# Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

Richard’s Selected Correspondence ## On Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti RESPONDENT: Some thought, some self-interest, some memory, some recording, etc. are necessary for living in the modern world. Mr. Krishnamurti was clear on that. His message went far beyond all that. If ‘living the teachings’ is viewed as some idyllic oceanic blissful way of being, then perhaps it is time to re-examine the ‘what is’ of what he really said. Not in one quote, but the essence that emerges from looking at the whole of his work. RICHARD: The essence that emerges is the same essence that all the Saints and Sages have been saying for millennia: ‘I am everything and everything is Me’. How many quotes would satisfy? I have about 40,000 of his transcribed words on my hard disk. • [quote]: ‘We don’t seem to realise deeply that we are the world, not only at the obvious level, but also at the core of our being. I wonder if one realises, not as an idea, not as something of romantic appeal, but as an actual fact, that one is the world – inwardly – one is the world’. [end quote]. • [quote]: ‘And when we look at what is taking place in the world we begin to understand that there is no outer and inner process; there is only one unitary process, it is a whole, total movement, the inner movement expressing itself as the outer and the outer reacting again on the inner’. (J. Krishnamurti; ‘Freedom From The Known’, © 1969 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd). • [quote]: ‘You cannot see and listen to the outside without wandering on to the inside. Really the outside is the inside and the inside is the outside and it is difficult, almost impossible to separate them. You look at this magnificent tree and you wonder who is watching whom and presently there is no watcher at all. Everything is so intensively alive and there is only life and the watcher is as dead as the leaf. There is no dividing line between the tree, the birds and that man sitting in the shade and the earth that is so abundant’. (‘Krishnamurti’s Notebook’; by J Krishnamurti; ISBN 0-06064795-7; published by KFI 1984). • [quote] ‘I have never said there is no god, I have said there is only god as it is manifest within you. But I will not use the word ‘god’ ... I prefer to call it ‘life’. When you love life and put this love before everything else and measure everything with this love and don’t judge it with your fear, then this stagnation you call moral will vanish ... Don’t speculate who I am, you will never know it ... Do you think the truth has anything to do with what you think I were? You don’t care for the truth. You are only interested in that what contains the truth ... Drink the water when it is pure: I tell you, I have this pure water. I have this balsam, which purifies, which will heal wonderfully, and you ask me: Who are you? I am all things because I am life’. (page 262‘The Years Of Awakening’; © Mary Lutyens 1975; John Murray Publishers Ltd). • [quote] ‘Truth, the real God – the real God, not the God that man has made – does not want a mind that has been destroyed, petty, shallow, narrow, limited. It needs a healthy mind to appreciate it; it needs a rich mind – rich, not with knowledge but with innocence – a mind upon which there has never been a scratch of experience, a mind that is free from time. The gods that you have invented for your own comforts accept torture; they accept a mind that is being made dull. But the real thing does not want it; it wants a total, complete human being whose heart is full, rich, clear, capable of intense feeling, capable of seeing the beauty of a tree, the smile of a child, and the agony of a woman who has never had a full meal’. (May 1; ‘The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with J. Krishnamurti’; Published by HarperSanFrancisco. ©1999 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). I consider this to be startlingly clear. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti says: ‘I am life. Love life. Life is truth. Love truth. Truth is God. Love God. I am God’. RESPONDENT: While you reset the humour dial, the ‘claims’ dial could also do with a little going over. RICHARD: Are you of that school of thought that says ‘you can’t change human nature’? RESPONDENT: I really don’t know much about it – K sounds very sensible to me when he says ‘you’ can’t change even yourself, let alone ‘human nature’, whatever that is. RICHARD: The phrase ‘human nature’ is a well-established philosophical term that refers to the situation that all human beings find themselves in when they emerge here as babies. The term refers to the contrary and perverse nature of all peoples of all races and all cultures. There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in everyone ... all humans have a ‘dark side’ to their nature and a ‘light side’. The battle betwixt ‘Good and Evil’ has raged down through the centuries and it requires constant vigilance lest evil gets the upper hand. Morals and ethics seek to control the wayward self that lurks deep within the human breast ... and some semblance of what is called ‘peace’ prevails for the main. Where morality and ethicality fails to curb the ‘savage beast’, law and order is maintained ... at the point of a gun. Otherwise known as ‘the human condition’. As you find Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti to be ‘very sensible’ when he says ‘‘you’ can’t change even yourself, let alone ‘human nature’’ then it is no wonder that you consider that my ‘‘claims’ dial could also do with a little going over’. Hence also your need for me to ‘reset the humour dial’. And as you say ‘I really don’t know much about it’ I must ask: do you make a habit of telling other people what to do when you do not really know yourself or was it a special exception in my case? RESPONDENT No. 20: In that Krishnamurti was presenting not a philosophy but a commentary on living, notes that are helpful and insightful in terms of the way we live, looking at the way Krishnamurti lived is a valid and legitimate approach to understanding what he was saying. But this must be qualified. For this is valid so long as we also understand that there may be a difference between the man Krishnamurti and what was said, that is, the truth or falsity of what is said is independent of whether the man Krishnamurti lived it. RESPONDENT: For me it sure takes away from the validity of what he said if he didn’t live it. RICHARD: Indeed. What is the point of listening to ‘Teachings’ if they cannot be lived? Is it not a case of ‘listening’ and ‘listening’ ... and never being able to be living fully because the ‘Teachings’ get in the way of an actual freedom? Can the ‘Teachings’, in fact, be ever lived by anyone? If Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti cannot live the ‘Teachings’, then who can? Who on earth is living the ‘Teachings’? It is so great to be living in modern times with the technology of mass communication ... the printed word; the audio-taped word and the video-taped word. People have been getting away with dissimulation for centuries with the inaccuracies of the ‘sacred scriptures’ – being not verbatim transcripts – never being able to be questioned. I am so pleased to be born in this era where we can compare the experience of all peoples from all cultures and all philosophies and from all traditions ... and put the ‘seers’ under public scrutiny. After all, they profess to know the answer. As far as I am concerned it is a case of ‘put up or shut up’. RESPONDENT: In that Krishnamurti was presenting not a philosophy but a commentary on living, notes that are helpful and insightful in terms of the way we live, looking at the way Krishnamurti lived is a valid and legitimate approach to understanding what he was saying. But this must be qualified. For this is valid so long as we also understand that there may be a difference between the man Krishnamurti and what was said, that is, the truth or falsity of what is said is independent of whether the man Krishnamurti lived it. RESPONDENT No. 7: For me it sure takes away from the validity of what he said if he didn’t live it. RESPONDENT: That is because you cannot distinguish between pointing to something true and the person pointing to it. RICHARD: How does one know – as you presumably do because you make this statement – that something is true if no one on earth is living the ‘Teachings’ ... especially the one who is doing the pointing? Who on earth is living the ‘Teachings’? RESPONDENT: Actually it is not important at all how Krishnamurti lived, what is important is how you live. RICHARD: I beg to differ. If someone is going around the world professing to be bringing valuable ‘Teachings’ into the world – that he himself is not living – then why should one believe the ‘Teachings’ to be valuable? Where is the evidence that they are liveable? Who on earth is living the ‘Teachings’? * RESPONDENT: Even if Krishnamurti lived exactly the way you think he should live, that is in line with what you [No. 7] believe he said, YOU would still have to learn on your own. RICHARD: Speaking personally, I would credit No. 7 with enough intelligence to understand that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti would surely be living in line with what he himself said, rather than – as you so quaintly put it – what No. 7 ‘believes’ he said. How do you know what No. 7 believes ... as distinct from what No. 7 knows? As for ‘learning on your own’ ... who on earth is living the ‘Teachings’? RESPONDENT: That is why Krishnamurti asks over and over again, why are you concerned with the speaker, why are you looking at the speaker. RICHARD: My guess on why he asks that ‘over and over again’ would be to take