Jiddu Krishnamurti — What Is Love? (extract)

Captions extracted from youtu.be/R3yB6bhLqR0 on 2026-05-24 using scripts/extract-youtube-captions.sh. The video carries an officially-authored manual caption track (not auto-generated), so the text below is the publisher's transcription rather than ASR output. Punctuation has been lightly normalised; ellipses mark the original caption-break ellipses preserved as published. Source: Krishnamurti Foundation Trust (presumed rights-holder for J. Krishnamurti's talks).

We said, what is love — you know, that is one of the most important things in life. If one has love you can do what you like, then there is no conflict, then there is no evil, there is great bliss, but to imagine what bliss is and pursue that, is not love. So we are going to see what it is not, and therefore come upon what it is. Therefore it is not a question of searching out love, nor cultivating love — how can you cultivate love? All cultivation is the product of the mind, product of thought; it is like a mind that pursues humility, it says, I know vanity and I must cultivate humility. And when the mind that is proud and vain, cultivates humility, it is still vain. It is like those saints that are…

…pretending to be humble, because they have cultivated humility. So what we are going to do is to find out what it is not, not through me, not through the speaker at all, but by listening to yourself and finding out what it is not…

…and if it is not that, wipe it away instantly. If you don't wipe it, if it doesn't disappear, then you are caught in time, you are a slave to the word and the verb to be. And therefore there is no love. So first we are asking what it is not. Obviously it is not jealousy, it is not envy, and your love is hedged about, a prisoner to jealousy, envy. Right? And when you see that, that what you call love is entangled with…

…the ugly brutality of jealousy, see it, actually observe it, and in that observation jealousy goes, and you will never be jealous again, never envious. Please do this as we are talking. Envy comes only when there is comparison. And is love comparison? So again, you put aside all comparison, which means all envy. Then, is love pleasure? This is going to be a little more difficult. For most of us, love is pleasure — whether it is love, sexual love, or love of God…

…or love of — God knows what else. It is based on pleasure. The love of respectability…

…is the very essence of the bourgeois mind. So is love pleasure? Do observe it, please. We were saying yesterday evening what pleasure is — the product of thought, having had pleasure of different kinds yesterday, you think about it, you have image upon image built…

…and that stimulates you and that gives you pleasure, sexual or otherwise, and that you call love. And is it love? Because in pleasure there is frustration, there is pain, there is agony, there is dependency. Don't you depend psychologically on another? And when you do, when you depend on your wife or husband — whatever it is, and you say, I love you, is that love? And in that dependence is there not fear?