”There is a wonderful line between pleasure and pain. They are two sides of the same coin, one not existing without the other”.
Pleasure is one thing, and joy is another. Written by J.Krishnamurti, pleasure has the motive; joy and ecstasy have none. Pleasure soon becomes pain, involving itself in fear. Pleasure can change from one thing to another, the ending of one pleasure and the seeking of another. Pleasure is very destructive, and when one seeks it, one lives in the shadow of fear. Pleasure soon becomes bondage, and you are lost without it, and you feel empty; you say to yourself,” what is the purpose and meaning of life? And you feel your life with the things of the intellect from which you derive pleasure. Joy is something entirely different, and you can’t invite it. It is not at your beck and call. You can’t pursue it; you can not hold it, store it. It becomes a pleasure if you remember it, and it is no longer a joy. The pleasure, with all its values and moralities, fears and ambitions, and competitive drive, experiences, knowledge, and remembrances, is the “me,” the ego, the “I.”
In pleasure, there is always a division between the “me” and the thing from which the “me” or “I” derives pleasure. The seeker of pleasure and the thing from which one derives pleasure are two separate things in conflict. Where there is separation, there must be conflict, which is inevitable. Joy is not yours. You can not cultivate it, whereas you can cultivate pleasure. You can’t run after joy, and it is there when you are not there. You and joy cannot exist together. In joy, there is no separation. Ecstasy is not exclusive; in it, there is no fragmentation as the ‘You’ and ‘Me,’ ‘We’ and ‘They.’ pleasure can never become joy. There is no road leading from one to the other. The mind that seeks pleasure cannot come to joy, but when there is joy, then pleasure has quite a different meaning.
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