at the intellectual level or emotional, ideational level, but rather meet in a relationship that is enquiring, questioning. To question, enquire, one must be free of prejudices. Otherwise, enquiry has no value at all. Most of you are already committed to so many ideals, conclusions, opinions, and so we never meet. As the speaker has no beliefs, has no ideals, has no authority whatsoever, he can investigate easily, freely, happily, but if you also were free, you can also enquire, look into the vast conflicts of our society, of our governments, why human beings who have lived on this earth for perhaps forty, fifty thousand years or more have become what they are - dull, violent, superstitious. We are the society, we have created this society in which we live, and to bring about order in that society, our own house must be in order, which it is not. Our house, the house in which we live, is not the physical house, but it is the house of our struggle, conflict, misery, confusion, sorrow. That is our house, and we don't bring about order in that. Mere demand for outward order has little meaning.

And what is compassion? - not the definition that you can look up in a dictionary. What is the relationship between love and compassion, or are they the same movement? When we use the word `relationship', it implies a duality, a separation, but we are asking what place has love in compassion, or is love the highest expression of compassion? How can one be compassionate if you belong to any religion, follow any guru, believe in something, believe in your scriptures, and so on, attached to a conclusion? When you accept your guru, you have come to a conclusion, or when you strongly believe in god or in a saviour, this or that, can there be compassion? You may do social work, help the poor out of pity, out of sympathy, out of charity, but is all that love and compassion? In understanding the nature of love, having that quality which is mind in the heart, that is intelligence. Intelligence is the understanding or the discovering of what love is. Intelligence has nothing whatsoever to do with thought, with cleverness, with knowledge. You may be very clever in your studies, in your job, in being able to argue very cleverly, reasonably, but that is not intelligence. Intelligence goes with love and compassion, and you cannot come upon that intelligence as an individual. Compassion is not yours or mine like thought is not yours or mine. When there is intelligence, there is no me and you. And intelligence does not abide in your heart or your mind. That intelligence which is supreme is everywhere. It is that intelligence that moves the earth and the heavens and the stars, because that is compassion.

Surely, to find something true one must negate that which is not true, negate the false. To discover what is false and what is true and what is true in the false, one requires not only the capacity to think clearly but to demand, ask questions. So what is love? Would you say love is desire? Would you say love is pleasure? Would you say love is attachment? The speaker is asking these questions for you to answer to yourself; answer, not to deceive yourself, which is so easy to do. One may think that one is a marvellous human being, and that one is out of all this. But to find out that which is not love, that is negation, and it is the most positive action. We are asking, is desire love? Desire is a wandering movement, and is love wandering, unstable, weak, or is it something as strong, as vital as death? Is love pleasure, sexual pleasure, the pleasure of owning, dominating, possessing a person? Is that love? Is attachment to the person - my wife, my husband, my family, which means to hold on, cling to - is that love? Or in attachment there is fear, jealousy, anxiety, hate? Where there is jealousy, there is hate. Is that love? Has hate any relationship with love? Is love the opposite of hate? Is the good opposite of that which is not good? If hate is the opposite of love, then hate has its root in love. All opposites have their root in their own opposites. Please examine your own life honestly and ask these questions. Desire, pleasure, attachment, jealousy, anxiety, fear of losing, is all that love? Can you be free of attachment, not at the last moment when death is there? Can you end attachment to another? See the implications of attachment, the consequences of attachment. Where there is jealousy, there is hate, anger. Is all that love?

So, what is sorrow? What is the nature of it? In that thing called sorrow, there is pain, there is grief, there is a sense of isolation, a sense of loneliness in which there is no relationship. It is not only a physical shock but a great crisis in consciousness, in the psyche. I have lost my son; I am only taking that example. I have lost my son to whom I am attached. I want him to grow up into some businessman, have some kind of good substantial income, a house, and so on, and suddenly he has gone. What is that quality of suddenness, something which has given me great joy, great pain, great anxiety, concern about his future? All that movement - my affection, my concern, my care, my sense of helping him to have good taste, to live aesthetically - suddenly ends. Don't you know all these feelings? In every house there is this shadow of sorrow. There is sudden ending of my attachment, sudden ending of all my hope which I have invested in him, sudden in the sense of a deep shock and life becomes empty; either I become very cynical or find a rational explanation or plunge myself into some form of entertainment - drugs, trips and all the rest of it, or believe in some future life. This is the lot of human beings.

This evening we ought to talk over together whether sorrow can ever end - the sorrow of man; what is love, what is compassion, what is intelligence, the significance of death, and the whole question of meditation. We have lived with sorrow generation upon generation - the grief, the sorrow of loneliness, the sorrow of great anxiety, the sorrow of having no proper relationship with another, the sorrow of a mother, of a father losing a son, of a wife whose husband has been killed in war. Also there is the sorrow of ignorance. Sorrow has many forms. It is not just one incident called death, it is not just one happening in one's life, but a series of incidents, of accidents and experiences which contain pleasure and pain, the sorrow of this movement of reward and punishment, the sorrow of old age, the sorrow of illness, blindness, of deformed children. Man has carried the great weight of sorrow and tries to escape from it. He invents all kinds of theories, all kinds of possibilities, romantic concepts, but sorrow remains with man. I wonder if one has looked at what wars have done to man - how many women, fathers, brothers, sisters, have shed tears because one holds on to nationalism, racial prejudices, linguistic differences. All this is causing enormous sorrow in the world. There is not only personal sorrow, the loss of something, the loss of someone whom you loved, but the loss of never having a single, happy, original day, the pain of seeing poverty in this land and doing nothing about it. Man has carried this sorrow from time beyond measure. We still are burdened, fearful, anxious, lonely, aching with deep inward pain, the lack of success, lack of opportunity, lack of the things we all want.

