From the book The Quiet Mind by John E. Coleman 1971
'A Sort of Philosopher'
my nature did not permit me to
benefit fully from the training given at U Ba Khin's meditation centre. I had
taken a step further in my search and had reaped certain psychological rewards,
but it was not enough. I was still a long way from achieving what I had set out
to achieve.
Before I departed from the center
I wrote the following words as my personal testimonial to the place and its
remarkable leading light: 'The Karmic forces that led me to you and your
inspiring guidance have made on me an indelible impression of the light of the Dhamma.
The center, the people associated with the center, and Guruji U Ba Khin can
only command first place among my memories.'
Professors, university
lecturers, doctors, a missile research engineer, a film director, even an
Ambassador to Burma, were among those who also had expressed their feelings in
writing on the apparently wondrous results of a course at the center. I read
their words of praise with growing frustration and impatience with myself that
such wonders had proved to be so near to hand yet just beyond my reach.
In India I began searching for
various religious leaders, gurus, yogis and so-called enlightened ones. I
visited Tibetan monks in Sikkin, Hindu teachers and yogis in Calcutta, Benares,
Delhi, Rishikesh, Madras and Bombay, and Buddhist monks in Bodtagaya.
I saw and spoke to teachers in
many parts of India, discussed with them their various systems of mind and body
control and entered into an assortment of strange practices, some of which I
will describe, but none of which I found produced anything more than a
temporary, trance-like state through repetition of words, chanting or
concentration upon neutral objects.
Many of the experiments brought
on in me a certain calm but I was still totally unable to transcend the
activities of a mischievous and probing mind. I felt I knew the reason for my
failure, as I have explained before, but how could I search for light without
dedicating my mental faculties wholly to the search? How could I perceive the
truth without consciously and devotedly looking for it? It was like playing hide
and seek with my own shadow.
While waiting for my plane to
take off at Benares for New Delhi I noticed an Indian taking his leave of a
group of friends. He was a striking figure, getting on in years-perhaps in his
late sixties-tall, with a full head of graying hair. He was dressed in the
familiar simple lightweight suit of white linen. His departure was evidently the
cause of some sorrow to his friends, who were earnestly wishing him a safe
journey and urging him to return soon. I concluded he was same kind of celebrity
or honored guest.
We went up the steps of the
plane together and I was soon in my seat and deep in a book I had purchased at
the airport bookstall, unconscious of my surroundings except for the fact that a
good-looking young American woman settled down in the seat next to me.
I paid no further attention to
the man in the white suit and indeed forgot about him for the rest of that leg
of the journey. I noticed an odd thing, however. Perhaps it was of no
significance but the man carried no luggage with him.
The plane made a stop at Lucknow.
The passengers alighted and we all went into the airport lounge to be served
with lunch. I noticed that the Europeans gravitated to a table together and my
first inclination was to join them. I changed my mind, however, when I saw the
elderly man whom I had seen earlier go towards a smaller table at which the only
other occupant was an Indian Army officer. I was in India, after all, to meet
Indians and this would be a good chance to acquire a taste of local color. We exchanged the
usual cordialities and I sat down. I introduced myself and he told me his name
was Krishnamurti. 'I am a sort of philosopher,' he said.
Had I known at that moment what
I was to learn later about Krishnamurti I might have been awed with the
significance of the occasion. For this was my first encounter with a man who for
over forty years has held thousands all over the world spellbound with his
wisdom, a teacher revered not only in his native India but in Europe and the
United States too; a man who in his youth was groomed for stardom by
well-meaning people as the Messiah reborn, no less.
I knew nothing of this: he was a
fellow passenger on the plane and we had met by chance over the lunch table. At
first our conversation was general. We talked about the weather, war and all the
usual topics. He asked if I'd pass the salt. We were offered a choice of meat or
vegetarian dishes and he chose the vegetarian diet. As a matter of interest and
to make conversation I asked him why he had opted for the salad and he replied
that he simply preferred the food, there was no particular moral principle
involved. Like many Indians he had been brought up on vegetarian foods and the
preference had stayed with him.
Knowing that Krishna was an
Indian word meaning 'God' I ventured to ask him what was the meaning of his
name, Krishnamurti. It is customary in Southern India for the eighth child, if a
boy, to be named after Krishna and his name, he told me with no trace of
self-consciousness, meant 'in the likeness of God'. From this point our
conversation began to veer away from the commonplace chitchat of fellow airplane
passengers and I felt, if not actually encouraged, not actively discouraged, to
go a stage further. As we both had some time on our hands I could see no harm in
developing the conversation and there was, in any case, something about the man,
an indefinable quality, an aura, which seemed to invite questions and in some
strange way guarantee that his answers would be worth hearing. I would chance
it, anyway.
'You say you are a "sort of
philosopher" yet, knowing the meaning of your name, I should say you are a
religious man also,' I suggested.
