Theos-Talk Archives (July 2003 Message tt00084)

Hi Morten,

Let me start by saying that I share some of your ambiguity. It is 
quite clear (though not mentioned by you below) that Krishnamurti 
himself acted as a sort of guru towards his disciples. The clue is I 
think in how he defined the term guru. 

A guru for him is somebody who becomes an authority. Or in other 
words: a guru is somebody who diminishes the independence of the 
student. The student becomes dependent on the words of the guru, more 
than on the truth he finds for himself. 

A real guru would never make a disciple dependent. There are quite a 
few quotes from theosophical literature for instance which show that 
in their guru-chela relationship, the guru is actively looking for 
independence and sound judgement in the chela (or disciple). 
Occultism is in this sense defined (IMO) as a process of increasing 
independence. Only when that independence has been thoroughly proven 
(probation at various levels), does a 'master' occasionally give the 
student a hint or in exceptional cases: an order (and let's face it, 
the whole theosophical experiment was an exceptional case). 

The problem is, that for most of us it is way to comfortable to give 
authority to somebody other than ourselves. I have recently written 
about how this happened to me in relation to the 'Bowen Notes', as 
well as sent quotes which show HPB didn't want to be treated like 
that. But we have a tendency to prefer the certainty of somebody 
elses words, opinions and experiences, over our own uncertainties and 
limited knowledge. Krishnamurti had seen this process in his own life 
and in the TS (Adyar) - and saw it as so fundamentally dangerous that 
he spent his life to a large extent warning against it (though his 
teachings include far more than this). 

So for me personally it comes down to this (though I am not sure 
Krishnamurti would have agreed):

- There are people among us, hidden or visible, who understand more 
and have their priorities better aligned than we do. Theosophists 
call these people 'masters'. In other traditions they are called 
guru's, teachers, priests, etc. 
- There are people among us pretending to belong to the former group. 
They are also often called master, guru, teacher or priest. Let's add 
rabbi in the mix, just for completeness sake (joking). Unfortunately, 
in our quest for some psychological security as well as recognition 
of the 'spiritual' in our lives, we often get stuck with the second 
class of person, thinking they belong to the first. 
- Krishnamurti belonged to the first group, and warned about the 
second. He also pointed to the psychological mechanisms that make us 
dependent on people, whether they are in the first or the second 
group. He wanted to set us free of habits, authority, the past and 
other psychological fetters. 

As for the protection he received: He refused to pull up the curtain, 
as he put it. So that my speculation that those protecting him were 
our "masters" (NOT in the sense of teachers for him though) is 
precisely that: speculation. I really don't know enough to specify 
further. 

But I think most of us here know enough of life to know that many 
things are possible that we wouldn't have thought of. One of the 
attractions of theosophy is (as I frequently find through the 
feedback I get over my website) its acceptance of mystery and its 
explaining of some of those mysteries. Krishnamurti accepted some of 
those mysteries, though he refused to explain them. Sort of like the 
Buddha in the famous story where a patient asks the doctor: how does 
an arrow fly through the air? How come it can hit me? And the doctor 
says: do you want me to heal you from the wound the arrow caused, or 
do you want me to explain how you got hurt? I can't do both (my 
version). Krishnamurti choose not to explain but to heal, so to 
speak. Like the Buddha his motivation was to help us deal with and 
get rid of suffering. 

I am sure this doesn't answer your questions, but it really is all I 
have to say on the subject for the moment.

I add a few more comments below. 

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Morten Nymann Olesen" <global-
theosophy@a...> wrote:
> Hi Katinka and all of you,
-
> 2. On Krishnamurti then in his early days. Wasn't is so, that :
> 
> "Krishnamurti's casting aside of time-honoured definitions and
> classifications leaves [the] aspirant without true scale of 
values. " ???
> If not, why not ?
> 
> (Let us remember it is the years around 1929-1938 we talk about)

Well, the answer to that is pretty straight forward. Even Blavatsky 
said something to the effect of: even for the advanced seer it is 
difficult to judge the level of a vision. The people around 
Leadbeater and Besant had started labeling themselves and each other 
to such an extent that it became quite a problem. There was gossip 
about things like: have you gotten the Arhat-initiation yet? The kind 
of thing that as Krishnamurti complained, is sacred. This sort of 
stuff should not be shouted about. In fact, you may know that the ES-
instructions include the prohibition to talk about the level you 
think you've attained. There is a prohibition to mention the favours 
the Mahatmas have given an individual. All this was installed 
precisely because of the psychological menaces involved: status being 
attached to these things. Pride becoming involved in these things 
(and pride is the worst sin, and the hardest to get rid of, as I'm 
sure I'm not the only one to know). 