attention away from the fact that the speaker is not living the ‘Teachings’ himself. Who on earth is living the ‘Teachings’? * RESPONDENT: Do you understand? There is a very important difference here in our relationship to what Krishnamurti was saying. RICHARD: Is the relationship not one of credulousness? Who on earth is living the ‘Teachings’? RESPONDENT: So long as the validity is based on how he lived, then what is important is Krishnamurti and not looking ourselves. RICHARD: Maybe I could rephrase that pithy aphorism: ‘He who does not live it should not speak it’. However that may be, the important question remains: Who on earth is living the ‘Teachings’? * RESPONDENT: So what is it in the quote that you find to be specious? RICHARD: The blanket dismissal of the validity of anybody’s experience other than Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s for starters (whereas, realistically, spiritual enlightenment has a global occurrence). RESPONDENT: But K also includes himself in his dismissal of authority. RICHARD: What he says and what he does are two different things ... if he had actually meant that then he would have retired from public speaking right after this very paragraph. Instead he travelled the world imploring people to ‘listen’ ... and he means ‘listen’ as in ‘drink the water’ (which ‘water’ he is the living embodiment of – the ‘supreme intelligence’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ or the ‘otherness’ – which is what the words point to) rather than the ordinary way of listening to words. Which ‘listening’ is otherwise known (in the world of Gurus and God-Men) as ‘satsang’. I have read that he said, just before his death, that when he died that ‘supreme intelligence’ would not manifest itself again for ‘many hundred years’. And he reportedly followed this ‘supreme intelligence’ statement with words to the effect ‘if people would live the teachings they would live it somewhat’ ... if that does not make him, not only ‘an authority’ but ‘the authority’ (and for many hundreds of years to come), I do not know what does. * RICHARD: Then he even paraphrases Mr. Lao Tzu (‘the man who says he knows, he does not know; the moment you say you know, you don’t know’) which, apart from being in direct contradiction to his own ‘Teachings’ (‘do not quote anybody – including the speaker’) implies acknowledgement of the authority of someone revered as having attained that which he is currently condemning (enlightenment). RESPONDENT: You are reaching now Richard. You may take K’s remark to be borrowed from Lao Tzu, but there is no necessity in this. As you would probably admit, the same or a similar discovery can be made by many different people. RICHARD: Where am I ‘reaching’? Speaking personally, people can quote another to their heart’s content (it gives me the opportunity to question their borrowed wisdom) ... it was Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti who made a big thing out of not doing this. Yet here he is doing this very thing. Now what I have found is that it is all too easy to stop one’s investigation dead in its tracks by finding endorsement of one’s own experience in the words of another who is acknowledged to be speaking from experience ... but does this corroboration necessarily make the joint discovery valid? As far as I am concerned, Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti made an excellent contribution to the advancement of human knowledge with his ‘question everything – even the speaker’ advice ... yet to my recollection he never questioned this ‘the man who says he knows, he does not know; the moment you say you know, you don’t know’ ... um ... truism that has its antecedents in Taoism. Why? Is it not because his experience showed him that when what he called the ‘new’ (or ‘otherness’ or ‘that which is scared, holy’ and so on) appeared, thought played no part ... and in fact made the ‘new’ old when thought touched it? Viz.: • ‘Meditation is a movement in and of the unknown ... it is that energy that thought-matter cannot touch. Thought is perversion for it is the product of yesterday ... Everything put together by thought is within the area of noise, and thought can in no way make itself still ... thought itself must be still for silence to be. Silence is always now as thought is not. Thought, always being old, cannot possibly enter into that silence which is always new. The new becomes the old when thought touches it ... Love can only be when thought is still. This stillness can in no way be manufactured by thought ... this stillness can never be touched by thought. Thought is always old, but love is not ... the flowering of goodness is not in the soil of thought’. ‘Meeting Life’ (Bulletin 4, 1969) © 1991 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd; Published by HarperSanFrancisco. There are literally hundreds of examples like this among the millions of words – it is a common theme – thus when someone says that ‘they know’ they cannot possibly be knowing the ‘otherness’ because it takes thought to know something ... and when thought is operating that ‘otherness’ is not. * RICHARD: He lays that adage down as an edict (as if it were carved-in-stone-ancient-wisdom) instead of examining it for veracity (and it has no veracity upon examination). RESPONDENT: What I understand from the quote is that there is no reason to accept anything as carved in stone, as edict, we need to examine every comment for its veracity. Which is what I take you to be saying as well. RICHARD: Aye, that is what I am doing ... but Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti does not ‘examine every comment for its veracity’ in this paragraph because he blatantly fudges the point by failing to distinguish between enlightenment itself (‘I say such a thing [God or truth] does exist, I have realised it’) and an enlightenment episode (‘some experience which you have had, some kind of vision, some kind of enlightenment’). Thus what he presents are not relevant reasons to ‘reject authority ... on inward matters’ at all. An example of a relevant reason would be a demonstrable incompetence on the part of the author ... as in an inability to ‘practice what one preaches’. * RESPONDENT: I also recall that we differed on our interpretations of K. You presented a few texts in support of our interpretation, which I felt were not representative of what I took to be K’s mature period. And this you rejected. So we did somewhat get into interpreting K after all. Does this correspond with what you recall? RICHARD: No ... the quote you posted sans commentary was about authority. When you finally did delineate what you considered Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘mature period’ I provided a quote from that era wherein he clearly states what the only authority is (the ‘supreme intelligence’) which you attempted to explain away. This was that quote.: • [quote]: ‘Is the observer different at all? Or is he essentially the same as the observed? If he is the same, then there is no conflict, is there? Then intelligence operates and not conflict. ... Only when intelligence operates will there be peace, the intelligence that comes when one understands there is no division between the observer and the observed. The insight into that very fact, that very truth, brings this intelligence. This is a very serious thing ... there is no outside authority, nor inward authority. The only authority then is intelligence’. [endquote]. (‘Total Freedom’ (p-262) from talks in Saanen 1974. © 1996 Krishnamurti Foundation of America and Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd.; All rights reserved; Published by HarperSanFrancisco). When you read that last, short sentence (‘the only authority then is intelligence’) is he clearly designating ‘intelligence’ (otherwise known as ‘god’ or ‘truth’ or ‘otherness’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ and so on) as being ‘the only authority’ or not? Viz.: • [quote]: ‘For seventy years that super-energy – no – that immense energy; immense intelligence, has been using this body. I don’t think people realise what tremendous energy and intelligence went through this body. ... You won’t find another body like this, or that supreme intelligence, operating in a body for many hundred years. You won’t see it again. When he goes, it goes. ... There is no consciousness left behind of that consciousness, of that state. ... And so that’s that’. (‘Two Birds On One Tree’; © Ravi Ravindra; 1995; (pp 45-46). Published by Quest Books). After attempting to explain it away you wrote: • [Respondent]: ‘This interpretation probably sounds to you quite arbitrary. It is the outcome of what I once observed takes place in many K passages of this mature period. But in order to show you that with any cogency, I would need to bring many relevant quotes, and that expenditure of time and energy is beyond what I can offer. Perhaps others can provide such examples’ . As nobody did ‘provide such examples’, and as I am not going to do your bidding in this thread either by providing what I have already detailed in the in-depth and detailed exchange, then once again nothing gets to be really examined. Incidentally ... this current thread is the first time since that quote that you and I have discussed anything. * RICHARD: Recently there has been some critique of what I considerately and purposefully called ‘actualism’ after finding the word in the dictionary when I went public in 1997 – I welcome all critiques as these matters warrant being discussed thoroughly – and an enduring aspect of the critique is that I propose, not only a method, based on the authority of experience, but a path ... and a wide and wondrous path into the bargain. As methods, authority, experience