Now, can you observe your wife, your friend or the speaker without his reputation, look at him without any image? Can you look at your wife, at a tree, at a flower, without the movement of thought? The movement of thought is time. Thought divides as time divides. When you look, you are looking as the observer, who is the past, who is the word, who is the memory. The past divides, the past is time. It is in the mirror of relationship that you look at yourself as you would look in the mirror to look at your face. There you can perceive every movement of thought, every movement of reaction. So, the perceiver is the perceived, the analyser is the analysed. I want to experience something extraordinary. I am bored with all the experience I have had - sex and pleasure. I want to experience something ultra, something beyond all thought, and the experiencer is the experienced. A mind that does not demand experience is totally different. Therefore, we have to learn how to listen, how to observe, not accumulate how to listen, but just listen, just observe, without all the memory. Then you will see that which you observe, which is violence, and that there is no division between the observer and the observed. The observer is the violence. I wonder if you see that! When you are so alert, watching, observing, it is like putting great light on the thing which you observe. Then it disappears totally, never to return.

How do you observe violence? Violence is a sensory response. You have hurt me, I am wounded. My image about myself has been hurt. You might not physically hurt me, but you have wounded me inwardly because I have an image about myself as a great man or as a professor. That image has been hurt. To get over that hurt, I say, `Give me time.' All that is effort which is brought about by the division of time. So, is it possible to end violence so completely that it never comes back? That is why we are asking how do you look at, how do you perceive, violence. How do you look at a tree, the moon, the stars, the heavens and the beauty of night - how do you look at it? How do you look at your wife or your husband or your friend? Do you look at your wife or your husband or the tree or the moon or the rivers with the memories that you have had, with accumulated hurts, accumulated pleasures, companionship, stored in the brain as memory? Do you look at your wife and your husband with those memories? Memory is time. Where there is time, there must be division. Hence you have quarrels and all the rest of it in your relationship with another.

We have been talking over together, in a conversation between two people, the very complex process of our living from the time we are born till we die. We talked about whether it is possible at all to live a life without a single shadow of conflict - conflict in our relationship with each other, however intimate or far away. Conflict brings about disorder, and as long as each one of us lives in disorder, we cannot possibly bring about a psychological revolution in the structure of society. This evening we ought to talk over the nature of time, desire, fear, pleasure, and whether sorrow, which happens to be the lot of man throughout the world, has an end to it. Together you and the speaker are going to investigate the nature of time, explore desire which is very complex, and talk over together as to whether there is an end to sorrow. Because, where there is sorrow, there cannot be love, there can be no compassion, there can be no intelligence. So, it is important that you and the speaker meet at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity. Otherwise, there will be no possibility of communication. One hopes we will meet on the same level because, the speaker has no authority, he is not telling you what to do, or what you should do with your life; but when we are together, discussing, having a dialogue over a problem, that problem is the concern of both the speaker and you. It is your concern as well as that of the speaker. Merely to meet at a verbal level, as most of us do, has very little significance because we are concerned with not physical revolution, but psychological revolution - inward, radical, fundamental change. We have lived for millennia after millennia, for thousands of years, with sorrow, pain, anxiety, loneliness, despair, fear and the pursuit of wandering desire, and man has always asked if there is a stop to time.

Time is memory - the past as the observer, observer observing what is happening, translating what is happening to his own conditioning, to his own experience, and so on. Time essentially means division. So outwardly to change, we imagine time is necessary; that eventually man who is divided, who has divided himself into nationalities, will become international and gradually drop all nationalistic tendencies and have a global relationship. We think all that requires time. Time is fundamentally a process of division. Outwardly, physically, time is necessary - like the seed growing into a great tree, that requires time, years. There is a tree in California which is over 5,000 years old. To come to that age, there have been many, many rains and storms and fires and lightning - which is all growth in time. We see that outwardly, physically, we need time; to acquire knowledge, the accumulating process of learning mathematics, physics or how to fly one of these jets, requires time. One cannot possibly escape from that time or try to find a stop to that kind of time. That will be utterly meaningless and foolish.

We have to enquire into what it is to observe. How do you observe yourself what you are, in the mirror of relationship? What does it mean to observe? This is really another important thing one has to find out. What does it mean to look? When you look at a tree, which is the most beautiful thing on the earth, one of the most lovely things on the earth, how do you look at it? Do you ever look at it, do you ever look at the new moon - the shape of the new moon, so delicate, so fresh, so young; have you ever looked at it? Can you look at it without using the word `moon'? Are you really interested in all this? I will go on like a river that goes on. You are sitting on the banks of the river looking at the river, but you don't become the river ever because you never take part of the river, you never join the beauty of the movement that has no beginning and no end. So please consider what it is to observe. When you observe a tree, or a moon, something outside you, you always use the word - the tree, the moon; can you look at that moon, the tree, without naming it, without using the word to identify? Can you look without the word, without the content of the word, without identifying the word with the tree or the thing? Now, can you look at your wife, at your husband, at your children, without the word `my wife', without an image? Have you ever tried it? When you observe without a word, without a name, without the form you have created about her or him, in that observation there is no centre from which you observe. Then find out what happens. The word is thought. Thought is born out of memory. So you have the memory, the word, the thought, the image interfering between you and the other. Right? But here is no thought, thought in the sense, the word, the content of the word, the significance of the word to look, to observe. Then, in that observation, there is no centre as `me' looking at `you'. Then only there is a right relationship with another. In that, there is a quality of learning, a quality of certain beauty, certain sensitivity.

