When the brain is completely quiet, it is empty. It is only through emptiness that anything can be perceived. You need space, you need emptiness to observe. To observe you, I must have space between you and me, and then there is seeing. So a mind that is crippled with sorrow, with problems, with its vanities, with its urge to fulfil, and frustrated, caught in nationalism – you know, all the petty, little things of life – such a brain has no space. It is not empty, and therefore it is utterly incapable of observing. And when a mind that is being petty and shallow says, ‘I must explore,’ it has no meaning. It must explore itself, not whether there is something beyond itself. So when the brain is completely quiet, empty – and that demands astonishing awareness, attention – that is the beginning of meditation. Then it can see, listen, observe. Then it will find out if there is something beyond the measure that man has made to discover reality