Finding out what love is

Before we begin our dialogue I think we ought to clear up some points that arose yesterday towards the end of the meeting.

We seem to be blocking ourselves. Some say it is not possible, what you are talking about can never be put in daily life. 'I have listened to you for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years and nothing has happened, I am just the same as before'. That is a block that prevents each one, or the person who says these things, it prevents him from investigating himself. He has blocked himself, saying, 'It is not possible'. That's obvious.

And also there are those who say, 'I understand partially, I want to understand the whole before I can do something.' Again that is a block. Again that prevents your own investigation of yourselves, you are blocking yourself.

And there are those who say, 'What you are saying is totally impractical, why don't you stop talking and go away?' Such people, and I have heard this very often, not only prevent their own investigation of themselves, but also because one person can't do it himself he condemns the rest of the world - because if I can't do it, you can't do it. And so this goes on.

Questioner: (Inaudible)

Krishnamurti: We'll start the discussion... As I said, please let me talk a little and then we will have a dialogue. If we could, this morning and the next four mornings, realise, if I may point out, that we are not a whole thousand or two thousand people in the tent but we are talking to each other, single person. You understand? You and the speaker are talking together. When we two talk together it includes all the others - bound to. And I would like to point out, if I may again, please don't hinder yourself by blocking yourself, by saying, 'I can't do this, it is impossible. You are a biological freak and this is not applicable to ordinary people'. Or, 'You have to have special genes to understand all this'. One finds innumerable excuses, one finds every form of avoidance of looking into one's own hindrances, observing them closely, understanding them and trying to put them aside. If we could do that then perhaps we could have better communication with each other. Please.

And also I would like to point out: I think we don't listen; we don't really try to find out what the other person is trying to say. And listening requires certain attention, care, affection. If I want to understand what you are saying I must listen to you, not block myself all the way, all the time. I must care for what you are saying, I must have respect, I must have affection, love, otherwise we can't communicate certain things which are really very, very serious and require a great deal of enquiry. So if I may suggest that we listen with affection, with care. All these dialogues, and what happened yesterday, indicated that we have very little love for each other. Right? We want to assert our own points of view. We want to exercise our own opinions and dominate others by our judgements, by our conclusions, by our asserting that we have listened to you for so long, why haven't we changed. All that indicates, it seems to me and I may be wrong, that there is no real love. I am not blaming anybody, I am just stating this. Don't get... don't ride the high horse!

And I think we should go into this question very deeply, why we don't listen. Or we say, 'Yes, I have listened' - finished. 'I have already listened to you for twenty years, so over. I am not going to listen to you any more'. You don't say that to a child, do you, whom you love? He wants to tell you something. He may be telling it to you ten times, he has already told you, but the next time he says something you listen. You don't brush him aside. You are not impatient. You love that child. And I think in all these discussions and dialogues and talks we are missing that essential perfume. I don't think we know what it is to listen with love, which doesn't mean that we shouldn't be critical, which doesn't mean that we should accept everything that is said. It doesn't also mean that we agree or disagree. You listen, listen with care, with affection, with a sense of communication with each other. And for that one must have love. And probably that is what is missing. We are all too terribly intellectual, or too romantic, or too sentimental. All that denies love.

So perhaps, if we could this morning have a dialogue of whatever you want, whatever subject you want, bearing in mind that without this quality of affection, care, love and compassion, we merely play with words, remain superficial, antagonistic, assertive, dogmatic and so on. It remains merely verbal, it has no depth, no quality, no perfume. So bearing that in mind, what subject would you like to talk about this morning?

Q: Sir, could we continue with our discussion yesterday, of action, and how to deal with mental and physical disability?

K: Could you go into again, as we began yesterday, the questioner asks, could we discuss action.

Q: Is it possible to have thinking together if only one person wants to have it?

K: Is it possible to think together if the other person refuses to think together? (Laughter)

Q: I have difficulty in understanding what you mean by registration. In English we use the word meaning to become aware of something, as in registering an impression, registering discomforts. But you seem to use, or classify this recording. Would you go into that?

K: Would you go into the whole question of what you mean by registration. To register something, to remember something, to acknowledge, like a tape on which you register. Right? Could we go into that.