Love is not thought. Love is not desire, love is not pleasure, love is not the movement of images, and as long as you have images about another, there is no love. And we ask, is it possible to live a life without a single image? Then you have a relationship with each other. As it is, it is like two parallel lines never meeting, except sexually. A man goes off to the office, ambitious, greedy, envious, trying to achieve a position in the business world, in the religious world, in the professional world, and the modern lady also goes off to the office, and they meet in their house to breed children. And then the whole problem of responsibility, problem of education, of total indifference, comes. It does not matter then what your children are, what happens to them. You want them to be like you - safely married, with a house, a job, etc. Right? This is our life, daily life, and it is really a sorrowful life. So, if one asks why human beings live by images - all your gods are images, the Christian god, the Muslim god and your god - you will see that they are created by thought, and thought is uncertain, fearful. There is no security in the things that thought has put together. Is it possible then to be free from our conditioning in our relationship? That is, to observe in the mirror of relationship attentively, closely, persistently, what our reactions are, whether they are mechanical, habitual, traditional. In that mirror you discover actually what you are. So, relationship is extraordinarily important.

What is attachment? Why do we have such tremendous need for attachment? What are the implications of attachment? Why is one attached? When you are attached to anything, there is always fear in it, fear of losing it. There is always a sense of insecurity. Please observe it for yourself. There is always a sense of separation. I am attached to my wife. I am attached to her because she gives me pleasure sexually, gives me pleasure as a companion; you know all this, without my telling you. So, I am attached to her, which means I am jealous, frightened. Where there is jealousy, there is hatred. And is attachment love? That is one point to note in our relationship.

Then, in our relationship each one has, through the years, put together an image about the other. Those images she and he have created about each other is the actual relationship. They may sleep together, but the fact is that he and she have an image about each other, and in that relationship of images, how can there be any actual, factual, relationship with another? All of us from childhood have built images about ourselves and about others. We are asking a very, very serious question - can one live without a single image in our relationship? Surely, you all have an image about the speaker, haven't you? Obviously you have. Why? You don't know the speaker, actually you don't know. He sits on a platform, talks, but you have no relationship with him because you have an image about him. You have created an image about him, and you have your own personal images about yourself. You have got so many images about politicians, about businessmen, about the guru, about this and that. Can one live profoundly without a single image? Image may be conclusion about one's wife, image may be a picture, sexual picture, image may be some form of better relationship, and so on. Why do human beings have images at all? Please ask this question of yourself. When you have an image about another, that image gives you a sense of security.

relationship is the mirror in which we see ourselves as we are. All life is a movement in relationship. There is no living thing on earth which is not related to something or other. Even the hermit, a man who goes off to a lonely spot, is related to the past, is related to those who are around him. There is no escape from relationship. In that relationship which is the mirror in which we can see ourselves, we can discover what we are, our reactions, our prejudices, our fears, depression, anxieties, loneliness, sorrow, pain, grief. We can also discover whether we love or there is no such thing as love. So, we will examine this question of relationship because that is the basis of love. That is the only thing we have now with each other. If you cannot find the right relationship, if you live your own particular narrow life apart from wife, husband, and so on, that isolated existence brings about its own destruction.

relationship is the most extraordinarily important thing in life, If we don't understand that relationship, we cannot possibly create a new society. We are going to enquire very closely into what is relationship - why human beings throughout their long existence of life have never had a relationship in which there is neither oppression, possessiveness, attachment, contradiction, and so on. Why is there always this division - man, woman, we and they? We are going to examine together. This examination can be intellectual or merely verbal, but such intellectual comprehension has no value at all. It is just an idea, it is just a concept, but if you can look at your relationship as a whole, then perhaps you can see the depth and the beauty and the quality of relationship. Right, sir? Can we go on? We are asking, what actually is the present relationship with each other, not theoretically, not romantically, not idealistically, which are all unreal, but the actual, daily relationship of man, woman, with each other? Are we related at all? There is the biological relationship; our relationship is sexual, pleasurable. Our relationship is possessiveness, attachment, various forms of intrusion upon each other.

As we said, we are programmed. Our human brain is a mechanical process. Our thought is a materialistic process, and that thought has been conditioned to think as a Buddhist, as a Hindu, as a Christian, and so on. So our brain is conditioned. Is it possible to be free from that conditioning? There are those who say it is not possible, because they ask, how can a brain which has been conditioned for so many centuries upon centuries, how can that conditioning be wiped away completely so that the human brain is extraordinarily pristine, original, capable of infinite capacity? Many people assert this, and are merely satisfied in modifying the conditioning. But we are saying that this conditioning can be examined, can be observed, and there can be total freedom from that conditioning. To discover for ourselves whether it is possible or not, we have to enquire into our relationship.