'If by that you mean do I follow
a religion the answer would be no, sir,' he said. 'Nor do I follow any
particular philosophy. I believe all philosophies and religions are wrong. The
spoken or written word is not the truth. Truth can only be experienced directly
at the moment it happens. Any thought or intellectual projection of the truth is
a step away from the truth, sir.'
I paused for a moment to try and
take in what he had said. He spoke quickly and directly in an impeccable Oxford
accent; and I could not help being amused, if a little embarrassed, by the way
he addressed me formally as 'sir' although I was a mere twenty-eight to his
sixty-five or more. I could see the Indian Army officer at our table was more
than a little surprised at the turn our conversation was taking but, rather
rudely maybe, I paid no attention to him and he went on with his meal in
silence.
'Since you don't follow any of
the established religions,' I asked, 'which of the great religious leaders came
closest to teaching and realizing the ultimate truth?'
'Oh, the Buddha,' replied
Krishnamurti without hesitation and somewhat to my astonishment. I had expected
him to mention one of the Indian gods or even Christ. 'The Buddha
'Why not?' I asked, as politely
as possible to make up for my directness.
'No organization, however old or
however recent, can lead a man to truth. It is a hindrance, it can only impede.
It blocks a man from sincere study. The truth comes from within, by seeing for
yourself. The conventional way of acquiring knowledge, it's true, is by reading
or listening but to understand you have to penetrate directly, by silently
observing. Then you understand.'
He paused and I waited for him
to go on. 'Obviously if you are going to build a bridge you must study strains
and stresses, but in the matter of understanding truth or the concepts of love,
philosophical or religious thoughts, anything to do with reality, it has to be
penetrated and experienced directly without any intellectual interpretation.
Truth comes from within. Once the understanding comes you are able to talk about
it but it does not follow that a listener will understand.'
'If you described a book or a
motor car or the plane we are traveling in I would understand,' I said.
'That is the purpose of the
intellect, sir-to communicate. Mechanical or materialistic things can be
understood, but if I tried to tell you what God is, what truth is or what love
is you would not fully understand. Perhaps I know what love is, what God is,
what reality is-I could write a book on what love is or what reality is and you
could read it and intellectually you would understand the book, but it does not follow
automatically that you would know what love is, or what reality is. This you
must understand by direct experience, without interpretation and without intellectualization.
The thought and the word are not the thing but a distortion of the reality.'
The old man's flow of words was
entirely fascinating and I became very anxious to continue the discussion. When
the meal was finished and our fellow passengers began to move towards the plane
once again I asked him if I might occupy the seat next to him and talk further.
He seemed glad to have a companion, then a shadow of doubt crossed his face.
'But what about that nice girl
you were sitting with before we stopped here? She might be offended if you leave
her.' His concern for the girl-even the fact that he had noticed her-bewildered
me. I didn't know the girl at all and we had exchanged only a few polite
sentences. I reassured the old man and moved my baggage to the rack nearest his
seat.
'I see you have no bags-you're traveling
light,' I said.
'I am only going as far as New
Delhi,' he replied, 'I have no need of possessions and carry none. I have no
money with me either, I never handle it.'
'What will you do without money
or clothes in Delhi?' I asked. 'How will you manage for food and accommodation?'
'I shall be among friends,' he
replied simply. 'I have been invited to speak and the people who wish me to make
speeches also pay for my journey, my food and anything else I require. They also
put me up in their homes and you may be certain I shall be comfortable and want
for nothing.'
'As a matter of fact,' he went
on, 'I have no permanent home or any possessions, I spend my life traveling from
place to place and my friends everywhere look after my needs. I belong nowhere,
yet everywhere, and my friends are everywhere. My needs are simple.'
I think Krishnamurti was amused by my expression of incredulity. It must surely have shown in my face. Even now I did not guess that he was a world-renowned mystic with a following in almost every land ready to welcome him on his visits as their spiritual leader. In spite of all my reading and study of Eastern philosophy and religious beliefs I had not encountered the name of Krishnamurti, and for him it must have been something of a novelty to meet such an earnest young man who quite obviously had never heard of him.
His speech was lively and fluent
and the flourishes and gestures that accompanied it were forceful and
expressive. The airplane engines droned on monotonously and while other
passengers read or slept we conducted our vigorous discussion.
'How do you live?' I asked,
returning to his earlier theme.
'Oh, things just happen. I'm
well provided for. I am happier without possessions of my own. People give me
things but I can take them or leave them. What do we want with possessions? When
you don't want things they come to you. When you do want things then you're in
conflict and when you don't get them you suffer. When you get them you want
something else which causes further suffering. My needs are very simple. All I
need is something to eat every day, a few calories, enough clothes to keep me
warm. These are very adequately provided for me. The only clothes I own are
these I'm wearing,' he laughed.
'Man's real needs are simple.
