Most of us suffer; there is pain, anxiety; and most of us are concerned with how to get rid of it, how to do away with pain, with disturbance. So we all the time seek ways and means to overcome it, to put it away. The inward psychological suffering of "the me" is always trying to find an answer, a way out. But if we could understand the maker of the problem, "the me", that is everlastingly following, that is frustrated, that is feeling lonely, anxious, fearful, then in the very understanding of the problem and of the maker of that problem, there is the answer. But to understand the problem requires a mind that is not seeking a result, an answer. If you observe your own mind, you will see what is happening. If you have a problem you want some one to tell you what to do; so your emphasis is on the solution and not on the understanding of the problem.

In answering this question we are concerned with the problem and not with the answer. If you go away disappointed because your question is not answered, it is your fault, because there is no answer to life. Life has no answer. Life has only one thing, one problem - which is, living. The man who lives totally, completely, every minute without choice, neither accepting nor rejecting the thing as it is, such a man is not seeking an answer, he is not asking what the purpose of life is, nor is he seeking a way out of life. But that requires great insight into oneself. Without self-knowledge, merely to seek an answer has no meaning at all, because the answer will be what is most satisfactory, what is gratifying. That is what most of us want; we want to be gratified, we want to find a safe place, a heaven where there will be no disturbance. But as long as we seek, life will be disturbed.