An Ordinary Boy From Madanapalle
Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on May 11, 1895, in Madanapalle, India, to a Telugu Brahmin family. Considered an academically poor child, teachers perceived him as absent-minded because he would be lost in a reverie, staring into space. His mother, Sanjeevamma, who he was deeply attached to, passed away when he was ten years old. After her death, he reportedly experienced vivid impressions of her presence and believed he saw her on several occasions. This would later impact his views on death and the persistence of memory and attachment.
At the time, Krishnamurti’s father was a civil servant under British rule in India, a time when Western and Eastern cultures would coalesce. One side effect of this mixture is the arrival of the Theosophical Society. This spiritual organization was founded in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott. Blavatsky had a large impact in bringing Eastern mystic knowledge to the West, but eventually veered towards a grift, having faked seances and other spiritual interactions. So take that as you will.
The society would study comparative religion, explore mystical traditions, investigate psychic and spiritual phenomena, and promote a universal brotherhood. They made their way to India in 1882, establishing an international headquarter in Adyar, India, inspired by the Eastern traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism at a time when very few Westerners were aware of them. During British rule, Western science would clash with Eastern mysticism. At a time when many Indians would assimilate to the Western ways, the Theosophical Society was a group of Westerners who claimed Indian spirituality was not primitive, but that it preserved ancient wisdom that had been forgotten in the modern West. This was attractive to Indian intellectuals, who joined the Society by the thousands.
After Blavatsky’s death in 1891, leadership was assumed by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater. They doubled down on the Society’s belief that a great spiritual teacher would appear as a messiah, spreading the society’s gospel. So, they kept their eyes open in India for that World Teacher. It took 18 years, but they found him. Leadbeater was walking along a beach near Adyar in 1909 when he spotted a 14 year old, frail Brahmin boy that was distracted, lost in his thoughts. This boy, who was considered slow by some of his teachers, possessed, according to Leadbeater, an extraordinarily pure aura around him. Leadbeater approached Krishnamurti on the beach and it was soon apparent that this boy’s mind was unusually free of self-centeredness and ambition. This made Krishnamurti an ideal vessel for the anticipated World Teacher.
The Order of the Star
The Society adopted Krishnamurti and his younger brother Nitya (age 11 at this time). Here began the education and training for their eventual roles; training them as leaders and connecting them with global elites to draw attention to their eventual rise. The brothers received private tutors, training in philosophy, history, languages, and comparative religions. They would learn of mystical traditions, Hindu & Buddhist concepts, meditations, and the teachings of Theosophy. They spent their days engaging in dialectic conversations and extensive reading, learning public speaking, diplomacy, and etiquette. The expectation was that they’d continue to broaden their circle to intellectuals, politicians, and wealthy patrons.
The brothers were to become spiritual leaders, messianic figures that would guide humanity into a new spiritual age. The Society would eventually create “The Order of the Star” as a movement oriented around them. The organization did well and grew to tens of thousands of members across the world by 1929, when Krishnamurti would shock the world.
Renunciation
After twenty years of education and preparation in the Order of the Star, Krishnamurti came to the conclusion that the entire project was wrong and misguided. In 1929, before thousands of followers, he gave a speech where he dissolved the Order of the Star. He famously declared: "Truth is a pathless land," arguing that no organization can lead a person to truth, no guru can provide enlightenment, and no authority can substitute for direct observation.
It is believed the turning point for Krishnamurti was four years prior in 1925, upon the death of his brother Nitya from tuberculosis. Much of the draw with the organization was the firm belief and prophecy of the World Teacher’s influence. He was assured by the Theosophical Society that Nitya was destined for an important future role and would not die young, so this contradiction became a crack in the organization’s prophecy.
Having his faith shaken, Krishnamurti began to question the entire structure of the Order around him. In those twenty years, he was conditioned to believe he was special and possessed spiritual authority. Those years were spent crafting his confidence in this belief. So the questioning of this event not only led to the dissolution of the Order, but the tone behind his lifelong philosophy. His core philosophy is tied to his upbringing, that human beings become trapped when they rely on authority: religious, political, psychological, or spiritual.
When he declared, "Truth is a pathless land," it’s because he took the same road for twenty years and came to a dead-end. The force of his statement impacted not only members within the Order, but spiritualists beyond it. For someone to be groomed to become a World Leader and renounce it after dedicating their life to answering the fundamental questions, people will listen to what he has to say. He isn’t criticising organized spirituality from the outside, he’s doing so from the inside with a lot of skin in the game. Krishnamurti gave up a lot with his renunciation: worldwide fame, a devoted international following, and financial resources. He effectively set the foundation for his new philosophy.