Many volumes have been written about the world outside of us - the environment, the society, politics, economics, and so on, but very few have gone to the very length of discovering what we actually are. Why human beings are behaving as they are doing - killing each other, constantly in trouble, following some authority or the other, some book, some person, some ideal, and having no right relationship with their friends, with their wives, with their husbands and with their children; why human beings have become, after so many millennia, so vulgar, so brutal, so utterly lacking in care, consideration, attention to others, and denying the whole process of what is considered love. Outwardly, man has lived with wars for thousands and thousands of years. We are now trying to stop nuclear war but we will never stop wars. There has been no demonstration throughout the world to stop wars, but there are demonstrations against particular wars, and these wars have been going on - people being exploited, oppressed and the oppressor becoming the oppressed. This is the cycle of human existence with sorrow, loneliness, a great sense of depression, the mounting anxiety, the utter lack of security. There is no relationship with society or with one's own intimate persons, a relationship in which there is no row, no conflict, quarrels, oppression, and so on. This is the world we live in, which I am sure you all know.

J. Krishnamurti Mind Without Measure Talks in Madras 2nd Public Talk 26th December, 1982 `Life is a Movement in relationship'

The question is, whether your consciousness which is the activity of the brain - brain with all its sensory responses, brain which is the centre of thought - whether that thought has not brought about fear, whether thought which is also movement in time is not responsible for the whole content of our consciousness. We are saying thought is limited because it is the outcome of knowledge. It is the result, the end product of experience, knowledge stored in the brain as memory; the response of any challenge is thinking. And knowledge is always limited. There is no complete knowledge about anything. The scientific knowledge is limited. Every kind of knowledge in any field is limited - biological, sociological, technological, and in the world of religions with all their gods, and all gods are invented by thought. Examine it, please. Thought has invented all the gods on earth, and then thought worships that which it has invented, and this you call religion. The root meaning of that word is quite difficult, and it has not been established what the root of that word is. So, thought is limited and whatever its activity, it is always limited, and being limited, it must inevitably create problems - not only problems in the technological world but also problems in human relationship which is far more important to understand than the technological world because, we human beings are perpetually in conflict with each other, agreeing, disagreeing, believing, and not believing. It is a perpetual war between human beings. It is created by thought. And having created the problems, then thought tries to solve them and so increase the problems, which is what is actually happening.

There is no complete knowledge about anything. We ask a totally different question, which is, `Is there a different instrument?' If thought is not the instrument to solve human problems, then what is the instrument? Thought is a worn out instrument, blunt instrument. It may be clever, it may solve certain problems; but the problems it has created in human beings and between human beings, the instrument of thought that we have used to solve our problems in our daily life, in relationship, that instrument is blunt, limited, worn out. Unless we find a new instrument, there can be no fundamental, radical, change of human psyche. So, we are going together to enquire into the nature of that instrument, the quality of it, the structure of it, the beauty of it. But before we can enquire, one must be absolutely clear that the instrument which we have now as thought, has reached its tether. It cannot solve the problem of human relationship, and in that human relationship there is conflict, and out of that conflict we have created this society through our greed, through our brutality, through our violence.

Thought has divided the world into nationalities, and nationalities are one of the causes of war. Nationality, devised by thought in its search for security, has divided the world into the British, the French, the Muslim, Pakistani, Russian, and so on, and thought has created war through this division and the preparations of war for killing other human beings; thought has been responsible for this. In its search to be safe, secure, to find somewhere or other a sense of safety, it begins with the family, community, then a larger group and a wider group, hoping thereby to find some kind of safety, protection, security. It begins with a small group and ends up in nationalities. All the governments are supporting this crazy system of dividing people into nationalities, into groups - as the Hindus and the Muslims, the Chinese and the Russians, the Americans and the British and the French, and so on. Thought has been responsible for the division of religions - the Christian, the Buddhist, the Hindu, the Muslim, and so on. Thought has created the marvellous cathedrals, the great mosques and the lovely temples. Thought has put in these temples, mosques and churches the things that are invented by thought: the rituals, the dogmas, all the ceremonies, etc. Thought has also been responsible for the extraordinary development of techniques. Very few of us know actually what is going on in the technological world; the terrible things they are doing biologically, inventing great instruments of destruction of man - this is the vast unlimited movement of technology; and also thought has organized mass killings in the name of peace, in the name of the country, in the name of god. So, there is a great conflict going on, for which thought is responsible. Thought has brought about great hygienic benefits, communications, rapid transport, and all that. The brain is infinitely capable, and that capacity, that energy of thought has created this world of technology with all the problems it involves - social and environmental; and thought also has created havoc in our daily life, in our relationship with each other, between man and woman. We are saying that thought is responsible for all the miseries it has brought about in the world. Thought has also done great things to humanity. Please do not deny or accept what the speaker is saying. He is putting this forward for you to examine, to question, to doubt, not to accept nor to agree.

