strings: The first requirement, not as a discipline, is obviously freedom; only virtue gives that freedom. Greed is confusion; anger is confusion; bitterness is confusion. When you see that, obviously you are free of them; you do not resist them but you see that only in freedom can you discover and that any form of compulsion is not freedom, and therefore there is no discovery. What virtue does is to give you freedom. The unvirtuous person is a confused person; in confusion, how can you discover anything? How can you ? Thus virtue is not the end-product of a discipline, but virtue is freedom and freedom cannot come through any action which is not virtuous, which is not true in itself. Our diffculty is that most of us have read so much, most of us have superficially followed so many disciplines—getting up every morning at a certain hour, sitting in a certain posture, trying to hold our minds in a certain way—you know, practise, practise, discipline, because you have been told that if you do these things for a number of years you will have God at the end of it. I may put it crudely, but that is the basis of our thiriking. Surely God doesn't come so easily as all that ? God is not a mere marketable thing: I do this and you give me that.