Questioner: If one meditates in order to discover, is not that in itself a demand?

Krishnamurti: Obviously. You don't meditate because you want to find truth, or to find happiness, bliss, but to understand oneself and learning about oneself is a constant process; that I said is meditation, not in order to discover something. You know, the word 'discover' is an unfortunate word, but I don't know what other word to use; one can use different words, but the essence of meditation is self-knowing: to know oneself. And you cannot know yourself if what you have learnt about yourself becomes the measure. I don't know if you see that. I watch myself and I have learnt something about myself: that I am greedy. I have learnt about greed, the nature of it, and having learnt, I measure with what I have learned all future greed; and therefore I am not studying the future greed as it arises but I am only measuring with what I have learnt. Therefore - see the structure of it! - the measure of what I have learned creates its own opposite and hence the conflict. Therefore all opposites, greed and non-greed, when I demand or exercise will, or force myself not to be greedy, in that very demand to be not greedy is greed. See this please! Please understand this.

I am violent, human beings are dreadfully violent and we say we must not be violent, and trying not to be violent is itself a very form of violence. But if one is really aware of violence, that is, the nature of violence, aggression and so on - we won't go into all that - being aware of that and not wanting to change it, not wanting to get to the state of non-violence, to understand violence is in itself freedom from violence - not its opposite.

So learning about oneself is absolutely necessary, obviously. I must learn - but the learning is not having learnt measure with what I have learned. Therefore learning is always an active inactive present - not having learnt something previously, which then becomes the measure, which then is the opposite of what should be and hence the conflict. So meditation is not a process of self-hypnotism, which most people indulge in, nor is it a form of inducing the mind to be quiet. Again see what is involved, if I induce the mind to be quiet, the very inducement is the noise which is going to make the mind quiet which it is not. I don't know if you see all this?