... the mind, which is the intellect, with its will and its capacity for evaluation, must be understood; because, as long as the mind is not understood, with its desires, with its pursuits and the capacity to evaluate according to its prejudices, notions, knowledge - as long as the mind is not understood, obviously there is conflict, there is misery. Will, after all, is the expression of desire, the outcome of craving, of the desire to be; and as long as that will - with the capacity to evaluate, which is the function of the intellect - is not gone into deeply, understood, and given its full significance, there is bound to be conflict, there is bound to be misery. So, if there is no understanding of will, of the intellect, and of the creations of the mind - which are not separate processes, but a total process - , there is bound to be conflict; and the understanding of the mind is self-knowledge. Self-knowledge makes one straight. What is crooked is the evaluer, the interpreter, the misuser, the corrupter, that is, the mind; and as long as there is no self-knowledge, which is awareness of the process of the mind, of the 'I', there must be wrong evaluation of things made by the hand or by the mind, and therefore there must be conflict, misery. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, and without self-knowledge there is no happiness.

So, in order to understand a problem, however complex it may appear, whether it is an economic, social, or psychological problem, one must be able to see it clearly, without distortion; but this is not possible as long as there is no self-knowledge. And self-knowledge cannot be realized as long as there is no meditation. Because, meditation is a process of continual revelation of every thought and every feeling; it is not the fixation on a particular picture or idea, but a constant awareness, a constant understanding of every thought, every feeling, as they arise.