Customer Reviews

On Love and Loneliness

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Read this book only if you are really and truly interested in finding the path to freedom from emotional dependency. The great master makes you aware with his candid elocuence of all the emotional weigh and guilt that we needlessly carry through our short life span on earth. You will learn how your mind through the thought process plays tricks on you that sometimes make you see a distorted picture of reality. This book is not to be read while watching TV or doing other tasks. You must really concentrate to get the best out of it. But if you do, at the end you will enjoy a totally new outlook in life! May you find the profound inner peace that I found!

Like many people, I want to know what love is..
But if you don't know what it is, how would you recognised
it when it presents itself ?

In his book, Krishnamurti suggest a simple method.
Do not seek love, instead look at each individual feelings
that you have and ask yourself is this love or is this a path
to love ? Do not judge but simply observe. just patiently look
and let it reveal itself.

Love is not attachment, nor is it detachment.
Love does not contain fear nor is it pleasure.

There is beauty in love,
There is freedom in love,
There is understanding in love,

When you have removed "ALL" feelings/concepts/ideas which are
not love, then what remain must be love.

This is only my observations, and I encourage you to find your
own.

This particular collection of writings by Jiddu Krishnamurti has been of particular value in examining my own understanding of the nature of love as well as the idea of loneliness and it's origin in the mind. The result of digesting the ideas proposed has been nothing less than liberating - giving me a more balanced view for internalization as well as externalization. Next to his "Freedom From The Known" this has been his most important work for me. Highly recommended.

J. Krishnamurti's inquiries into the nature of love and loneliness provide useful tools for self-examination, crushing through the barriers of self-delusion with regard to common ideals of relationships with other human beings. More than any so-called "self-help" manual this volume can provide life changing information for the open-minded and willing reader.

Although I did not enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed "Freedom from the Known," I still found it a useful, if somewhat difficult, read. My western trained mind baulked at some of the philosophical points posed, but Krishnamurti's ideas are good for provoking thinking outside the box of our own beliefs.

In essence he discusses the concepts of "alone-ness" versus "loneliness" and how our ability (or lack of it) to embrace the freedom of "alone-ness" will determine how lonely we are in our relationships.

As with Freedom of the Known, I found Krishnamurti quite depressing at times. I also found myself wondering whether he did, in fact, practice what he preached in his own life. Did his arrogance, no doubt springing from his supreme intelligence, hide a soul that spoke so eloquently of loneliness from a deep, personal acquaintance with that state of being? I suppose we'll never know.

There is enough wisdom in this book to make one overlook its flaws, and it is worth spending the time exploring "On Love and Loneliness" in depth.

One never gets enough of the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti and every time you read something it is new and fresh no matter how many times you read it.

extremely knowledble and practicle if one is serious to know himself. to digest what he means completely one needs to practice or try meditation as jk is mentioning.

Just from browsing the excerpts i can tell this book isn't for me. Anything that reads like a Trigonometry Text is better left to a person better than I.