We ought to talk over together what is religion, what is a religious life, what is a religious mind. We are going to enquire together what is a religious life, what is meditation, and if there is anything that has not been touched by thought. Do you call the present religions all throughout the world as religious? You are a Hindu, you believe, your religion says this and that, you worship an idol; the Muslim does not, but he has his own form of worship. The Christian has his symbol - the rituals, the dogmas, the beliefs, the superstitions, all that. The hierarchical structure of a religious society, you call all that religion. Your belief is god. Unless you believe in god or some supreme principle, it is considered that you are not religious. We say to ourselves, `There must be something more, something which is protecting, which is giving, which is creating.' Thought creates the idea, based on books, tradition, being programmed to believe in god. That surely is not religion. Do you agree with that? Of course not. But that is not religion: your belief, your worship, going to the temple, to the mosque, to the church, repeating some phrases utterly divorced from daily life. To understand the daily life, to bring about a radical change in that life, to have a brain that is not superstitious - that is actually facing facts, facing what one is and going beyond `what is'. That is the beginning of what is a religious mind. To understand the whole meaning of daily living, which is the understanding of the relationship with each other, to love, to have that quality of love, to have that perfume. that beauty, that flame, that is religion. That is the religious mind, To live a life that has no conflict, that has the sense of compassion with love, with intelligence, that is a religious life. Compassion is intelligence. That is the religious life. But that is not enough. We have to understand much deeper things, which is what is meditation.

Then there is division in us, there is duality, the opposite. Is there an opposite at all? There is opposite as light and darkness, tall and short, and so on. Basically, is there an opposite at all? We say there is an opposite in the world of psyche, in the world of spirit. We say there is the good and the bad, the good and the evil. Is good the opposite of evil? If it is the opposite, then it has its root in its own opposite. If evil is the opposite of the good, then that evil has a relationship with the good. The opposite is put together by thought. Either the good is totally divorced from evil or it is the outcome, the opposite, the invention, of thought as the good. So what is the good? Let us enquire into that.

What is the good? According to the dictionary, the common usage of that word means good behaviour, good in the sense of being whole, not fragmented but having that sense or understanding of the nature of the wholeness of life, and in that there is no fragmentation as the evil. But if evil is the outcome of the good, then that evil has a relationship with the good. We are enquiring together if there is an opposite in our life, if there is hate and love. Can love have a relationship with hate, with jealousy? If hate has a relationship with love, then it is not love. Obviously. If I hate someone, and at the same time talk about love, it is incompatible. The two don't meet. We are questioning, is there an opposite at all? Where there is an opposite, there must be conflict. I hate, and also I think I love him. The opposite of hate is not love. The opposite of hate is still hate.

Have you ever tried to observe yourself, your wife, the tree across the road and that animal that goes by, without the word? Have you ever tried to look at a tree without naming it, without bringing all the past pictures about a tree, just to observe the tree without the word, to look at it? Have you ever done it? Have you ever looked at your wife or your husband or your politicians? Have you ever looked at them without the symbol? Can you look at the speaker without the word, without all the rubbish and all that reputation, look at him without the image that you have built about him? Perhaps, it will be easier to look at the speaker that way because he does not know you and you don't know him. But to look at your wife, at your husband, is much more difficult. Can you look at the animal without the picture, the image, the word? First, be aware whether you can see, observe, look, without a single word the picture, because then you will awaken your sensitiveness. You are not sensitive to the dust, to the squalor, to the misery, to the poverty; you have just accepted it. The poverty of this country can never be solved, is not ever going to be solved, unless you drop your nationalism completely. It will be solved only when you have understood the global relationship of man to man. Then there will be no frontiers. That you have probably not understood. So, I say that the first essential quality in investigation, in enquiry, in that one has to be extraordinarily sensitive. All religions have said: suppress your senses, suppress your feelings, so that you have gradually lost the sensitivity of the senses. The speaker is saying quite the contrary. The speaker is saying, `Awaken all your senses to their highest degree so that you look at the world with all your senses.' To look at the world with that immense feeling when all the senses are fully awakened, in that there is great, extraordinary sense of energy, beauty. In the investigation of another instrument, we see that the first thing is, man has become dull through repetition, through tradition, through the oppression of the environment; the environment is not merely nature; the environment is the politician, the guru and all that is going on around you. You have gradually lost all sensitivity, all energy to create, but we are talking of creation in the sense of bringing about something totally new, and to have that capacity, the drive, the beauty, one must have great sensitivity. You cannot have great sensitivity if every sense is not fully functioning, fully aware.

There is an art of listening and there is an art of learning. Most of our learning is the accumulation of knowledge; not knowing mathematics, or biology, or physics, gradually we accumulate a great deal of information about physics and store it up in the brain, which becomes our knowledge about physics, mathematics or what you will. That is what we do, and that is what we call learning - accumulating a lot of knowledge about various subjects - as an engineer, as an astronomer, as a politician. We accumulate knowledge in order to act skilfully in the world as a carpenter, as a mason, as a doctor, knowledge is accumulated, from which we act either skilfully or not skilfully, efficiently or inefficiently. So we must enquire together into what is knowledge, what place knowledge has in our relationship with each other. Perhaps we have never questioned what is the place of knowledge in life apart from having an occupation, becoming a good scientist, doctor, engineer, and so on. We are asking a very serious question, which is, `What place has knowledge in human relationship?' Knowledge is always in the past. There is no future knowledge. Knowledge implies the process of time as the past. And this knowledge, both in the scientific world and human existence, is based on experience. This experience is gathered for millions of years or for the last 30 years. And that knowledge is used to accumulate further knowledge, further exploration, but knowledge is always in the past. There is no question about that. And knowledge is never complete about anything. That is a fact. So, our knowledge is stored in the brain as memory, and the response of that memory is thought. That is, experience either inherited or accumulated in the present becomes knowledge. Then that knowledge is memory, which is the past, and from that memory the reaction is thought. Is this clear?

