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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780835607810 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Quest Books |
| Publication date: | 12/01/1999 |
| Edition description: | 1ST QUEST |
| Pages: | 340 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) |
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The Inner Life of Krishnamurti
Private Passion and Perennial Wisdom
By Aryel Sanat
Theosophical Publishing House
Copyright © 1999 Aryel SanatAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8356-0781-0
CHAPTER 1
The Perennial Philosophy
* * *
J. Krishnamurti arrived for the first time in California's Ojai Valley in the summer of 1922, when he was twenty-seven. Shortly afterwards, he went through mysterious experiences of a psychological, psychic, and spiritual nature, which included physical signs and manifestations. These happenings have been identified by some with the transformations of "higher yoga." At the time, Krishnamurti referred to what was happening to him as "the process," an expression that has subsequently been used by everyone who has spoken or written of these experiences, though he also sometimes used yogic terminology to refer to them.
In her memoir of K, Pupul Jayakar described the events this way:
In August 1922 Krishnamurti was to be plunged into the intense spiritual awakening that changed the course of his life. In the Indian tradition, the yogi who delves into the labyrinth of consciousness awakens exploding kundalini energies and entirely new fields of psychic phenomena, journeying into unknown areas of the mind. A yogi who touches these primordial energies and undergoes mystic initiation is recognized as being vulnerable to immense dangers; the body and mind face perils that could lead to insanity or death.
The yogi learns the secret doctrines and experiences the awakening of dormant energy under the instruction of the guru. Once the yogi becomes an adept, these transformations of consciousness on the playground of consciousness are revealed in a mystical drama. The body and mind must undergo a supremely dangerous journey. The adept is surrounded and protected by his disciples; secrecy and a protective silence pervade the atmosphere.
There are several points worth looking at carefully in Pupul Jayakar's comments. However, in order to understand her remarks, it is important that we explore the background and context in which Krishnamurti's experiences took place, a task which takes us into the body of teachings generally referred to as the perennial philosophy. A look at these teachings and their historical background will help us put Krishnamurti's life and experiences in proper perspective.
K's Teachers
While Jayakar's remarks are made in general about any yogi, she gives the impression that K had a guru who was in charge of all the proceedings connected with the process. When the process took place, however, references made by K and other witnesses in this regard were not to one guru, but to several teachers. K and others called these teachers, who included Gautama Buddha and the Lord (or Buddha) Maitreya, the "Masters." These teachers were said by K and others to have been the same who inspired the foundation of the Theosophical Society, a worldwide organization founded by Madame H. P. Blavatsky and Colonel Henry S. Olcott in 1875, devoted to the brotherhood of humanity and the study of comparative religion, philosophy, and science. The Society is said by many to be the springboard for what has come to be called the New Age movement and for numerous other cultural developments of the twentieth century. I call this grand phenomenon "the perennial renaissance," for reasons that will become clear below.
Some students of K have stated that these teachers were visions, or even hallucinations. The explanations offered in many books about Krishnamurti concerning his teachers are unfortunately puzzling in that they contradict everything he himself said on the subject. For instance, in Krishnamurti: The Man, The Mystery, and The Message, Stuart Holroyd seems certain that K must have been wrong in what he perceived regarding these teachers. Holroyd says about K's more explicit pronouncements:
One cannot but wonder whether there was not, perhaps at a subconscious level, an element of role-playing and even self-deception in the way that Krishnamurti was speaking at this time.
For her part, Pupul Jayakar characterizes Krishnamurti's connection with these teachers as "visions," without providing evidence for her opinion:
[K] beheld visions of the Buddha, Maitreya, and the other Masters of the occult hierarchy.
Given the fact that K himself never described his encounters as "visions" and that his whole life was about not being deceived, opinions to the contrary would seem to require a great deal more than unsupported assertions. A better course, I suggest, and one that I plan to follow, is to look at the evidence concerning how K himself viewed these experiences and how witnesses described the events in question.
In subsequent manifestations of the process that took place in the late 1940s, in the presence of Pupul Jayakar and her sister, Nandini Mehta, K always spoke in the plural when referring to those who were in charge of the psychic proceedings. Who, we must ask, were those "teachers," and what part did they play in his life in particular and in the inception of the perennial renaissance in general?
It seems clear from what K himself stated at various times that his teachers were the same as those identified by Madame Blavatsky and others as connected to the dissemination of the perennial philosophy and the founding of the theosophical movement. If we accept that K was stating the simple truth about who his teachers were, a great deal can be explained about his experiences that otherwise remains mysterious. More importantly, pivotal elements of what K taught can be clarified by recognizing their connection to the perennial perspective. All of this makes it critical for anyone who wishes to understand K's life and work to have as good an understanding as possible of who these teachers were according to K and to those who first brought their teachings to public attention.
