Krishnamurti, the unsung sage of enlightenment

[Lógos Sokratikós]

Just wanted to know what you think of Jiddu Krishnamurti.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti

http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/

http://www.kfa.org/

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Jiddu_Krishnamurti_01.jpg/250px-Jiddu_Krishnamurti_01.jpg

Handsome fella. Well, from that angle anyway.

[premjan]

Apparently he had a long-running affair with a married woman - Rosalind Rajagopal (maybe she was impressed by his looks) who may have had several abortions as a result. Rosalind's daughter certainly had a bone to pick with Jiddu.

Also although he rejected the notion that he was the theosophist messiah, he certainly had a certain chip of world saviour on his shoulder which was consistently criticized by another gentleman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U._G._Krishnamurti who was more of an anti-messiah.

My reading of him is: he wasn't as terrible a guru as a lot of others, but he certainly used his fame as a meal ticket like all the others. His methods of enlightening others appears to have been more or less via humiliation and shame. Not terrible by guru standards, but not the greatest.

A charismatic man, definitely.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

Shame? Not obvious in his words.
Anyway, he was against following gurus from what I can read. Let's see if I can find that quote...


------------
Here it is.

"You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, 'What did that man pick up?' 'He picked up a piece of the truth,' said the devil. 'That is a very bad business for you, then,' said his friend. 'Oh, not at all,' the devil replied, 'I am going to help him organize it.' I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti#Break_with_the_past

[premjan]

Yeah - he was a partial anti-messiah, except that he organized his livelihood around it. Also the main problem with him is that people built him up into some sort of perfect human, whereas in fact, his life was far from perfect. There was a little sense of hypocrisy in the sense that he spoke of something that appeared perfect when his life wasn't that perfect. He was a charismatic guru, no doubt about it. But he was built up into a little more than perhaps he should have been. He had strict physical discipline (e.g. vegetarian, hours of yoga daily etc.) and did live to a ripe old age so in that sense, he was no pushover. It appears that he was good to his paramour as long as they were together and the negative stuff surfaced when their relationship ended. But he did end up in financial disagreements with her husband (who was initially his friend).

[Lógos Sokratikós]

Therefore his life was a good example of his antimessiah message, seen from a certain angle. I mean, there are people who will follow a guru even if he says, no, "I am not the buddha to come". People follow stuff because they have an inner longing to, but that was exactly the stuff against which he was talking about.

[sylvan]

Here are some quotes from 'thinkers' about Krishnamurti
borrowed from website www.prahlad.org.
"When he entered my room I said to myself, 'Surely the Lord of Love has come'. . . "

Kahlil Gibran

". . . the most impressive thing I have listened to. It was like listening to a discourse of the Buddha - such power, such intrinsic authority. . . "

Aldous Huxley

"a religious figure of the greatest distinction" and added, 'He is the most beautiful being I have ever seen."

George Bernard Shaw

"It was overpowering to listen to him. He emanated so much energy that I felt I simply could not sit directly across from him. He spoke simply and clearly, with very few gestures and no rhetoric. "

So I'm wondering, how would you all describe 'charisma' ? What is this that he had? (He looks sort of sad to me.)

[GenesisNemesis]

Logos, I did not know such a mind existed until now. Thank you for introducing Jiddu to me. :D

...Who has also led me to U.G. Krishnamurti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uppaluri_Gopala_Krishnamurti). The Internet is awesome!

[Lógos Sokratikós]

And I got to know him (don't laugh) from Young Indiana Jones' Adventures many years ago. (!) There was an episode when Indy as a little boy went to India.

[premjan]

The charisma is evident even from his words - they tend to resonate with energy and the cadence of speech (some inner sense of rhythm). The key is not to be carried away with it I imagine.

I daresay, that realizing that enlightenment is not necessary and enlightenment is useful are just accessory states of mind of each other. Maybe UG reached his conclusion because Jiddu had reached his. And that happened because of the expectation of theosophy that there would be a world saviour.

[Hrvoje Butkovic]

I’m busy reading The Essential Krishnamurti and I’m finding it very tough going. There are snippets that I can make sense of because I’ve either experienced them or seen them elsewhere, but the bulk of it is beyond me. It’s like he’s personalised the terminology and left it to his listeners/readers to figure out what he really meant by the common words that he used. It comes out in the end, after approaching the same subject from various angles. I definitely agree with Premjan’s assessment that he heavily relied on humiliation and shame, and that he came across as possessing all the answers. On the other hand, he was strongly against dogma in all its guises, and was strongly committed to freeing people from being anyone’s followers, and we could definitely use more of that.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

What sort of "humilliation and shame"? Can you give examples?