Q: Why are we satisfied in the way we are living?

K: Why are we satisfied in the way we are living.

Q: What is the relationship, or the difference, between the nature of thought and the mechanics of thinking? One thought appears to follow the other even for no special reason, and the movement of thought can be violent even if the content of the thought, you thought was positive.

K: I have not quite understood it, sir.

Q: I am interested in the mechanics of thinking, and the difference or the relationship between the mechanics and thought itself.

K: You would like to examine the whole structure of thought.

Q: Not the structure of thought itself but the mechanics of thinking too.

K: Mechanics, that's what... We are using the word perhaps differently. We will use the word, the mechanics of thinking.

Q: Because I noticed that it is possible to have neutral or positive thoughts but the mechanics of this thinking is functioning very well.

K: I am not quite sure I understand it, sir.

Q: I think he is saying that there is difference, inside the thought could be positive but in the way it expresses itself, negative.

Q: Yes. Maybe thought is surviving like animals in the jungle which is havoc, even though the content of the thought is positive.

Q: (In Italian)

K: Ah! Is thinking always mechanical, or is there a different kind of thinking which is non-mechanical.

Q: No. That is not the same. My thinking often doesn't flow very well. There is violence in the thoughts, in the mechanics but not in the content of the thought. Positive thought can be violent.

K: Positive thought is violence too. All right sir. I think we'll answer that. Just sit down, sir, we'll go into it.

Q: Why is love missing? Why don't we love?

K: Why don't we love. Sir, when you put a question like that, are you saying, why don't I love? Not why don't we love? Why isn't there love in my heart, or in my being? Would that be right sir? Right.

Any other questions?

Q: You said that thought is limited and yet if we look around thought has conquered the whole of humanity. I would like you to elaborate on that please.

K: You say thought is limited but every action is based on thought. All the activities, social, economic, religious, personal, are based on thought.

Q: And it has conquered the whole of humanity.

K: And it is a common factor of whole humanity.

Q: It has conquered the whole of humanity.

K: It has conquered the whole world. All right, sir.

Q: I'm still interested in how I am blocking myself.

K: Yes sir. The gentleman says he is still interested in that question, where he has had an accident, it has affected his whole nervous system, and therefore his brain and his activity in life.

Q: Sir, is it possible to know something without having to show something?

K: Is it possible to know something without having to demonstrate it?

So out of these questions which shall we take? Action, why isn't there love in my heart, what is the meaning of registration, the significance of registration and is thought everlastingly mechanical and is there something thought, still non-mechanical. So which of these questions? If we take them all together which is the central question in all these?

Q: The question of love, sir, it would answer the others, I think.

K: Could we go into this question, why is it that we human beings have no sense of love? Perhaps if we could go into that very deeply - again together, please, not I talk and you listen, but together - then perhaps in the investigation of that we will be able to find out what is thinking, what place has thinking, whether it is mechanical, or non-mechanical, and why the mind is always registering incidents, accidents, hurts, all the experiences of man stored up, and what is action that will be so complete it won't leave a mark of misery, confusion. Could we take this one question, which is, what is love, why don't we love? Would that be all right?

Q: Yes.

K: No, don't, please, I don't mind. Do you want to discuss that?

Q: Yes.

K: Yes? I wonder how we approach this question. What is your approach to it? You understand my question? How do you come to find out what is the meaning of love, why you, as a human being, have not this perfume, this quality that perhaps may answer all the other questions in life? Now what is your approach to it? How do you come to investigate that problem? Or it may not be possible to investigate that, but one can find out what may hinder it. You understand? What may prevent this extraordinary thing that man seems to be longing for and doesn't seem to get it, have it. Could we do that?

So what is your approach to it? You understand my question? Because how you approach a problem is really important. Not the problem itself so much but how you come to it, how you look at it, what is your intention and all that. So please find out, if I may request, what is your approach, how you receive that question, whether your mind is romantic, sentimental, whether it is born out of desire. So you have to go into this very carefully if you want to go very deeply into this question because one may in going into this perhaps we will be able to answer the whole nature of thinking. Right? So are we clear how you approach it, each one of us? Or you have certain conclusions already about it. Certain opinions and your experiences, will they block you, will they prevent you from going into it very, very, very deeply? Right? So please we are talking together, not to each one, together. You understand? The speaker is talking to you personally - you. So what is your approach? Are you aware of your approach and how you approach it? Are you aware of your prejudice, your images about it, your conclusions about it, or what people have said about it? Can you put all that aside and try to find out?

