| I ask you where you live, and your response is immediate because you are very familiar with that. There is no interval between the question and the answer. I ask you something a little more complex, and there is an interval of silence, an interval of time. During that interval, memory is in operation, and then you answer. So between the question and the answer, the time interval is the process in which memory comes into operation, and thought comes out, expressed in words. So thought is the response of memory, and memory is the multiplication of a thousand yesterdays with all its experiences and knowledge. The culture in which it is brought up, the education it has had, conscious or unconscious – from this background of knowledge and memory, each challenge is answered. Thought comes and acts from the whole mechanism of memory. Unless you have understood this mechanism of memory and thought, you will not be able to understand what time is. From Public Talk 7, New Delhi, 11 February 1962 Read more | 