(Krishnamurti is a leading spiritual teacher of our centur...)
Krishnamurti is a leading spiritual teacher of our century. In The First and Last Freedom he cuts away symbols and false associations in the search for pure truth and perfect freedom. Through discussions on suffering, fear, gossip, sex and other topics, Krishnamurti’s quest becomes the readers, an undertaking of tremendous significance.
(Krishnamurti examines with characteristic objectivity and...)
Krishnamurti examines with characteristic objectivity and insight the expressions of what we are pleased to call our culture, our education, religion, politics and tradition; and he throws much light on such basic emotions as ambition, greed and envy, the desire for security and the lust for power - all of which he shows to be deteriorating factors in human society.
(Krishnamurti shows how people can free themselves radical...)
Krishnamurti shows how people can free themselves radically and immediately from the tyranny of the expected, no matter what their age-opening the door to transforming society and their relationships.
(This comprehensive record of Krishnamurti’s teachings is ...)
This comprehensive record of Krishnamurti’s teachings is an excellent, wide-ranging introduction to the great philosopher’s thought. With among others, Jacob Needleman, Alain Naude, and Swami Venkatasananda, Krishnamurti examines such issues as the role of the teacher and tradition; the need for awareness of ‘cosmic consciousness; the problem of good and evil; and traditional Vedanta methods of help for different levels of seekers.
(When Krishnamurti's Notebook first became available in 19...)
When Krishnamurti's Notebook first became available in 1976, it was soon realized that it was a spiritually unique document giving his perceptions and experiences and describing his states of consciousness. It is a kind of diary but one that is little concerned with the day to day process of living, though very much aware of the natural world.
(Krishnamurti's last journal, spoken into a tape recorder ...)
Krishnamurti's last journal, spoken into a tape recorder at his home, Pine Cottage, in the Ojai Valley, brings the reader close to this renowned spiritual teacher. Dictated in the mornings, from his bed, undisturbed, Krishnamurti's observations are captured here in all their immediacy and candor, from personal reflections to poetic musings on nature and a serene meditation on death. Reflecting the culmination of a life of spiritual exploration, these remarkable final teachings engage and enlighten.
(On Fear is a collection of Krishnamurti's most profound o...)
On Fear is a collection of Krishnamurti's most profound observations and thoughts on how fear and dependence affect our lives and prevent us from seeing our true selves.
The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti
(365 Daily Meditations on Freedom, Personal Transformation...)
365 Daily Meditations on Freedom, Personal Transformation, Living Fully, and Much More, from the Man the Dalai Lama Described as "One of the Greatest Thinkers of the Age"
(Total Freedom includes selections from Krishnamurti’s ear...)
Total Freedom includes selections from Krishnamurti’s early works, his ‘Commentaries on Living’, and his discourses on life, the self, meditation, sex and love.
(These selections present the core of Krishnamurti's teach...)
These selections present the core of Krishnamurti's teaching on meditation, taken from discussions with small groups, as well as from public talks to large audiences.
(Contains a series of 8 lectures, given in Ojai, Californi...)
Contains a series of 8 lectures, given in Ojai, California in 1955 by Krishnamurti. This volume addresses issues such as: the nature of violence; the problem of change; the conditioning of the mind; how to achieve peace; the nature of worship and spiritual practice; and how to really listen.
Jiddu Krishnamurti was an Indian philosopher, speaker and writer. Krishnamurti is regarded as one of the greatest philosophical and spiritual figures of the twentieth century. Among many books he wrote are The First and Last Freedom, The Only Revolution, and Krishnamurti's Notebook.
Background
Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on May 11, 1895, in Madanapalle, a small town in southern India, 150 miles northwest of Madras. His parents, Jiddu Sanjeevamma and Jiddu Narianiah, were devout Brahmin Hindus, who named their eighth son Krishnamurti ("the image of Krishna"), after the god Krishna.
Krishnamurti's father was a civil servant in the revenue department and a part-time worker at the Theosophical Society. After his wife died in 1905, Krishnamurti's father was forced to retire from his job with the colonial bureaucracy and seek full-time employment with the Theosophical Society. The family moved to Adyar near Madras.
Education
When Krishnamurti was six, he was initiated into Brahminhood with the sacred thread ceremony, and he formally started his schooling. Amid poverty and hardship Krishnamurti was a shy and withdrawn child who found school life difficult. He was often taken to be intellectually disabled, and was beaten regularly at school by his teachers and at home by his father.