Q: What is love.

K: What is love. That we are going to find out sir, that is what we are doing.

Q: But what is the meaning of the word?

K: You know sir, first the word, the word - let's be clear that we both have the same meaning about that word, not that you may have a different meaning from the speaker, or the speaker different from you. You understand? So we must be clear about the word itself. Right? Generally, in a good dictionary the origin of it is desire. In Sanskrit it is, 'Lumpyati' - I won't go into it, it is, he desires. You follow? Love is associated with desire. Please, I am explaining the dictionary meaning of that word. It is not my concept or your concept, what is the common usage of that word. So if we are clear that we both recognise that the word is not the thing. You understand? You understand what I am saying? The word is not the thing. The word 'microphone' is not the actual microphone. Right? So we must be clear always through our discussions, if I may point out, that the word is not the actual fact. Right? So we are enquiring into what is love.

Q: Sir, we say that a child, a baby loves its mother because it needs its meals. (Inaudible) So in this case we say love is a fact of necessity.

Q: The baby loves its mother and that love is necessity.

K: The mother loves the baby and the baby loves the mother and that is a necessity. Right? Is that so? You make a statement, you don't investigate it. Is that so? The animals love their babies. The lowest form of life, manifestation of life, loves its young. And this is a movement from the animal to the man. And is that love? I am not saying it is not, or it is. Or is it the instinct from the animal carried on through the human and - please follow it step by step - and attachment, the animal brings up its cubs upto a certain age and then forgets about them. Right? They have gone from the nest. With a human there is tremendous care till they are three, four, five, nursing them, looking after them, cleaning them, cuddling them, holding them, that is if you love that baby, which most people don't - it becomes a plaything. Or they have not the occasion, not the time. After that they send them off to school, to a boarding school and so on, so on, gradually push them away. Right? And we are asking, we are asking, I am not saying it is, or it is not, is that love? I know the mothers will say, 'How can you say such a thing!' I mean we are questioning, we are enquiring, we are not saying yes, or no. Because we are thinking, observing together to find out for ourselves what is this nature, the beauty, the quality, the extraordinary thing called love. If a mother and the parents loved their baby, looked after them - you follow? - there would be no wars. Right? There would be right kind of education. There would be right kind of society. So we are asking, when a mother, when the parents love their baby, is it just for a short period, or right through life? Which means that they must have right education, bring them up with right behaviour, without violence, without conflict, not train them to kill each other, organised war, which is respectable, accepted. You understand? Would a parent who really loved his children do this? Go on sir, you are parents, think it out.

Q: There is a moment where separation comes in.

K: At the moment there is separation. The mother, the father separate themselves from their children. Right? And the children go off. They are attached to the children. Is attachment love? You people... Don't, please - go into it.

Q: The parents get something from their children, and the children get something from their parents, so it is not love.

K: Yes sir, I know all that. The baby needs a great deal of affection, care. If the parents don't give affection, care, love to the child, the child withers. It is a well known fact. But generally the parents have their own problems, their own anxieties, fears, sorrows and business worries - you know, all that. And they give the child a little of what they can when they have time. You understand all this? This is happening in the world. And so is all that love?

Q: No.

K: Don't say no, madame. Will you do something about it, test it?

Q: I think we should approach it a little bit negatively, like what is not love.

K: We are doing that, sir. We have just done it!

Q: Yes? Well, to look at this whole thing as one of the ways of approaching it. Time, space, and the whole human and animal race...

K: Yes sir, we'll come to it sir, slowly, slowly.

Q: I think the parents even defend themselves against the child.

K: Of course, that always happens. You follow? The parents are against the child, and the child becomes... you know what is happening in the world. For god's sake, look at it.

So from that arises the question: is attachment love?

Q: Many parents think that it is.

K: I know, many people think that without jealousy there is no love. If you don't struggle, fight, if there is no conflict, if there is no jealousy, a sense of each one asserting, people imagine that there is no love, or that there is love - this state is love. Right? So I am asking from that: is attachment love? We are thinking over together, you and I. So are you attached to your children?

