Facing the fact that you do not

love
Question: The strongest underlying commandment in all religions is to love
your fellow man. Why is this simple truth so difficult to carry out?
Krishnamurti: Why is it that we are incapable of loving? What does it mean
to love your fellow man? Is it a commandment, or is it a simple fact that if I do
not love you and you do not love me, there can only be hate, violence, and
destruction? What prevents us from seeing the very simple fact that this world
is ours, that this earth is yours and mine to live upon, undivided by
nationalities, by frontiers, to live upon happily, productively, with delight, with
affection and compassion? Why is it that we do not see this? I can give you
lots of explanations, and you can give me lots more, but mere explanations
will never eradicate the fact that we do not love our neighbour. On the
contrary, it is because we are forever giving explanations and causes that we
do not face the fact. You give one cause, I give another, and we fight over
causes and explanations. We are divided as Hindus, Buddhists, Christians,
this or that. We say we do not love because of social conditions, or because it
is our karma, or because somebody has a great deal of money while we have
very little. We offer innumerable explanations, lots of words, and in the net of
words we get caught. The fact is that we do not love our neighbour, and we
are afraid to face that fact, so we indulge in explanations, in words and the
description of the causes; we quote the Gita, the Bible, the Koran, anything to
avoid facing the simple fact.

With the facing of that fact there

comes a different quality; and it
is this quality that saves the
world.
What happens when you face the fact and know for yourself that you do not
love your neighbour or your son? If you loved your son, you would educate
him entirely differently; you would educate him not to fit into this rotten society,
but to be self-sufficient, to be intelligent, to be aware of all the influences
around him in which he is caught, smothered, and which never allow him to be
free. If you loved your son, who is also your neighbour, there would be no
wars because you would want to protect him, not your property, your petty
little belief, your bank account, your ugly country or your narrow ideology. So
you do not love, and that is a fact.
The Bible, the Gita or the Koran may tell you to love your neighbour, but the
fact is that you do not love. Now, when you face that fact, what happens?
What happens when you are aware that you are not loving, and being aware
of that fact, do not offer explanations or give causes as to why you do not
love? It is very clear. You are left with the naked fact that you do not love, that
you feel no compassion. The contemptuous way you talk to others, the
respect you show to your boss, the deep, reverential salute with which you
greet your guru, your pursuit of power, your identification with a country, your
seeking – all this indicates that you do not love. If you start from there you can
do something. If you are blind and really know it, if you do not imagine you
can see, what happens? You move slowly, you touch, you feel; a new
sensitivity comes into being. Similarly, when I know that I have no love, and
do not pretend to love, when I am aware of the fact that I have no compassion
and do not pursue the ideal, then with the facing of that fact there comes a
different quality; and it is this quality that saves the world, not organized
religion or a clever ideology. It is when the heart is empty that the things of the
mind fill it; and the things of the mind are the explanations of that emptiness,
the words that describe its causes.
So, if you really want to stop wars, if you really want to put an end to this
conflict within society, you must face the fact that you do not love. You may
go to a temple and offer flowers to a stone image, but that will not give the
heart this extraordinary quality of compassion and love, which comes only
when the mind is quiet, and not greedy or envious. When you are aware of the
fact that you have no love, and do not run away from it by trying to explain it,
or find its cause, then that very awareness begins to do something; it brings
gentleness, a sense of compassion. Then there is a possibility of creating a
world totally different from this chaotic and brutal existence which we now call
life.
Krishnamurti in Bombay 1956, Talk 5
AUDIO: Knowing what love is
Our hearts are filled with the things of the mind
Relationship, if we allow it, can be a process of self-revelation; but since we
do not allow it, relationship becomes merely a gratifying activity. As long as
the mind merely uses relationship for its own security, that relationship is
bound to create confusion and antagonism. Is it possible to live
in relationship without the idea of demand, want or gratification? Which
means, is it possible to love without the interference of the mind? We love with
the mind, our hearts are filled with the things of the mind, but the fabrications
of the mind cannot be love. You cannot think about love. You can think about
the person whom you love, but that thought is not love, and so gradually
thought takes the place of love. When the mind becomes supreme, all-
important, obviously there can be no affection. We have filled our hearts with
the things of the mind, and the things of the mind are essentially ideas – what
should be, and what should not be. Can relationship be based on an idea? If it
is, is it not a self-enclosing activity and therefore inevitable that there should
be contention, strife, and misery? But if the mind does not interfere, it is not
erecting a barrier, it is not disciplining suppressing or sublimating itself. This is
extremely difficult, because it is not through determination, practice or
discipline, that the mind can cease to interfere; the mind will cease to interfere
only when there is full comprehension of its own process. Then only is it
possible to have right relationship with the one and with the many, free of
contention and discord.
Krishnamurti in Ojai 1949, Talk 2
VIDEO: Is love a movement of time and thought?
Ideas about love
Two young men had come from the town nearby. They came in smiling but
rather shyly, their manner hesitantly respectful. Once seated, they soon forgot
their shyness, and one asked, ‘May I ask a question, sir?’
Of course.
‘What is love? There are so many ideas about what love should be, that it is
all rather confusing.’
What sort of ideas?
‘That love shouldn’t be passionate or lustful; that one should love one’s
neighbour as oneself; that one should love one’s father and mother; that love
should be the impersonal love of God. Everyone gives an opinion according to
their fancy.’
Apart from the opinions of others, what do you think? Have you opinions
about love too?
‘It is difficult to put into words what one feels,’ replied the second one. ‘I think
love must be universal; one must love all, without prejudice. It is prejudice that
destroys love; it is class consciousness that creates barriers and divides
people. The sacred books say that we must love one another and not be
personal or limited in our love, but sometimes we find this very difficult.’
‘To love God is to love all,’ added the first one. ‘There is only divine love; the
rest is carnal, personal. This physical love prevents divine love, and without
divine love, all other love is barter and exchange. Love is not sensation.
Sexual sensation must be checked, disciplined; that is why I’m against birth
control. Physical passion is destructive; through chastity lies the way to God.’
Before we go further, don’t you think we ought to find out if all these opinions
have any validity? Is not one opinion as good as another? Regardless of who
holds it, is not opinion a form of prejudice, a bias created by one’s
temperament, one’s experience, and the way one happens to have been
brought up?