and paths are anathema to the stanch ‘K-Reader’ I am therefore vitally interested in exploring the validity of this critique ... especially as methods, authority, experience and paths are rife throughout most, if not all, of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘Teachings’. RESPONDENT: You have concluded this, because you misinterpret the passages. RICHARD: Do you realise that the validity of your conclusion that I ‘have concluded this’ because I ‘misinterpret the passages’ has to be based upon you having not misinterpreted the passages? Which means that you are saying that you interpret correctly and Richard interprets incorrectly? RESPONDENT: Yes, I do realize this. I do not feel there is only one valid interpretation, but I do feel that there are invalid ones. RICHARD: Okay ... that explains a lot. When I read the ‘passages’ (further below for example) the fact speaks for itself and obviates having to interpret in the first place ... let alone having to ‘feel’ which interpretations are valid and ‘feel’ which interpretations are invalid. RESPONDENT: K explicitly and repeatedly writes about the problem with paths, methods, authority, experience, etc. RICHARD: As I said, I am well aware that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti taught that there is no path to truth (for that is what ‘truth is a pathless land’ means); I am equally aware that he taught that there was no method to practice (for that is what ‘truth is a pathless land’ means); I am also aware that he taught that there was no authority to mediate between the truth-seeker and the truth (for that is what ‘truth is a pathless land’ means); as well as that I am aware that he taught that experiences of truth were not truth (for that is what ‘truth is a pathless land’ means). RESPONDENT: So to say that his writings are ‘rife’ with them, is to say that you know what K meant better than what he himself says. RICHARD: I am not only aware that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti taught that there is no path to truth, no method to practice, no authority to mediate between the truth-seeker and the truth and that experiences of truth were not truth but I am also aware that methods, authority, experience and paths are rife throughout most, if not all, of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘Teachings’. Therefore I am aware that there is a vast difference between the ideal that the ‘Teachings’ taught and the reality that the ‘Teachings’ taught. I have said before, on this Mailing List, that what I appreciated about Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti when I first read him was his ‘doubt everything; question everything; even the speaker’ advice. Viz.: • [quote]: ‘There are two things involved: the speaker is either talking out of the silence of truth, or he is talking out of the noise of an illusion, which he considers to be the truth (...) let us go slowly, for this is interesting. Who is going to judge, who is going to see the truth of the matter? The listener? The reader? You who are familiar with the Indian scriptures, Buddhism, the Upanishads, and know most of the contents of all that, are you capable of judging? (...) How will you find out? How will you approach the problem? (...) What is the criterion, the measure that you apply so that you can say ‘Yes that’s it’? (...) I’ll tell you what I would do. I would put aside his personality, his influence, all that, completely aside. Because I don’t want to be influenced; I am sceptical, doubtful, so I am very careful. I listen to him, and I don’t say ‘I know’ or ‘I don’t know’, but I am sceptical. I want to find out (...) I am sceptical in the sense that I don’t accept everything that is being said (...) I would rather use the word ‘doubt’, in the sense of ‘questioning’ ... I would put everything else aside, all the personal reputation, the charm, looks. I am not going to accept or reject, I am going to listen to find out. (‘The Wholeness Of Life’; March 22 1977; Ojai, California. © 1979 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd.). Might I ask whether you ‘doubt everything; question everything; even the speaker’? RESPONDENT: Or that you feel that K was not aware that what he did, was contrary to what he taught, which would render his life’s work, nonsense. RICHARD: It is not a matter of what I ‘feel’. * RESPONDENT: K clearly taught that there is no method or path or authority. RICHARD: I am well aware that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti taught that there is no path to truth (for that is what ‘truth is a pathless land’ means); I am equally aware that he taught that there was no method to practice (for that is what ‘truth is a pathless land’ means); I am also aware that he taught that there was no authority to mediate between the truth-seeker and the truth (for that is what ‘truth is a pathless land’ means); as well as that I am aware that he taught that experiences of truth were not truth (for that is what ‘truth is a pathless land’ means). Yet, as methods, authority, experience and paths are rife throughout most, if not all, of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘Teachings’ then there is a vast difference between the ideal that the ‘Teachings’ taught and the reality that the ‘Teachings’ taught. RESPONDENT: So you are saying that your interpretation of K is correct, and K’s interpretation of his own life’s teaching is wrong. RICHARD: No. It is not a matter of any ‘interpretation’ (let alone being either ‘correct’ or ‘wrong’) ... the fact speaks for itself. * RESPONDENT: Understanding why K taught this, and why he rejected the role of World Teacher, is of value. RICHARD: It is indeed. Seeing that you interpret ‘the passages’ correctly – because it is your conclusion that Richard ‘misinterprets the passages’ – then I am sure that you will be only too happy to put your ‘understanding’ of ‘why K taught this’ into clear and unambiguous terms for my edification? Especially as it is ‘of value’ to understand ‘why he rejected the role of World Teacher’ in relation to the ‘truth is a pathless land’ teaching? If you cannot, or will not, do this then your conclusion that ‘[I] have concluded this because [I] misinterpret the passages’ has no validity whatsoever ... and amounts to grandstanding instead of an honest, frank and sincere discussion between two fellow human beings vis-à-vis the global suffering engendered by the human condition. * RESPONDENT: The man who wants to learn has a very different attitude. RICHARD: What kind of ‘very different attitude’? Pretending that I do not already know, perchance? Shall we look at a quote you recently provided? Viz.: • [quote]: ‘If there is order in one’s life, real order, then what is meditation? Is it following certain systems, methods: the Zen method, the Buddhist meditation, the Hindu meditation, and the methods of the latest gurus? If meditation is determined, if it is following a system, a method, practiced day after day, what happens to the human brain? It becomes more and more dull. Is meditation something entirely different? It has nothing whatever to do with method, system, practices; therefore, it can never be mechanical. It can never be conscious meditation. It is like a man consciously wanting money and pursuing money: consciously you meditate, wanting to achieve peace, silence. The man who pursues money, success, power, and the man who pursues so-called spirituality are both the same. Is there a meditation which is not determined, practiced? There is, but that requires enormous attention. That attention is a flame and that attention is not something that you come to; it is attention now to everything, every word, every gesture, every thought; it is to pay complete attention, not partial. If you are listening partially now, you are not giving complete attention. When you are completely attentive there is no self, there is no limitation’. (pp. 359-360, Total Freedom, Copyright KFT; Washington, D.C., 21 April 1985). Do you see the question ‘is there a meditation which is not determined, practiced’? Do you see the two words which immediately follow it (‘there is’ )? Is this not Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti clearly and unambiguously saying that he already knows the answer to the ‘question’ he poses to the listeners under the guise of walking together, investigating together, looking together? After all, he does start these ‘Washington, D.C., April 1985’ talks with: • [quote]: ‘We are going to talk together (...) We are going to, if you will kindly, talk over together our problems as two friends. Though we don’t know each other, we are going to talk, discuss, have a conversation (...) We are going to take a very long, complex journey together, and it is your responsibility, as well as that of the speaker, that we walk together, investigate together, look together ...’. He then concludes (in the paragraph you quoted) that ‘when you are completely attentive there is no self’ ... is this the kind of ‘very different attitude’ you are talking about? Because in the paragraph following that which you quoted he goes even further: • [quote]: ‘Freedom, complete freedom, is to have limitless space. (...) When there is that space and emptiness and, therefore, immense energy – energy is passion, love and compassion and intelligence – then there is that truth which is most holy, most sacred, that which man has sought from time immemorial’. (page 360, ‘Total Freedom’, Copyright KFT; Washington, D.C., 21 April 1985). Again: is this the kind of ‘very different attitude’ you are talking about? RESPONDENT: The answer depends on what K meant by ‘that truth which is most holy, most sacred, that which man has sought from time immemorial’. If he meant by this the same thing as that complete freedom, space, immense energy, then this again is simply the energy of attention, the energy of learning. The answer is ‘openness’, and that is a very different attitude indeed. RICHARD: Again: discussing what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti specifically meant by ‘that truth which is most holy, most sacred, that which man has sought from time immemorial’ is not going to clarify the issue because you will go on telling me, whatever I say, that it is my interpretation. Can we keep this simple? Where is his ‘very different attitude’ that you set as a criterion for these discussions? Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘You already arrive with no willingness to learn though you put forward a challenge it is simply ego. The man who wants to learn has a very different attitude. In that you know the path already, and that knowledge is unshakeable, where lies the challenge?’. I have posted this quote to you before: • ‘You asked a question: Has there been a fundamental change in K from the 1930’s, 1940’s? I say, no. There has been considerable change in expression’. (‘Krishnamurti – A Biography’; ©1986 Pupul Jayakar. Published by Harper & Row, San Francisco). Where is the evidence, then, of his ‘willingness to learn’ that you set as a criterion for these discussions? Incidentally, if your ‘paths=ways of expressing truth’ observation was valid then what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti is saying here is this: • [Respondent No. 20’s Translation]: Has there been a fundamental change in K from the 1930s, 1940s? I say, no. There has been considerable change in paths to truth RICHARD: He travelled the world imploring people to ‘listen’ ... and he means ‘listen’ as in ‘drink the water’ (which ‘water’ he is the living embodiment of – the ‘supreme intelligence’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ or the ‘otherness’ – which is what the words point to) rather than the ordinary way of listening to words. Which ‘listening’ is otherwise known (in the world of Gurus and God-Men) as ‘satsang’. RESPONDENT No. 31: That listening is of a different order than ‘satsang’. Satsang has got in it the inherent motive: the company of good people ... RICHARD: I only have one language (and rely upon translations via dictionaries and scholarly debate for my understanding of other languages) so by all means correct me if I have misunderstood a word’s cultural or contextual meaning. Until then, I meant the word ‘satsang’ in its ‘in the company of truth’ meaning (which usually implies a living master) rather than ‘the company of good people’ meaning which, when there is no ‘living master’, is also known as ‘sangama’ (‘association’ or ‘fellowship’) ... but of course it can be taken either way (the word ‘satsang’ is derived from ‘satsanhga’ or ‘satsanga’ which is a combination of two Sanskrit words, ‘satya’ which means ‘truth’ and ‘sangha’ which means ‘spiritual community’). Which is why I said that ‘listening’ is otherwise known (in the world of Gurus and God-Men) as ‘satsang’. RESPONDENT No. 31: ... to attain God-consciousness in the midst of ‘holy’ men. RICHARD: Aye ... that is the way I meant it too. Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti is a ‘holy man’ who urged those in his company to attain ‘God-consciousness’. Viz.: • ‘I ask you, what is God? ... God is something unnameable, unknowable, unthinkable by a conditioned mind; it is something which is totally unknown, but your mind answers according to your conditioning. ... Please think about it with me and do not just deny or accept. There is an art in listening and it is very difficult to listen to something with which you are not familiar. Your mind is always translating, correlating, referring what is said to what you already know – to what Shankara, Buddha or someone else has said, and in that process there is no attention. You are already away, off in thought, and if you approve or disapprove you have already ceased to listen. But if you can listen with that attention which is not translating what is being heard, which does not compare, which is really giving the whole of its being to what is being said, in that attention there is listening. I do not know if you have ever tried to listen to somebody with your total being. So if I may, I most respectfully suggest that you listen to see the truth of what is being said. ... That requires a great deal of attention, a great alertness of mind, and you cannot understand it or allow it to come to you if you merely quote authorities, merely speculate as to whether there is or is not God. You must as an individual experience it, or rather, allow that thing to come to you. You cannot possibly go to it. Please let us be clear on this point, that you cannot by any process, through any discipline, through any form of meditation, go to truth, God, or whatever name you like to give it. It is much too vast, it cannot possibly be conceived of; no description will cover it, no book can hold it nor any word contain it. So you cannot by any devious method, by any sacrifice, any discipline or through any guru go to it. You must await, it will come to you, you cannot go to it. ... All knowledge is within the field of the known and from that centre you try to move into the Unknown. You cannot. You cannot invite the Unknown, the Immeasurable, that which is Inconceivable, into the known. That is why the mind must free itself from the known ... It is there, if you are interested, if you have eyes to see, if you say, ‘I must find out’. Then you will see that such a mind is the Unknown. All this I have been talking about is not a theory, it is not something for you to learn and repeat. It is something for you to go into’. 6 Public Talks at Poona; 7th September 1958 – September 24, 1958; © 1996 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). Which is why I said that ‘listening’ is otherwise known (in the world of Gurus and God-Men) as ‘satsang’. RESPONDENT No. 31: Listening has nothing to do with all this. Satsang is ‘exclusive’, listening is not. RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti expressly stated that the person listening to him was to exclude everything they had ever heard, read, experienced or otherwise learned in their life-time thus far ... or else they were not ‘listening’. I do not know about you, but that sounds absolutely ‘exclusive’ to me. In fact, according to him, the listener is not to compare, evaluate or judge in any way, shape or form. Viz.: • ‘The speaker is either talking out of the silence of truth or he is talking out of the noise of an illusion which he considers to be the truth ... which is it that he is doing? ... You hear him talking about these things and you wonder if he is really speaking out of that extraordinary silence of truth ... How will you find out? ... What is the criterion, the measure that you can apply so that you can say: ‘Yes, that is it’ ... I will tell you what I would do ... I am not going to accept or reject, I am listening to find out ... am I listening to him with all the knowledge I have gathered ... have I rejected it ... or am I listening to him with all that? If I have rejected all that then I am listening. Then I am listening very carefully to what he has to say. ... Am I listening to him with the knowledge of what I have acquired through books, through experience, and therefore I am comparing, judging, evaluating? Then I can’t possibly find out whether what he is saying is the truth. (‘The Wholeness Of Life’ (pp 221-223);© 1979 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd; Published by HarperSanFrancisco). I see that he is clearly and unambiguously ‘exclusive’ ... he effectively says that if one excludes all the knowledge one has gathered; what one has acquired through books, through experience then one is listening (whereas if one does not exclude all the knowledge one has gathered; the knowledge of what one has acquired through books, through experience, therefore because one is comparing, judging, evaluating then one can’t possibly find the truth). Which is why I said that ‘listening’ is otherwise known (in the world of Gurus and God-Men) as ‘satsang’. (Richard, List B, No. 31a, 27 October 1999). RESPONDENT: Agreed. RICHARD: Good. When one’s plan is to be the divine (‘being’ instead of ‘becoming’) the method one uses to be ‘That’ is vital. As the divine cannot be when the thinker is ... then it behoves one to listen to the living master in a state of ‘not knowing’ (and it is really not different when the master has quit the body because one then reads the master’s words with the same identical ignorance). * RESPONDENT: Look at the above statement. It is merely an expression of opinion, criticism of what differs from your ideas and experience. That is what fills most of your lengthy posts. There is no openness to connect or commune but rather eagerness to debate and compete. And that is the very movement that is a block to hearing and feeling what is behind another’s words. RICHARD: I must acknowledge being somewhat bemused at your response ... I am, indeed ‘looking at the above statement’ and for the life of me I cannot see where it is ‘merely an expression of opinion, criticism of what differs from my ideas and experience’ at all. Where am I showing ‘eagerness to debate and compete’ in that statement you ask me to ‘look at above’? I am endorsing the most effective method to bring about the state of being enlightened (‘being’ instead of ‘becoming’) which is to be in the presence of a living master (being ‘in the company of the truth’) which is what ‘satsang’ is all about. I then detail how vital it is to listen to the living master in a thoughtless state ... because that which is