| "So we are going to go into it. Pleasure - we know what pleasure is - the looking at a beautiful mountain, a lovely tree, the light in a cloud that is chased by the wind across the sky, the beauty of a river, with its clear running water. There is a great deal of pleasure in watching all of this; and in seeing the beautiful face of a woman, a man or a child; the pleasure that comes through touch, taste, seeing, listening - which we all know. And when that intense pleasure is sustained by thought, and when that pleasure is thwarted, then there is a counter-action which is aggression, reprisal, anger, hate, aggression born out of the feeling of not getting that pleasure which you are after, and therefore fear, which is again fairly obvious if you observe it. And the more this expression, self-expression from which pleasure is derived, the more thought seeks to express that pleasure in different ways. What is then pleasure? The pleasure of an experience of yesterday, whatever it is, sensual, sexual, visual, any kind of experience is sustained by thought. Thought thinks over it, thought chews over the cud, as it were, of sexual pleasure, chews over it, goes over it, creates an image or picture and sustains it, gives it nourishment. So thought gives a sustenance to that pleasure of an experience of yesterday, and gives it a continuity today and tomorrow. We know this. And when that thought is inhibited, by environment, by circumstances, by various forms of hindrances, then that thought is in revolt, turns its energy into aggression, to hate, to violence, which again is another form of pleasure. Right?"
– J. Krishnamurti
Public Talk 6 Saanen, Switzerland - 18 July 1968 | 
