Theos-Talk Archives (October 2003 Message tt00398)

Thanks for your thoughts Katinka.

Actually I have found most of Leadbeater's books quite useful. 
Blavatsky was no doubt a better 'channel' for the 'truth', but I 
prefer to judge each work on its own merits rather than by comparing 
it with some accepted 'Gospel'.

But this particular book does seem rather strange and like you say it 
probably lies somewhere between reality and fantasy. It is 
interesting gossip though.

The relationship between Rajagopal and Krishnamurthy was strange, 
reading his daughter Radha's book makes Krishnamurthy appear far more 
human than by just studying his writings.

Dave


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Katinka Hesselink" <mail@k...> 
wrote:
> 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?