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J.  Krishnamurti – The Network of Thought

... whether as a Christian living in the Western world, or as a Muslim in the Middle East or a Buddhist in the Asiatic world [most lives are ] basically fear, the pursuit of pleasure and the never ending burden of pain, hurt and sorrow..... there is the same pursuit of pleasure, the same burden of greed, pain or being hurt and wanting to achieve – all of which is common to the whole of humanity.....

When you see something, the seeing brings about a response.  You see a green shirt, or a green dress, the seeing awakens the response.  Then contact takes place.  Then from contact thought creates the image of you in that shirt of dress, then the desire arises.

Or you see a car in the road, it has nice lines, it is highly polished and there is plenty of power behind it.  Then you go around in it, examine the engine.  Then thought creates the image of you getting into the car and starting the engine, putting your foot down and driving it.

So does desire begin and the source of desire is thought creating the image, up to that point there is no desire.

There are the sensory responses, which are normal, but then thought creates the image and from that moment desire begins...............

Desire is the quintessence of will.  Thought dominates sensation and creates the urge, the desire, the will to possess.......................

For example, one has had some kind of pleasure, eating very tasty food, or sexual pleasure, or the pleasure of being flattered and the brain registers that pleasure.  The incidents that have brought about pleasure have been recorded in the brain and the remembrance of these incidents of yesterday, or last week is the movement of thought.  …..... the brain has registered incidents, pleasurable and exciting, worth remembering and thought projects them into the future and pursues them. 

So the question then is; why does thought carry on the memory of an incident that is over and finished? 

Is not that part of our occupation? 

A man who wants money, power, position is perpetually occupied with it.  Perhaps the brain is similarly occupied with the remembrance of something a week ago which gave great pleasure, being held in the brain, which thought projects as future pleasure and pursues..................

If you see the fact that the incident which gave great delight, pleasure, excitement is over, that it is no longer a living thing, but something which happened a week ago – it was a living thing then but it is not so now – can you not finish with it, end it, not carry it over?  It is not how to stop it or how to end it.  … The registering of pleasure is ended, finished.