And it is quite easy to satisfy them. Television and automobiles are not needed
to sustain life and indeed they lead to conflict. When you desire them and
devote attention to acquiring them this is where conflict comes into life. You
are never satisfied.
We tend to live in confusion instead of clarity. This is destructive. Out of confusion more confusion grows. But if we are aware of the confusion we can stop and examine. Don't take action out of confusion, sir. Take action based on clarity.'
'How can one achieve clarity?'
'We have to understand living, the living of our daily life, with all its misery, confusion, conflict. It is not easy. If we can understand how to live, death is close. Without dying there is no living. We should observe ourselves constantly. See ourselves, our greed, envy, bitterness, cynicism, beliefs-and watch them. We cannot see them if we want to change them. Actual seeing demands energy, active and constant observation.'
'How would you answer a person who sought your advice on developing spiritually?' I asked. Krishnamurti's face grew serious.
'Simply by silently watching yourself all the time, all your actions, your thoughts, your environment. Be silently aware of things as they occur, without interpretation.
'But I cannot advise,' he said, laughing suddenly. 'When people ask me for advice or assurance it is the same as asking for a medicine. I cannot give it. The answer is within themselves. They must look for it. They are seeking security and there is no such thing. That's why they believe in a religion or try to reach God-it's the desire to feel safe. A man is his own salvation and it is only through himself that he will find the truth, not through religions, thoughts or theories, and certainly not through following a leader. Leaders and followers exploit each other and I will have nothing to do with such activities!
'It's because of this urge to
feel safe that we put our faith in leaders. And why? Because we don't want to do
the wrong thing. Fear not clarity, is the basis of following. We want a
permanent idea, a permanent God. When clarity is come to
'Is there, then, no value in
following a religion?' I asked. 'All organized religions are forms of escape,
sir. They offer comfort, tell you what to do. If you behave properly you will be
rewarded. It is childish. It is a block to understanding.'
There were many more questions I
felt I must put to this sage old Indian whose words had struck, for the first
time, a chord of true response in my mind. But the changing note of the engines
indicated that, all too soon, the journey was over and in a few minutes we would
land and go our separate ways.
'Shall we meet in Delhi?' I
asked.
'I shall be gone in a few days,'
he replied.
'Where are you going next?'
'America, perhaps, or
Switzerland,' he said vaguely. 'I prefer a mild climate, you know.'
As he rose to leave the plane I
noticed for the first time that he carried a book under his arm. When he saw me
glance at the title he smiled a little sheepishly. 'This is the only kind of
literature I read. Everything else bores me.'
It was a paperback crime
thriller.
I collected my bags and headed
for the airport buildings and the door marked 'exit'. I turned but there was no
sign of the man in the white linen suit-I saw only the crowd of excited men and
women, and the press photographers, who had Krishnamurti somewhere in their
midst.
Into the Tent, Out of the
Rain
My
first meeting with Krishnamurti and our illuminating conversation on the flight
to New Delhi took place in 1958. Although I have been privileged to meet
and talk with him on a number of occasions since then there was for several
years never the same rapport, the same free-flowing exchange of question and
answer. Each subsequent meeting has, nonetheless, been rewarding in its way and
my pursuit of the ultimate truth, which by now had become a consuming passion,
gained fresh impetus as a result of them.
But who was Krishnamurti? What
was his background?
I was on my way to the States
and my next stop after Delhi was Paris, where I had some time on my hands before
taking the long transatlantic hop home. The words of Krishnamurti were still
sounding in my ears as I searched the bookshops along the Left Bank for more
reading material on the general subject of Eastern religions and philosophies.
It was with surprise and
delight, therefore, that I spotted two books written by Krishnamurti and another
that told the story of his life. With the aid of these books and talks I had
with other interested people I met in Paris I was able to piece together the
man's extraordinary progress through life.
He was born in 1897 at
Madanapalle in Madras the son of a revenue clerk who worked for the British
Government. His mystical qualities were recognized by the theosophist Mrs Annie
Besant, who first noticed the lad playing on the beach near his home with his
brother. Mrs Besant and her colleague C. W. Leadbeater saw in him faculties
which, if properly developed, could make him a great spiritual leader. They drew
the boy's father's attention to what they believed and arranged to adopt
Krishnamurti, promising to give him the education needed to fulfill the boy's
destiny.
The father, who was a poor man,
accepted the situation cheerfully and allowed Mrs Besant to take the youngster
and his younger brother into her care. She took the boys to Europe and announced
publicly that the young Krishnamurti possessed latent greatness which would be
revealed to the world in due course. Thus, from the age of fourteen, the boy
became a subject of curiosity and a public figure. He went to school in England
while thousands of theosophists waited for his emergence as their leader. An
international organization named 'The Order of the Star' was formed to pave the
way for his coming, and it accumulated vast funds and property, in readiness for
the supreme work he was to do.
