To go deep into this question of what love is, one has to have a wide, deep mind to find out, not just make verbal assertions. Why does pleasure play such an important part in our lives? [1]
Krishnamurti, On Love and Loneliness
– P.9 Brockwood Park,
11 September 1971
Krishnamurti has challenged my question of love from his book entitled, “On Love and Loneliness” . I remember having various relationships with different types of women and not too many of ended on a good note. Furthermore, I regressed deeper into my past relationships. In this book first couple of chapters, it discusses “Love” and what it means in a Victorian and/or modern term, yet, the universal question lingers in my own thoughts: what is love? What does it mean? Where does it begin? When will it end? These questions I will try to answer in clarity, brevity, and modernity to our curious natures and to our intellectual prowls thirsting to obtain some ground on its lingering enigma. So, what is love?
What is love?
What does love mean? Let’s use the lexicon for this word, which derives from the Greek word erotas meaning “intimate love,” or Latin word lubere meaning “to please.” The lexicon for the word states, [2] “Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment.[1] In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. In religious context, love is not just a virtue, but the basis for all being ("God is love"[2]), and the foundation for all divine law (Golden Rule).”[2] Theses definitions have a firm attachment to “love”, affinity, but more so, the word ‘pleasure’ perceives a stricter accord with the word love. However when we think of the word “pleasure,” as positioned to love, do we define it as ‘superficial’ or ‘insightful’ in concurrence with love? Pleasure is something we all have experience in other avenues in life. Love has a synonymous implication with pleasure; thus, we see pleasure as the same as love. Or we see it as different from what is love? What could it mean to be different, but the same, as love?
What does it mean?
Love could mean many of the same, but different entities, in accord with pleasure. The basic principle behind love is to obtain it, as one would with an object of priceless affection, in which no one else has.
When one objectifies someone or something out of love they are taking a hard risk toward a coarse experience. How is this so? This creates a route toward attachment. When you are attached to something it will be very difficult to break-free once the affair, event is differentiated. As someone would grief over a deceased loved one, you will go through stages of depression with a bruised psyche leaving you breathlessly frail to malicious vices. Detachment is the key to any situation in love and in pleasure, in order to dissipate any dismal effects upon the psyche further differentiate any items leading the affair, event into a dysfunctional asunder . When you truly understand love, pleasure, you will not rely doubtful for you have already combined the two into one. For to love, you have learned to let go, set it free, and let it decided what it truly is to you and to itself (excuse me, for my objective context of referring to love, pleasure as “it,” but my point must be expressed in a stern and easily comprehensible manner). You must comprehend detach, in order to, reattach to be liberated. When you are free within yourself, you can be free of the other people and things in your life you hold dear to your heart. This is love and it fulfills a pleasure in itself. Yet, I find myself saying, “where could this love, pleasure begin? Where and how would it take hold of one?”
Where does it begin?
A beginning always has a starting point. In love, pleasure, there is always a starting point, which is the source to attract its attention to the person, thing or event; this noun being referred to as: the self. The self has its desires, its attraction toward certain elements, traits, and personalities from the environments we inhabit. This inhabitance will lead us to many desirable entities suitable for our psyche’s pleasure center (neurologically, this would be the hypothalamus and medulla a.k.a. amygdala, area for emotions and memory).
In memory, we seek what was once pleasure or what is present as a source of pleasure leading to high-emotional intake into the memory, the mind. This would begin to produce what we could call, “(puppy) love.” The first, rich taste of something much more profound than what we could touch or see in an instant as called love, pleasure. Love is never something that could be made up or fake, regardless of the manner one views love. There are many dysfunctional and functional aspects of love, leading one to a mood of pleasure. We all have our idea of what love is, yet we cannot figure how it starts or why we love in this manner. What should it matter? To each it own. Whatever makes you happy should suffice, but does this adequacy include someone’s demise or destruction? Like I said, love is a whole other word than what is defined, there is no true answer, yet the receiving end is pleasure. For many, pleasure is defined in a manner that is negative, vile, and digressive. It is the main focal matter for inspiration with the result being love. This becomes a two-way street, in which some may travel, yet how far? Furthermore, let me ask this one last injection to influence this point: where does it end?When does it end?
For love to be successful there must be more then what is sought in pleasure.
What is it worth to receive more of love or pleasure or both in equanimity? The answer should be obvious, but before I toss in my conclusive answer here is another apple to nourish. As I have stated, detachment from what we perceive as love is the huge factor. Also, the self must be clear in it distinction between love, pleasure and how they operate whether you have one without the other they must both exist in some axis.
Time is your only tool to monitor the calculable presumption of where your love may lead and how long your love may last. If you are a merciless sycophant bent on sexual prowls then you can already assume your calculation with risk, reward, and backlash, hence the time to evade before danger strikes. Sycophancy has its rewards, but its multitude of repetition will eventually have the moniker dwindling in demise and in lasting isolation. There has to be an end to love, but when I say end this, I am referring to stages of love, pleasure. Love end in the embodiment of its connection. If, there is the connection between the person(s), object(s), event(s), and subject(s), etc. then, there will be an apex for everything to reach a conclusion. Once this point is reached, there has to be a decision on whether there is more possibility if there is a relation formed, or this connection has achieved enough to satisfy its pleasurable epitome. However, can we say there is ever an end to love? I know this much, life has too many days, too many nights, and too many hours for me to want to end. I love life itself, and the pleasures I receive are in multitudes of latitudes of the word itself. If I ever met a women who makes me feel this way, then I would know I was correct. Love is possible, and pleasure is surmountable. Or is it the other way around?When I consider that person as mine, is there love? Obviously, not. The moment my mind creates a hedge round that person, as ‘mine’, there is no love [;] the fact is, my mind is doing all the time. That is what we are discussing, to see how the mind is working, and perhaps, being aware of it, the mind itself will be quiet. [1]
Krishnamurti, On Love and Loneliness
- P.20, with Students at Rajghat School
19 December 1952
REFERENCES
[1] Krishnamurti, Jiddu. (1994). On love and loneliness. HarperOne.
[2] Love. (2010, August 5). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:31, August 5, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Love&oldid=377373914
