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Jiddu Krishnamurti on Sex - Sex will remain a problem as long as there is no creative state of being.

Question: Is not all caress sexual? Is not all sex a form of revitalization, through interpretation and exchange? The mere exchange of loving glances is also an act of sex. Why do you castigate sex by linking it up with the emptiness of our lives? Do empty people know sex? They know only evacuation.

Jiddu Krishnamurti : I am afraid it is only the empty people who know sex, because sex then is an escape, a mere release. I call him empty who has no love; and for him sex becomes a problem, an issue, a thing to be avoided or to be indulged. The heart is empty when the mind is full of its own ideas, fabrications and mechanization.

Because the mind is full, the heart is empty; and it is only the empty heart that knows sex. Sirs, have you not noticed? An affectionate man, a man full of tenderness, kindliness, consideration, is not sexual. It is the man who is intellectual, full of knowledge, knowledge being different from wisdom; the man who has schemes, who wants to save the world, who is full of intellection, full of mentation - it is he who is caught up in sex. Because his life is shallow, his heart empty, sex becomes important - and that is what is happening in the present civilization.

We have over-cultivated our intellect, and the mind is caught in its own creations as the radio, the motor car, the mechanized amusements, the technical knowledge, and the various addictions the mind indulges in. When such a mind is caught, there is only one release for it, which is sex. Sirs, look at what is happening within each one of us, don't look at somebody else. Examine your own life and you will see how you are caught in this problem, how extraordinarily empty your life is. What is your life, Sirs? Bright, arid, empty, dull, weary, is it not? You go to your offices, do your jobs, repeat your mantrams, perform your pujas.

When you are in the office, you are subjugated, dull, you have to follow a routine; you have become mechanical in your religion, it is mere acceptance of authority. So, religiously, in the world of business, in your education, in your daily life, what is actually happening? There is no creative state of being, is there? You are not happy, you are not vital, you are not joyous. Intellectually, religiously, economically, socially, politically, you are dull, regimented, are you not? This regimentation is the result of your own fears, your own hopes, your own frustrations; and since for a human being so caught there is no release, naturally he looks to sex for a release - there he can indulge himself, there he can seek happiness.

So, sex becomes automatic, habitual, routine, and that also becomes a dulling, a vicious process. That is your life, actually, if you look at it, if you don't try to dodge it, if you don't try to excuse it. The actual fact is, you are not creative. You may have babies, innumerable babies, but that is not creative action, that is an accidental action of existence.

So, a mind that is not alert, vital, a heart that is not affectionate, full, how can it be creative? And not being creative, you seek stimulation through sex, through amusement, cinemas, theatres, through watching others play while you remain a spectator; others paint the scene or dance, and you yourself are but an observer. That is not creation. Similarly, so many books are printed in the world because you merely read.

You are not the creator. Where there is no creation, the only release is through sex, and then you make your wife or husband the prostitute. Sirs, you have no idea of the implications, the wickedness, the cruelty of all this. I know you are uncomfortable. You are not thinking it out. You are shutting your mind, and therefore sex has become an immense problem in modern civilization - either promiscuity, or the mechanical habit of sexual release in marriage.

Sex will remain a problem as long as there is no creative state of being. You may use birth control, you may adopt various practices, but you are not free of sex. Sublimation is not freedom, suppression is not freedom, control is not freedom. There is freedom only when there is affection, when there is love.

Love is pure; and when that is missing, your trying to become pure through the sublimation of sex is mere stupidity. The factor that purifies is love, not your desire to be pure. A man who loves is pure, though he may be sexual; and without love, sex is what it is now in your lives - a routine, an ugly process, a thing to be avoided, ignored, done away with, or indulged in.

So, this problem of sex will exist as long as there is no creative release. There can be no creative release, religiously, if you accept authority, whether of tradition, the sacred books, or the priest; for authority compels, distorts, perverts. Where there is authority there is compulsion, and you accept authority because you hope through religion to have security; and while the mind is seeking security, intellectually or religiously, there can be no creative understanding, there can be no creative release.

It is the mind, the mechanism of the mind that is always seeking security, always wanting certainty. The mind is ever moving from the known to the known; and mere cultivation of the mind, of the intellect, is not a release. On the contrary, the intellect can grasp only the known, never the unknown. Therefore the mere cultivation of the mind through more and more knowledge, more and more technique, is not creative.

A mind that wishes to be creative must set aside the desire to be secure, which means the desire to find authority. Truth can come into being only when the mind is free from the known, when the mind is free from security, the desire to be certain. But look at our education: mere passing of examinations to get a job, adding a few letters after your name. It has become so mechanical, it is but the cultivation of the mind, which is memory. In that way there is no release either.

So, socially, religiously, in every way, you are caught and held. Therefore a man who wishes to solve this problem of sex must disentangle himself from the thoughts of his own making; and when he is in that state of freedom, there is creativeness which is understanding of the heart. When one loves, there is chastity; it is the lack of love that is unchaste, and without love no human problem can be solved.

But instead of understanding the hindrances that prevent love, we merely try to sublimate, suppress. or find a substitute for the sexual appetite; and substitution, sublimation or suppression is called the attainment of reality. On the contrary, where there is suppression, there is no comprehension; where there is substitution, there is ignor- ance. Our difficulty is that we are caught in this habit of withholding suppressing, sublimating.

Surely, one has to look at this habit, to be aware of its full significance, not just for one or two moments, but all through life. One has to see how one is caught in the machine of routine; and to break away from that needs understanding, self-knowledge. Therefore, it is important to understand oneself; but that understanding becomes extremely difficult if there is no intention to study and to understand oneself. The problem of sex, which is now so important, so vast in our lives, loses its meaning when there is the tenderness, the warmth, the kindliness, the mercy of love.