In investigating fear, one has to understand thought. Thought is the reaction of memory, and memory is the past – the past being not only the thousand years past but also the past of yesterday, the past in which you have been educated. All the reactions of the past are time, which is thought. Fear arises when thought is conscious of itself in contradiction. If there is no contradiction, if there is no conflict, if there is no urge to fulfil, then there is no consciousness of the border of time. Thinking is the response of memory, and that memory is the centre from which all action takes place – the me, my family, my country, my job, my virtue – the centre from which all thought as reaction takes place. As long as that centre exists, there must be fear. That centre is nothing extraordinary, nothing spiritual; it is the sheer machinery of memory, a bundle of memories. So there is fear when that centre is questioned, when that centre feels uncertain, when that centre feels it cannot achieve, when that centre feels frustrated, when that centre feels utterly lonely.