As One Is: To Free the Mind from All Condition

by J. Krishnamurti

How does desire come into being? Surely, it comes into being through perception or seeing, contact, sensation, and then desire. Isn’t that so? First you see a car, then there is contact, sensation, and finally the desire to own the car, to drive it. Please follow this slowly, patiently. Then, in trying to get that car, which is desire, there is conflict. So in the very fulfillment of desire there is conflict, there is pain, suffering, joy, and you want to hold the pleasure and discard the pain. This is what is actually taking place with each one of us. The entity created by desire, the entity who is identified with pleasure, says, “I must get rid of that which is not pleasurable, which is painful.” We never say, “I want to get rid of pain and pleasure.” We want to retain pleasure and discard pain, but desire creates both, does it not?