I wonder how many of you realize that we are put together by thought. Your gods are put together by thought. All the rituals, all the dogmas, the philosophy, are all put together by thought, and thought is not sacred. Thought is always limited. Thought has created an image about you as the audience, about you as the wife and the husband, about you as the Indian and he as the American, and so on. It is these images which are unreal, which are dividing humanity. You should never call yourself an Indian, Russian or American; we are human beings. Then we should have no wars. We should have global government, global relationship, but you are not interested in all that. You hear all this, and if you don't change radically, you are bringing about destruction to the future generation. So, please give ear, give thought, attention, to what is going on outside you and also to what is going on inwardly, for the inward psyche conquers the outer environment. As you see it in Russia, we give such importance to the outer. We must have right society, right laws, feed the poor, be concerned about the poor, but the inward thought, inward feeling inward isolation, is separating man from man and you are responsible for this. Each one of you is responsible for this. Unless you, change fundamentally, inwardly, the future is very dangerous. Unless you fundamentally bring about a change in your daily life, have right relationship with each other, live correctly, not be ambitious and so on, there is no possibility for the ending of conflict between human beings.

Why is there conflict between two human beings, whether they are highly educated or not at all educated? They may be great scientists, but they are ordinary human beings, like you and another - fighting, quarrelling, ambitious. Why does this state exist? Is it not because each person is concerned about himself? So he is isolating himself. In isolation you cannot have right relationship. You hear this, but you will not do anything about it because we fall into a habit, into a rut, into a groove, into a narrow little life, and we put up with it, however miserable, unhappy, quarrelsome, ugly, it is. So, please enquire, question, doubt, whether it is possible to live with another with complete harmony without any dissension, without any division. If you really, deeply, enquire, you will find that you have created an image about your wife, and she has created an image about you. Each has built an image about the other, a picture about the other. These two pictures, images, words, are in relationship with each other. Where there is an image about another, a picture about another, there must be conflict. I am sure you all have an image about the speaker. I am quite sure of it. Why? You don't know the speaker. You can never know the speaker, but you have created an image about him: that he is religious, non-religious, he is stupid, he is very clever, he is beautiful, he is this, he is that. And with that image you look at the person. The image is not the person. The image is the reputation, and reputations are easily created; the reputation may be good or bad. But the human brain, the thought, creates the image. The image is the conclusion, and we live by images and imagination. The making of pictures has no place in love. We don't love each other; we may hold hands, we may sleep together, we may do this and ten different things, but we have no love for each other. If you had that quality, that perfume of love, there would be no wars. There will be no Hindu and Muslim, Jew and Arab. But you listen to all this and you still remain with your images. You still wrangle with each other, quarrel with each other. Your life has become so extraordinarily meaningless.

The question is, if you change fundamentally, you affect the whole consciousness of man. Napoleon affected the whole consciousness of Europe. Stalin affected the whole consciousness of Russia. The Christian saviour, he has affected the consciousness of the world, and the Hindus with their peculiar gods have affected the consciousness of the world. When you as a human being, radically transform psychologically, that is, be free of fear, have right relationship with each other, end sorrow and so on, which is a radical transformation, then you affect the whole consciousness of man. It is not an individual affair. It is not a selfish affair. It is not individual salvation; it is the salvation of all human beings of which you are.

First, we must enquire what is relationship. Why is there, in human relationship with each other, such conflict, such misery, such intense sense of loneliness? From past history, from all the knowledge that has been acquired, studied, man has lived in conflict with each other. But relationship is existence: without relationship you cannot exist. In that existence there is conflict. relationship is absolutely necessary. Life is relationship, action is relationship; what you think brings about relationship or destroys relationship. The hermit, the monk, the sannyasi - he may think he is separate, but he is related - related to the past, related to the environment, related to the man who brings him some grains, some food, some clothes. So life is relationship. We are going to explore together why human beings live in conflict with each other, why there is conflict between you and your husband, between the wife and the man. Because, where there is conflict in relationship, there is no love, there is no compassion, and there is no intelligence. Are you actually related? You may be related to a man, woman, sexually, but apart from that, are you related to anybody? Relation means non-isolation. That is, the man goes to the office every day of his life, to a factory, to some form of occupation, leaving the house at 8 o'clock, spends the whole day working, for 50, 60 years, and then dies. And there the man is ambitious, greedy, envious, struggling, competing; he comes home and the woman, the wife, is also competitive, jealous, anxious, going on in her own way. They may meet sexually, talk together, care somewhat, but they remain separate, like two railway lines never meeting. This is what we call relationship, which is an actuality. This is a fact of everyone's life, the perpetual division between two people, each holding on to his opinions, to his conclusions. The fact is, however intimate that relationship may be, there is always conflict, one dominating the other, one possessing the other, one jealous of the other. This is what we call relationship. Now, can that relationship which we know, be totally changed? Ask yourself this.