Krishnamurti's father became
alarmed at what was happening and tried unsuccessfully to get his son returned
to him. There was a sensational law suit but Mrs Besant secured her guardianship
and Krishnamurti's education for the special task ordained for him went ahead.
When he spoke at a meeting in Holland before 6,ooo people Annie Besant declared
that there rang out a voice not heard on earth for 2,000 years.
Then his brother, Nityananda,
died. Krishnamurti watched him dying and his grief was intense, but out of 'the
tragic experience came an inspiration that put the seal on his future as a
spiritual teacher and at the same time raised doubts in his mind on his mission
as the returned Messiah.
He wrote: 'When my brother died
the experience it brought me was great-not only the sorrow, sorrow is momentary
and passes away-but the joy of experience remains. If you understand life
rightly, then death becomes an experience out of which you can build your house
of perfection, your house of delight.'
From that moment the young
Krishnamurti realised what his true destiny was to be and he embarked on his
life's work which was to show all men how to attain the supreme and lasting
happiness which he had found within himself. On the day, in 1929, when he
was to be proclaimed as the new Messiah he stood up in front of his excited and
expectant audience and deliberately renounced the role elaborately prepared for
him. He dissolved the 'Order of the Star' and rejected the worldwide
organisation which had been built up around him. He told his astonished
listeners: 'I desire those who seek to understand me to be free. Truth is a
pathless land and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any
religion, by any sect.'
Thus emerged a deeply individual
thinker and leader of thought whose philosophy of life was in close harmony with
modern conditions. As he developed he became more and more firmly convinced-as
he was to explain to me on that memorable plane journey some thirty-five years
later-that organised religions merely presented a barrier to progress in the
search for truth, throwing up useless and obstructive distinctions.
Through the years since that
turning point in Krishnamurti's life he has traveled the world, speaking where
he was asked to speak, helping with spiritual counsel where his help was sought,
but always rejecting the role of a world teacher, repudiating any suggestion
that his teaching was going to heal the world's ills or form the basis of a
religion which would prove to be man's salvation.
For me the essence of his
message is contained in a foreword to one of his books. His friend Aldous
Huxley, at whose home, he told me, he stays sometimes, wrote: 'There is a
transcendent spontaneity of life, a creative reality which reveals itself
as immanent only when the perceiver's mind is in a state of alert passivity, of
choiceless awareness.' Krishnamurti himself, when we met again four years later,
showed me in simple terms how he saw this happening:
'Maybe, one day, while I am delivering one of my talks in a tent or shelter, it will be raining outside and someone walking down the street, someone who has never heard of me, will walk into the tent to get out of the rain. Perhaps in such a situation of spontaneity that man will understand what I am saying.'
*
So far I have told the story of
my search in chronological sequence, describing events in the order in which
they occurred. During the years immediately following my first meeting with
Krishnamurti, however, I met him again on a number of occasions and frequently
listened to his talks before audiences in various parts of the world where our
paths chanced to cross. I will therefore add at this point a few brief notes on
incidents which arose out of these subsequent encounters because they help to
explain the man and his message.
That he was a remarkable
personality and a profound teacher and thinker I was in no doubt at all. As a
philosopher he was irresistible-but that's not to say I necessarily understood
every word he uttered-and his personal magnetism was unique in my experience.
Back in Thailand, four years after our first meeting, I heard that Krishnamurti
was scheduled to give a series of lectures in India. I wrote to an address in
New Delhi for dates and places when he would be likely to appear and decided
that at the first opportunity, as work permitted, I would go to Delhi to hear
him.
Krishnamurti was staying at the
home of Mrs Kitty Shiva Rao, an Austrian woman who was married to an Indian Member
of Parliament. On my arrival in Delhi I wrote to her requesting a personal
interview and was rewarded with a polite reply inviting me to lunch the next
day. I went along at the appointed time and was greeted warmly and with perhaps
some natural curiosity by the lady of the house.
I had fully expected to be
summarily refused the interview I wanted. Krishnamurti, a world figure with an
enormous following, was doubtless glad of any opportunity to relax out of the
company of the listeners and questioners who trailed in his footsteps and it was
certainly beyond my expectations that he should wish to put up with the likes of
me during lunch. I thought he would at least expect to take his meals in peace.
When we met and shook hands my
first reaction was one of shock. He seemed to have aged several years since our
meeting on the plane. For a while I could not be sure he remembered me, though
he said he did, asked me where I had been and what I had been doing. I told him
about the places I had visited since our last meeting and of my quest for the
secret of a quiet mind.
'What about you?' I asked.
'Where have you been?'
'Oh, just about everywhere,' he
said, a smile playing around his tired eyes. 'I don't remember exactly all the
places I have visited. The only countries I have not been to yet are Russia and
China.
He asked me if I had read his
books The First and Last Freedom and Commentaries on Living. I
said I had found these in a secondhand bookshop in Paris and read them with
interest.