Q: Is there a care and affection that makes you attractive to somebody else at a communion level as opposed to an attachment that you are dominating and your ideas have to be the ideas of the other person. Can you be attached and understand that attachment?

K: When you dominate your children, or your wife, or your husband, or your girl, or boy when you possess them, hold them that they are mine - is that love?

Q: No.

K: Sir, when we ask that question, is that love, when you say, 'No, it is not', do you mean it is not in you - you understand? You are free of it, not just verbally say, 'Yes, I am not'. So that is why I asked at the beginning, if I may point out, unless we do this actively, see, aware that it is so in us, and being aware look at it, go into it, search out why human beings hold on to this attachment. Why you are attached as husband, wife, furniture, book, belief, it doesn't matter - attachment. And if you are attached to one thing and another is attached to another, there is division. You understand? And is this division love? Please go into it.

Q: I hope you don't mind my...

K: Allezy, madame, allezy.

Q: I said they even defend themselves against their own children. Why so?

K: Madame, if you read the newspapers and magazines, and social workers and all those, they are saying, after a great deal of attention, after a great deal of study, that unless parents really love their children, you know, really love them, have time with them, spend their energy with them, the children either generally die, the babies, or mentally psychologically they are warped. And this lady was pointing out that some parents are opposed to their children. There are, they beat them, they force them, they do all kinds of things to them. That is all she was pointing out.

Q: Sir, from what you are saying I think we might get the idea that we should love. I think most of us have the idea very strongly that we should love. And most of us are very afraid that we don't love. Perhaps that is the barrier.

K: Yes, sir. The speaker is not saying that you should love. That would be silly because it has no meaning. And because we have a feeling that we should love, we feel guilty. And being guilty we force ourselves. Right? So, please. I hear you telling me, love is not attachment. I hear you. And because I really am in earnest, serious, I want to find out. I really want to find out. So I give attention to what you are saying. And when you say, 'Is attachment love?' I say, 'Am I attached to my daughter, to my wife?' I investigate in myself. You understand? I say, am I? And if I am not attached will I become irresponsible? You understand? I have so far said, as long as I am attached to this person I am responsible, I have to look after, I have to care, I have to earn money, you know, together, because I am attached to her, she is mine, I must protect her. And you are telling me, asking me: is that love? And I begin to enquire, and I say, if I am detached will I neglect my responsibility. You understand? Will I be indifferent, will I get bored and chase another person? You follow? So I am looking at both, whether attachment is love, in attachment there is fear - I know, I feel it. In attachment I must possess, I can't let her go, or him, because in attachment I find security. And you come and tell me, or ask me, because I am listening to you, I care for what you say, you have gone into it, you have searched out, you may be wrong, you may be right, but I want to find out. So I examine, and I say, what happens if I am not attached. I get frightened - aren't you? I get frightened, and that very fear makes me more attached. So I have to face the fear and see if I can go into it and see what is implied in it, then I can say, 'Well, all right, I see the danger of attachment, but what then?' You follow? I am not attached. Do I live in a vacuum, when all people around me are attached? Am I antisocial? You understand? Go into it with me as I am doing it.

So my enquiry in listening to you is, I want to find out what love is. To me that is very important to find out because that may solve all my problems if I know how to love. Right? It may. Everything has failed: I have tried gurus, I have tried everything but nothing has come, nothing has resolved, nothing has created something new in my life. So I am listening to you very earnestly, carefully, with affection. So I see, I understand that love is not attachment. Understand in the sense I have seen it, not verbally, in action. I say, 'All right, my girl, I am not attached to you' - or boy. I am watching it - you understand? I see the danger and therefore I am holding it. You understand? Keeping a watchful eye. Are you doing all this?

Q: I think the true way to approach a problem is to examine what is not love.

K: I am doing that sir, please. You are finding out what is not love. Attachment is not love. I have just discovered that. It is a tremendous discovery for me. Because I have so far accepted attachment as love, and you come and say, 'Find out, look at it'. I look and I find yes, you are perfectly right, because in attachment there is fear, and fear cannot go with love. So I have discovered this. I haven't been told by you, it is part of my blood now. Right? Are you doing this with me? Or you are just verbally playing around.