In 1909 Krishnamurti got acquainted with a soothsayer, Charles Webster Leadbeater, who was astonished by Krishnamurti’s aura and proclaimed that one day he would become a ‘World Teacher to guide the evolution of humankind’. He was later taken under Leadbeater’s wing and was educated at the Theosophical Society at Adyar.
It was during this time, he developed a strong bond with Dr. Annie Besant, whom he viewed as a motherly figure. In 1911 Annie Besant and her colleagues founded the Order of the Star in the East (OSE), with Krishnamurti to be its spiritual head. Krishnamurti's father was worried by Besant's influence on his sons, and he tried to regain custody of them, but eventually failed.
From 1911 to 1914, Krishnamurti and his brother, Nitya, visited a number of European countries, escorted by Theosophist followers. In England Krishnamurti developed a close friendship with Lady Emily Lutyens, who introduced him to aristocratic circles. Krishnamurti read extensively during his time in England, enjoying the works of Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, and P. G. Wodehouse. He was also influenced by Paul Carus' The Buddha's Way of Virtue and Sir Edwin Arnold's The Light of Asia.
By the early 1920, Krishnamurti had begun to take on more of a leadership role. He started contributing the editorial notes to the Order of the Star in the East's Herald of the Star and heading the Order of the Star in the East conferences in France and India. He also moved to Ojai, in California where the weather was kinder to his brother, who suffered from tuberculosis. It was there, he was introduced to one of his greatest influences, Rosalind Williams. In Ojai he underwent a life-changing experience following extensive meditation and lapses close to unconsciousness, which brought him joy and profound peace.
Krishnamurti's brother died in 1925, and he entered a period of great grief. His belief in Theosophy spiraled downwards. Over the next few years, his life reached a new direction in 1929, which led to the ensuing dissolution of the organization. Following his decision of splitting from the organization, a lot of his followers began to resent him.
Krishnamurti officially resigned from the Theosophical Society in 1930. For the rest of his life, Krishnamurti talked to wide audiences around the world. He mostly visited India, England, the United States, and Switzerland, although he also visited Australia, South America, and Canada. He also began issuing a number of publications under the backings of ‘Star Publishing Trust’, which he founded with close friend, Desikacharya Rajagopal.
After a brief lull from public speaking, he gave a series of talks in Ojai in 1944. These talks were subsequently collated and published by ‘Krishnamurti Writings Inc’, the successor organization of ‘Star Publishing Trust’.
During World War II, he became friends with the writer Aldous Huxley, who encouraged him to write; Krishnamurti subsequently published a number of works, including Education and the Significance of Life (1953) and The First and Last Freedom (1954). The latter became extremely popular for its themes of ‘belief’, ‘desire’, simplicity’ and ‘awareness and went on to spawn 36 editions, in 9 different languages and is housed in over 1,566 libraries around the world. ‘Krishnamurti’s Notebook’, published in 1976, also became popular and produced two other editions, ‘Krishnamurti’s Journal’ and ‘Krishnamurti to Himself’.
Krishnamurti started a speaking tour in India in the autumn of 1947 and managed to attract a horde of young intellectuals to his discourses. In the 1960s, he became close to David Bohm, whose systematic and metaphysical concerns regarding the corporal world found close equivalents with Krishnamurti’s views.
From 1984 to 1985, he addressed an audience at the United Nations, in New York. He visited India for the last time before 1986, where he gave his final ‘talk’ in Madras (now Chennai). Krishnamurti died on February 17, 1986 in Ojai, California after suffering from pancreatic cancer. His body was cremated and the ashes scattered in California, England, and India.
A member of the Theosophy organization early in life, later Jiddu Krishnamurti was not a part of any religious group and desired to be diplomatic with his choice of words and even his teachings.
Views
Krishnamurti belonged to no religious organization, sect or country, nor did he subscribe to any school of political or ideological thought. On the contrary, he maintained that these are the very factors that divide human beings and bring about conflict and war.
He did not expound any philosophy or religion, but rather talked of the things that concern all of us in our everyday lives, of the problems of living in modern society with its violence and corruption, of the individual's search for security and happiness, and the need for mankind to free itself from inner burdens of fear, anger, hurt, and sorrow. He explained with great precision the subtle workings of the human mind, and pointed to the need for bringing to our daily life a deeply meditative and spiritual quality.
