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On Beauty
K
When you see a beautiful thing, there is immediate joy; you see a sunset and
there is an immediate reaction of joy. That joy, a few moments later, becomes a
memory. That memory of the joy, is it a living thing? Is the memory of the
sunset a living thing? No, it is a dead thing.
So, with that dead imprint of a sunset, through that, you want to find joy.
Memory has no joy; it is only the remembrance of something which created the
joy. Memory in itself has no joy.
There is joy, the immediate reaction to the beauty of a tree; and then memory
comes in and destroys that joy. So, if there is constant perception of beauty
without the accumulation of memories, then there is the possibility of joy
everlasting.
But it is not so easy to be free from memory. The moment you see something very
pleasurable, you make it immediately into something to which you hold on. You
see a beautiful thing, a beautiful child, a beautiful tree; and when you see it,
there is immediate pleasure; then you want more of it. The more of it is the
reaction of memory. So, when you want more, you have already started the process
of disintegration. In that there is no joy. Memory can never produce everlasting
joy.
There is everlasting joy only when there is the constant response to beauty, to
ugliness, to everything - which means, great inward and outward sensitivity,
which means, having real love.
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