Q: Sir, I find it a very sad thing. You are going over a very serious problem with these people. Have you ever really considered that there is a very simple statement that tells you all about love, and that is found in the Bible. And the simple statement is, that god is love.

K: Madame, please.

Q: And there is no love to be found in man himself. God loves man. And man can look outwards to god, not inwards and find love.

K: Madame, ecoutez. If you make your question very short then it will be possible to answer it. But if you make a long speech it is impossible to understand, even verbally.

So we are through the negation of what is not love finding it out. You understand? Negation, attachment is not. But with attachment I have felt responsible, but also if I am not attached will I be irresponsible? You understand? So I have to find out in action, not just verbally. I say, I see I am attached, I see the dangers of attachment - fear, and I understand the nature of fear and I say, all right. Now am I responsible being free from attachment? Is then, I am asking, is responsibility necessary to love? You understand? Through negation of attachment, of denying attachment, and I have found responsibility, and is responsibility part of this strange thing called love? You understand? Being responsible, not only to my wife, to my children, having the feeling of responsibility. You understand what I am talking about?

Q: Is responsibility the same as an obligation?

K: Responsibility is not obligation. Obligation is gone. If I am obliged to you, I can't love you. I am obliged to you because you give me money, you give me sex, you give me comfort - you know - then where is this thing? It is a merchandise. Right?

Q: Sir, I think there is another danger. It is, we begin to cultivate indifference, you know, to become casual? If you see the attachment you can begin to cultivate indifference. And that is another trap.

K: Oh yes, sir. That's is why I am examining all the traps. So I have realised love implies responsibility. Go a little further.

Q: Which is to be able to respond.

K: Responsibility means as you say, the word 'responsible' comes from 'to respond'. Now in that responsibility, is the response sensuous, sensory - you understand? Does that responsibility contain desire - you are following all this? Please, I am talking. I am not talking to myself. We are doing it together, you and I. You and I may be all of you (laughs). So I am asking, in that responsibility is that responsibility limited to my girl, wife, husband, or the feeling of responsibility - you understand?

Q: There is a centre from which this responsibility comes into being.

K: I examined it sir. I am attached. In that attachment I have felt responsible. I go out, earn a livelihood, earn money, come back and I feel responsible for the woman, or the man. And in that responsibility there is attachment, fear. And you point out to me fear and love can't go together. You see it, you are so clear. And I say, quite right. So I am saying, is responsibility just to those few, or responsible for all human beings - you understand? Is love - follow this - is love this total feeling of responsibility?

Q: I see that if you are attached to somebody...

K: Sir, unless you go through this in yourself, work it out, test it.

Q: I test it every day and I think I test it too much sometimes. I think that attachment, as long as I experience attachment I am not able to be responsible to the rest of the human beings in the world.

K: Yes sir. So I have gone much further in my investigation with myself. I hope you are doing the same thing. Which is, do I feel responsible not only for the few with whom I am associated, or is there the feeling of total responsibility for the earth, for the trees, for the mountains, for the water, for other human beings. You follow? Total feeling. And is that love? Don't say, yes, or no, unless you do it.

And also I find in my investigation that I like to possess. I like to belong to somebody. Don't you know all this? Oh, for god's... So belonging, which is to be identified with something, - you understand? - identified with the nation, with the group, with a person, with an idea. So as I have lost every form of identification I feel I must be identified. Don't you know this? And in that identification I must possess. I can't identify myself with the wind!

Q: We are brought up in this way, educated.

K: I know sir, you are brought up this way. I know, I've been brought up that way, I am breaking my conditioning.

Q: Yes.

K: I am breaking down what I have been brought up to.

Q: Sometimes your conditioning is when you are able to watch it, the conditioning, you can listen. The conditioning is sometimes very strong. So you are able to watch it, you are able to be aware of it, but the conditioning is very, very strong.

K: Yes. I'm being aware of it. I am aware that I want to possess. And in that possession there is domination. And possession and domination, does that contain love - you understand? So I discover it does not. So I will not possess. You understand? I can't possess, because my interest, my drive, my intensity is to find out this thing called love. So I have found attachment is not love, possession is not love, nor the instinct which has been derived from the animal till now to the human. The mother, and the parents saying, 'I love my baby' and then neglect them for the rest of their life. Right? That is not love. So I have found out for myself these things are not love.