Krishnamurti's teaching is non-dogmatic, centered on his own spiritual experiences and oriented to the particular needs and capacities of his listeners. He regarded life as a voyage of self-discovery in which self-doubt, uncertainty, and self-criticism are inextricably related to inward spiritual transformation. The human problem begins with the "I-process" - an insatiable self-generating and all-consuming greed that is manifest not only in personal selfishness and in the social and historical instances of man's brutality to man but also in conventional morality filled with expediency, self-satisfaction, and subtle self-pride: "He who says he loves does not love."
Fear and anxiety, obsession with security, self-assertion, and aggression (the "appearance" of courage) are all forms of frantic self-affirmation. This includes the delusion of the immortality of the soul, which is a particularly egregious projection of the "I" alarmed by annihilation.
Krishnamurti believed spiritual maturity and enlightenment come only with a radical breakthrough to deeper levels of man's psychic resources which then obliterate the debased superficialities of the ego state. This takes the form of a direct intuition and an inner transformation. It is not the result of simple moral striving but of critical self-reflection, doubt, and final enlightenment and self-knowledge, complete and therapeutic. This, in turn, leads to the integration of the human personality, freedom, and love in pure, selfless compassion.
Quotations:
"Love in all its glory has intoxicated my heart; my heart can never be closed. I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated."
"I maintain that the truth is a pathless land and you cannot approach it by any path what-so-ever, by any religion, by any sect."
"In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself."
"The reality of truth is not to be bought, to be sold, to be repeated; it cannot be caught in books. It has to be found from moment to moment, in the smile, in the tear, under the dead leaf, in the vagrant thought, in the fullness of love."
"The crisis is not out there in the world, it is within our own consciousness."
"True education is to learn how to think, not what to think. If you know how to think, if you really have that capacity, then you are a free human being – free of dogmas, superstitions, ceremonies – and therefore you can find out what religion is."
"To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness; the self is a book of many volumes which you cannot read in a day, but when once you begin to read, you must read every word, every sentence, every paragraph for in them are the intimations of the whole. The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found."
"Religion becomes a matter of belief, and belief acts as a limitation on the mind; and the mind then is never free. But it is only in freedom that you can find out what is true, what is God, not through any belief; because your belief projects what you think God ought to be, what you think ought to be true. If you believe God is love, God is good, God is this or that, your very belief prevents you from understanding what is God, what is true."
"Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased."
"Fear begins and ends with the desire to be secure; inward and outward security, with the desire to be certain, to have permanency. The continuity of permanence is sought in every direction, in virtue, in relationship, in action, in experience, in knowledge, in outward and inward things. To find security and be secure is the everlasting cry. It is this insistent demand that breeds fear."
"Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something – and it is only such love that can know freedom."
Personality
Krishnamurti is believed to have been a conceptual influence over Bruce Lee.
Physical Characteristics:
When a child, Krishnamurti contracted and would suffer recurrent bouts of the disease over many years.
Quotes from others about the person
Rajiv Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India expressed his sadness over Krishnamurti's death: "The People of India deeply mourn the passing away of Sri J. Krishnamurti. He was one of the most stimulating philosophers of our land and age. .. .Our country and the world are poorer with his death. "
Interests
Philosophers & Thinkers
Paul Carus, Nietzsche,
Writers
Dostoevsky, P. G. Wodehouse, Edwin Arnold
Connections
In 1921, Krishnamurti fell in love with Helen Knothe, an American, but the couple drifted apart. He later fell in love with Rosalind Williams, who was the co-founder of Happy Valley School along with him. However, the duo could not be together and she ended up marrying his best-friend, Rajagopal.
Krishnamurti: A Biography
Offering an insider's view of the life and thought of Krishnamurti, this biography reveals the full story of his early years as a child-guru and media darling and his later years as an influential teacher and thinker.
1986
Jiddu Krishnamurti: World Philosopher
Biographer Christine Williams carried out research over a period of four years to write this book account of Krishnamurti's life. She studied his massive archive of personal correspondence and talks, and interviewed people who knew him intimately. His key message of freedom of the mind resonated with Hindus and Buddhists alike, as well as many humanists in the West. Philosopher, teacher, lover, mystic - Krishnamurti lived all of these roles to the full.
2004
Krishnamurti: Preparing to Leave
This is a detailed account of the last nine months of Jiddu Krishnamurti's life written from contemporary notes by a young man who spent six to eight hours a day with him during this time.
Krishnamurti: 100 Years
An inspiring collection of writings, recollections, and photos, Krishnamurti: 100 Years presents a tribute to the almost mythical story of the world-renowned prophet who touched millions.