There is an efficiency inspired by love which goes far beyond and is much greater than the efficiency of ambition; and without love, which brings an integrated understanding of life, efficiency breeds ruthlessness.
Interpretation
Love fosters a deeper understanding of life and amplifies our effectiveness, unlike ambition which can lead to cold efficiency.
In this quote, Jiddu Krishnamurti contrasts the motivating forces of love and ambition. He suggests that when one's actions are inspired by love, they not only become more effective but also more compassionate and understanding. In contrast, efficiency driven solely by ambition can lead to a lack of empathy and ruthless behavior. Thus, love not only enriches our abilities but also connects us to a more holistic understanding of life.
In practice
In a motivational speech about the importance of compassion in leadership.
The following of authority is the denial of intelligence. [It] may help us temporarily to cover up our difficulties and problems; but to avoid a problem is only to intensify it, and in the process, self-knowledge and freedom are abandoned.
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.
If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.
If you have this extraordinary thing going in your life, then it is everything; then you become the teacher, the disciple, the neighbour, the beauty of the cloud - you are all that, and that is love.
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life - perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it.
All of us have been trained by education and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for ourselves. Though we cover it over with pleasant phrases, we have been educated for various professions within a system which is based on exploitation and acquisitive fear.
Antipathy, dissimilarity of views, hate, contempt, can accompany true love.
The God of love my shepherd is, And he that doth me feed: While he is mine, and I am his, What can I want or need?
Love is a little haven of refuge from the world.
It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.
Love is that micro-moment of warmth and connection that you share with another living being
Now I felt the long-forgotten urgency of lovemaking, when it seems one's human selves leave, to be replaced by hungry beasts bolting their food. Gone are the civilized beings who talk of manners and journeys and letters; in their places are two bodies straining to give birth to a burst of inhuman pleasure followed by a great, floating nothingness. An explosion of life followed by death - in this we live, and in this we foreshadow our own sweet deaths.
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