We are talking about the radical change of human behaviour so that man is not self-centred as he is, which is causing such great destruction in the world. If one is aware, then we can begin to ask whether that conditioning can be totally changed so that man is completely free. Now, he thinks he is free to do what he likes. Each individual thinks he can do what he likes, all over the world, and his freedom is based on choice because he can choose where to live, what kind of work he can do, choose between this idea and that idea, this ideal or that ideal, change from one god to another god from one guru to another, from one philosopher to another. This capacity to choose brings in the concept of freedom, but in the totalitarian state there is no freedom; you can't do what you want to do. It is totally controlled. Choice is not freedom. Choice is merely moving in the same field from one corner to another. Is this clear? Our brain being limited, we are asking, is it possible for the brain to free itself so that there is no fear? Then there is right relationship with all the neighbours in the world.

To have a conversation with another, a friendly, serious communication with each other, we must learn how to listen. We hardly ever listen to another. We carry on with our own thoughts, with our own problems, with our own particular ideas and conclusions, and so it is very difficult to listen to another. We are suggesting that you listen. There is an art of listening. We are going to talk over together a great many things - the state of war, divided nations, divided groups, human relationship. We are going to talk over together the problems of fear, pleasure and the complexity of human thought. We are going to talk over together whether sorrow can ever end and the implications and the complexities of death. We are also going to talk over together what is religion, what is meditation, and if there is anything sacred, eternal. We are going to talk over together all these things. And one must have the art of listening to all this; not what you think with all your traditions, with all your knowledge, but to listen to another who is telling you something. Then communication becomes simple, easy. But if you are not thinking together, which is quite an arduous task, then you and the speaker will be thinking in two different directions. So there is an art of listening; not translating what the speaker is saying, but listening to the word, the content of the word, the significance and the depth of the word. We are using ordinary, daily language. There is no jargon, there is no specialized subject about which we are talking. We are talking of human beings and problems. The word has depth, meaning, and we are speaking in English, using the daily language without any mysterious words being used. It is important that you and the speaker establish a right relationship. He is not a guru. He is not going to inform you what to think, how to think, but together we are going to observe the activities of human beings right throughout the world, why they have become what they are.

From the very beginning, we ought to establish our relationship. This is not a lecture as it is commonly understood. A lecture is a discourse on a particular subject by way of instruction. This is a conversation between you and the speaker. The speaker is not telling you what to do, what to think, how you should behave, and so on. This is a conversation between two people concerned with what is happening in the world, what is happening to man, not a particular man but man in the world; what is man doing to man, what he has done to other men, what is exactly happening in the world - not in any particular part of the world, but what is happening to man on the earth.

So we are asking, is pain, the anguish, sorrow, brought about by our isolation of mind, of thought, of action? Is sorrow the result of our daily attachment, how we are attached to people? Please wake up to all this, see the truth of all this. Please explore the nature of attachment. It breeds anxiety, fear, pain, jealousy, hatred. All these are the consequences of attachment. You are attached to your wife or to your husband. See the consequences of it. You depend on each other, that dependence gives a form of security. When that person leaves or dies or runs away from you, you are then in pain, in agony, you have suspicion, hatred and sorrow. Don't you know all this? It is nothing new. This is an everyday fact of life. It may not happen to you, but it is happening to others, millions of others. In their relationship, there is sorrow, fear, agony.

Do you see the beauty of the flower, of the mountain, of a full moon on a leaf, the lights of silver on a piece of rock? Sir, what is beauty, not in a painting, but beauty in our life? What is the nature of sorrow, the ending of that burden, puffing away of sorrow? If you suffer pain, anxiety, ambition, and so on, you don't know what love is. You want to be ambitious, you want to have power, position, better house, better cars. Have you ever understood that a man who is ambitious has no love in his heart? And we are all very ambitious to achieve nirvana or to become a bank manager. To reach nirvana or moksha is the same thing as becoming manager of a bank because both are ambitions. To live a life of intelligence means no ambition but to be tremendously active. Sir, we have to talk over together the ending of sorrow, and what are the implications of death, and what is religion. Without religion you cannot create a new structure, a new society. What we have as religion is utter nonsense, meaningless. We have to enquire into the depth of that word. Because, only a new culture, a new civilization, can be born out of true religion, not all that paraphernalia that goes on in the name of religion. Religion is something entirely different. To have a religious life means to have compassion, love; it means the ending of sorrow, to find right relationship with each other. What most people want is not to be disturbed. They want to continue with their own particular pattern of life. So, please consider, give your energy, your capacity, to find out whether there is a different way of living on this earth.

So, desire, time, thought, are the factors which bring about fear. I have done something wrong two years ago, and that has caused pain, and I will not do the same thing again. Now, what is thought? The whole world is moving in the realm of thought. The technological world with all its extraordinary complexity is brought about by thought. Man has built the most extraordinary, complicated machines like the computer, the jet, and so on. It is also put together by thought. All the great cathedrals are put together by thought; all the temples and all the things that are in the temples and cathedrals are put together by thought. The rituals are invented by thought. The guru is invented by thought. When you say `I am a Sikh', it is thought conditioning itself as a Sikh and operating. So thought has become the most important factor in our life. In our relationship, thought dominates. Thought has created the problems of war, and thought then says, `I must have peace also', which is a contradiction. Do you understand? Why has thought become so extraordinarily important in the world?