Though there are probably levels of insight - talking about them in 
the way that was done back then, is simply going to pull everyone 
down, instead of helping people up. 
> 3. On Krishnamurti then in his early days. Wasn't is so, that :
> "Another flaw in this pseudo Advaita
> which Krishnamurti is giving out, is that he addresses the 
personality, the
> physical-plane man, as if he were the Monad or at least the Ego. Of 
course
> the Monad, the divine Spark, is the Absolute Existence-Knowledge-
Bliss, and
> hence eternally free, but that doesn't mean that the personality 
down here,
> immersed in endless-seeming karmic difficulties, can share its
> consciousness, or even that of the Ego--the link between the 
personality and
> the Monad. Krishnamurti's Advaitism, which is not to be confounded 
with the
> recognized form of that noble philosophy, will, I fear, lead his 
followers
> nowhere except perhaps to hypocrisy and self-delusion." ???
> If not, why not ?
Golly. 
He talked about consciousness. He talked about the content of the 
brain. I haven't seen in Blavatsky's work one way of distinguishing 
between the higher and the lower self. So how do we know which of 
these Krishnamurti was talking about? I would like to see an actual 
Krishnamurti quote which shows him worshipping the lower self. He 
certainly didn't worship the mind. He repeatedly showed the 
limitations of thought. Which sort of makes him point to Buddhi, 
doesn't it? And this is precisely where my comparison to the one 
clear line in Blavatsky on this is valid:
"The mind is the slayer of the real". Krishnamurti's teachings were 
all about that one sentence. (though he developes it out into a whole 
way of looking that includes things about habits (also lower self) 
and such. ) Only those who don't understand Krishnamurti would say he 
talks about the lower self, I think. Still, if you can find me a 
quote that shows it, I may know a bit more where this is coming from. 
The text you quote, conveniently doesn't quote Krishnamurti at all. 
It is quite easy to say "so and so proposes this and that" when you 
aren't going to quote so and so to that effect. In short: the article 
you quote is mere gossip. Even if it is put in the mouths of Mahatmas.

> (Let us remember it is the years around 1929-1938 we talk about)
> 
> 
> 4. On Krishnamurti then in his early days. Wasn't is so, that :
> 
> "And while he has directed them to repudiate all Masters, he 
refuses to act
> as Guru to them himself. "...(The old gentleman was silent for a 
moment,
> then shook his head mournfully.)... -
That is true. He refuses to be a guru in the definition I gave in the 
beginning here. Which is consistent with what he taught. 
> "Children crying in the night of spiritual darkness, and no one to 
comfort
> them. ... He who could help, won't, and we who might help, can't, 
for Doubt
> has poisoned their belief in our very existence. No wonder Koot 
> Hoomi's face looks a little sad." ???

Now, a an actual mahatma being sad at not being acknowledged... 
Golly, how immature. The mahatmas were not too happy about being 
talked about, as that created a psychological fog, which prevented 
them from working effectively. The real mahatmas were quite glad to 
work in obscurity. So these are clearly fakes. 

> If not, why not ?

Psychological dependence. 

> The proper word to use in the last above quote would be "spiritual 
Teacher
> and friend" and
> not "Guru" because this word is misunderstood by many.
> (Let us remember it is the years around 1929-1938 we talk about)

Well, Krishnamurti acted as a friend and spiritual teacher to many. 
He just refused to give people psychological comfort (except 
sometimes in personal conversations)

> 5. On Krishnamurti then in his early days. Wasn't is so, that :
> 
> "Krishnamurti is endowed with Parsifal-like simplicity. Because he 
has
> reached a certain state of consciousness and evolution, in his 
modesty he
> fails to see that others have not reached it likewise. Therefore he
> prescribes for others what is only suitable for himself." ???
> If not, why not ?

Your question doesn't make sense to me. Nor does your repeated 
sentence: 
> (Let us remember it is the years around 1929-1938 we talk about)
make sense to me. 

> 
> 6. My view:
> The result was then, near the years 1929-1938, that a greater 
number of
> previuos theosophists was (publicly) given NO PATH, NO TEACHER to 
follow,
> and that the MASTERS was according to Krishnamurti as he said -
"to me this
> assumption is based upon an illusion" (Star Bulletin,september1931).

So it was - at that time. You really should study that period a bit. 
The image as given of the Masters by the people around leadbeater and 
besant (and they too, though the worst perversions were by others) 
was nothing like the one we can have now with all the Mahatma Letters 
available. 
The image was perverted. And as Krishamurti wasn't interested in 
helping people create more accurate thought forms (=illusions), he 
simply denied it, instead of going to the trouble of saying: this 
part is true, this part is nonesense, and you really should stress 
that more. 
> I would have been better if Krishnamurti then - at that time - 
would have
> taught the interested followers, so that they had benefitted from 
his
> teaching.

Sure - let us tell somebody else: you should have taught this, that 
and the other. If you can't trust a high initiate to make out for 
himself what other people need to learn, than what use is it for such 
an iniate to come among us. It takes a high initiate to teach 
something new. The new is usually not going to be comfortable. 
Krishnamurti's teachings weren't comfortable. 

> Some of us can easily benefit from his teaching. But others cannot.
> And a great number of his followers was prevented progressing.
So you think. 
> Krishnamurti dissolved to much - and created nothing for the future 
to those
> who needed it at that moment in time.

So you think. You weren't there. And psychological comfort isn't the 
same as spiritual truth. 

> He in fact damaged Theosophy because of that !

I don't agree. Truth can't be damaged. The effect of his teachings on 
the TS adyar has been to focuss it on finding wisdom, instead of 
focussing on phenomena like clairvoyance, etc. 

> Annie Besant and especially C. W. Leadbeater also created problems, 
but that
> is another issue...

It really isn't another issue. He was responding to the situation as 
it was at that time (as you keep reminding me). And the same 
authority bound attitude lived on (and to a large extent lives on) in 
the other theosophical organisations. Besant is in fact the one 
theosophical writer I find before Krishnamurti, who reitterates again 
and again: don't take my word for it, find out for yourself. I give 
merely my point of view. One doesn't find De Purucker for instance 
saying stuff like that. One does, funnily enough find Blavatsky 
saying stuff like that. Cynically I do wonder who was the truer 
student of Blavatsky. The one who took the same attitude as the 
teacher or the one who meticulously threaded out the details in her 
teachings? But this is obviously a digression. You were attacking 
Krishnamurti, I end up defending Besant. 

Katinka