Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Sex, J Krishnamurti Sayings on Sex

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti Quotes on Sex

When there is love, then sex is not a problem - it is the lack of love that makes it into a problem.
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.
It is only when we understand the pursuit of sensation, which is one of the major activities of the mind, that pleasure, excitement and violence cease to be a dominant feature in our lives. It is because we do not love, that sex, the pursuit of sensation, has become a consuming problem. When there is love, there is chastity; but he who tries to be chaste, is not. Virtue comes with freedom, it comes when there is an understanding of what is.
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 motorcar, 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.
The more intellectual you are, the more sexual you are. Have you not noticed that? And the more there is of emotion, of kindliness, of affection, the less there is of sex. Because our whole social, moral, and educational culture is based on the cultivation of the intellect, sex has become a problem full of confusion and conflict.
As long as the mind, which is the result, the focal point of sensation, regards sex as a means of its release, sex must be a problem, and that problem will continue as long as we are incapable of being creative comprehensively, totally, and not merely in one particular direction. Creativeness has nothing to do with sensation. Sex is of the mind, and creation is not of the mind. Creation is never a product of the mind, a product of thought, and in that sense, sex, which is sensation, can never be creative. It may produce babies, but that is obviously not creativeness. As long as we depend for release on sensation, on stimulation in any form, there must be frustration, because the mind becomes incapable of realizing what creativeness is.
Sex will remain a problem as long as there is no creative state of being.
Free the mind from orthodoxy, from ritual, from regimentation and dogmatism so that it can be creative, and then the problem of sex will not be so great or so dominant.
To put it simply, when self is absent there is creation; and since all of us are caught in the and intellect, naturally there is no absence of self. On the contrary, in that field, in that striving to be, there is an exaggerated expansion of the self and therefore no creativeness. Therefore, sex is the only means of being creative, of experiencing the absence of the self - and since the mere sexual act becomes habitual, that too is wearisome and gives strength to the continuity of the self, so sex becomes a problem.
This problem of sex will exist as long as there is no creative release.
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.
Where there is no affection in oneself, you want affection from others. That is translated as sex, relationship, and when that emptiness within seeks a relationship through sex and through a constant companionship, then you become jealous, fearful, angry. You follow? Please see all the consequences of it. So sex isn't the problem. The problem is to have an intelligent mind and in the very observing of all this it becomes highly intelligent and this intelligence will deal with sex. I don't know if you follow? Have you understood it?
The problem of sex which tortures so many people all over the world cannot be resolved till the mind is understood. We cannot put an end to thinking but thought comes to an end when the thinker ceases and the thinker ceases only when there is an understanding of the whole process.
If there is simple, choiceless awareness, then that which is implicit in the fact begins to reveal itself. Therefore thought as fact ends. Then you will see that the problems which are eating at our hearts and minds, the problems of our social structure, can be resolved. Then sex is no longer a problem, it has its proper place, it is neither an impure thing nor a pure thing. Sex has its place; but when the mind gives it the predominant place, then it becomes a problem.
Our thoughts, our lives are bright, arid, hollow, empty; emotionally we are starved, religiously and intellectually we are repetitive, dull; socially, politically and economically we are regimented, controlled. We are not happy people, we are not vital, joyous; at home, in business, at church, at school, we never experience a creative state of being, there is no deep release in our daily thought and action. Caught and held from all sides, naturally sex becomes our only outlet, an experience to be sought again and again because it momentarily offers that state of happiness which comes when there is absence of self. It is not sex that constitutes a problem, but the desire to recapture the state of happiness, to gain and maintain pleasure, whether sexual or any other.
When we seek to escape from the self, the means of escape are very important, and then they also become painful problems to us. Unless we investigate and understand the hindrances that prevent creative living, which is freedom from self, we shall not understand the problem of sex.
Sex is a problem because it would seem that in that act there is complete absence of the self. In that moment you are happy because there is the cessation of self-consciousness, of the 'me'; and desiring more of it - more of the abnegation of the self in which there is complete happiness, without the past or the future, demanding that complete happiness through full fusion, integration - naturally it becomes all-important. Isn't that so? Because it is something that gives me unadulterated joy, complete self-forgetfulness, I want more and more of it. Now, why do I want more of it? Because, everywhere else I am in conflict, everywhere else, at all the different levels of existence, there is the strengthening of the self. Economically, socially, religiously, there is the constant thickening of self-consciousness, which is conflict. After all, you are self-conscious only when there is conflict. Self-consciousness is in its very nature the result of conflict. So, everywhere else we are in conflict. In all our relationships with property, with people, and with ideas there is conflict, pain, struggle, misery; but in this one act there is complete cessation of all that. Naturally you want more of it because it gives you happiness, while all the rest leads you to misery, turmoil, conflict, confusion, antagonism, worry, destruction; therefore, the sexual act becomes all-significant, all-important.
So, the problem is not sex, surely, but how to be free from the self. You have tasted that state of being in which the self is not, if only for a few seconds, if only for a day, or what you will; and where the self is, there is conflict, there is misery, there is strife. So, there is the constant longing for more of that self-free state. But the central problem is the conflict at different levels and how to abnegate the self. You are seeking happiness, that state in which the self, with all its conflicts, is not, which you find momentarily in that act. Or, you discipline yourself, you struggle, you control, you even destroy yourself through suppression - which means you are seeking to be free of conflict because with the cessation of conflict there is joy. If there can be freedom from conflict, then there is happiness at all the different levels of existence.
Your life, your thinking, your ways of acting are all mechanical, repetitive. So you have only one thing which is non-repetitive, which you can reduce to repetitiveness, which is sex. So that becomes your release from the mechanical way of life.