[premjan]

[The Nobel-caliber physicist David Bohm] spoke of the humiliation he had experienced at the hands of Krishnamurti who, in his presence, made cutting jokes about “professors” and did not acknowledge the importance of Bohm’s work....
He suffered greatly under [Krishnamurti’s] disrespect of him, which at times was blatantly obvious (Peat, 1997).
http://www.strippingthegurus.com/stgsamplechapters/krishnamurti.asp

[Apostate1970]

soft-headed, mildly megalomaniacal, speaking in vague terms that people hold profound only because of the vagueness and not because of any real content... at his best he rises to the level of truism.

he appeals, in short, to everyone to whom theosophy appeals.

I already knew all of the above based on reading "You are the World", which I could barely tolerate and I'm glad to say I didn't spend money on, but I had no idea until I read more here the extent to which Krishnamurti was a "prop" put in place by the Theosophical elites who needed a new "messiah" figure. Kind of like the way the lamas pick their leaders.... "Oh we augured the location of their birth and ran various psychic tests which proves their miraculous and providential reincarnation!"... blah blah blah... it's just sick and stupid.

also had no idea what an ill-tempered sensualist he was... but that hardly surprises me.

[Hrvoje Butkovic]

What sort of "humilliation and shame"? Can you give examples?
He frequently answered questions that members of the audience put to him. Based on what I’ve read thus far, not once did he offer words of praise or encouragement, but he frequently scolded the person for not getting the message or not applying it.

Overall, I’m not trying to paint a negative picture of him. I value many of the things that he stood for. However, it seems to me that he was more adept at impressing people than reaching them.

[aupmanyav]

Buddha asked me to check all beliefs but did not humiliate me. He even allowed me to differ with him. At the moment it is Sri Sri Ravishankar who is the darling of elite. They come and go.

[premjan]

Not too surprising that he turned out the way the theosophists had intended despite rebelling against it. That is just the way he was brought up.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

Not too surprising that he turned out the way the theosophists had intended despite rebelling against it. That is just the way he was brought up.

That's my impression. He was brought up to expect the way he was treated (like all of us, each depending on how exactly they treated us) but hated it. Clearly a love-hate relationship of being THE guru. Probably had an inner jiminy cricket telling himself "you go around preaching like a guru, you're full of shit like all gurus". In a way I feel he's justified. How could he have not let his "freedom from guru culture" message be known if not preaching it like a guru? Poor guy. His humiliating was probably a projection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection) of his feelings toward himself, IMHO. Anyway... enough of talking about his private life −I'm interested in his message mostly.

[premjan]

Could well be that he was internally self-humiliated. That's an interesting thought.

[DCC]

If you can find any accounts of J. Krishnamurti's final days, then you might find a lot of what he had to say near the end of his life interesting. It seems he felt a bit underappreciated.

(I had secretly hoped this thread would be about U.G.)

[premjan]

UG is more cerebral than Jiddu though perhaps a little less energetic. Jiddu maintained some sense that he was different but apparently UG didn't. There are related in the same way as theory (UG) and practice (Jiddu) perhaps or Buddha and Krishna.

[DCC]

I've often thought U.G. would have fit in quite well with the Chinese Ch'an masters.

Edited to add: I'll stop with my wishful thinking derail now, I promise.

[premjan]

The core of his message is: stop searching and start living. Understand that there is nothing to find. There is nothing you have to do to better yourself except realize that you are just fine the way you are. To transcend judgement in other words, a lot like what Nietzsche said.

[Lógos Sokratikós]

Oh goody, I've thrown some gasoline into NAR&P's smoldering fire. :D

[Philippe*]

I have read few books from him. Freedom from the known influenced me a lot when I was a student, it happened that I offered the book as a present. I know a couple of people who saw him for lectures, they told me that he was spiritually great, so I guess he was indeed charismatic for some. It must be taken into account that he used to address often some young hippies hence some speeches about gurus. Desikachar taught Yoga to Jiddhu Krishnamurti while he was already famous. Later he said that JK taught him humility, he rarely saw so much respect towards a teacher. I see a lot of what he said as a kind of appetizer in spirituality. It is also said that in the end of his life he felt misunderstood and he thought that maybe he could have talked differently. It is also said that he was very different in his speech in the private life. He was also vegetarian, a habit he kept from his southern brahmin origin. I heard also an interview in French and he used to speak quite good French too.

Philippe