On Love and Lonliness is a compelling investigation of our intimate relationships with ourselves, others, and society. Krishnamurti suggests that “true relationship” can come into being
only when there is self-knowledge of the conditions which divide and islolate individuals and groups. Only by renouncing the self can we understand the problem of lonliness, and truly love.
We live in relationship.
Relationship is not an abstraction, it is a daily, everyday fact. Whether you go to the office, come back and sleep with your wife, or quarrel, you are always in relationship. And if there is no order in that relationship between you and another, or between you and many or one, you will create a culture that will ultimately produce disorder, as is being done now. So order is absolutely essential. To find that out, can the mind, though it has been insulted, hurt, knocked about, had brutal things said to it, never for a second hold it? The moment you hold it, it is already recorded, it has left a mark in the brain cells. See the difficulty of this question. Can the mind do this so that the mind remains totally innocent? A mind that is innocent means a mind that is incapable of being hurt. Because it is incapable of being hurt, it will not hurt another. Now, is this possible? Every form of influence, every form of incident, every form of mischief, distrust, is thrown upon the mind. Can the mind never record and therefore remain very innocent, very clear? We are going to find out together. We will come to it by asking what love is.
What love is?
Is love the product of thought? Is love in the field of time? Is love pleasure? Is love something that can be cultivated, practised, put together by thought? In inquiring into this, one has to go into the question: Is love pleasure—sexual or any other kind of pleasure?
Our mind is pursuing pleasure all the time: yesterday I had a good meal, the pleasure of that meal is recorded and I want more, a better meal or the same kind of meal tomorrow. I have taken great delight in the sunset, or looking at the moon through the leaves, or seeing a wave far out at sea. That beauty gives great delight, and that is great pleasure. The mind records it and wants it repeated. Thought thinks about sex, thinks, chews over it, wants it repeated; and that you call love. Right? Don’t be shy when we talk about sex, that’s part of your life. You have made it hideous because you have denied every kind of freedom except that one freedom. So is love pleasure? Is love put together by thought, as pleasure is put together by thought? Is love envy? Can anyone love who is envious, who is greedy, ambitious, violent, conforming, obeying, totally in disorder? So what is love?
It is not any of these things, obviously. It is not pleasure. Please understand the importance of pleasure. Pleasure is sustained by thought; therefore thought is not love. Thought cannot cultivate love. It can and does cultivate the pursuit of pleasure, as it does fear, but thought cannot create love, or put it together. See the truth. See it and you will put away your ambition, your greed, altogether. So through negation you come to the most extraordinary thing called love, which is the most positive. Disorder in relationship means there is no love, and that disorder exists when there is conformity. So a mind that conforms to a pattern of pleasure, or what it thinks is love, can never know what love is. A mind that has understood the whole ripening of disorder comes to an order which is virtue, therefore which is love. It’s your life, it’s not my life. If you don’t live this way, you will be most unhappy, caught in social disorder, and be dragged forever in that stream. It is only the man who steps out of that stream who knows what love is, what order is.