The Physical Reality of the Masters
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891; referred to as HPB) said in numerous works that she started the theosophical movement at the behest of her teachers, who she said were the living exponents and custodians of the very ancient perennial philosophy. After Blavatsky, many other esoteric writers have attributed spiritual teachings to these same teachers. Some have referred to them as "Ascended Masters," "the Great White Brotherhood," and similar appellations. Though their work is independent of the Theosophical Society and its founders, Elizabeth Clare Prophet and Alice Bailey, for example, stated that their books were inspired by these teachers.
More recently, a new crop of writers, mostly scholars of early theosophical history, have attempted to assess the reality of the Masters. Many begin with the assumption that these teachers were Blavatsky's imaginative creation. Alternately, they claim that, if the Masters were real in any way, they were people Blavatsky met in the ordinary course of her life and about whom she exaggerated. Perhaps the best known of these recent studies is K. Paul Johnson's The Masters Revealed. Johnson and others who claim that the Masters are fictional are entitled to their opinions. When dealing with the question of Blavatsky's teachers, however, a large body of evidence and quite a number of reputable witnesses can document the physical reality of these teachers.
For instance, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907; first president of the Theosophical Society) wrote a six-volume history of the early years of the movement, in which he gave numerous instances of the physical reality of the Masters. Olcott's evidence is of special interest for a number of reasons. To begin with, he was himself an eyewitness: He reports having met the Masters on several occasions, both alone and in the presence of others, including, on a few occasions, HPB. Of equal importance, his background as a lawyer and journalist enhanced his innate abilities as a researcher and impartial observer. Further, before his association with HPB, he had been one of the most respected psychic investigators in the world and had exposed numerous frauds. In fact, it was in this capacity and as a journalist for the New York Sun that he first met HPB. Olcott had earned his rank during the American Civil War investigating graft and fraud in the military and was so highly respected that he was put in charge of the investigation of President Lincoln's assassination.
Given Olcott's background, reputation, and careful research methods, his evidence must be considered specifically and taken seriously. He made notes immediately after each physical encounter with the Masters. If there were others present, Olcott secured from them affidavits to the effect that they had indeed been part of an experience in which a Master was physically present. And he always made sure he had witnesses attesting to these affidavits. Again, Olcott's evidence is not limited to one or two meetings; he reports witnessed encounters, with supporting affidavits, that span the period from 1874 to 1907.
The Masters sometimes left a physical item behind after these encounters, some of which—including letters and a turban a Master was wearing—can be examined to this day. Later researchers, such as Geoffrey Barborka, have also investigated and documented the physical presence of the Masters in the early years of the movement. Barborka provides testimonials of numerous eyewitnesses who attest to the Masters' physical reality.
According to documented reports, the Masters communicated physically not only with HPB and Olcott but with at least two dozen other people, most of whom were disciples. Among these others, the most important from the perspective of the present investigation were Annie Besant (1847-1933; who became second president of the Theosophical Society in 1907) and Charles Webster Leadbeater (1847-1934). Their first meetings with the Masters occurred while HPB and Olcott were still living, and their relationship with the Masters continued until Leadbeater (CWL) and Besant (AB) died (in 1934 and 1933, respectively). The early years of the Theosophical Society—its most influential period, when CWL and AB were still vigorous presences—ended in the mid to late 1920s. It was precisely at that point that these same teachers began to be a presence in Krishnamurti's lifetime of teaching. No one has given evidence that they communicated with others once K began his work as a teacher. Thus Krishnamurti was himself one of many witnesses to the existence of these teachers. In fact, he may turn out to be their most significant witness.
According to Blavatsky, the Masters were neither "spirits of light" nor "goblins damn'd," as she wrote in The Key to Theosophy. Rather, she said—and her colleagues and other witnesses concurred—that her teachers were men who happened to be wiser, more insightful, and more compassionate than the common run of humanity. (Some of these teachers are said to be women, but no feminine teachers were known to be openly involved in Blavatsky's work.) Many of them—though not all—had presumably acquired yogic abilities. These abilities made it possible for them to communicate with people in ways that might be considered "magical" or "supernatural" by someone unacquainted with deeper aspects of yoga and similar esoteric schools. Anyone wishing to speak of these Masters—whether in the context of writing or speaking about K or in any other context—should read Blavatsky's own words about them:
[The Masters] are living men, born as we are born, and doomed to die like every other mortal.... We call them "Masters" because they are our teachers; and because from them we have derived all the Theosophical truths, however inadequately some of us may have expressed, and others understood, them. They are men of great learning, whom we term initiates, and still greater holiness of life. They are not ascetics in the ordinary sense, though they certainly remain apart from the turmoil and strife of your western world.
