The unknown Indian philosopher
He was raised to be a World Leader by the Theosophical Society. He was supposed to be the next great teacher who would usher in a new world...
During my time studying philosophy and theology in undergrad and grad school, the name “Jiddu Krishnamurti” didn’t appear in discussions, seminars, or casual conversations.
Then, in late 2018, on a podcast, someone said, “People should read Krishnamurti. He’s a great philosopher.” And I thought, “Who is Krishnamurti? If he were such a great philosopher I would certainly have heard his name before…”
So I spent an afternoon reading what I could find on the web. I was intrigued by Krishnamurti’s life and philosophy. He was raised to be a World Leader by the Theosophical Society. He was supposed to be the next great teacher who would usher in a new world. But Krishnamurti rejected the title, broke ties with the Society, and began teaching that one doesn’t need a teacher to become enlightened.
And it turns out Krishnamurti is well-known… outside of academic circles.
He influenced David Bohm, Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bruce Lee, George Bernad Shaw, Eckart Tolle, and numerous others.
Turns out Krishnamurti’s lack of presence in academia had everything to do with his stance that none of his associates were to present themselves as interpreters of his work, or as his successors after his death.
Paradoxical.
A teacher who rejects the title of teacher, and consequently abandons the notion of having students.
Thus I began to study his work. I found much common ground with him. For instance, his insight, that you can’t be fully present in the present if you carry your past self along with you sounds simple enough… but how often do YOU—the present self, not the past self—experience THIS moment?
Listen to my episode on Krishnamurti:
10 Lessons from J. Krishnamurti
You can’t live in the present if you can’t leave behind your past. “You are the past looking at the present, translating the present. The present being the challenge, the pain, the anxiety, a dozen things which are the result of the past.”
You’re the teacher and the student. “In oneself lies the whole world, and if you know how to look and learn, then the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either that key or the door to open, except yourself.”
Know thyself. “If you have understood yourself deeply, learned about yourself through choiceless awareness and have laid the foundation of righteousness, which is order, you are free and do not accept any so-called spiritual authority whatesoever.”
Freedom is found in stillness. “Freedom is not an idea; a philosophy written about freedom is not freedom. Either one is free or one is not. One is in a prison, however decorative that prison is; a prisoner is free only when he is no longer in prison. Freedom is not a state of the mind that is caught in thought.”
Our society is a direct reflection of ourselves. “We have created society and that society has conditioned us. Our minds are tortured and heavily conditioned by a morality which is not moral; the morality of society is immorality, because society admits and encourages violence, greed, competition, ambition and so on, which are essentially immoral.”
Become aware of the presence of thought. “When you see the sunset and thought comes in, be aware of it. Be aware of the sunset and the thought that comes into it. Don’t chase thought away. Be choicelessly aware of this whole thing: the sunset and thought coming into it.”
Meditation is life. A life lived properly is an act of meditation. “Meditation is not a fragmentation of life; it is not a withdrawal into a monastery or into a room, sitting quietly for ten minutes or an hour, trying to concentrate, to learn to meditate, and yet for the rest being a hideous, ugly human being.”
Think of your fears. Is it not the result of your constant analysis of the past? “Thought, which puts, together time as yesterday, today and tomorrow, breeds fear. Thought creates the interval between now and what might happen in the future. Thought perpetuates fear through psychological time; thought is the origin of fear; thought is the source of sorrow.”
Remove this separation between the observer and the observed, and there you’ll find peace. “You are faced with this fact: that you are fear—not an observer who is afraid of fear. You are the observer and the observed; the analyzer and the thing analyzed.”
Misunderstood time is the cause of fear. “What is fear? One is afraid of the past, of the present, or of something that might happen tomorrow. Fear involves time. One is afraid of death; that is in the future. Or one is afraid of something that has happened. Or one is afraid of the pain one has had when one was ill… Fear implies time: one is afraid of something that might take place tomorrow.”
Till next week,
Peace!