Core Tenets
I’ve broken down Krishnamurti’s teachings down to 8 tenets that should capture the essence of his work.
- Truth Is a Pathless Land
- The Observer Is the Observed
- Freedom Requires Understanding Conditioning
- Psychological Time Creates Suffering
- Fear Exists Because of Thought
- Psychological Revolution Begins Within
- Choiceless Awareness
- The Search for Security Creates Bondage
1. Truth Is a Pathless Land
The key message from Krishnamurti’s 1929 speech that dissolved the Order of the Star. His emphasis here is that no religion, teacher, ideology, philosophy, or system can deliver truth. Every individual must discover it directly. Systems become cages and authority can contaminate one’s search inward. The search for Truth is a personal process.
2. The Observer Is the Observed
The anger, fear, jealousy, or anxiety we experience is not separate from the “self” observing it. The observer is part of the same psychological process. This is par for the course as one continues to dive deeper into themselves, by themselves. Krishnamurti is alluding to maximum introspection here, a process he calls “inward revolution.”
Here we imagine a separate controller inside us, but as the introspection commences, the thinker and thought are interconnected. Krishnamurti claims that conflict emerges from this illusion of separation, but that with enough investigation, awareness eventually dissolves the fragmentation.
3. Freedom Requires Understanding Conditioning
Krishnamurti encourages the rejection of authority, because in doing so, we suspend our fear. Without fear, the minute we reject authority we get a jolt of energy. Think about a time when you felt boxed in at a job you hate because of the overly-authoritative nature of your boss. The minute you leave, you have energy, are inspired, and reclaim your identity that may have been lost.
“There is no such thing as doing right or wrong when there is freedom. You are free and from that centre, you act. And hence there is no fear, and a mind that has no fear is capable of great love. And when there is love it can do what it will.” Most thoughts, values, fears, and ambitions were inherited from family, culture, etiquette, laws, religion, nationality, and experience. We are conditioned. “To understand ourselves, there must be an awareness of our conditioning.”
Our conditioning shapes our perception, but with self-examination, we become more aware. Awareness precedes freedom, because with awareness we have more confidence in rejecting authority, since authority contaminates your sense of self.
4. Psychological Time Creates Suffering
The mind lives in memory and anticipation rather than actuality. In fact, the mind is rarely present; it dwells on what happened or what might happen. Anxiety stems from not being in the present, because you are anxiously thinking and being in the past or future. Regret often lives in the past, and fear often lives in the future. Direct awareness of the present is needed, albeit it is rarely encountered. Therefore psychological time sustains this conflict and must be overcome.
5. Fear Exists Because of Thought
Thinking of the past or future requires thought, but being present, fully present implies not thinking. You are a conduit that allows the present experience to run through you, with no judgement or opinion. Therefore thought is the catalyst for fear, or as Krishnamurti says: “thought breeds fear.”
Many fears are maintained through mental projection rather than immediate reality. This maintenance of thought is an iteration that continues to feed on itself, growing the fear further. Therefore it is observation that weakens fear’s grip.
6. Psychological Revolution Begins Within
Krishnamurti argues repeatedly that societal transformation begins with individual transformation. More specifically, we may want to help others in the world, but we must first start with helping ourselves. That begins with knowing oneself and observing our conditioning. Political systems may change, but conflict remains if the human mind remains unchanged.
Our inward conflict is reflected back outward. Society reflects human consciousness as well as its conflict. Inner disorder creates outer disorder. Thereby, self-understanding is a social action. Progress starts from within and emanates outward. Transformation begins locally.
7. Choiceless Awareness
Krishnamurti does not believe in the traditional yogic practices. However if there is ever a process that Krishnamurti would advise, it’s choiceless awareness. Here, we observe our thoughts, emotions, and reactions without trying to change, suppress, justify, or condemn them. We are purely observing them without any judgement or opinion. You could argue that this is what meditation aims to achieve. Awareness itself is transformative and it is analysis that often delays understanding because it contaminates the objective understanding. Through direct awareness we can see clearly and that is the catalyst for action.
8. The Search for Security Creates Bondage
People seek certainty through beliefs, identities, careers, ideologies, and relationships. Yet life is inherently uncertain. Even in modern times, people take the safe route, with safe jobs yet find themselves a part of a round of layoffs. Nothing is certain, nothing is safe. A sense of security is an illusion and we persist with attaining this because it is psychologically seductive. Attachment breeds fear of loss, which is why those who have been deeply hurt from loss, become emotionally withdrawn. A sense of false certainty can stymie one’s growth. Freedom requires facing uncertainty.
