So thought creates the thinker, the censor, the observer. And is it possible to think without the censor? Do you understand? Is it possible to observe without the observer? Don’t agree or disagree, sirs. Please, you have to find out. One direct experience of your own is worth more than all the books put together. If you can find out for yourself what is true, you can burn all the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita, and the Bible; they are not worth looking at.

Now, you have to find out directly for yourself whether it is possible to be in that state of thinking without the thinker, experiencing without the experiencer. Please, sirs, it is not complicated. In the moment of your intense anger, is there an observer? It is only after the emotional upheaval has taken place that you say, “By Jove, I was angry.” Then comes identification, and the condemnatory process begins; there is contradiction, conflict, an effort to conform to the pattern recognized by society as being respectable. Do you understand, sirs? The pattern is recognized as being respectable; otherwise, you would not try to conform to it. And respectability is a horror, an ugly thing because it opens the door to mediocrity.

So, our problem is to understand the state of the mind which is in meditation because meditation is essential—but not the meditation that most people practice sitting in a room and repeating a lot of words; that is not meditation. Repetition merely puts the mind to sleep, and you can do that very easily by taking a tranquilizer. I know you will dislike what is being said because you have found that your traditional repetition of certain words and names for ten minutes or so gradually makes your mind quiet, but it has only gone to sleep, and that is what you call meditation. You also call it meditation when you solicit, pray, beg for something for yourself, for your country, for your party, or for your family. You put forth the begging bowl of inward poverty and ask somebody to fill it. That is not meditation. Meditation is something entirely different, as you will see. The state of meditation is possible only when there is space in the mind for observation, and that space is denied to a mind which is suppressed, disciplined to conform to a pattern. A mind in the state of meditation, contemplation, is not striving to be anything.

Sirs, I am only trying to convey in different words what has been said previously. If you have not followed the talk for the last forty minutes or more, you won’t understand what is being said now.

The Collected Works of
J. Krishnamurti – Volume XI 1958-1960: Crisis in Consciousness
Jiddu Krishnamurti