Theos-Talk Archives (May 2000 Message tt00097)

In a message dated 4/25/00 7:34:44 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
hesse600@tem.nhl.nl writes:

<< Aryel writes:
 > The e-mail got too long.  Sorry.  I hope that is what you asked for.  I 
can 
 > say more, if you wish.
 Of course we wish, this kind of story is always 
 interesting. 
 Silence is a bit difficult on the internet, we might as 
 well leave, so please talk. (As long as it comes from the 
 heart, as Krishnaji might say.)
 
 Katinka  >>

Dear Katinka,

Thanks for the interest.  From your comments (& other comments of yours I've 
read over the past few months) I can see your interest is not merely about 
one person's experiences.  What I've said on this subject is just intended as 
sharing perspectives & insights, & I hope it's received by all in that spirit.
Writing The Inner Life of Krishnamurti was quite an Odyssey.  In 1964, I knew 
I'd be writing eventually about K & the Secret Doctrine, so I began to gather 
data & to make extensive notes.  That is now a rather unwieldy mass of 
material, much of it in longhand, some typewritten, about six megabytes of it 
on disks of different formats, and sometimes I have the impression that just 
about as much as that was left in the editor's cutting room for The Inner 
Life of Krishnamurti.  Though I agree with the cuts, considering that they 
made the book much tighter & cleaner, the fact is that the published version 
is about one fifth of the material I had.
I began working on this project in 1985 (though very tentatively then).  In 
1992, I sent the first draft to my very dear friend Clarence (Pete) Pedersen, 
who used to manage the Theosophical Publishing House at the time when I was 
working at Olcott (in the mid-70s), also at the TPH (Pete & I had known each 
other before, but we solidified our ties as "co-workers").  In those days, 
the book was called The Occult Life of J. Krishnamurti.  A number of people 
criticized the title, & so it was finally changed.
An interesting anecdote:  Shortly after sending that first draft to Pete, he 
wrote me asking for permission to show it to a leader of the TS in America, 
to which I complied.  At the time, the book by Radha Sloss had just come out 
in the U.K., & I must have bought just about the first copy of it available 
in this country.  As a sort of afterthought, I thought perhaps it would be 
appropriate to add a short section addressing some points that her book 
makes; so I added these comments somewhere in the middle of my book.  I 
thought the TS leader's response to the ms was rather intriguing:  That 
person expressed the opinion that "K fans" (meaning me) would go to any 
lengths to defend K, no matter what.  That person thought the book had been 
written with the express purpose of responding to Sloss!!!! (???).  I had a 
great laugh over that incident, and of course simply took out the purely 
ancillary section, & made changes based on some comments that Pete & others 
made.
But when the book was accepted by Quest in 1998, the Executive Editor there 
was concerned that in it I had NOT mentioned Sloss.  Was I unable to respond 
to her book, or what?  So I put a "new & improved" version of the darned 
passage (at this point, this incident began to strike me as much too similar 
to the Hitchcock movie The Trouble With Harry, one of his few comedic 
efforts).  Would you believe this?:  The editor I was assigned to do the 
actual work on the book suggested -- very apologetically, thinking this was 
perhaps some critical element in the book -- that we should cut that out, 
ruthlessly.  Much chagrined, I complied.  So now you all have a relatively 
Slossless book as a result.  I dread what might happen if there is ever a 
second edition!
SO MANY people expressed opinions (many of them critical), I've lost count.  
With few exceptions (mostly those who are now deceased), everyone mentioned 
in the acknowledgements criticized one aspect or another of what the book 
says (even though most of them did not know I was writing such a book).  I 
often felt rather strongly that this was more akin to rough-and-tumble 
blue-collar work (such as that in a steel foundry) than to the relatively 
more milquetoasty comfort of scholarly, academic work.  That book was forged 
by my paying very closed attention to criticisms coming from numerous 
(sometimes one might say bizarre) sources.  Over the years, it's been 
re-written more than two dozen times from cover to cover, not counting 
specific points that would be raised by someone, or that I myself would see 
in need of making or clarifying.
Throughout, it seemed as if all the notes, thinking, discussing, reading, 
re-reading, & pondering some more that I did, were somehow irrelevant.  When 
writing was happening, somehow none of that was there.  I say this in the 
knowledge that a large proportion of you on these lists understand what I'm 
saying, & that it's not meant as mystifying in any way the source of this 
work.  But it is just a simple fact that the book sort of "wrote itself."  
Now I find myself in what to me is the awkward position of speaking & writing 
of it as if it were "my" book.  I don't think I'll ever be able to convey to 
anyone how very absurd the very notion strikes me.  In writing this -- & 
anything else that comes along in relation with this work -- my feeling is 
that I'm just doing part of the job (back to the foundry!).
This is truly nobody's work.  If & to the extent there is truth & value in 
it, it belongs to all of us.  To the extent that such is not the case, I'll 
be the first to criticize it.  I truly have no opinion about all this, & 
simply do my very best to let truth lead me by the hand.  If I've gone astray 
in any aspect of it, I want to know it.  That is what moves me when I ask 
everyone who has read the book, to please show me any mistakes, errors, or 
wrong turns I may have taken.  I feel that these subjects are much too 
serious to get caught up in the shallowness of personality games, as in "your 
opinion, versus mine."
Best to all,
Aryel

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