Understand why we have

opinions, ideas and conclusions
about love.
‘Do you think it is wrong to hold an opinion?’ asked the second one.
To say that it is wrong or right would merely be another opinion, wouldn’t it?
But if one begins to observe and understand how opinions are formed, then
perhaps one may be able to perceive the actual significance of opinion,
judgment, agreement. Thought is the result of influence, isn’t it? Your thinking
and your opinions are dictated by the way you have been brought up. You
say, ‘This is right, that is wrong,’ according to the moral pattern of your
particular conditioning. We are not for the moment concerned with what is true
beyond all influence, or whether there is such truth. We are trying to see the
significance of opinions, beliefs, assertions, whether they be collective or
personal. Opinion, belief, agreement or disagreement, are responses
according to one’s background narrow or wide. Isn’t that so?
‘Yes, but is that wrong?’
Again, if you say it is right or wrong, you are still in the field of opinions. Truth
is not a matter of opinion; a fact does not depend on agreement or belief. You
and I may agree to call this object a watch, but by any other name it would still
be what it is. Your belief or opinion is something that has been given to you by
the society in which you live. In revolting against it, as a reaction, you may
form a different opinion, another belief; but you are still on the same level,
aren’t you?
‘I am sorry but I don’t understand what you are getting at,” replied the second
one.
You have certain ideas and opinions about love, haven’t you?
‘Yes.’
How did you get them?
‘I have read what the saints and the great religious teachers have said about
love, and having thought it over I have formed my own conclusions.’
Which are shaped by your likes and dislikes, are they not? You like or you
don’t like what others have said about love, and you decide which statement
is right and which is wrong according to your own predilection.
‘I choose that which I consider to be true.’
On what is your choice based?
‘On my own knowledge and discernment.’
What do you mean by knowledge? I am not trying to trip or corner you but
together we are trying to understand why we have opinions, ideas and
conclusions about love. If once we understand this, we can go very much
more deeply into the matter. So, what do you mean by knowledge?
‘By knowledge I mean what I have learnt from the teachings of the sacred
books.’
‘Knowledge embraces also the techniques of modern science, and all the
information that has been gathered by man from ancient days up to the
present time,’ added the other.
So knowledge is a process of accumulation, is it not? It is the cultivation of
memory. The knowledge that we have accumulated as scientists, musicians,
scholars, engineers, makes us technical in various departments of life. When
we have to build a bridge, we think as engineers, and this knowledge is part of
the tradition, part of the background or conditioning that influences all our
thinking. Living, which includes the capacity to build a bridge, is a total action,
not a separate, partial activity; yet our thinking about life and love is shaped by
opinions, conclusions, tradition. If you were brought up in a culture which
maintained that love is only physical, and that divine love is all nonsense, you
would, in the same way, repeat what you had been taught, wouldn’t you?
‘Not always,’ replied the second one. ‘I admit it is rare, but some of us do rebel
and think for ourselves.’
Thought may rebel against the established pattern, but this very revolt is
generally the outcome of another pattern; the mind is still caught in the
process of knowledge and tradition. It is like rebelling within the walls of a
prison for more conveniences, better food and so on. So your mind is
conditioned by opinions, tradition, knowledge, and by your ideas about love,
which make you act in a certain way. That is clear, isn’t it?
‘Yes sir, that is clear enough,’ answered the first one. ‘But then what is love?’
If you want a definition you can look in any dictionary, but the words which
define love are not love. Merely to seek an explanation of what love is, is still
to be caught in words and opinions, which are accepted or rejected according
to your conditioning.
‘Aren’t you making it impossible to inquire into what love is?’ asked the
second one.
Is it possible to inquire through a series of opinions or conclusions? To inquire
rightly, thought must be freed from conclusion, from the security of knowledge