One of Blavatsky's eminent students, Gottfried de Purucker, asserted the living presence of these teachers:
No one who has read history can be oblivious of the fact that its annals are bright at certain epochs with the amazing splendor of certain human beings, who during the periods of their lifetimes, have swayed the destinies, not merely of nations, but of whole continents. The names of some of these men are household words in all civilized countries, and the most negligent student of history cannot have done otherwise than have stood amazed at the mark that they made in the world, while they lived—yes, and perhaps have left behind them results surpassing in almost immeasurable degree the remarkable achievements of their own respective lifetimes.
A few of these are the Buddha and Shankaracharya in India; Lao-Tse and Confucius in China; Jesus the great Syrian Sage in his own epoch and land; Apollonius of Tyana, Pythagoras, Orpheus, Olen, Musaeus, Pamphos, and Philammon, in Greece; and many, many more in other lands....
One point of great importance should be noted: that a careful scrutiny of the teachings of these Great Men, the Seers and Sages of past times, shows us that in the various and varying forms in which their respective Messages were cast, there is always to be found an identical systematized Doctrine, identical in substance in all cases, though frequently varying in outward form: a fact proving the existence all over the world of what Theosophy very rightly points to as the existence of a Universal Religion of mankind—a Religion-Philosophy-Science based on Nature herself, and by no means nor at any time resting solely on the teachings of any one individual, however great he may have been. It is also foolish, downright absurd, for any thoughtful man or woman to deny the existence of these great outstanding figures of world-history, for there they are; and the more we know about them, the more fully do we begin to understand something of their sublime nature and powers....
We introduced these great men in order to illustrate the thesis that the human race has produced these monuments of surpassing genius in the past; and there is not the slightest reasonable or logical argument that could be alleged by anybody in support of the very lame and halting notion that no such men live now, or could live in the future. The burden of all the evidence at hand runs quite to the contrary. It would be a riddle virtually unsolvable, if one were to suppose that because such men have existed in the past, they could not exist again or that—and this comes to the same thing—what the human race has once produced, it could never again produce.
Nietzsche
One of the best contributions to understanding what a Master is may come not from the New Age milieu but from Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Explaining Nietzsche's course of thought will also illumine an important dimension of this study—specifically, the necessity for transformation, which is central to the work of both HPB and K.
Nietzsche was deeply concerned that humanity had come to a point where the old nostrums of conventional religion would no longer serve adequately to rein in the darker side of the human psyche. Speaking primarily of Christianity and Judaism but insisting this was a universal phenomenon, he predicted that the moralities and religions the world knew in the nineteenth century would lead to nihilism—to loss of any sense of morality worthy of the name, to loss of any sense of communion with something good, true, and beautiful. The old ways had run their course. A new morality, a new way of being, was called for if the darkest dangers of nihilism were to be avoided.
However, what could such a new morality be based on? It could not be based on metaphysics. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) had led the way in showing why the claims of metaphysics and conventional religion have absolutely no foundation. It is humans who create what they believe is reality, Kant would say; it is humans who create what they believe is religion, Feuerbach would say.
Nietzsche predicted that as the public became increasingly educated, their disappointment in the old systems would lead first to cynicism and then to some form of psychological and social chaos. Psychologically, there would be more depression and more dependence on some form of narcotic—religion having once been the great narcotic; once it failed, use of chemical narcotics would be widespread. Socially, there would be more enmity and self-centeredness, based on resentment and pettiness. To see how accurate a prophet Nietzsche was, all we have to do is look around at the world today.
According to Nietzsche, humanity would find itself at a major crossroads just after the nineteenth century. Either humans would discover a new way to be, or they would be overtaken by disaster. As he saw it, these were the only choices. Whichever each one of us chooses, that is what we choose for the entire human race. We and we alone are responsible for what happens in our daily lives and for what happens globally. There are no longer scriptures and authorities to appeal to as there were in the past.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Inner Life of Krishnamurti by Aryel Sanat. Copyright © 1999 Aryel Sanat. Excerpted by permission of Theosophical Publishing House.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments,Introduction,
Part One: The Fountainhead,
Chapter One The Perennial Philosophy,
Chapter Two A New Perspective,
Chapter Three Mutation,
Part Two: The Passion,
Chapter Four Initiation,
Chapter Five Process and Authority,
Chapter Six The Experiment,
Part Three: The Other,
Chapter Seven The Beloved,
Chapter Eight Ecce Homo,
Chapter Nine Maitreya,
Notes,
Selected Bibliography,