Then I want also to enquire - I hope you are doing it together. I am not talking to myself. If I am, stop it.

Q: What about attachment to the idea of independence, which is the other side of the coin? Aren't we often attached to the idea that we should be independent, not attached. This creates a problem also.

K: Yes sir. That means attached to the image you have about dependence. Come on, sir, this is all simple, isn't it? So is jealousy love? You understand? Or you say, 'No, it is not! But I am jealous!'. So my saying, it is not, has no meaning. So I have to say, 'Why, why am I jealous?' Go into it, look at it. Why am I jealous?

Q: Because I am frightened.

K: Because I possess. Why do I possess her, or him, why do I hold on? Is it that I am lonely. You understand? Desperately, deeply lonely, separate?

Q: I think love is a sort of intense perception of life. For example, now this moment together, the sun outside, and the sounds of the planes outside, the water on the roof, the whole of life, is like that - love. I think so.

K: You have described what love is - right?

Q: Like for example, I think love is an intense perception of life.

K: But I haven't got that intense perception of life.

Q: Like, for example, this moment, now...

K: Yes, madame, I understand that, but I haven't got it. You people just imagine this, make a statement and let it go at that. I don't know what you mean by 'intense perception of life'. I am caught in this thing. You are giving some description what life should be. I am not going to be caught in that trap of descriptions.

So is jealousy love? And I am jealous, so I become aware of it. You understand? I go into it, I don't just say, 'Well, what am I to do, tell me.' I see jealousy is not love and I am jealous, so I go into it, I work it out, think it out. Which means I am attached to her, or him. So I have not escaped from attachment, I have not really resolved it. So I must go into again, look at it carefully because my intention, my whole search is find out this perfume. So I have put that aside.

Then I see that I have my ambitions, my beliefs, my dogmatism, me first and her second. Right? And she first and me second. And I say, is that love? Which means when there is separation between that and this, is that love? Sir, don't say, no. Go into it, look at it. Because if you don't, you will say at the end of twenty years, 'I have done nothing'. At the end of ten years you will say, 'You have talked enough, get away from here. Stop talking'. Because you don't apply.

Q: This is the only difficulty: we don't apply.

K: Apply. I am doing it now for you.

Q: But I have the intention to apply myself but there is something else that I don't know that prevents me to deeply see all these things and not intellectually only.

K: Then find out what is impeding you. Go into it. Don't say, 'I don't know', and then give it up. Find out what is the barrier. Is it laziness, is it acceptance of things as they are, not to be disturbed? Sir, go into it, sir. Test it out. Break down, cry, do something to find out. At the end of it don't say, 'I have listened to you for twenty years, or fifty-two years, and I haven't changed'. It is not my fault, it is your fault. Don't put the blame on me.

Q: Sir...

K: Just a minute sir. I know, sir. I am answering your question sir. So I have discovered attachment in any form is not love. Jealousy is not love. Possession is not love, me and her, fulfilling my desires in her, or she in me. So desire - go into it carefully - desire is not love. Right? You don't accept it, you won't see this. Desire, sexual desires, desire for comfort, desire for various forms of encouragement, you know - desire. Is desire love? Don't say, no. Because I am desiring that woman, or that man; I desire to be a big politician, or a guru, or I desire enlightenment. I desire to become better. I desire to overcome this, enter into something else. All this movement of desire, the becoming, the fulfilling, is that love?

Q: So what shall we do with it?

K: I am telling you, sir. Look at it, investigate desire. Desire. Why is the mind, which is the result of the senses - you follow? - you understand this? - the senses, so the response of the senses with its desires, is that love? You follow?

Please follow all this. I am investigating all this so that towards the end I begin to see that everything that thought has created or desired, around this word, is not love. Right? And in the perception of that intelligence is taking place. Right? Right, sir?

Q: Is love the same as understanding?

K: No, sir. Love is not the same as understanding. Love is something totally different. You see I am describing it and you... I can use a Greek word 'agape', or French word, or Sanskrit word, but it won't convey the thing. The description in Sanskrit I can tell you - it won't. Or in Italian, or French, it is not that. So please sir, do it.