and tradition. The mind may free itself from one series of conclusions and
form another, which is again only a modified continuity of the old. Now, isn’t
thought itself a movement from one result to another, from one influence to
another? Do you see what I mean?
‘I’m not at all sure that I do,’ said the first one. ‘I don’t understand it at all,’ said
the second.
Perhaps you will, as we go along. Let me put it this way: is thinking the
instrument of inquiry? Will thinking help one to understand what love is?
‘How am I to find out what love is if I am not allowed to think?’ asked the
second one rather sharply.
Please be a little more patient. You have thought about love, haven’t you?
‘Yes. My friend and I have thought a great deal about it.’
If one may ask, what do you mean when you say you have thought about
love?
‘I have read about it, discussed it with my friends, and drawn my own
conclusions.’
Has it helped you to find out what love is? You have read, exchanged
opinions with each other and come to certain conclusions about love, all of
which is called thinking. You have positively or negatively described what love
is, sometimes adding to, and sometimes taking away from, what you have
previously learnt. Isn’t that so?
‘Yes, that’s exactly what we have been doing, and our thinking has helped to
clarify our minds.’
Has it? Or have you become more and more entrenched in an opinion? Surely
what you call clarification is a process of coming to a definite verbal or
intellectual conclusion.
‘That’s right; we are not as confused as we were.’
In other words, one or two ideas stand out clearly in this jumble of teachings
and contradictory opinions about love. Isn’t that it?
‘Yes, the more we have gone over this whole question of what love is, the
clearer it has become.’
Is it love that has become clear, or what you think about it? Let us go a little
further into this, shall we? A certain ingenious mechanism is called a watch
because we have all agreed to use this word to indicate that particular thing,
but the word watch is obviously not the mechanism itself. Similarly, there is a
feeling or a state which we have all agreed to call love, but the word is not the
actual feeling. And the word love means so many different things. At one time
you use it to describe a sexual feeling, at another time you talk about divine or
impersonal love, or you assert what love should or should not be, and so on.
‘If I may interrupt, sir, could it be that all these feelings are just varying forms
of the same thing?’ asked the first one. ‘There are moments when love seems
to be one thing, but at other moments it appears to be something quite
different. It’s all very confusing. One doesn’t know where one is.’
That’s just it. We want to be sure of love, to peg it down so that it won’t elude
us. We reach a conclusion, make agreements about it. We call it by various
names, with their special meanings. We talk about “my love”, just as we talk
about “my property”, “my family” or “my virtue”, and we hope to lock it safely
away so that we can turn to other things and make sure of them too. But
somehow it’s always slipping away when we least expect it.
‘I don’t quite follow all this,’ said the second one, rather puzzled.
As we have seen, the feeling itself is different from what the books say about
it; the feeling is not the description, it is not the word. That much is clear, isn’t
it? Now, can you separate the feeling from the word, and from your
preconceptions of what it should and should not be?
‘What do you mean “separate”?’ asked the first one.
There is the feeling, and the word or words which describe that feeling, either
approvingly or disapprovingly. Can you separate the feeling from the verbal
description of it? It is comparatively easy to separate an objective thing, like
this watch, from the word which describes it, but to dissociate the feeling itself
from the word love, with all its implications, is far more arduous and requires a
great deal of attention.
‘What good will that do?’ asked the second one.
We always want to get a result in return for doing something. This desire for a
result, which is another form of conclusion seeking, prevents understanding.
When you ask, ‘What good will it do me if I dissociate the feeling from the
word love?’ you are thinking of a result, therefore you are not really inquiring
to find out what that feeling is.
‘I do want to find out, but I also want to know what will be the outcome of
dissociating the feeling from the word. Isn’t this perfectly natural?’