sacred, holy, cannot be when the thinker is. I even went on to stress how important it is to read the words of the dead master with the same total lack of knowledge. And even when I look back at all I wrote before in response to another correspondent (to which you wrote ‘agreed’ ), I do not see a single trace of an ‘eagerness to debate and compete’ whatsoever (I have not snipped any of it so that you can check for yourself). Incidentally, I do not have to ‘hear and feel’ what is behind another’s words ... they are blatantly open to view. RICHARD: If I may point out? That is not ‘listening’ ... that is misunderstanding a very clear exposition by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti on how to listen to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. He explains this many, many times throughout the millions of words. Viz.: • [quote]: ‘God is something unnameable, unknowable, unthinkable by a conditioned mind; it is something which is totally unknown. ... Please think about it with me and do not just deny or accept. There is an art in listening and it is very difficult to listen to something with which you are not familiar. ... If you approve or disapprove you have already ceased to listen. But if you can listen with that attention which is not translating what is being heard, which does not compare, which is really giving the whole of its being to what is being said, in that attention there is listening. ... So if I may, I most respectfully suggest that you listen to see the truth of what is being said. ... you cannot understand it or allow it to come to you if you merely speculate as to whether there is or is not God. You must as an individual experience it, or rather, allow that thing to come to you. You cannot possibly go to it. ... All this I have been talking about is not a theory, it is not something for you to learn and repeat. It is something for you to go into’. [endquote]. (www.kfa.org/poona58.html; 6 Public Talks at Poona; 7 September 1958 – September 24, 1958; ©1996 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). Which is why I said that ‘listening’ is otherwise known (in the world of Gurus and God-Men) as ‘satsang’. RESPONDENT: I will try to keep it simple. Listening, as I understand it to mean is something similar to an intuitive grasping of truth of what is being said. For example, if I hear someone say: ‘ego causes trouble’ and I understand the truth of that statement, I have listened to the person. No Guru or God-man is needed; I can listen to anyone and learn. RICHARD: Of course you can ‘listen to anyone and learn’ – everyone I meet knows things that I do not know – but that ordinary way of listening to an ordinary person not what is being discussed. What is being discussed is ‘listening’ as described by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti in reference to listening to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. Viz.: • [No. 20]: ‘So what is it in the quote that you find to be specious?’ • [Richard]: ‘The blanket dismissal of the validity of anybody’s experience other than Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s for starters (whereas, realistically, spiritual enlightenment has a global occurrence)’. • [No. 20]: ‘But K also includes himself in his dismissal of authority’. • [Richard]: ‘What he says and what he does are two different things ... if he had actually meant that then he would have retired from public speaking right after this very paragraph. Instead he travelled the world imploring people to ‘listen’ ... and he means ‘listen’ as in ‘drink the water’ (which ‘water’ he is the living embodiment of – the ‘supreme intelligence’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ or the ‘otherness’ – which is what the words point to) rather than the ordinary way of listening to words. Which ‘listening’ is otherwise known (in the world of Gurus and God-Men) as ‘satsang’. (Richard, List B, No. 20c, 25 October 1999) You have indicated before that you certainly thought that by being in his presence something could happen (as compared with being in anybody else’s presence) thus he certainly set up that expectation for you ... as well as many, many other people. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘I want to experience that state that K describes. At Rishi Valley I used to think that there will be a transformation in me and all my worries will be over. I thought K’s presence will do something to me, or shaking his hand. Even now I think that if I observe the workings of my mind sufficiently, I will be transformed and live in eternal bliss and youth’. Presumably ‘shaking his hand’ did not do the trick but, then again, he never advocated that method ... he said to ‘listen’ to him. RESPONDENT: Are the normal cognitive faculties of the brain active in listening? I don’t know and it doesn’t matter either (at least to me). For me listening is synonymous with learning. I really don’t care which faculties of my brain get involved. This is how I learn everything. RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti also lays special emphasis upon the word ‘learn’ and talks of a ‘learning’ that differs from the normal way of learning (which is the accumulation of knowledge over time) and this ‘learning’ occurs when ‘I’ am not. RESPONDENT: I see some similarities between what the gestaltists call the ‘aha’ experience and Krishnamurti’s ‘learning’. Somewhere in the learning process there is a click and an ‘aha!’. RICHARD: The ‘aha! experience’ is when one ‘gets’ something one has not properly understood before ... it is a ‘seeing’ of something important to understanding, somewhat akin to an insight. Once again, Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘learning’ is not this ‘gestalt learning’. RESPONDENT: From my personal experience, this is how learning occurs: 1. Interest in the matter that is being communicated is a pre-requisite; without interest, I doubt if there will be any learning. RICHARD: There is something much, much more involved than ‘interest in the matter’ ... it is an interest that is of a ‘life or death’ importance, to use that term, as in it is a once-in-a-lifetime type of ‘listening’. When one is ‘listening’ one only ‘listens’ that once ... then it is all over and the ‘learning’ that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti talks of comes into being. RESPONDENT: 2. The listener has to be active, i.e., the listener must pay attention to what is being said, be attentive to the words, the tones, the nuances, the subtleties in communication. RICHARD: No ... the ‘listener’ is in a state of suspension, dormancy, latency (otherwise it is not ‘listening’). RESPONDENT: 3. Listener can possibly not pay attention to what s/he is listening to if her mind is wandering and distracted. Hence a relaxed mental attitude, where one is free from anxieties and pressing immediate matters is necessary. RICHARD: As every single brain cell – and every single one of the trillions of synapses – are quivering and shivering and shaking themselves loose with the alert vitality of the import of this once-in-a-lifetime ‘listening’ I would be hard-pressed to describe it as ‘a relaxed mental attitude’. RESPONDENT: 4. Most importantly, the listener needs to see that s/he is listening to the /other/ and not to his own mentation. For example, while reading your posts, I try to find out what you are saying, and not what I think about what you say. That thinking/ judging etc. needs to be suspended, at least for a while. RICHARD: Ahh ... when it comes to reading what I have to say I advocate making full use of one’s ability for remembrance, appraisal and decision (which is to compare, evaluate and judge) whilst being fully aware of the activity of cognitive dissonance. I do not request a suspension of disbelief ... I encourage anyone to examine the supporting evidence that is presented with the purport so as to determine whether what is being said is substantiated, thus making a critical examination of all the words I advance so as to ascertain if they be intrinsically self-explanatory ... and only when they are all seen to be inherently consistent with what is being spoken about do the facts speak for themselves. Then one will have reason to remember a pure conscious experience (PCE), which all peoples I have spoken to at length have had, and thus verify by direct experience the facticity of what is written because the PCE occurs globally ... across cultures and down through the ages irregardless of gender, race or age. However, it is usually interpreted according to cultural beliefs – created and reinforced by the persistence of identity – and devolves into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Then ‘I’ as ego – sublimated and transcended as ‘me’ as soul – manifest as a god or a goddess (that which is ‘timeless and spaceless and formless’) otherwise known as an embodiment of the ‘supreme intelligence’ ... and insist that you ‘listen’ to them in a thoughtless state with a total lack of knowledge. RESPONDENT: K once said: ‘If you label me; you negate me’ (substitute any noun for ‘me’). RICHARD: Hmm ... I did not realise how touchy he was. When I was but a lad in grade-school I quickly learnt the lesson of that doggerel ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me’. These days, nobody – nobody whatsoever – can negate me or diminish me in any way, shape or form. RESPONDENT: Are you trying to read with your intelligence awake, or are you only trying to be intelligent with your responses? RICHARD: No ... I am remarkably sincere. Nobody – nobody whatsoever – can negate me (substitute an actual freedom for <me>) or diminish me in any way, shape or form. This freedom is actual ... not a fantasy. RESPONDENT: K was not being