Theos-Talk Archives (May 2001 Message tt00085)

The following is the famous speech by Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1929 when he 
disbanded all the organizations he was the center of and since that day, 
held steadfastly to this statement.

___MKR___



TRUTH IS A PATHLESS LAND

The Dissolution of the Order of the Star

The Order of the Star in the East was founded in 1911 to proclaim the 
coming of the World Teacher. Krishnamurti was made Head of the Order. On 
August 2, 1929, the opening day of the annual Star Camp at Ommen, Holland, 
Krishnamurti dissolved the Order before 3000 members. Below is the full 
text of the talk he gave on that occasion. What he said then is equally 
valid today.

We are going to discuss this morning the dissolution of the Order of the 
Star. Many people will be delighted, and others will be rather sad. It is a 
question neither for rejoicing nor for sadness, because it is inevitable, 
as I am going to explain.

You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were 
walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and 
pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his 
pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He 
picked up a piece of Truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business 
for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am 
going to let him organize it."

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by 
any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of 
view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being 
limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be 
organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce 
people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you 
will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an 
individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it 
becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be 
imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting 
to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, 
for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought 
down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You 
cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the 
mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid 
of the dangerous precipices. You must climb towards the Truth, it cannot be 
"stepped down" or organized for you. Interest in ideas is mainly sustained 
by organizations, but organizations only awaken interest from without. 
Interest, which is not born out of love of Truth for its own sake, but 
aroused by an organization, is of no value. The organization becomes a 
framework into which its members can conveniently fit. They no longer 
strive after Truth or the mountain-top, but rather carve for themselves a 
convenient niche in which they put themselves, or let the organization 
place them, and consider that the organization will thereby lead them to 
Truth.

So that is the first reason, from my point of view, why the Order of the 
Star should be dissolved. In spite of this, you will probably form other 
Orders, you will continue to belong to other organizations searching for 
Truth. I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind, 
please understand this. I would make use of an organization which would 
take me to London, for example; this is quite a different kind of 
organization, merely mechanical, like the post or the telegraph. I would 
use a motor car or a steamship to travel, these are only physical 
mechanisms which have nothing whatever to do with spirituality. Again, I 
maintain that no organization can lead man to spirituality.

If an organization be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a 
weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from 
growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for 
himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth. So that is another reason 
why I have decided, as I happen to be the Head of the Order, to dissolve 
it. No one has persuaded me to this decision.

This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean 
this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not 
concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a 
certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering 
concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set 
man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to 
found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new 
philosophies. Then you will naturally ask me why I go the world over, 
continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do this: not 
because I desire a following, not because I desire a special group of 
special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, 
however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions may be! I do not 
want to encourage that absurdity.) I have no disciples, no apostles, either 
on earth or in the realm of spirituality.

Nor is it the lure of money, nor the desire to live a comfortable life, 
which attracts me. If I wanted to lead a comfortable life I would not come 
to a Camp or live in a damp country! I am speaking frankly because I want 
this settled once and for all. I do not want these childish discussions 
year after year.

One newspaper reporter, who interviewed me, considered it a magnificent 
act to dissolve an organization in which there were thousands and thousands 
of members. To him it was a great act because, he said: "What will you do 
afterwards, how will you live? You will have no following, people will no 
longer listen to you." If there are only five people who will listen, who 
will live, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it will be 
sufficient. Of what use is it to have thousands who do not understand, who 
are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but would rather 
translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves? If I speak 
strongly, please do not misunderstand me, it is not through lack of 
compassion. If you go to a surgeon for an operation, is it not kindness on 
his part to operate even if he cause you pain? So, in like manner, if I 
speak straightly, it is not through lack of real affection-on the contrary.

As I have said, I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him 
towards freedom, to help him to break away from all limitations, for that 
alone will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditioned 
realization of the self.

Because I am free, unconditioned, whole-not the part, not the relative, 
but the whole Truth that is eternal-I desire those, who seek to understand 
me, to be free; not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will 
become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears-from 
the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of 
spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear 
of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in 
that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his 
well-being, so I do this and not because I want any thing from anyone.

You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority, which 
you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another 
can, by his extraordinary powers-a miracle-transport you to this realm of 
eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on 
that authority.

You have listened to me for three years now, without any change taking 
place except in the few. Now analyze what I am saying, be critical, so that 
you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally. When you look for an 
authority to lead you to spirituality, you are bound automatically to build 
an organization around that authority. By the very creation of that 
organization, which, you think, will help this authority to lead you to 
spirituality, you are held in a cage.