'They describe my views and
thoughts,' he said. 'I thought you would find them useful if you really were
interested in what we talked about last time.'
I said I had read those books
and others. They propounded an unusual philosophy, one which was not guided by
the teaching of any of the accepted prophets and indeed even rejected
them.
He laughed and his unwrinkled
face creased up. 'That's true. I'm a rebel. I learned early in life that
religions are not the way to happiness, to truth. You can only achieve these by
direct experience. You must look for the truth yourself and find it for
yourself. Leaders and followers exploit each other. That is not the path to
happiness. I tell people "Don't believe me-look to yourself!"'
We joined Mr and Mrs Shiva Rao
and sat down for lunch. The dining room was cool and the food, partly Indian,
partly European, was delicious and exquisitely cooked. The conversation covered
most of the usual topics. We talked about our travels, my counter-espionage work
in S.E. Asia, and Indian and American politics; we even talked about sex, the
new permissive society, teenagers and modern 'pop' music and I found
Krishnamurti knowledgeable in the most unlikely subjects. He clearly had kept
his eyes open on his journeys. Despite all the forms of entertainment available
to young people nowadays he doubted whether they were really happy. Their folly,
he thought, was that they did not seek happiness within themselves but were
content to depend on others to make them happy; they followed the rules of
current convention and preferred to be led rather than to seek for themselves.
After lunch Krishnamurti and I
moved into another room where, said the kindly Mrs Shiva Rao, we could talk
without interruption. If I had felt something of an intruder when I had first
entered her house she had done everything possible to make me feel at ease.
I had a list of questions to
which I hoped the sage would give me his answers. It would serve no purpose to
give a verbatim account here of this private discussion since, if Krishnamurti's
doctrine is worth anything at all, an individual's questions are answerable only
by the individual him-self and nothing would be gained by his sitting in on a
recital of mine. It would, furthermore, be churlish of me to set down in cold
print words spoken to me in confidence. I have no misgivings, however, about
giving a summarised version of a significant part of our talk.
'Since you do not acknowledge
any religious leader because religion itself acts as a barrier, why do you give
lectures all over the world and what do you try to put across in them?' I asked.
'Words cannot communicate
experience to another,' he replied. 'I can only help my listeners to discover
and examine the obstacles in the way of such experience and thus remove them by
the very awareness of their causes and effects. I do not offer conclusions but
experiences, and invite my listeners to drop their preconceived ideas and attack
their problems directly and anew.'
'Can transcendental meditation
help in this?' I asked.
'In the ordinary state we have
the observer and the observed,' he said. 'We have duality-and where there's
duality there's conflict. In the transcendental state the observer and the
observed become one. There is no longer duality, there's bliss. The thinker and
the thought are one. The experiencing of "what is" without naming it
brings about freedom from what is.'
'We live in a practical world,'
I said. 'Surely a person reaching this state of bliss would turn into a
vegetable, unable to cope with life as it has to be lived.'
'On the contrary,' said
Krishnamurti. 'Such a person would be capable of true and creative action with
love.'
He gave an example of a large
stone lying in the middle of the road and how different people would react to a
situation which could give rise to danger for passing motorists.
'One person may ignore the stone
for it is not inconvenient to him. Another person, noticing his friends watching
from a distance, would pick up the stone hoping his friends would
Krishnamurti's presence is
striking. This said, it is hard to pinpoint just why. I have already attempted
to describe his magnetism. One writer has called him a living paradox, by which
I understand a mass of contradictions.
He laughs easily, but as easily
grows serious; he will be whimsical one minute and grave the next. His light
complexion made me think at first he was Kashmirian, yet he was born in Southern
India. He has deep brown eyes which are the most expressive I have seen. They
can smoulder, blaze, twinkle in humour, penetrate with a glance or glaze over to
give you the feeling that although he is looking at you he does not see you.
He can seem to be unkind to a
questioner and his patience seems to run out sometimes yet I have heard him
vehemently deny this. In a certain mood or reaction to a situation he will raise
his head in a lofty attitude of authority but he claims no authority and indeed,
though an outstandingly learned man, insists that he does not presume to teach
or aspire to lead.
I left the Shiva Rao house
believing that if I had ever encountered a saint in my travels it was that
afternoon, for a saintlier person than Krishnamurti it would be hard to meet. I
tried to decide what I meant by a saint. An enlightened person? He is surely one
of the most enlightened individuals in the world today. A person who knows God-or
knows he is God? We may all be said to be manifestations of God without
realising it; perhaps he is one who does.
One who is not in conflict?
Surely a person who is free from conflict, free from illusions, who is united
with God in the mystical way that Krishnamurti is united must be some kind of
saint.
*
A moving example of the paradox
of Krishnamurti occurred at Benares when I was paying a visit to a school
founded on his principles. He goes there from time to time to speak to the
children but on this occasion the hall was filled with youngsters and grown-ups.
