Krishnamurti - Questioning Krishnamurti

Questioning Krishnamurti

Copyright 1996 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd.

Questioning Krishnamurti

J. Krishnamurti in dialogue

Contents

Jonas Salk

Walpola Rahula and others

Eugene Schallert, S.J.

David Bohm, FRS

Iris Murdoch

David Bohm and Asit Chandmal

Pupul Jayakar

Ronald Eyre

Bernard Levin

Huston Smith

Rene Weber

Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Anonymous

Anonymous

I think before we begin it should be made clear what we mean by discussion. To me it is a process of discovery through exposing oneself to the fact. That is, in discussion I discover myself, the habit of my thought, the way I proceed to think, my reactions, the way I reason, not only intellectually but inwardly ... I feel that if we could be serious for an hour or so and really fathom, delve into, ourselves as much as we can, we should be able to release, not through any action of will, a certain sense of energy that is awake all the time, which is beyond thought.

New Delhi, 8 January 1961

We are human beings, not labels.

Colombo, 13 January 1957

Foreword

Both the life and teaching of Jiddu Krishnamurti (18951986) have aroused considerable controversy, ranging from adulation as a World Teacher, a twentieth-century Maitreya or Messiah, to the view that he was a fallible, if extraordinary, human being. Many who knew him felt overwhelmed, deeply awed even, by a sense of sacredness and unconditional love flowing from him. Others felt something of this, and a few also felt badly wronged or slighted, and have responded with a pained ambivalence. Even for those close to him for years, his personality has remained in some ways an enigma. But whatever the perhaps inevitable mystery of the person, the books, videos and tapes are there to show how for more than half a century Krishnamurti argued passionately that the problems facing us demand a radical transformation of human consciousness.

Was he asking the impossible? Did Krishnamurti undergo such a transformation himself? And if he did, what relevance does this have for the rest of us?

This book consists of fourteen conversations, in the last two decades of his life, in which these questions were debated. Those taking part include scientists, a Buddhist scholar, philosophers, artists and a Jesuit priest. None of them could be called devotees, but were people who came to question, clarify and challenge. This was something that Krishnamurti had in his lifetime always urged his listeners and readers to donot perhaps always successfully.

A question that throbs like a pulse in this book is: can human beings live without conflict? Throughout these dialogues, Krishnamurti maintains that this can happen only when outer conflict, be it with another person or collectively in war, is seen to arise from inner conflict within the individual. The root of such conflict is a mistaken but powerful focus on what should be, rather than on what is, whether in ourselves or others. Or, to put it another way, ideals and objectives are insidiously found more attractive than looking at and understanding facts. Usually, if the factthat which happensis displeasing, our tendency is to resist, escape from, or suppress it. But this running away from the fact, as Krishnamurti calls it, is dangerous. By reacting in this way, he argues, we split off a fictitious but strong sense of self from what we experience, the observer from the observed. This separative selfwhich is a figment of thought based on inevitably limited experience, a kind of mental marionetteis for him the heart of violence, whether between two people or two nations. This is not, he contends, a problem that just a few unbalanced people have: the whole of humanity is caught in it.

The many implications of this key and difficult notion of the observer is the observed, sketched only very briefly here, are discussed in depth with David Bohm, a Fellow of the Royal Society and, like a few outstanding theoretical physicists, also a philosopher.

What then can be done? Instead of a plan of action, Krishnamurti invites the listener to remain with what is in his or her life non-judgmentally, to test whether what is being experienced will then disclose and clarify its significance. In so doing, he argues, we explore not just our own consciousness but human consciousness as a whole. This is not, therefore, neurotic, lopsided, selfish introspection. We are instead observing without an observer, in which there is no movement of thought, no labelling, no justification, no condemnation, no desire to change, but a sense of affection and care. Nor is this some kind of mystical, or otherworldly, notion. At the end of the conversation with Asit Chandmal and David Bohm, Krishnamurti cites his own response at the time of his brother Nityas death: there was absolutely no moving from that ... from that sorrow, that shock, that feeling ... K didnt go after comfort ... there is no other fact except that. Then another dimension of mind can come into play. The difficulties we may have in staying with experience in this way are discussed with the American professor of philosophy, Rene Weber.

This is a clear instance of how Krishnamurtis teaching goes to the heart of the kind of experience that we all share. He puts to us propositions about such experience, which he invites us not to accept but to test. In his dialogue with Bernard Levin, he castigates dogma and belief as blocks to understanding. It is by serious testing and experimentingto see whether what is said is false or notthat we can find out the truth for ourselves. Any other way of evaluating reality, such as reliance on authority or scripture, he sees as turning us into second-hand people.

As the reply to the final question in this book makes clear, Krishnamurti disclaimed any status as some kind of role model for the rest of us. As he said in a talk in 1983, the speaker is speaking for himself, not for anybody else. He may be deceiving himself, he may be trying to pretend to be something or other. He may be, you dont know. So have a great deal of scepticism: doubt, question ... Not only did he disclaim such a role, he argued strongly that to seek any kind of exemplar, whether in himself or in anyone else, is psychologically crippling. By creating a childlike dependency, conformity, and a temporary, but ultimately false, sense of security in the authority of another, it atrophies the brain. It is also religiously, and often politically, divisive, since the proliferation of such exemplars inevitably creates barriers for the faithful between them and us. And like inner conflict, this dull subservience wastes the energy needed to explore and respond anew to an ever-changing realityto the essence of life itself.

In most of these talks, these issues, including the discussion of death with the playwright and broadcaster Ronald Eyre, are treated with a passion and humour that the editor has tried but failed to adequately reproduce.

Is what Krishnamurti says a product of Oriental religious philosophy and alien to Western ways of thought? The reader may find an answer to this in the conversations with the Buddhist scholar, Walpola Rahula, and the Jesuit priest, Eugene Schallert. These may surprise people who have pigeon-holed Krishnamurti as an Eastern mystic. In fact there are many significant echoes of Krishnamurtis concerns in Western thought. As Iris Murdoch points out, being and becoming have been constantly debated in Western philosophy, and she enlists Plato to elucidate some of Krishnamurtis arguments. Thomas Hobbess remark that whosoever looks into himself shall know the thoughts and passions of all other men can remind one of Krishnamurtis I am the world. It would not be difficult to cite other examples.