From: mw@ki.fht-mannheim.de (Marc Wachowitz)
Subject: Krishnamurti (was Re: Crowley's Significance?)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 18:11:06 GMT
Organization: Fachhochschule fuer Technik Mannheim
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

Shawn Clayton Knight <knightster+@CMU.EDU> wrote:
: >I've never heard anyone connect Krishnamurti with Crowley before.  Do you
: >really think that he was a product of Crowleyan lines?  Didn't Besant
: >follow more from Blavatsky (Bailey?) than from Crowley?
: 
: I thought so too ... as I recall, Krishnamurti was raised to become the
: head of the Theosophical Society by becoming the "World-Teacher" (I
: can't remember the Theosophical term).  Near the time he was to be
: installed as such, he proceeded to declare (essentially) that he was
: nothing more than anyone else, and a lot of stuff about tolerance (which
: is great) and doing your own will with respect for the will of others. 
: A very cool idea.

Well, he didn't deny to be the world teacher - he just didn't want to be taken
as an authority, which concept he considered wrong and dangerous
(if you have doubt about the latter, I'm sure Tagi will tell you more against
 it than you ever wanted to hear :-)

Below are some extracts from the book "The Life and Death of Krishnamurti",
his biography written by Mary Lutyens
(here re-translated by me from the German edition - hopefully not too horrible)

Speach at the "Order of the Star", which the Theosophic Society had founded
for him - expecting him to be a new world teacher:
"I repeat that I have no disciples. Each one of you is a disciple who
understands the truth and doesn't follow any single person ... The truth doesn't
give hope, it gives understanding .. I claim also that all ceremonials are
superfluous for sprititual growth ... When you want to search the truth, you
have to exceed the limitations of the human mind and heart widely and find it
there, and this truth is within yourself. Isn't it much simpler to make life
itself a goal, instead of having messengers, gurus who must inevitably narrow
the truth and thus deny it ... I claim that liberation is possible at each stage
of evolution for a human who understands, and that it is not necessary to
worship the stages, as you are doing it ...
Don't quote me as an authority later. I refuse to be your crutch. I will not
let you put me into a cage for your admiration. When you take the fresh air from
the top of the mountain into a small chamber, the freshness of this air will
vanish, and stagnation is the result ...
I have never said there is no god, I have said there is only god as it is
manifest within you. But I will not use the word "god" ... I prefer to call it
"life" ...
Of course there is neither the good nor the bad. The good is what you don't
fear, the bad is what you fear. Thus when you destroy the fear, you will be
full of spirituality ... When you love life and put this love before everything
else and measure everything with this love and don't judge it with your fear,
then this stagnation you call moral will vanish ...
Don't speculate, friends, who I am, you will never know it ... Do you think the
truth has anything to do with what you think I were? You don't care for the
truth. You are only interested in that what contains the truth ... Drink the
water when it is pure: I tell you, I have this pure water. I have this balsam,
which purifies, which will heal wonderfully, and you ask me: Who are you?
I am everything, since I am life."