While we waited for his arrival
we heard President Kennedy had been assassinated-an announcement was made from
the stage. There were cries of disbelief and shock at the news, sobbing broke
out among young and old alike and it was clear the tragedy had an immediate
effect of gloom in that small corner of the world as it had everywhere else.
When Krishnamurti appeared and
began his talk it was as if nothing had happened. He proceeded with the
discussion planned and spoke for an hour without mentioning a word about the
appalling happening in Dallas.
Was this callous? Did his
studied disregard of the Kennedy murder show a heartless lack of feeling? I knew
his views about leaders, political or religious. 'Fear is the basis of
following, not clarity,' he had said to me. 'It is because of the urge to feel
safe that we put our faith in leaders.'
But I could also recall his
words on life and death. 'If we can understand how to live, death is close.
Without dying there is no living.'
Since I don't claim to be more
than averagely enlightened I cannot vouch for the veracity of my interpretation
of these words, but as I sat in the school hall at Benares surrounded by Indians
and a few Europeans to whom Kennedy's violent death was a staggering blow I
could not help reflecting that it was completely in character for Krishnamurti
to register not the slightest emotion. Death is part of life. And why should any
part of life be a subject for, or inducement to,
*
Krishnamurti thoroughly
dislikes being photographed-though later he was to allow me the privilege of
taking a snapshot of him for this book. I was present on one occasion when I
feared an unpleasant incident might develop. It was during one of his lectures
in India. A number of tourists were among the audience and at one point, while
Krishnamurti was in full voice, a Japanese stood up and aimed his camera at the
speaker.
'Stop!' cried Krishnamurti.
The Japanese was nonplussed and
very embarrassed at what he obviously felt was an intrusion on the tourist's
prerogative, but Krishnamurti was clearly quite agitated. I wondered why.
Aterwards, when we were alone, I
brought up the subject of the innocent photographer who had merely tried to add
a picture of Krishnamurti to his holiday record. He told me he never allowed
photographs if he could help it because he was afraid some people might misuse
them. There were those who wished to deify him and pictures would give them a
means of doing so. The thought horrified him. He even knew people who would
build temples around him as they did for Buddha and Christ.
'This is precisely what should not
be done1' he emphasized. 'It only takes you further from the
truth. It is a distraction.'
Krishnamurti's mission is to
guide, but it is the guidance and not the guide which is important. 'I am a
signpost,' he once said.
He is certainly the most
unselfconscious of signposts, and the least publicity conscious. He wanders
about the world unheralded, unadvertised, unpublicized. He has no press agent,
no public relations machinery to propagate his message. He rarely gives
interviews for newspapers or radio and so far as I know has never been seen on
television. He speaks, takes a plane, arrives, speaks again. If his audience
listens he is pleased but he has scant hope that all of them will understand his
words.
I have heard him speak in many
parts of the world and before a variety of audiences. I have noticed the same
faces among his audiences, because there are people who follow him around the
world. Wealthy dowagers some of them, I suspect, who have more money than they
know what to do with. They gaze in awe at Krishnamurti as he speaks. They have
heard it all before-yet they don't understand a word of what he's saying. 'One
day perhaps someone will understand me,' he told me, when I mentioned this to
him.
Why does he speak? He gave this
answer as long ago as 1929: 'As an artist paints a picture, because he
takes delight in painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his
whole being, so I do this and not because I want anything from anyone.'
Krishnamurti's message is that
one must look to oneself for the truth, for enlightenment. I believe his talks
often are hard to understand-even impossible-because he intends them to be that
way, so the listener will look inward at himself. 'Don't believe me-look to
yourself for the truth.'
I believe he sometimes
deliberately leads his listeners nowhere, frustrates them to the point where
they seek the answers within themselves. He advocates the quiet mind, the quiet
and alert mind.
I fixed up an appointment to
meet him at Benares on one occasion and he agreed to see me. I prepared a list
of questions which were relevant to my inquiries at the time. When we met he did
not remember me at all-or seemed not to-and there was practically no
communication between us. He gave no answers, or answered in a way that meant
nothing to me, and in the end I walked away bitterly disappointed. Then I
realised the lesson I had learned was clearer than if we had talked for two
hours.
As I read through Krishnamurti's books I became totally engrossed in the messages he conveyed. Alert passivity, 'silent awareness, 'the thinker and the thought are one. 'The experiencing of what is without naming it brings about freedom from what is.' Almost every word he uttered was reminiscent of the understanding brought about through transcendental meditation.
*
I raised with him at a private
interview in 1967-it was at the Shiva Rao house again-the questions of pain and
pleasure and the place of suffering in the human condition, and of desire and
the pursuit of pleasure. 'When there is pleasure there is also pain.' he said.
'Pleasure and pain go together as one.'
I asked: 'What happens when
there's no pleasure-is there pain?'
