strings: Before we can find out what the end-purpose of life is, what it all means—wars, national antagonisms, conflicts, the whole mess wc must begin with ourselves, must we not ? It sounds so simple, but it is extremely difficult. To follow oneself, to see how one's thought operates, one has to bc extraordinarily alert, so that as one begins to be more and more alert to the intricacies of one's own thinking and responses and feelings, one begins to have a greater awareness, not only of oneself but of another with whom one is in relationship. To know oneself is to study oneself in action, which is relationship. Thc difficulty is that we are so impatient; we want to get on, vy'e want to reach an end, and so vve have neither the time nor the occasion to give ourselves the opportunity to study, to observe. Alternatively we have committed ourselves to various activities—to earning a livelihood, to rearing children—--or have taken on certain responsibilities of various organizations; wc have so committed ourselves in different Xvvays that we have hardly any time for self-reflection, to observe, to study. So really the responsibility of the reaction depends on oneself, not on another. The pursuit, all the world over, of gurus and their systems, reading the latest books on this and that, and so on, seems to mc so uttcrly empty, so utterly futile, for you may wander all over the earth but you have to come back to yourself. And, as most of us are totally unaware of ourselves, it is extremely difficult to begin to see clearly the process of our thinking and feeling and acting.