touchy. RICHARD: Are you for real? • [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘You and a friend are walking along the path (...) And as you go along up the path you happen to pick up something ravishingly beautiful, sparkling, a jewel of extraordinary antiquity and beauty. You are so astonished to find it (...) You look at it with great astonishment (...) You hold it for some time, amazed and silent. Then you put it very carefully in your inside pocket, button it, and are almost frightened that you might lose it or that it might lose its sparkling, shining beauty. And you put your hand outside the pocket that holds it. The other sees you doing this and sees that your face and your eyes have undergone a remarkable change. There is a kind of ecstasy, a speechless wonder, a breathless excitement. When the man asks: ‘What is it that you have found and are so extraordinarily elated by?’ you reply in a very soft, gentle voice (it seems so strange to you to hear your own voice) that you picked up truth. You don’t want to talk about it, your are rather shy; the very talking might destroy it. And the man who is walking beside you is slightly annoyed that you are not communicating with him freely, and he says that if you have found the truth, then let’s do down into the valley and organise it so that others will understand it, so that others will grasp it and perhaps it will help them. You don’t reply, you are sorry that you ever told him about it’. (From ‘Krishnamurti to Himself’, pp. 85. Saturday, April 23, 1983). Speaking personally, I have found: • [Richard]: ‘There is something precious in living itself. Something beyond compare. Something more valuable than any ‘King’s Ransom’. It is not rare gemstones; it is not singular works of art; it is not the much-prized bags of money; it is not the treasured loving relationships; it is not the highly esteemed blissful and rapturous ‘States Of Being’ ... it is not any of these things usually considered precious. There is something ultimately precious that makes the ‘sacred’ a mere bauble. It is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe – which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent – as a physical actuality. The limpid and lucid purity and perfection of actually being here in infinite space and being here now at this moment in eternal time is akin to the crystalline perfection and purity seen in a dew-drop hanging from the tip of a leaf in the early-morning sunshine; the sunrise strikes the transparent bead of moisture with its warming rays, highlighting the flawless correctness of the tear-drop shape with its bellied form. One is left almost breathless with wonder at the immaculate simplicity so exemplified ... and everyone I have spoken with at length has experienced this impeccable integrity and excellence in some way or another at varying stages in their life. This preciosity is me as-I-am – me as I actually am as distinct from ‘me’ as ‘I’ really am – for I am the universe’s experience of itself. Is it not impossible to conceive – and just too difficult to imagine – that this is one’s essential character? One has to be daring enough to live it – for it is both one’s audacious birth-right and adventurous destiny – thus the PCE is but the harbinger of the potential made actual’. Richard’s Journal © 1997 p159 I call this an actual freedom and yes, I was ‘astonished to find it’ but I am exceedingly happy to talk about it because the very talking cannot destroy an actual freedom. I communicate it very freely, to whomsoever is vitally interested in peace-on-earth in this life-time, and have no qualms whatsoever about it being organised. I have labelled it ‘actual freedom’ myself; I personally chose the labels ‘actualism’ and ‘actualist’ out of the dictionary as being the most apt words to describe what I experience twenty four hours a day and it is of no consequence whatsoever what other peoples label it as. Nobody – nobody whatsoever – can negate me and/or an actual freedom or diminish me and/or an actual freedom in any way, shape or form. This freedom is actual ... not a fantasy. And I will never be sorry that I ever told anyone about it. RESPONDENT: He was using ‘me’ as a universal example to show that labelling things can give the impression of wisdom if one is not aware of the superficial nature of the wisdom so held. RICHARD: You do seem to be missing the point that a touchy wisdom is a superficial wisdom. RICHARD: Yet enlightened people have had something happen that sets them apart from the normal person ... and they say it is an ego-death. Why do you read Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti? Certainly not because he was your Mr. Normal now is it? It is because he was an enlightened man. He underwent an ego-death in 1922 ... all enlightened people can point to a single edifying moment – a date – when their ego died. Why is there all this quibbling about it? Until this fact is understood, then there is no purpose served in proceeding any further with a discussion. RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti must have had a deep experience in 1922 and maybe for years he clung to and related that experience to others, but by 1927/28 he relates in his speech rejecting the role others had designed for him, that his decision was the result of many years consideration, not some flash in the pan experience. RICHARD: Because you objected to my repetitious words I stopped bothering you some months ago ... especially when you had closed the door on the possibility of perfection and peace-on-earth by writing to me that: [Respondent]: ‘Enlightenment can only be from moment to moment. Which does not imply that because one moment was clear, that the next moment will be clear’. You have endeavoured to get a response from me since then on a few occasions ... and now you try again. Do you genuinely want to find out for yourself just what is going on? Or is this just another attempt to push the line that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was but a normal man who had some outstanding insights into living? Because with only a little more than a cursory glance at that 1929 speech – which you kindly sent to me – the following sentences catch the discerning eye. Viz.: • ‘I am free, unconditioned, whole – not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal’. • ‘Why have false, hypocritical people following me, the embodiment of Truth?’ • ‘My purpose is to make men unconditionally free, for I maintain that the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self which is eternal. • ‘Those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end (...) will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose’. • ‘Truth is in everyone; it is not far, it is not near; it is eternally there’. • ‘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’. • ‘Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it’. • ‘You must climb towards the Truth, it cannot be ‘stepped down’ or organised for you’. • ‘I say that you must (...) look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self’. ‘For the weak people, there can be no organisation to help them to find the Truth’. The most outstanding statement is this one: • ‘Because I am ... the Truth that is eternal ... why have false, hypocritical people following me, the embodiment of Truth? That is quite clear and unambiguous: ‘I am the Truth’ ... with a capital ‘T’ to designate divinity. And just in case it is not clear there is the follow-up statement: ‘me, the embodiment of Truth’ ... which easily translates in Western terminology as: ‘I am God made flesh’. And to forestall any attempt to lump 1928 into the ‘immature’ Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti basket ... may I introduce a quote from the ‘mature’ Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. Viz.: • ‘Meditation is ... emptying the mind of everything known. Without this, you cannot know the unknown. Truth or God ... must be something new ... God or Truth [is not] the result of propaganda ... that is not the truth. Truth is something living every day. Therefore the mind must be emptied to look at the Truth ... [then you may understand] what Truth is, or God, or whatever name you like to give to it’. (‘Meeting Life’ Copyright © 1991 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd. Extract from: Bulletin 9, 1970-71). Therefore the ‘Truth or God’ amounts to nothing more than narcissistic self-aggrandisement. The ‘self’ that causes all the atrocious animosity and anguish in this otherwise delightful world transmogrifies itself into a grand ‘Self’ (by whatever name) ... and otherwise intelligent people speak in hushed tones about it! It is generally capitalised, you will notice, and some people go to great lengths to deny that Mr Jiddu Krishnamurti and his ilk – enlightened masters – have surrendered their will to this spurious divinity. The trouble with people who discard the god of Christianity is that they do not realise that by turning to the Eastern spirituality they have effectively jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Eastern spirituality is religion ... merely in a different form to what people in the West have been raised to believe in. Eastern philosophy sounds so convincing to the Western mind that is desperately looking for answers. The Christian conditioning actually sets up the situation for a thinking person to be susceptible to the esoteric doctrines of the East. It is sobering to realise that the intelligentsia of the West are eagerly following the East down the slippery slope of striving to attain to a self-seeking Divine Immortality ... to the detriment of peace-on-earth. ‘The Truth’ for example, is simply the Eastern term for ‘God’ (‘Brahman’ or ‘Buddha’); thus