'That's a very good question,'
he replied. 'Now look at that. When there is no pleasure and no pain what do you
have? Watch that, watch that very carefully and see what there is.' He was
talking about the transcendental state.
*
It was almost eleven years
after my first meeting with Krishnamurti, after I had settled for a two-year
stay in England, that I heard about Brockwood Park and the Krishnamurti
Foundation.
News reached me that, from funds
contributed by his followers, an organisation had been set up with the object of
providing a centre for the furtherance of his work. It had purchased a country
mansion of beautiful proportions set deep in the Hampshire countryside mid-way
between Winchester and Petersfield some sixty-five miles from London. Here the
teacher, now well into his seventies, would spend an increasing amount of his
time between journeys abroad. Talks would be held there and a school would be
started for youngsters over the normal school-leaving age, which at the moment
in Britain is fifteen.
I wrote off for details and said
I would like to motor down and have a look round and perhaps have an hour or two
with Krishnamurti or at least attend one of his gatherings. With the reply came
two copies of the Foundation's news bulletin, a neatly duplicated pocket-sized
booklet containing information about the group's plans and their progress to
date and, in one of them, a picture of Brockwood itself, an imposing
white-painted building dating from the eighteenth century.
Also in one of the bulletins was
this extract from the notebook of Krishnamurti, and I quote it in full because
it seems to me to say in a few words all that I have learned from this great man
over the years.
'Meditation in which any form of
effort is involved ceases to be meditation. It is not an achievement, a thing
that is practised daily according to any system or method to gain a desired end.
There must be an end to all imagination and measure. Meditation is not a means
to an end-it is an end in itself. But the meditator must come to an end for
meditation to be.
'Meditation is not an
experience, a memory gathered for a future pleasure. The experiencer always
travels within the limits of his own projections of time and thought. Within the
boundaries of thought, freedom is an idea, a formula,
'Meditation is always the
present, and thought always belongs to the past. All consciousness is thought,
and the state of meditation is not within its boundaries. Conscious meditation
is to define more and more the boundaries and to destroy all freedom-within the
frontiers of the mind there is no freedom. In freedom alone is there meditation.
'If there is no meditation you
are a slave for ever to time -whose shadow is sorrow. Time is sorrow.
'There is no silence without
love. Be still, to understand. 'To meditate is to be vulnerable-the
vulnerability which has no past and no future, the yesterday and the tomorrow.
Only the new is vulnerable.
'Meditation is not the way of
unique and exceptional experiences. Such experiences lead to isolation, to the
self-enclosing processes of time-binding memories, denying freedom.
'The valley was carpeted with
flowers; there was on the slopes a patch of flowers of every colour imaginable;
and they were abundant-as abundant as the earth itself with its cities,
factories, rivers, woods and green meadows. They were there, as rich and
beautiful as that valley. But the abundance of nature and man is on the surface
of the land, to die and be put together again. The abundance of meditation is
not put together by thought or by pleasure that thought breeds; it is on the
other side of the flowers and the clouds. From there the abundance is
immeasurable, as love and beauty; but they are never on this side of the flowers
and the clouds.
'Time is memory. Ecstasy is
timeless. The bliss of meditation has no duration. Joy becomes pleasure when it
has continuity. The bliss in meditation is only a second by the watch, but in
that second is the whole movement of life
'Be far away. Far away from the
world of chaos and misery, live in it, untouched. This is only possible when you
have a meditative mind, a mind that looks out from behind the flower and the
cloud. The meditative mind is unrelated to the past and to the future and yet is
sanely capable of living with clarity and reason in this world. The world is
disorder and the order of this world is disorder; and its morality is
immorality. The clarity out there is not to be sought and made orderly, to be
used for this world. When it is used it becomes darkness. The nature of this
clarity is its very emptiness. Because it is empty it is clear; because it is
negative it is positive. Be far away, not knowing where you are. There, there is
no you and me.'
The bulletins gave times and
dates of gatherings and on a Saturday soon afterwards I drove down into
Hampshire to renew my acquaintance with Krishnamurti. Brockwood, set in
beautiful unspoilt countryside of woods and rolling hills, was not easy to find
but eventually I located the village of Bramdean and the avenue of copper
beeches leading off the main road which I had been directed to look out for.
The house looked out over 36
acres of parkland, gardens with well-trimmed lawns, and attractive clusters of
trees. One could well imagine that in other days it had been the country seat of
titled English aristocracy, its outbuildings the living quarters of a retinue of
grooms, butlers and other servants an estate of this size would need to retain.
On one of the lawns a large
marquee had been erected and it was here that Krishnamurti was to address his
listeners. They had come from far and wide. Alongside my Morris, when I finally
parked it in an area at the back of the house, were Peugeots, Volkswagens,
Citroens, Fiats, Renaults, Opels, Volvos, displaying a variety of European
registration
Krishnamurti, moving about among
the people, greeted me with a warm smile. He was dressed in blue jeans and a
grey sweater. We went into the house and he led me to a room off the main
entrance hall where we sat down for a chat like old friends. He was totally
unself-conscious and relaxed and. seemed completely unaware of the people
outside who had come to soak up the words of truth and light he was shortly to
utter.
