UVic Meetup: Krishnamurti on Love (part 2)

Stillness Within meetup – Krishnamurti on Love (Part 2)

We continued at the February meetup to reflect on K’s “Freedom from the Known” chapter on Love.

The chapter continued from the previous month’s explorations of what love is not… with Krishnamurti emphasizing that some expressions that we tend to think of as love often involve personal attachments, expectations, judgements or a need for validation. Some examples of this include: romantic love, parental love, love of country, death and grieving (lost love) or a need for strengthened self-identity.   K. invites us to consider what love could be if there’s no attachment.  Is it possible that love can only be fully experienced with the diminishment of self?

As the group explored the chapter more fully, we wondered if the truth of love in K’s eyes was more aligned with our own experience of pure awareness, of seeing the world and those around us without judgements, filtres or internal needs or wants…  The quote below seemed to get to punctuate our discussion quite nicely!

“Love is something that is new, fresh, alive. It has no yesterday and no tomorrow. It is beyond the turmoil of thought. It is only the innocent mind which knows what love is, and the innocent mind can live in the world which is not innocent. To find this extraordinary thing, which man has sought endlessly through sacrifice, through worship, through relationship, through sex, through every form of pleasure and pain, is only possible when thought comes to understand itself and comes naturally to an end. Then love has no opposite, then love has no conflict….

But you don’t know how to come to this extraordinary fount – so what do you do? If you don’t know what to do, you do nothing don’t you? Absolutely nothing. Then inwardly you are completely silent. Do you understand what that means? It means that you are not seeking, not wanting, not pursuing; there is no centre at all. Then there is love.”

J. Krishnamurti, Freedom From the Known