Jiddu Krishnamurti - On love and loneliness

We were discussing the complex problem of love. I do not think we shall understand it until we understand an equally complex problem, which we call the mind. Have you noticed, when we are very young, how inquisitive we are?

The mind, when we are young, is much more alert, much more curious and wanting to know. As we grow older, our minds become more and more crystallized, more and more heavy, more and more bulky. Have you noticed in older people how prejudiced thay are? their minds are fixed, they are not open, they approach everything from a fixed point of view.

Is it not then very important to understand the ways of the mind, so as to understand the way of love? Because it is the mind that destroys love.

fact of the mind #1:

What is this thing that you call the mind? It is the way of thinking, the way you think. That mind gradually becomes warped or fixed in a certain pattern. When you want something, when you desire, when you crave, you set a pattern; that is, your mind creates a pattern and it gets caught. Your desire crystallizes your mind.

So until I really investigate this process of my mind, the ways i think, the ways i regard love, until i am familiar with my own ways of thinking, i cannot possibly find what love is.

There will be no love when my mind desires certain facts of love, certain actions of it, and when I then imagine what love should be. Then I give certain motives to love. So, gradually, I create the pattern of action with regard to love. But it is not love; it is merely my desire of what love should be. Say, for example, I possess you as a wife or a husband. Do you understand possess? You possess your sari or your coat. If somebody took them away, you would be angry, you would be anxious, you would be irritated. Why? Because you regard your coat as yours, through possession you feel enriched.

Owning creates a barrier, does it not, with regard to love? If I own you, I feel very rich inwardly and outwardly. This owning, this possessing, this depending, is what we call love. But if you examine it, you will see that, behind it, the mind feels satisfied in possession. Not love

fact of the mind #2:

Is not the mind also an instrument of comparison? Comparison prevents you from looking fully. When I compare, I am not looking at you. Because my mind is occupied with something else I am comparing you to. When I compare you with somebody else, I judge you and say "oh he is a stupid man". So stupidity arises when there is comparison, that very comparison brings about a lack of human dignity.

So as long as the mind is comparing, there is no love. You are always concerned with yourself in relation to somebody else. As the mind becomes more comparative, possessive, depending, it creates a pattern in which it gets caught, so it cannot look at anything anew, afresh. And so it destroys that very thing, that very perfume of life, which is love.