There were a dozen questions I
had lined up to put to him. I asked none of them. Perhaps I had forgotten in the
time that had elapsed since our last meeting that you do not go to Krishnamurti
for answers. He does not pretend to be a kind of spiritual information bureau
dispensing instant salvation to all comers. You go to listen and, if you are
lucky, to talk with him.
One of the things that had been
on my mind was the apparent paradox of the Krishnamurti Foundation and of
Brockwood itself. Had he not, years before, put an end once and for all to any
conceptions that he might stand as the head of a spiritual organisation? Had he
not, with very good reasons, turned his back on the ownership of valuable
properties in Europe and the United States which were to be the cornerstones of
a religious sect with Krishnamurti as its chief prophet?
Needless to say, I mentioned
none of these thoughts. Wasn't it only practical that a man who drew a f9llowing
from everywhere in the world should have some kind of centre of operations? And
if his message was so worthwhile and so topical in the modern environment wasn't
it only right and appropriate that young people should be able to attend a
school where the benefits of his teaching could be shared? And the Foundation
itself-was it unreasonable that
there should be some organised
and business4ike approach to public work of this nature? There is nothing of the
high priest about Krishnamurti, no pretentiousness, not even an awareness that
he is anything exceptional among men unless it is simply that he understands
while most do not.
It would have been unthinkable
to say any of this as we sat together at Brockwood that afternoon. My thoughts
returned to India and the other places where I had met this unassuming man or
joined the gatherings of people to hear him speak. Sitting there in his sweater
he might have been one of the crowd who had arrived to listen except that he was
the one without the wrinkles.
We talked about my job and the
route I had taken to get to Brockwood. We discussed the way the world was going,
and the conversation stayed on this general level until I told him that in
England in the previous year twenty-million prescriptions had been issued under
the National Health Service for sleeping pills and tranquillizers.
'It gives a pretty good
indication of the conflicts and tensions people suffer from today,' I said.
'And that is because of the
dualistic process in which man is trapped,' said Krishnamurti. 'That is the
cause of all those anxieties. If only man would look at himself objectively he
would drop these foolish avenues of suffering as he would drop a hot piece of
coal.
It is not easy for a man to
discard suffering, he explained, because it gives him something to dwell on.
There is therefore some pleasure to be derived from the dualistic state and as
long as the suffering does not become too bad man will put up with it.
'Pleasure and pain are really
one and when this is clearly seen one drops the process of duality and lives in
peaceful freedom.'
Krishnamurti said he himself
does not suffer from conflicts and I believe him. Except for his hair which is
now white, he looks half his age.
I asked him whether he thought
the people who came to Brockwood were understanding his message.
'Oh I think so-I use very simple
language,' he said. I pointed out this was a different answer from the one he
had given me some time ago in India when I put a similar question to him about
the followers who return again and again to hear him. 'Ah, it's the application
of the principles I speak of which is so difficult,' he countered. 'The problem
is to apply what I say to daily living, and people return from time to time to
reinforce what they have gained from previous talks.'
I told Krishnamurti I was
writing an account of my search for a quiet mind and including the people I had
met and the experiences. He seemed delighted at the thought until I mentioned
that this meant including him. 'Oh, you don't want to put me in it; I'll spoil
the book,' he cried. I told him that furthermore I wished to take a photograph
of him to use as an illustration. He didn't like the idea at all but in the end
gave in under pressure. 'Yes, yes, if you wish,' he said, with good-humoured
protest in his voice. 'But you know I'm not fond of publicity and that's the
reason I usually oppose the publication of my photograph.'
There were two further points I
wanted to raise with Krishnamurti before I left Brockwood. It was not long
before that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was causing a stir among the young people
of the Western world with his meditation teaching. I was making a study of the
effects of the sensation he had caused. I asked Krishnamurti whether he thought
the Maharishi's system was effective.
'I don't think so,' he replied.
'It didn't last very long.'
I mentioned that experiments
were being carried out on certain people with the use of electroencephalograph
equipment to induce an alpha rhythm state similar to the condition found in Zen
meditation. What did he think?
'Any stupid mind can be thus
trained,' he said. 'But what can they do with this ability?'
*
Krishnamurti fascinated me. He
still does and always will. He is a rare soul, perhaps a saint, who can tell? My
dialogues with him were refreshing and enlightening in a way that defies proper
description.
I have barely scratched the
surface of his teaching here, perhaps 'approach to living' is a better phrase,
but to me, in the role I had given myself of searcher, analyst and chronicler of
the concealed depths of the mind he was an invaluable signpost.
The question was, could I read
the wording on the sign?