any ‘comments on life’ designated [quote] ‘Teachings’ [end quote] translates easily as ‘God’s Word’ ... in Western terminology. At the end of the line there is always a god of some description, lurking in disguise, wreaking its havoc with its ‘Teachings’. Have you ever been to India to see for yourself the results of what they claim are tens of thousands of years of devotional spiritual living? I have, and it is hideous. If it were not for the appalling suffering engendered it would all be highly amusing. RESPONDENT: Others continued to give great importance to that 1922 experience, but the following answer to a question asked in 1945 states his thoughts on such remembered experiences: • [Q]: I have had what might be called a spiritual experience, a guidance, or a certain realisation. How am I to deal with it? • [K]: Most of us have had deep experiences, call them by what name you will; we have had experiences of great ecstasy, of great vision, of great love. The experience fills our being with its light, with its breath; but it is not abiding, it passes away, leaving its perfume. With most of us the mind-heart is not capable of being open to that ecstasy. RICHARD: When he says ‘most of us’ do you really think that he includes himself in that category? • [K]: The experience was accidental, uninvited, too great for the mind-heart. RICHARD: It is important to notice that his definitive experience in 1922 was most definitely invited ... and was not too great for his ‘mind/ heart’. • [K]: The experience is greater than the experiencer and so the experiencer sets about to reduce it to his own level, to his sphere of comprehension. RICHARD: Whereas Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did not ‘reduce it to his own level’ ... he kept it at the mountain-top where it belonged. • [K]: His mind is not still; it is active, noisy, rearranging; it must ‘deal’ with the experience; it must organise it; it must spread it; it must tell others of its beauty. So the mind reduces the inexpressible into a pattern of authority or a direction for conduct. It interprets and translates the experience and so enmeshes it in its own triviality. RICHARD: Now Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s description of his own mind does not fit this description at all ... does it? • [K]: Because the mind-heart does not know how to sing it pursues instead the singer. RICHARD: And do you really think that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did not ‘know how to sing it’ himself? • [K]: The maturity of mind-heart comes as it frees itself from its own limitations and not through clinging to the memory of a spiritual experience. RICHARD: And, of course Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti considered himself to be ‘mature’ ... did he not? • [K]: If it clings to memory it abides with death, not with life. Deep experience may open the door to understanding, to self-knowledge and right thinking, but with many it becomes only a stirring stimulation, a memory, and soon looses its vital significance, preventing further experience. RICHARD: Do you really think that he lumped himself in with those people he calls ‘with many’? • [K]: We translate all experience in terms of our own conditioning, the deeper it is the more alertly aware must we be not to misread it. Deep and spiritual experiences are rare and if we have such experiences we reduce them to the petty level of our own mind and heart. RICHARD: Now here is the cruncher that has led many a Krishnamurtiite astray: do you really think that when he says ‘we’ that he includes himself? If you do, then you are sucked in badly. Another one that draws in the undiscerning is this one: [quote]: ‘I hope you are not merely listening to the speaker; that has no value at all because the speaker is not teaching you a thing’. [end quote]. Yet he consistently referred to all his words as ‘Teachings’. As these words came from a source that he described as [quote]: ‘that which is sacred, holy’, [end quote] it is clear that he was bringing some god’s wisdom to earth. Does no one not think that a person bringing ‘Teachings’ is being somewhat disingenuous when they say that they are not ‘teaching you anything’? Over to you. RESPONDENT No. 42: In order to come into contact with nothingness wouldn’t you first have to become nothing? (Becoming not as a goal, but as necessity). RESPONDENT: Well, you already are nothing, you only think you are something. Just drop this whole idea – if you dare! RESPONDENT No. 42: After you, please. RESPONDENT: Dropping the idea of being something is a great bliss, and will dissolve this web of duality. So I was just asking: where are you waiting for ? And please, do not follow me, because I’m not on a path, I leave no trail ... RESPONDENT No. 42: That’s a good thing, otherwise you might be spotted by the enlightenment brigade which seeks to eliminate aware people from this list. RESPONDENT: That’s a good one, the enlightenment brigade ... I must have triggered you a lot, isn’t it? Is it because I’ve told you that you already are nothing? The last thing I would do is to attack someone: I would then attack myself equally. I am the angry in angry people, just as I am the love in loving people. So please let your brigade bring in their verdict of guilty, and eliminate me from this list for being aware, but please realize you eliminate also a part of yourself if you do so. Yes, I know I can be sharp – my archetype is the bald eagle. And we are the same – just like you I have to admit that I have certain expectations of this list (I joined the list only yesterday ...). About 25 years ago I met Krishnamurti a couple of times, and I was just curious what happened in the mean time ... RICHARD: You have caught my interest ... and the term ‘the enlightenment brigade’ is a misnomer because the appellation generally represents ‘the failure brigade’ (you will find that failure is highly revered on this Mailing List and success is dismissively belittled under some bizarre rationale that hails such disparagement of accomplishment as being the hallmark of humility). I find your words transparently revealing – as in attacking another is to attack oneself – inasmuch as you clearly say ‘I am the angry in angry people, just as I am the love in loving people’ . I read with equal interest where you wrote, in another thread (Message #00104 of Archive 00/12), ‘I am sinless, and the root of sin derives from me’ and ‘I am peace and war has come because of me’ ... which is also so totally unambiguous as to leave no room to quibble over what you mean. You have a way of explaining/ describing which is crystal clear to those who are listening ... in yet another thread (Message #00073 of Archive 00/12) you explained that this comes about ‘only when my mind gets tired of its own merry-go-round’. You say that only then is there ‘the possibility that I can enter the window, the vortex, my soul’ and, in combination with your ‘you already are nothing, you only think you are something’ sentence, this ‘vortex’ – your ‘soul’ – is already nothing. In other words, you are saying you do not have to become it, you already are it (aka ‘being’ rather than ‘becoming’). I appreciate you saying that, upon being this ‘vortex’ (your ‘soul’), it then appears ‘there has never been a question, or an answer – and what is left is just at-one-ment with the essence, pure and without words’ ... in other words, as ‘soul’ there is nothing that has to be done or achieved. I see that you expressly say that the mind ‘is nothing more then a movie, presented to me by my senses as something real and tangible. But there is no real thing out there – what evidence is there for something ‘real’, besides my reconstruction based on information coming from my senses ? Without an observer, there is no observed – aren’t we all co-creators in the process of observation?’. (Message #00073 of Archive 00/12). Yes, indeed ‘there is no real thing out there’ when it is seen that the observer is the observed: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti says, over and again, that when the observer is the observed there is only observation ... ‘there is only that’ (‘vortex’ or ‘soul’). Indeed you point this out in your first E-Mail: ‘I realized that there is no problem, only my way of dealing with it ... at the end, the mind slows down and eventually gives up, and at that point I realized that I am both the observer and the observed. I am the process, rather then the entity. I’m not the swimmer – I am the swimming, as well as the water I’m swimming in. I experienced that the restless susceptibility of my senses creates all questions and problems, and that there is no need to solve anything, which is a great bliss’. (Message #00024 of Archive 00/12). Once again you are saying, in other words, there is nothing that has to be done or achieved ... there is only ‘great bliss’. What particularly caught my attention (seeing that you also explained in the other thread (Message #00104 of Archive 00/12) ‘I am the substance and the one who has no substance, for I am the one who alone exists, and I have no one who will judge me’), is your comment further above about meeting Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti a couple of times 25 years ago. My question is whether you credit your current dissociated and solipsistic state of consciousness to having listened to him all those years ago? I also ask because this Mailing List is predicated upon ‘listening’ with the totality of your being ... and it would appear that you certainly have. If this is so, then what you have to say is of the utmost importance to this list. The utmost importance. * RESPONDENT: Richard, it warms my heart to read that I have touched upon another soul. I can unsubscribe now from the list with peace of mind. Be blessed. RICHARD: Oh? Leaving so soon? When you have so much to contribute? But, then again, maybe you have already said enough ... those who are listening with both ears will understand anyway without the need for yet more words. Also, you have satisfied my query, re listening to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti, in another post (‘Re: In The Meantime’; Mon 4/12/2000’) , wherein you report what it was you listened to with all of your being. Viz.: • [Respondent]: ‘Krishnamurti once told me: ‘Everything where you are looking for, is already at your doorstep – why don’t you see yourself as I see you?’