Theos-Talk Archives (October 2003 Message tt00344)

Hi,

I suppose it won't hurt to comment seriously on this mail. It looks
indeed as though it was all 'in the family' which is one of the
conclusions they got from the book (so it says in the book, I read
fragments online). Of course, drawing a conclusion like that is
circular logic. I saw a follow b, so a always follows b. Still, since
nobody else reports seeing a follow b, we don't quite know what to
make of it. 

Wether the main thrust of the book is genuine clairvoyance or made up
(and my guess is the truth is somewhere in the middle with many
details being made up, but perhaps general aspects being more
reliable) the whole has the effect of turning its readers into snoops.
At least it had that effect on me, trying to look up B.P. Wadia (who
later joined the ULT) to see how he played a part in there. The same
effect was visible in the TS in those days. One can read about aspects
of that from the Krishnamurti-biographies. Almost any one of them. It
became standard-talk to gossip not just about what people did now and
what initiation they had just had, according to which dignitary, but
also to gossip on where one was in 'the lives'. This trivialised
theosophy to externals, instead of people dealing with internals.

Fortunately after Krishnamurti disbanded the Order of the Star things
started cooling down. The buble had been burst, as it were. 

Still, it is useful to try and find out which aspects of the work of
Besant, Leadbeater and their collegues was useful even in the light of
the 21st century. I suspect those aspects won't turn out to be nill.
Even in this book. Perhaps it is useful mainly as a contrast: that is
not the way we want to go. But even if that is the main worth of the
book, there are probably bits and pieces here and there that are
interesting. 

In the newest Krishnamurti biography I know of, the one by Jean
Overton Fuller, she doesn't only take into account the lives of those
she talks about, but also how they were talked about in 'the lives'.
Especially how Rajagopal gets described turns out to be quite
interesting and believable, IMO. Though apparently 'the lives'
describes his previous life as a Christian monk very positively, Jean
looks up the known history of the man (Saint Bernard de Clairvoux) and
he apparently helped the Christian Church become dogmatic: "The
received doctrine of the Holy Church had to be preserved intact,
inviolate, and no smallest part of it questioned or re-interpreted for
once questioning began, who knew where it would end". p. 66 of the
book Krishnamurti and the Wind, by Jean Overton Fuller. She puts his
doctrine into her own words. 

Looking at this karmically, Saint Bernard helped strengthen dogmatism,
having power and honour. In this life Rajagopal helped Krishnamurti
pull the rug under dogmatism, without any honour or power (though he
did seem to get money from somewhere). [this is my interpretation]

Katinka
--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "dngude" <dngude@y...> wrote:
> Has anyone read the book by Leadbeater on the past lives of 
> Krishnamurthy? 
> 
> It is available on the web at 
> http://www.geocities.com/livesofalcyone/ .
> 
> I have not read much beyond the introduction, but the information is 
> quite fascinating. For instance according to the book, in the first 
> life his parents were Morya and KH, in the second life his father was 
> the Manu, in the third life the parents were the Manu and Maitreya -
> and so on. In one of his lives the Mahachohan was his son. So it 
> looks like it was all basically in the family.
> 
> Anybody cares to comment?