George Bernard Shaw called him the most beautiful human being he had seen. Aldous Huxley described one of his talks as “amongst the most impressive things I have listened to - it was like listening to the discourse of the Buddha.” According to Rimpoche Samdhong, a Tibetan monk, “if you feel the compassion that flows from him, you will see there is no limit to him.”
J Krishnamurti, philosopher, sage, teacher, was born on May 11, 1895 at Madanapalli, Andhra Pradesh and died at Ojai, California on February 17, 1986.
Chosen in his boyhood by The Theosophical Society, Adyar, Madras, to be anointed the next Messiah, Krishnamurti, broke away and evolved into one of the most original thinkers of the 20th Century.
In the words of former president R Venkataraman, “For more than 70 years Krishnamurti went about the world talking to vast audiences, meeting people who came to him burdened with sorrow and attracting the attention of some of the best minds of the century. He touched on all human problems and showed mankind clearly the possibility of a regeneration in the individual and society through self-knowing.”
Krishnamurti constantly questioned authority which people pursued because of fear. “When you realise that you have to find out everything entirely by yourself, inwardly, psychologically, then there is no leader, no guru, no philosopher, no saint that will help you, because they are still functioning on the level of thought.”
Krishnamurti’s iconoclasm was born of extraordinary courage, for the first icon he smashed was one of himself as the world teacher. To the bewilderment of thousands of disciples, he dissolved the Order of the Star – with himself at the head – a movement started by the Theosophical Society. He returned everything including a 5,000-acre estatein Holland that had been gifted to him. This was in 1929. In 1933, with the death of Annie Besant his last link with the Theosophical Society was snapped. Mrs. Besant, whom Krishnamurti
loved and respected, had taken him under her wing after C W Leadbeater of the Society had identified him at the turn of the century as the future Messiah.
Twenty years before Krishnamurti’s birth, a Russian clairvoyant, Madame Blavatsky had founded the Theosophical Society in rejection of materialism. In 1882, the headquarters of the Society moved to Adyar, Madras, where it still remains. Mrs Annie Besant, a radical socialist of the Fabian Society, came to Adyar attracted by the theosophical programme of drawing East and West into a peaceful brotherhood. Adept in esoteric practices, Leadbeater saw in young Krishnamurti, “an aura with no trace of selfishness. He invested the boy with a full set of past lives”, forcibly drawing him and brother Nitya away from their simple south Indian life to an upbringing in the Society that combined the ways of western civilisation and training in occult practices. Mrs Besant who met Krishnamurti in 1909, initiated him and Nitya into the Esoteric Section, an inner group who, sworn to obey her, committed themselves unconditionally to the coming of the world teacher.
Theosophical doctrine settled on the belief that if Krishnamurti was properly prepared, the future Buddha would manifest in his body. He was to be the World Teacher, and Mrs Besant did her utmost to protect, educate and provide him with intellectual skills.
Followed years of indoctrination when the youngster underwent what must have been traumatic occult experiences. The battle for the custody of the two boys which ensued between their father Narayaniah and Mrs Besant could have done nothing for their morale either. They were both packed off to England, even as the custody suit was pending, to be educated and trained as English gentlemen. Krishnamurti showed no aptitude for studies but his childhood capacity for silence, observation and attention had evolved into a questioning of the beliefs and practices that sought to deify him.
Much of the introspection that led to Krishnamurti’s breaking away from the Theosophical Society had taken place in 1922-23 at Ojai, California, where he had gone with Nitya, in the hope that the dry climate there would help Nitya recover from tuberculosis. Nitya’s death in 1925 was a shattering blow which accelerated his disenchantment with the occult that had begun a few years ago.
Beginning from the 1940s, Krishnamurti spoke tirelessly to audiences all over the world until 1983. In his own words, “I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him towards freedom; to help him break away from all limitations; for that alone will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditional realisation of the Self ”. People from all walks of life came to listen to him drawn by the compassion of his being, his ability to heal the mind burdened by sorrow. Probing into the human mind, questioning every belief, ‘ism’ and creed, he defined self-knowledge as the beginning of all wisdom. He had great empathy for those suffering sorrow but never offered short cuts to happiness. He conversed at length with scientists, psychiatrists, religious leaders, academicians, children, political leaders.
Education was a major preoccupation. The Krishnamurti Foundation schools in India and abroad are testimony to his faith in education. With children he interacted effortlessly. He encouraged them to partner him in enquiries into matters of grave importance. According to Pupul Jaykar, biographer and close associate, “He told the child that academic excellence was essential, but he also spoke of the awakening of intelligence which arose out of observation, self-knowing and compassion.”
Krishnamurti had a keen interest in science and technology. He had a childlike enthusiasm for things mechanical which he could take apart and put back. Computers fascinated him. He was aware of their limitless possibilities but “demanded a mutation in the human mind” to prevent domination by the machine.
Before his death, Krishnamurti had said that the body was of no importance. He wanted no rituals to be performed at his funeral. He stressed what he had stressed all his life: the teaching not the teacher, was important. There were to be no successors and the teaching had to be protected from corruption and distortion.
Perhaps the acutest observation on Krishnamurti’s work came from the American writer Henry Miller. According to Miller, Krishnamurti, “went to the very source of life for sustenance and inspiration. To resist the wiles and snares of those who sought to enslave and exploit him demanded eternal vigilance. He liberated his soul, so to say, from the underworld and the overworld, thus opening to it “the paradise of heroes”.