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When we listen, thinking actually stops, which doesn't mean that the mind goes to sleep. On the contrary, it has listened actively, intensely, vigorously, without the thinker, and is so tremendously active that naturally there is no seeking. It can only be so energetic, so vigorous, when it is silent. Can this brain and the mind, can the totality of this consciousness be completely still? If it is not, thought is in operation and thought is always seeking its own pleasure and therefore always inviting sorrow and pain. A mind that is pursuing pleasure and therefore inviting sorrow obviously cannot find what is real. It can invent, it can speculate, it can theorize, as theologians are doing all over the world, but that has no validity at all. Understanding humility, perceiving the structure of pleasure, which is desire, recognizing the psychological structure in which man is caught, which is society, and discovering whether the brain cells can be quiet and yet active - all this is meditation.

Meditation isn't something apart from daily existence. One can't be ambitious, ruthless, vulgar, crude, awful, insensitive, acquisitive, and at the same time talk about God, truth, love, meditation. That would be hypocritical nonsense. Obviously one has to be free from the psychological structure of which society is a part, of which we are a part. If the mind is not free from this psychological conditioning, which includes religions, economic states, class differences, and all the despair and agony of the competitive world, one cannot meditate. One can play around.

Meditation, in the sense in which we are using the word, is a most dangerous thing. Meditation that one practises is a most tame thing. Learning to concentrate about some idea is not meditation at all, but to be aware of the total process of existence, without choice, to be completely attentive to this, makes the mind tremendously active and revolutionary, not a domesticated animal, conforming to the pattern of society, whatever society it is, whether it is communist or capitalist.

When the mind is really very quiet, naturally, effortlessly, then the observer, the thinker ceases to be. Then relationship between man and man becomes entirely different. The relationship then is not a memory which has been collected, an image meeting another image, another memory; it is actual relationship...

Meditation is something extraordinary, if it goes on, not at odd moments, but timelessly, if you are aware when you get into the bus, or the car, or when you are talking to someone, aware of what you are doing, feeling, thinking, aware of how thought operates according to pleasure and pain, not condemning any activity of thought but just listening to the noise of thought. Out of that you really have an extraordinary mind that is tremendously alive. Being quiet, being silent, a new thing can take place. The newness is not recognizable. This sublime thing, whatever name you give it doesn't matter, is not something that is put together by thought, and therefore it is the whole of creation...

Questioner: There is something in me that is frightened to do or follow or think of or be aware of what you are saying, I'm frightened.

Krishnamurti: That's it. I think that's fairly clear, isn't it? What is being said is quite revolutionary. It's very dangerous to do it because you may have to alter the whole structure of your life. Intellectually you say, " Yes, I understand every word you're saying". Unconsciously you know the danger of it; so you get nervous, apprehensive, frightened, because you want to lead a very secure, comfortable, easygoing life, to live in a secluded, safe isolation. What is being talked about might destroy all that. It will! You will no longer be a Christian, or an Englishman or an Indian or this or that. You'll belong to no group, no sect. You'll have to be tremendously alone, alone not in the sense of isolation.

Editor’s note: “You will no longer be a Christian” because Jesus himself would not be a Christian. The doctrines of the Church veer widely from original teachings. Moreover, the Church is a totalitarian institution of the world, intent upon power and control, and this spirit of subjugation reflects nothing of freedom-loving Universal Consciousness, our core being, untethered by “simply noticing.”

In addition to an aversion to this kind of “dangerous” meditation, those who speak of "going within" as self-development will also be shunned and deemed to be “frightening”. If you tell your friends about “going within”, do not be surprised if your listeners do not take kindly to this kind of “revolutionary” announcement.

Anything that is alone is always beautiful. A lonely tree on a field is a most beautiful thing to look at. We are frightened to be alone, and before we are alone we are frightened of being lonely. We are lonely human beings. All our activities lead to this loneliness, which is isolation. Though we may be married, have children, have jobs, belong to groups and sects, deeply inwardly there is this isolation going on, this fear of loneliness, of being lonely, of not being related. We run to various forms of amusement, including the mass, the church, worship, anything to get away from that loneliness. We can't understand it without understanding the self-centred activity of our lives which breeds this loneliness; but when we have understood it, gone through it, gone beyond it, then we come to that sense of being completely alone, uncontaminated, untouched by society. If we're not alone, we can't go any further...

Questioner: Most of us can learn a state of mind which is very different from that which is usual in the world today, but the people who have reached positions of power and authority are still in the grip of the past. What can those of us do who can't act but can only think correctly? What can we do?

Krishnamurti: We can't do anything, about the men in power. They have achieved that and we know how they have got there. What can we do? We can't do anything. You say we can talk about peace, against the vested interests of sovereign governments, of armies, of the airplane manufacturers, the whole structure, but what can we do; not buy stamps, not pay taxes? If we don't, they will put us in prison, and we can't send letters. Will that solve the problem? Obviously not. But for a human being to be free from nationality and the poison of all that is a much greater action. The other produces wars, economic wars, brutality and misery, the whole of man's existence. But a human mind, realizing all that, frees itself from nationality, sex, groups, ceases to identify itself with this or that class and is no longer a localized individual, and therefore no longer a human being conditioned by human struggles and miseries. The action which comes out of it is the only beneficial action.