06/06/2026
Questioner: Is all s*xual passion lust? Sexual response is not always the
result of thought; it may be contact as when you suddenly meet somebody whose loveliness overpowers you.
Krishnamurti: Wherever thought builds up the image of pleasure it must
inevitably be lust and not the freedom of passion. If pleasure is the main drive then it is lust. When s*xual feeling is born out of pleasure it is lust. If it is born out of love it is not lust, even though great delight may then be present. Here we must be clear and find out for ourselves whether love excludes pleasure and enjoyment. When you see a cloud and delight in its vastness and the light on it, there is of course pleasure, but there is a great deal more than pleasure. We are not condemning this at all. If you keep returning to the cloud in thought, or in fact, for a stimulation, then you are indulging in an imaginative flight of fancy, and obviously here pleasure and thought are the incentives operating. When you first
looked at that cloud and saw its beauty there was no such incentive of pleasure operating. The beauty in s*x is the absence of the "me", the ego, but the thought of s*x is the affirmation of this ego, and that is pleasure. This ego is all the time either seeking pleasure or avoiding pain, wanting fulfilment and thereby inviting frustration. In all this the feeling of passion is sustained and pursued by thought, and therefore it is no longer passion but pleasure. The hope, the pursuit, of remembered passion is pleasure.
J. Krishnamurti
The Urgency of Change