When you love, everything will

come right. Love has its own
action.
Perhaps, but if you want to understand you will have to give your attention,
and there is no attention when one part of your mind is concerned with results
and the other with understanding. In this way you get neither and so you
become more and more confused, bitter and miserable. If we don’t dissociate
the word, which is memory and all its reactions, from the feeling, then that
word destroys the feeling, and then the word, or memory, is the ash without
the fire. Isn’t this what has happened to you both? You have so entangled
yourselves in a net of words and speculations that the feeling itself, which is
the only thing that has deep and vital significance, is lost.
‘I am beginning to see what you mean,’ said the first one slowly. ‘We are not
simple; we don’t discover anything for ourselves but just repeat what we have
been told. Even when we revolt we form new conclusions, which again have
to be broken down. We really don’t know what love is, but merely have
opinions about it. Is that it?’
Don’t you think so? Surely, to know love, truth, God, there must be no
opinions, no beliefs, no speculations with regard to it. If you have an opinion
about a fact, the opinion becomes important, not the fact. If you want to know
the truth or the falseness of the fact, then you must not live in the word, in the
intellect. You may have a lot of knowledge and information about the fact, but
the actual fact is entirely different. Put away the book, the description, the
tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery. Love, and don’t
be caught in opinions and ideas about what love is or should be. When you
love, everything will come right. Love has its own action. Love, and you will
know the blessings of it. Keep away from the authority who tells you what
love is and what it is not. No authority knows; and he who knows cannot tell.
Love, and there is understanding.
From the book Commentaries on Living III, by J. Krishnamurti
VIDEO: Love and death
Love is a flame without smoke
Question: I cannot conceive of a love which is neither felt nor thought of. You
are probably using the word love to indicate something else. Is it not so?
Krishnamurti: When we say love, what do we mean by it? Actually, not
theoretically, what do we mean? It is a process of sensation and thought, is it
not? That is what we mean by love: a process of thought, a process of
sensation.
Is thought, love? When I think of you, is that love? When I say that love must
be impersonal or universal, is that love? Surely, thought is the result of a
feeling, of sensation, and as long as love is held within the field of sensation
and thought, obviously there must be conflict in that process. And must we not
find out if there is something beyond the field of thought?

We don’t know how to love, we

only know how to think about
love.
We know what love is in the ordinary sense: a process of thought and
sensation. If we do not think of a person, we think we do not love them; if we
do not feel, we think there is no love. But is that all? Or is love something
beyond? And to find out, must not thought as sensation come to an end? After
all, when we love somebody, we think about them, we have a picture of them.
That is, what we call love is a thinking process, a sensation, which is memory:
the memory of what we did or did not do with him or her. So memory, which is
the result of sensation, which becomes verbalized thought, is what we call
love. And even when we say that love is impersonal, cosmic, or what you will,
it is still a process of thought.
Now, is love a process of thought? Can we think about love? We can think
about the person, or think of memories with regard to that person, but is that
love? Surely, love is a flame without smoke. The smoke is that with which we
are familiar – the smoke of jealousy, of anger, of dependence, of calling it
personal or impersonal, the smoke of attachment. We have not the flame, but
we are fully acquainted with the smoke; and it is possible to have that flame
only when the smoke is not. Therefore our concern is not with love, whether it
is something beyond the mind or beyond sensation, but to be free of the
smoke: the smoke of jealousy, of envy, the smoke of separation, of sorrow
and pain. Only when the smoke is not shall we know that which is the flame.
And the flame is neither personal nor impersonal, neither universal nor
particular – it is just a flame; and there is the reality of that flame only when
the mind, the whole process of thought, has been understood. So, there can
be love only when the smoke of conflict of competition, struggle, envy, comes
to an end, because that process breeds opposition, in which there is fear. As
long as there is fear, there is no communion, for one cannot commune
through the screen of smoke.
So, it is clear that love is possible only without the smoke; and as we are
acquainted with the smoke, let us go into it completely, understand it fully, so
as to be free of it. Then only shall we know that flame which is neither
personal nor impersonal and which has no name. That which is new cannot
be given a name. Our question is not what love is, but what are the things that
are preventing the fullness of that flame? We don’t know how to love, we only
know how to think about love. In the very process of thinking we create the
smoke of the “me” and the “mine”, and in that we are caught. Only when we
are capable of freeing ourselves from the process of thinking about love and
all the complications that arise out of it, is there a possibility of having that
flame.