If I talk frankly, please remember that I do so, not out of harshness, 
not out of cruelty, not out of the enthusiasm of my purpose, but because I 
want you to understand what I am saying. That is the reason why you are 
here, and it would be a waste of time if I did not explain clearly, 
decisively, my point of view.

For eighteen years you have been preparing for this event, for the Coming 
of the World-Teacher. For eighteen years you have organized, you have 
looked for someone who would give a new delight to your hearts and minds, 
who would transform your whole life, who would give you a new 
understanding; for someone who would raise you to a new plane of life, who 
would give you a new encouragement, who would set you free-and now look 
what is happening! Consider, reason with yourselves, and discover in what 
way that belief has made you different-not with the superficial difference 
of the wearing of a badge, which is trivial, absurd. In what manner has 
such a belief swept away all the unessential things of life? That is the 
only way to judge: in what way are you freer, greater, more dangerous to 
every Society which is based on the false and the unessential? In what way 
have the members of this organization of the Star become different?

As I said, you have been preparing for eighteen years for me. I do not 
care if you believe that I am the World-Teacher or not. That is of very 
little importance. Since you belong to the organization of the Order of the 
Star, you have given your sympathy, your energy, acknowledging that 
Krishnamurti is the World-Teacher- partially or wholly: wholly for those 
who are really seeking, only partially for those who are satisfied with 
their own half-truths.

You have been preparing for eighteen years, and look how many 
difficulties there are in the way of your understanding, how many 
complications, how many trivial things. Your prejudices, your fears, your 
authorities, your churches new and old- all these, I maintain, are a 
barrier to understanding. I cannot make myself clearer than this. I do not 
want you to agree with me, I do not want you to follow me, I want you to 
understand what I am saying.

This understanding is necessary because your belief has not transformed 
you but only complicated you, and because you are not willing to face 
things as they are. You want to have your own gods-new gods instead of the 
old, new religions instead of the old, new forms instead of the old-all 
equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches. Instead of 
old spiritual distinctions you have new spiritual distinctions, instead of 
old worships you have new worships. You are all depending for your 
spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your 
enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me 
for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say 
that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the 
enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the 
incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may 
be a few, but very, very few.

So why have an organization?

Why have false, hypocritical people following me, the embodiment of 
Truth? Please remember that I am not saying something harsh or unkind, but 
we have reached a situation when you must face things as they are. I said 
last year that I would not compromise. Very few listened to me then. This 
year I have made it absolutely clear. I do not know how many thousands 
throughout the world- members of the Order-have been preparing for me for 
eighteen years, and yet now they are not willing to listen unconditionally, 
wholly, to what I say.

So why have an organization?

As I said before, my purpose is to make men unconditionally free, for I 
maintain that the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self 
which is eternal, is the harmony between reason and love. This is the 
absolute, unconditioned Truth which is Life itself. I want therefore to set 
man free, rejoicing as the bird in the clear sky, unburdened, independent, 
ecstatic in that freedom . And I, for whom you have been preparing for 
eighteen years, now say that you must be free of all these things, free 
from your complications, your entanglements. For this you need not have an 
organization based on spiritual belief. Why have an organization for five 
or ten people in the world who understand, who are struggling, who have put 
aside all trivial things? And for the weak people, there can be no 
organization to help them to find the Truth, because Truth is in everyone; 
it is not far, it is not near; it is eternally there.

Organizations cannot make you free. No man from outside can make you 
free; nor can organized worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a 
cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organization, nor 
throwing yourselves into works, make you free. You use a typewriterto write 
letters, but you do not put it on an altar and worship it. But that is what 
you are doing when organizations become your chief concern. "How many 
members are there in it?" That is the first question I am asked by all 
newspaper reporters. "How many followers have you? By their number we shall 
judge whether what you say is true or false." I do not know how many there 
are. I am not concerned with that. As I said, if there were even one man 
who had been set free, that were enough.

Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the 
Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold 
that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the 
purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom 
of Eternity.

So you will see how absurd is the whole structure that you have built, 
looking for external help, depending on others for your comfort, for your 
happiness, for your strength. These can only be found within yourselves.

So why have an organization?

You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your 
spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are 
beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can tell you if you are 
incorruptible? You are not serious in these things.

So why have an organization?

But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that 
which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together 
with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is 
unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they 
will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, 
and that is my purpose. Because of that real understanding there will be 
true friendship. Because of that true friendship- which you do not seem to 
know-there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this not 
because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation 
for a cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of 
living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all 
sacrifice.

So these are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration for two 
years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I 
have not been persuaded to it by anyone. I am not persuaded in such things. 
For two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, 
patiently, and I have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be 
its Head. You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With 
that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for 
those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free.

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