Q: Sir, you talk about love.

K: I don't talk about love. I am talking about the barriers, the things that prevent this thing taking place.

Q: Well, I am blocking it.

K: You told me that sir.

Q: What shall I do? I mean, I want to love.

K: You can't... that's what... 'I want to love.' The very desire to want to love is the denial of love.

Q: So how shall I get rid of that desire?

K: I am not saying you should get rid of anything. I am just pointing out how to investigate desire, to look at it. All right, I will show it to you, sir. I have desire. I desire that woman, or that man, I desire to become something, I desire to be very healthy, I desire a better life, more money - I desire. And what is this constant urge - right? - for nirvana, for enlightenment, for better life, what is this desire? Please I am not talking to myself. I can do this anywhere.

Q: Sir, in order for the desire to accomplish and transform into the passion to investigate, something has to take place.

K: Yes sir, desire for something. Desire cannot be transmuted into something else, it has to be understood. It has to be exposed to the light of investigation.

Q: How do you expose it?

K: I am doing it, sir, I am doing it. I went into this carefully the other day, what is the movement of desire. The response of the senses. Right? The response, I see something, a blue shirt, I want that blue shirt. The response of seeing, the response, contact, sensation, then thought comes in and says, 'I would like to have that shirt'. So thought when it takes over the response of the senses creates desire. Watch it. Test it out.

Q: I want the attention that you have sir. I see that desire.

K: So I am left with this, sir: I see love is not desire. It is a great thing to find out for oneself and if love is not desire then what is love? You understand? Love is not mere attachment to the baby, love is not attachment to any form, love is not jealousy, love is not me and my ambition, my fulfilment, my becoming, and you also becoming, this constant division, that is not love, nor desire, nor pleasure. Right? The fulfilment of desire, which is pleasure, that is not love. So I have found out what love is. It is none of these things. And have I understood these elements and am free of them? Or just say, 'Well, I understand intellectually, I understand verbally, but help me to go deeper', I can't. You have to do it yourself.

Q: How to do it, sir.

K: I am doing it sir. Sit down, sir, please.

Q: I am prepared to stand.

K: All right sir. Sit on there sir.

Q: Thank you.

K: So in this investigation, in examining all these things quite impersonally, objectively as they are, I have got that quality of intelligence now. You understand? It is born out of this investigation, it is born out of this seeing the truth of each thing. Right? And therefore out of that there is intelligence.

So I am asking: is this intelligence necessary for love? I am using the word 'intelligence', not intellect, not the cunning, twisting subtleties of the intellect, the verbal play, but totally different. The seeing and the doing; the seeing attachment is dangerous and the doing of it, which is the ending of it, that is intelligence. So there is intelligence and therefore it is love, that quality of love, which is compassion. Not compassion as an idea. A thing that is in one's heart, burning, alive. And compassion, love and intelligence go together. Without intelligence you can't have compassion, this intelligence of which I am talking.

Now we have talked for an hour and twenty seven minutes, have you tested it out? Have you freed yourself from this attachment and therefore total feeling of immense responsibility? Or will you say the day after tomorrow, 'I've listened to you, nothing has happened'? That very statement indicates that you have not investigated yourself, gone into yourself. You expect somebody to do something to you.

Q: Krishnaji, that may not be quite fair. I have listened to what you are saying and feel now I want to try and test it out.

K: Test it out. No, do it as we are talking, don't wait till the day after tomorrow.

Q: Sir, as I reject every attachment, or desire, I feel tremendously empty in myself, so I can't see intelligence.

K: Sir, emptiness, what does that mean? Lonely, separate, isolated, a sense of being cut off, not having any kind of relationship with another, is it the result of drugs, is it the result of various forms of marijuana, grass, speed, and all the rest of it? And also is it the result of your vows, your meditation, your acceptance of authority? You follow - made you the sense of absolutely worthless, empty, lonely. So at the end of an hour and a half nearly, have you got this quality of love and compassion? If not let us tomorrow talk about it, investigate it, go into it much more deeply. But don't say ever, 'I have listened for so long and I haven't got it'. You can listen to that river endlessly, but the waters are not what you listen to.