We should also talk over together, relationship. Why is it that in our relationship with each other, however intimate, sexual, however close, there is conflict? Why cannot two people live peacefully? Have you ever asked that question? Because this is very important. If I don't know how to live peacefully with my wife, with my husband, with my girl friend, I cannot live peacefully in the world. I may talk about peace, I may write a great deal about peace, go all over the world talking about peace, but I am quarrelling with my wife, or with my husband. So there is conflict in our relationship. Why? Do you want me to tell you or are you enquiring with the speaker? If you are really enquiring, it is a sharing, a moving together, not agreeing together, but thinking step by step, going together, like walking hand in hand on the lane where there is so much beauty, love and affection. Why is there this dissension, this division between man and man, woman and man, in our relationship? Have you noticed it? We are like two parallel lines, never meeting. We never say what we mean and stick to what we mean. We are going to find out together why in human relationship we have such desperate, ugly conflicts. I have my ambition, my desires, my problems. In my office, I am competitive, aggressive. I am pursuing my own direction and the wife is also pursuing her own ambition, and I dominate, which she resists. So we are asking why there is this conflict, because we two have to live together. We have sex, we have children, but we two are separate. Isn't it a fact? I dominate her or she dominates me, she bullies me, or I bully her. I scold her or she scolds me. I don't beat her but I am angry with her. I would like to beat her, but I am a little more controlled. You laugh; but these are all facts. But I am an individual, she is an individual. Each must have his own way - in habits, in desires. Then, how can two people live together? Which means, you have no love at all for your wife or your husband.

We have, as two friends, gone into the question of relationship, and we will enquire further into the nature of that relationship. Is the human brain your brain, or is it the brain of mankind? This is really a very serious question. Is your brain an individual brain or the brain of humanity? When you say it is my brain, when you say it is my consciousness, is it so? Or is it the consciousness of mankind? Enquire into it. You suffer, you are uncertain, you are anxious, you are in agony, pain. That is what you are. You have belief, knowledge, character, and that is what you are. And that is exactly what your neighbour is. He is suffering, he goes through agony, sorrow, pain, trouble. So, is your consciousness separate from the rest of mankind? No, of course not. If you admit that, if you see the truth of that, then are you an individual? You may think you are an individual because you are dark, you are short, because peripheral activity makes you think you are an individual, but deeply, are you not the rest of mankind? When you realize that, the truth of that, you will never kill another, because you are killing yourself. Then out of that comes great compassion, love.

Where there is conditioning, there is no freedom. There cannot be love, there cannot be affection. It is imperative, absolutely essential for the future of humanity that we are concerned with the brain which is conditioned. If one is aware of that, then we can proceed to ask whether it is possible to free the brain. The relationship between the brain and the mind can come, is understood, when the brain is completely free. Then the brain is the mind. We will go into that later as we go along.

Life is a process of relationship. There is no life without relationship. This is a fact. You may be a hermit, you may be a monk, you may withdraw from all society, but you are related. As a human being, you cannot escape from being related. You are related to your wife, to your husband, to your children, you are related to your government, you are related to the hermit who withdraws because you feed him, and he is related to his ideas. So relationship is the basis of human existence. Without relationship there is no existence. You are either related to the past, which is, to all the tradition, to all the memories, to the monks, or you are related to some future ideation. So relationship is the most important thing in life. Do you see the truth of that, not verbally, not intellectually, but actually with your heart and mind?

We are enquiring what is your relationship with another, however intimate or not. Is it that you are from childhood hurt, wounded psychologically, and therefore, from that hurt. from that psychological wound, you bring about violence? The consequence of being hurt, inwardly wounded, is that you enclose yourself more and more in order not to be hurt. And your relationship with another then becomes very narrow, limited. We must first enquire whether it is possible to find out if you can never be hurt. What is the root of being hurt? What is the cause? When I say I am hurt, my pride is hurt, what does that mean? My teacher has hurt me, my parents have hurt me. We are all hurt. We are all wounded by an accident, by a word, by a look, by a gesture. So what is it that is hurt? You say I am hurt. What is that `I' which is being hurt? Is it not an image that you have built about yourself?

So, is it possible to live without comparison, without measurement? This is a tremendously complicated question. Because, the word `better' is measurement. The word `more' is measurement. Self-improvement is measurement. Find out whether it is possible to live without measurement, which means, to live without comparison. Part of meditation is to enquire into not becoming; becoming is measurement. Is it possible in our relationship with each other, however intimate it is, not to have measurement? That means your brain must be active in your relationship; it must enquire into your relationship, whether in that relationship there is hurt and that hurt brings about greater fear, greater enclosure within oneself, and therefore isolation. And as long as there is isolation, either outwardly or inwardly, there must be conflict.

We are saying the brain has been conditioned to isolation as a Hindu, as a Buddhist, and so on. To enquire into this question. whether the brain can resolve its own conditioning, we must enquire into relationship. What is your relationship with another, with your wife, with your husband, with your children? Begin there, near at home, not far away. You know, sirs, to go very far you must begin very, very near. To go very far you must put your house in order. Can you be aware, alert, so that you are watching your relationship and are learning from that awareness how you respond, what your reactions are? That is life, that is everyday life. That requires constant attention to every reaction, to every thought. But most of us are so lazy. We have become lazy because we are dependent on others.