When he dissolved the "Order of the Star":
"I claim that the truth is a pathless territory. And one cannot approach it by
any path, by any religion or sect. This is my point of view, and I hold it
absolutely and unconditionally ... Once you have understood this, you will see
how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is an individual matter,
and you cannot and must not organize it. If you still do it, it dies, it
crystalizes itself and becomes a belief system, a sect, a religion, which will
be forced onto others.
Everybody throughout the world tries to do that. The truth becomes narrowed and
a toy for those who are weak, who are only temporaryly dissatisfied. The truth
cannot be lowered, but each one has to come up to it. You cannot take the top
of the mountain into the valley ...
Thus from my viewpoint this is the first reason to dissolve the Order of the
Star. You will probably found other orders, you will still participate in other
organizations searching for the truth. I don't want to be part of any spiritual
organization, please understand that ... When an organization is created for
that purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a chain and will mutilate the
individual and will be a hindrance to it, it will prevent it to found its
uniqueness, which consists in its own way to find this absolute, unconditional
truth for itself.
Thus this is another reason why I have decided, as I am the leader of this
order, to dissolve it. This is no great action. Since I don't want any
followers, and I mean it that way. In the moment you follow anybody, you stop
following the truth. I'm not interested whether or not you listen to what I say.
I want to cause something specific in the world, and I will perform that with
imperturbable concentration. I do only deal with one essential matter, to
liberate humans. I want to liberate them from all jails, from all fears and
prevent them to create new theories or philosophies, to found new religions or
new sects.
Thus you will of course ask me why I'm travelling throughout the world and talk.
I will tell you why I'm doing that. Not because I wish to have followers or
a particular group of disciples. I have no disciples, no apostles, neither on
earth nor in the mental realm. I'm not attracted by the temptation of money or
the desire to have a comfortable life. If I wanted to have a comfortable life,
I wouldn't visit a camp, neither would I live in a wet country! I'm now speaking
very openly, since I want to clarify that once and for all. I don't want to
perform this childish discussion every year again.
For eighteen years you have been preparing for this event, the appearance of the
world teacher. For eighteen years you have organized, have searched for somebody
who would bring new delightment to your heart and your mind. For somebody who
would raise you to a new level of life, who would encourage you, who would
liberate you. And now look what happens! Think about it, consider it yourself,
and thereby detect how this belief has changed yourself. Not by carrying some
sign. That is trivial, absurd. In which way did such a belief throw away all
inessential things? Only this way you can judge. In which way did you become
more free, greater, more dangerous for this society, which is based on the false
and inessential? In which way have the members of this organization of the Star
changed? With respect to your spirituality you rely on somebody else. You rely
on somebody else for your happyness, for your enlightenment. When I say look
within yourself, seek there for your enlightenment, for your greatness, for your
purification and the purity of your self - then none of you wants to do that.
There may be a few, very few. Thus why should we have an organization? You need
a typewriter to write a letter, but you don't put the typewriter onto an altar
to admire it. But that's what you are doing when organizations become your main
concern.
But those who really want to understand, who are seeking for the eternal, for
that what is without beginning or ending, will proceed together with greater
intensity, will become a danger for all inessential, for all unreal, for the
shadows ... We have to create such a body, and this is my intention. Due to this
true friendship - which you don't seem to know - there will be a real
cooperation of all. This will not happen because of an authority or for some
redemption, but because you will really understand and thus are capable of
living in the eternal. This is something greater as all amusement, as all
sacrifice.
Thus those are some of the reasons why I have made this decision after careful
consideration. It doesn't result from some momentary impulse. Neither did
anybody persuade me to it. I cannot be persuaded about such matters. For two
years I have been considering it carefully and patiently, and now I have decided
to dissolve the order. You can found other organizations and wait for another
one. It doesn't interest me. Neither am I interested in your jails or in new
decorations for those jails, nor in creating them. I am only concerned with
the absolute, unconditional liberation of humans."

When asked about god in the traditional sense:
"We have invented god. The thinking created god for itself. That means, due to
unhappyness, fear and depression we created something, called god. God didn't
create us after his image - I wished he had.
Personally I have no belief in anything, the speaker just faces that what is,
what are facts, the recognition of the essence of each fact, each thought,
all reactions. He is fully aware of all that. When you are free of fear, free
of suffering, there is no desire for a god."

"When you get rid of attachment, there will be love ... When one wants to
meet, understand, know oneself, one has to put aside every form of authority ...
There is nothing to be learned from somebody else, including the speaker ...
The speaker doesn't have anything he could teach you ... The speaker is only a
mirror where you can see yourself. Then, when you recognize yourself clearly,
you can put aside the mirror."

"When humans will not radically change themselves, perform a fundamental change
in themselves - not with god or prayers, all this stuff is too immature, too
infantile - then we will destroy ourselves. NOW a revolution in the psyche is
possible, not thousand years later. We are living for thousands of years, and
we are still barbarians. So if we don't change ourselves now, we will still be
barbarians tomorrow or in thousands of tomorrows. When I don't stop war today,
I will go to war tomorrow. Expressed simply: The future is now."

Some books by Jiddu Krishnamurti:
- "Freedom from the Known"
  (IMO a great summary of his teaching)
- "Commentaries on Living"
   (three volumes)
- "The Ending of Time"
  (iscussions with the physicist David Bohm and a few others)
- "The Future is Now"
  (the final talks)
- "Krishnamurti to Himself - His last Journal"
  (his last published diary entries / reflective talks)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Wachowitz, mw@gandalf.ki.fht-mannheim.de, 75742@novell1.rz.fht-mannheim.de
  *  wonder everyday    *    nothing in particular    *    all is special  *