. Yes, indeed it is a case of ‘see yourself as I see you’ ... Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti oft-times said he was a mirror in which you could see yourself. I do appreciate your input on this important subject. RESPONDENT: I guess I must separate the teaching from the teacher ... RICHARD: If I may interject? I do not either have a ‘teaching’ nor am I a ‘teacher’ ... what I do is offer a do-it-yourself method with a proven track-record, plus an unambiguous report of my experience, clear descriptions of life here in this actual world, lucid explanations of how and why, and clarifications of misunderstandings. For an example: I always make it clear that I am a fellow human being (albeit sans identity/ affections in toto) providing a report of what I have discovered and not some latter-day ‘teacher’ (aka sage or seer, god-man or guru, master or messiah, saviour or saint, and so on) with yet another bodiless ‘teaching’. What another does with the method, my report, my descriptions, my explanations, and my clarifications is their business, of course, yet it goes almost without saying, surely, that if what is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site is indeed read as being yet another unliveable ‘teaching’ from yet another bodiless ‘teacher’ then that person will be but pissing into the wind each and every time they write to me. RESPONDENT: ... just like your oft criticized punching bag, Jiddu Krishnamurti, said to his followers after screwing his best friends wife. RICHARD: So, just because you experienced your worthless opinion being knocked down a peg or two by a worthless opinion, or your neither-correct-nor-incorrect statement being knocked down a peg or two by a neither-correct-nor-incorrect statement, or your preposterous statement being knocked down a peg or two by a preposterous statement, and despite not putting yourself on a plane with me nor putting me above or below you or another, still experienced being knocked down a peg or two by a person you do not put yourself on a plane with nor put above or below you or another, you somehow manage to liken me to a bodiless ‘teacher’ notorious for distancing themselves from their unliveable ‘teaching’ wherever and whenever the tyre met the road, eh? O what a tangled web they weave when first they practise to deceive. RESPONDENT: And thus does all the games and gamesmanship of the supposedly Enlightened or those in a ‘state vastly superior to Enlightenment’ amongst us mere mortals, continue unabated. RICHARD: Ha ... you will find this to be of interest then: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘It is just a matter of being ‘there’, awake to what one is actually doing. We touch things all of the time, but our thoughts are what wastes the energy needed to ‘be there’ in totality. • [Richard]: ‘This is precisely what I am getting at ... wanting to be ‘there’, and not here, is to chase immortality in a metaphysical dimension. I am suggesting that one turn one hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction ... and be here. But be fully here as an actuality and not a reality. This is where this body is: here at this place in space and now at this moment in time. Nobody wants to do this because it entails acknowledging death’s oblivion. *I am mortal*. Death is the end. Finish. If you do not become free here and now whilst this body is breathing you never will. [emphasis added]. (Richard, List B, No. 19, 14 March 1998). When I typed ‘I am mortal’ into my search engine and sent it through all my correspondence it returned 71 hits ... which can only mean we are on the same plane after all and that I am, in fact, a fellow human being (albeit sans identity/ affections in toto) providing a report of what I have discovered and not some latter-day ‘teacher’ (aka sage or seer, god-man or guru, master or messiah, saviour or saint, and so on) with yet another bodiless ‘teaching’. And thus does another neither-this-nor-that-or-either Advaita Shuffle bite the dust. RESPONDENT: Yes, there is no comprehension ‘of’ non-material consciousness. RICHARD: And with this conclusion do you thus firmly close the door on investigation ... and so all the animosity and anguish keeps rolling on down through the millennia. RESPONDENT: The mind that is not obstructed by selfishness, that is, the mind that does not think it ‘knows’, is already itself that comprehension. RICHARD: Hmm ... I will take this opportunity to provide a quote that may – just may – prise that firmly-shut door open a trifle: • [quote]: ‘You can feel it in the room now. It is happening in this room now because we are touching something very, very serious and it comes pouring in (...) I don’t want to make a mystery: why can’t this happen to everyone? If you and Maria [Ms. Mary Lutyens and Ms. Mary Zimbalist] sat down and said ‘let us enquire’, I’m pretty sure you could find out. Or do it alone. I see something; what I said is true – I can never find out. Water can never find out what water is. That is quite right. If you find out I’ll corroborate it (...) somehow the body is protected to survive. Some element is watching over it. Something is protecting it. It would be speculating to say what. The Maitreya is too concrete, is not simple enough. But I can’t look behind the curtain. I can’t do it. I tried with Pupul [Ms. Pupul Jayakar] and various Indian scholars who pressed me’. [endquote]. (‘Krishnamurti – His Life and Death’; Mary Lutyens p. 160. © Avon Books; New York 1991). RESPONDENT: You only need one enlightened master to get the idea. RICHARD: I very much doubt that any enlightened master would be interested in noticing that that the standard degree of fineness of the timeless wisdom set by 10,000 enlightened masters is very, very ‘sick, and wrong, and stupid, and ugly’. As I have already remarked, the few that I have had contact with have, more or less, spoken of perdition rather than comparing notes: there was one ‘Spiritual Teacher’ who reportedly made me the subject of his nightly discourse whereupon he declared me insane ... and gravely warned his ‘students’ against Richard’s example. Perhaps it is concerns about job security that makes them unable to listen? RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti was an enlightened master. RICHARD: What I appreciated about Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was his ‘doubt everything; question everything; even the speaker’ advice. Viz.: • [quote]: ‘There are two things involved: the speaker is either talking out of the silence of truth, or he is talking out of the noise of an illusion, which he considers to be the truth (...) let us go slowly, for this is interesting. Who is going to judge, who is going to see the truth of the matter? The listener? The reader? You who are familiar with the Indian scriptures, Buddhism, the Upanishads, and know most of the contents of all that, are you capable of judging? (...) How will you find out? How will you approach the problem? (...) What is the criterion, the measure that you apply so that you can say ‘Yes that’s it’? (...) I’ll tell you what I would do. I would put aside his personality, his influence, all that, completely aside. Because I don’t want to be influenced; I am sceptical, doubtful, so I am very careful. I listen to him, and I don’t say ‘I know’ or ‘I don’t know’, but I am sceptical. I want to find out (...) I am sceptical in the sense that I don’t accept everything that is being said (...) I would rather use the word ‘doubt’, in the sense of ‘questioning’ ... I would put everything else aside, all the personal reputation, the charm, looks. I am not going to accept or reject, I am going to listen to find out. (‘The Wholeness Of Life’; March 22 1977; Ojai, California. © 1979 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd.). Might I ask whether you ‘doubt everything; question everything; even the speaker’? RESPONDENT: You don’t need to search farther than that. RICHARD: Surely you are not saying that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti noticed that that the standard degree of fineness of the timeless wisdom set by 10,000 enlightened masters is very, very ‘sick, and wrong, and stupid, and ugly’? If so, where did he say it? I have read about 30 of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s books (plus about 10 books by contemporaries); I have watched about 15 video tapes; I have listened to about 20 audio tapes; I have discussed these matters before with ‘K-readers’ both face-to-face and via the written word ... and nowhere have I found him to be even the slightest bit aware of this. I would be very interested to hear of your sources. RESPONDENT: You can become enlightened right now. Just stop thinking while remaining wide awake. RICHARD: Why? All is carefree in this actual world ... there is no ‘good’ nor ‘evil’ here. SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE ON MR. JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI (Part Three) RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard’s Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity