Some thoughts about J. Krishnamurti instead of an Introduction.
See also the Glossary entry here for more bio-details.
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J. Krishnamurti was once asked: “Who are you?” and he answered “I am no one, I am nobody. The question is: Who are you? Who you think you are!” This simplicity, this humility was a characteristic of J. Krishnamurti. Humility, which as he put it “is not in things or possessions but in the quality of being”. With the same simplicity he will dismiss the idea of the “self” as yet another creation, another fragment of thought. He will go on to remove the distinction, the separation between the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience, the consciousness and its contents etc., unifying the opposites and always discard them as parts of the trickery of the mind-thought. He will also dismiss all ideologies, social, religious or political, as ways to achieve essential, total self-transformation; as he put it “Truth is a pathless land”.
Krishnamurti was “discovered” and “groomed” from an early age to become the next “World Teacher”. His fate was sealed when he had, in the presence of several witnesses, a profound spiritual experience, something that was later described as the descent of the spirit on him. This was the beginning of a process that will follow him, painfully most of the time, for the rest of his life. His life unfolded in the midst of two world wars and tremendous changes in all major aspects of human life; economic, social, scientific etc. It is difficult, even more so today, to fathom the full scale of his impact on the consciousness of Humanity and the lives of millions of people he touched. Even by using superficial measures everyone would agree that he undoubtedly qualifies as a world teacher. Like all great teachers, he was an unconventional friend, expressing ideas that throw the mind into the inconceivable, offering no emotional or existential comfort, nor procedures, miracles, personalized advice or specific meditations and mantra. All he offered was his presence, his personality as the conduit, the manifestation of the spirit, the truth. All he offered was a chance to directly “experience” the inexpressible, reality; nothing more. His legacy is different from those of previous world teachers in several ways:
- He did not leave behind a new religion; he explicitly forbade that. There are no apostles, patriarchs, priests or churches where God is worshiped using certain rituals. Everything he offered is there to be used by everyone willing to practice his teachings.
- He never implied of being the son of God, or his prophet etc. He never claimed of being someone special or different from any other human being.
- In his case the separation of the “disciple”, his personality, and the manifested spiritual power, is distinct and present throughout his life, but the new element here is the simultaneous and striking presence of both elements. When he speaks to crowds, he is the spiritual authority expressing the absolute and the truth, even though he will never say or imply it. At the same time he is the one who describes the “process” with its painful bodily consequences, he is the one that “encounters” the “other” as he turns a corner or feels the “blessing”, the “beauty”, or the “immense love” when they seem to appear suddenly and engulf him. In his case he is just the disciple that serves as a temporary vessel that the World Teacher uses to reach us.
- It is strange that the “process” (likely the fusion of his personality with the manifested spiritual entity) went on for so long, almost his entire life, with its painful, daily impact on his body. Pain seems to be part of the life of every world teacher but in his case the duration and intensity is rather striking.
But no matter what, Krishnamurti’s teachings touched and affected our lives in a profound way, giving every one of us a “chance” to intuitively come in contact with something deeper, something true.
We assembled a collection of some of his teachings organized into two groups. One of them deals with the subject of intuitive meditation while the other is about a variety of subjects: