If you remember reading my article about the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, last year, you will recall my saying that Rudolph Steiner’s branch of the Theosophical Society broke ranks with the leadership of the main group in India primarily because of their insistence on declaring Jiddu Krishnamurti as the ‘second coming’ of Christ. Rudolph Steiner was apparently not the only one who had misgivings. Krishnamurti himself would decline to accept the ‘holy’ mantel and seek his own direction. He would come to be known internationally as a deep thinker and visionary quite in his own right.
I recently visited the home of the late J. Krishnamurti, Vasanta Vihar, here in Chennai. As I have tried to make clear from the outset, it is not my intention to publicize or promote anyone’s personal views, especially as these might pertain to philosophy or politics. Nevertheless, Jiddu’s story is a compelling one. He was a sickly child, born into relative poverty. His mother died when he was 10. His manner as a boy made him appear retarded and he was often beaten by his father as well as by his teachers. When his father landed a job as a low-level clerk at the Theosophical Society and moved his family to Madras, the boy’s fortunes changed dramatically. Prominent occultist and high-ranking theosophist C.W. Leadbeater had seen him on the beach and was amazed by the boy’s aura, describing it as the "most wonderful aura I have ever seen, without even a particle of selfishness in it". Krishnamurti was subsequently invited to join the inner circle to be schooled in the Society’s teachings and groomed for the role of “World Teacher”. Annie Besant would become his surrogate mother.
Krishnamurti would go on to dissolve the Order of the Star which he had been created exclusively for him and which he was expected to head. He would spent the rest of his life giving public talks on the nature of belief, truth, sorrow, freedom, death and the quest for a spiritually-fulfilled life. He accepted neither followers nor worshipers and regarded the relationship between disciple and guru as unhealthy. He accepted gifts and financial support freely from people who were inspired by his work, and continued with lecture tours and the publication of books and talk transcripts for more than half a century.
Critics complained that his lavish lifestyle – which included homes both in India and America – disqualified him from speaking as he did. But many more were drawn to him – especially women – finding his quiet, unassuming manner attractive. My wife too had the opportunity as a young student at Mysore University to see him several times as he conducted small study groups in discussions on various topics. She too was stuck by him (perhaps it was the aura that Leadbeater observed), though now admits not to have taken much from the thrust of his words at the time.
For me it was a thrill just to walk the same earth and breathe the same air as a man who by most accounts was a great inspiration to many, whose legacy remains vital in the books he has written and in the countless speeches he has given around the world. On the day I visited Vasanta Vihar, one of his ‘disciples’ had erected a presentation in the main hall, aptly entitled, “The World in Crisis”. It consisted of glossy posters containing photographs interspersed with appropriate snippets from Krishnamurti’s writings on topics that still concern us today. On that basis, I was told by the youthful presenter, that Krishnamurti can be regarded as a visionary, certainly by some of the younger set. I held my tongue; though I was itching to suggest that Krishnamurti’s world - defined by the World Wars of the 20th Century - was in essence no different from ours; that Krishnamurti merely stated the obvious. If, by extension, the world can be said to have remained the same (as it has), then the obvious will also never be subject to change. In this way it’s entirely predictable for any ‘visionary’ (as long as he continues to state the obvious) to always remain relevant.
No comments:
Post a Comment