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Re: Theos-World Inventing a brother Gerald and telling Jinarajadasa he was...

Apr 09, 2004 06:07 PM
by Ali Hassan


From: "kpauljohnson" <kpauljohnson@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Theos-World Inventing a brother Gerald and telling Jinarajadasa he was...
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2004 15:33:58 -0000

Dear Ali,

Pardon me for an explanation lacking in citations to the best
source, but I'm at work and don't have access to Tillett's book
I'm so ignorant of this history, I don't even know who Tillett is, or what authority his/her book has.

here. He tells the story but his conclusions about CWL's birth and
family are corroborated by Lilian Storey of the London TS HQ who is
a genealogical researcher. Leadbeater became infatuated with
Jinarajadasa in Sri Lanka and demanded to be allowed to take him
back to England with him as a companion when he returned to tutor
Sinnett's son. He told Jinarajadasa, and later Annie Besant, that
the boy was the reincarnation of his younger brother Gerald who had
died in an encounter with bandits in South America in 1862 when CWL
was 15. He also told the same story in print although I don't
recall the title in which it appeared. Problems with the story: CWL
had no brother Gerald, had never been to South America, and was only
8 in 1862. (He added 7 years to his age in order to be the same age
as Besant which supposedly indicated some occult kinship between
them and which he used to gain her confidence.) Here's a passage
from p. 444 of Meade's bio of HPB:

Leadbeater must have realized he had
captured Sinnett's interest because he felt
confident enough to demand a condition for his
return; he wanted to bring with him a fourteen-
year-old Cingalese boy, C. Jinarajadasa, whom he
described as his protege, but who, as he would
later confide to Annie, was actually his
reincarnated younger brother Gerald, who had been
murdered by bandits in South America in 1862. It
was rumored that Leadbeater practically kidnapped
the boy, whose father had pursued him to the
steamer, took him home at gun point, then relented
and allowed him to sail. Although Jinarajadasa
himself described the story as ridiculous and
implausible, the rumor persisted.

That pursuit at gunpoint, then relenting is a very odd thing, no?

Note that Krishnamurti denied an eyewitness account of his being
abused by CWL, when his father sued AB for custody.
Who was the eyewitness, and what was their credibility?

If you can
imagine the shame that contemporary victims of sexual abuse feel,
and then translate that into the context of society a century ago,
that gives some context in which to weigh the plausibility of such
I'm trying to get a balanced scenario, and some things just don't jibe. One of those things is Krishnamurti's own spiritual status. Now, given, he may not have been the awakened teacher when the alleged abuse went on, and it is possible that if it had occurred, he would have denied it as any teen would.

But at some point, someone would have bugged him about the alleged buggering, and he would have had to tell it frankly. Either that, or he was not awakened at all. Imo. There's no in-between. An awakened being has quite dealt with the calumnies that life handed out to them, and is as objective as if it were the 3rd person, or to compare apples and oranges: the split, multiple personalities that often arise out of early, repeated abuse in unstable egos- one that has arisen as a "protector personality" can be objective and honest as the day is long in admitting and describing abuse that happened to its younger, vulnerable 'associate' self.
That's a digression, but do you see what I'm getting at? K, at some point, if he'd been abused, would have had to face it down that any awakened Ego would- otherwise, any 'attainment' of his would have been extremely limited.

Another is what you characterize re: society of a century ago. I can well imagine the fear of J and K's father, being an Indian, at a Britisher taking an interest in his ( likely) handsome sons. Imagine this, if you will: English army officers and public school seniors had a tradition, mind you, of bully-boys.
And I'm sure, pardon the pun, there was plenty of cross-pollination of that vice into other male-dominated societal roles, Church and the Royal Navy coming to mind, among others.

Not to mention that Great Britain herself had had India figuratively and politically bent over a barrel for 3 centuries.
So, no wonder the father was jumpy. What astonishes me, then, is that the father relented and let the boy sail off with Leadbeater on a steamer?????
You see the inconsistency, I'm sure.

denials. While we cannot know at this late date what the nature of
CWL's relationship with Jinarajada actually was, we certainly know
that CWL invented a fictitious personal history and used lies to
gain trust and intimacy with a young teenager. Damning in itself
IMO.

Paul
That is damning, no doubt, no matter what CWL's motives. And when one assumes to such a weighty mantle as Leadbeater apparently did, each and every personal flaw will come to light.
I've seen similar downfalls in different walks of life- it's the stuff of Shakespeare in great souls, of yahoo list gossip in average folks.

Did Jinarajadasa claim to have been abused by CWL?

regards-

Ali

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