Questioner: Can there be thinking without memory? Krishnamurti: In other words, is there thought without the word? You know, it is very interesting, if you go into it. Is the speaker using thought? Thought, as the word, is necessary for communication, is it not? The speaker has to use words, English words, to communicate with you who understand English. And the words come out of memory, obviously. But what is the source, what is behind the word? Let me put it differently. There is a drum; it gives out a tone. When the skin is tightly stretched at the right tension, you strike it, and it gives out the right tone, which you may recognize. The drum, which is empty, in right tension, is as your own mind can be. When there is right attention and you ask the right question, then it gives the right answer. The answer may be in terms of the word, the recognizable, but that which comes out of that emptiness is, surely, creation. The thing that is created out of knowledge is mechanical, but the thing which comes out of emptiness, out of the unknown, that is the state of creation. – Krishnamurti, Collected Works, Vol. XII,181,Choiceless Awareness