What is conflict? Please do not wait for me to answer it; that is no fun at all. Ask yourself that question, and give your mind to find out what is the nature of conflict. Conflict exists, surely, when there is duality: ‘me’ and ‘you’, my wife separate from me, the division between the meditator and meditation. So, as long as there is division between nationalities, between religions, between people, between the ideal and the fact, between ‘what is’ and ‘what should be’, there must be conflict. That is a law. Wherever there is separation, the sense of division as the Arab and the Jew, the Hindu and the Muslim, the son and the father, and so on, there must be conflict. That is a fact. That division is the ‘more’: ‘I do not know, but give me a few years and I will know.’ I hope you understand all this.

冲突是什么？请不要等我来回答这个问题，那样一点都不好玩儿。问问你自己这个问题，用心去弄清楚冲突的本质是什么。当二元性存在时：“我”和“你”，我妻子和我是分开的，冥想者和冥想之间是分离的，那么冲突就必然会存在。所以，只要存在各个国家、各派宗教、各种人群之间的划分，只要存在理想与现实、“现在如何”与“应当如何”之间的划分，就必然会存在冲突。这是一条铁律。无论哪里有分离，阿拉伯人与犹太人、印度教徒与穆斯林、父与子等等之间的划分，就必然会有冲突。这是一个事实。这种划分就是想要“更多”：“我不知道，但是给我几年时间我会知道的。”我希望这些你都明白了。

There are several things involved in all this. Those who are fairly intelligent, fairly aware, and sensitive have always sought an egalitarian society. They have asked: Can there be equal opportunity, no class difference, so that there is no division between the worker and the manager, the carpenter and the politician? So we ask: Is there justice in the world? There have been revolutions—French, Bolshevik—which have tried to establish a society where there is equality, justice, and goodness. But they have not succeeded at all. On the contrary, they have gone back to the old pattern in a different setting. So you have to inquire not only into why human beings live in perpetual conflict and sorrow, and why they search for security, but also into the nature of justice. Is there any justice at all in the world? Is there? You are clever, another is not. You have got all the privileges, and another has none whatsoever. You live in a palatial house, and another lives in a hut, having hardly one meal a day. So is there justice at all? Is it not important to find out for oneself and, therefore, help humanity.（I am sorry, I do not mean ‘help’; I withdraw that word.） To understand the nature of justice and find out if there is any justice at all, you must inquire very, very deeply into the nature of sorrow, and whether there can be no self-interest at all. And also we should inquire into what is freedom and what is goodness.

这其中涉及到几件事情。那些相当明智、相当觉知和敏感的人，总是在寻求一个人人平等的社会。他们曾经问过：能不能有平等的机会，没有阶级差异，因而也没有工人和经理、木匠和政客之间的分别？所以我们问：世界上存在公平吗？无数次革命都已经发生过了——法国大革命，布尔什维克革命——它们都曾试图建立一个公平、公正和善良的社会，但它们根本没有成功。恰恰相反，它们又回到了旧有的模式中，只是换了一个环境背景而已。所以你不仅需要探询为什么人类生活在无休止的冲突和悲伤中，为什么他们要追求安全，而且还要探究公平的本质。世界上究竟有任何公平存在吗？有吗？你很聪明，而另一个人不聪明。你拥有所有的特权，而另一个人一无所有。你住在宫殿般的房子里，而另一人住在草房里，一天难得有一餐饭。所以说公平到底存在吗？你亲自弄清楚这一点，进而帮助全人类，这难道不重要吗？（抱歉，我的意思不是“帮助”，我收回这个词。）若要了解公平的本质，弄清楚公平究竟是否存在，你就必须非常非常深入地探究悲伤的本质，以及有没有可能根本没有自私自利。也许我们还应该探询自由是什

么，善是什么。