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J. Krishnamurti On Choiceless Awareness, Creative Emptiness and Ultimate Freedom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Dinesh Chandra Mathur*
Affiliation:
State University of New York

Extract

In this age of “free-sex”, gurus, Hare-Krishna chanters and transcendental meditation teachers J. Кrisimamurti stands almost alone as a non-guru of outstanding grandeur. His lecture tours in major centers of the world remind one of the historical Buddha who reversed the Upanishadic tradition of teaching in a forest hermitage to a select few by travelling on foot from village to village in North-Eastern India to carry his message of love, compassion and understanding to the masses regardless of caste, color or sex. But historical comparisons are never complete. Whereas the Buddha used the local dialect, adapted his message to the intellectual level of his audience and made free use of stories and parables, Krishna-multi lectures in the English language in his intense analytic style to rapt audiences without any such aid. No wonder the Buddha's appeal and impact historically has been infinitely wider than that of Krishnamurti. And yet, both eschewed dogma, tradition and metaphysical subtleties, and deliberately refused to offer any sugar-coated pills and panaceas for overcoming the pervasive human condition of suffering. They endeavoured to make people “see” and “understand” the human condition in an act of total awareness so as to take them to the very brink of that “creative emptiness”, ultimate freedom and radical change which alone is conducive to the attainment of transcendent peace. In other words, the doctrine of Krishnamurti as that of the Buddha is not for the weak and effeminate who need “crutches” of all kinds but for those who have the courage to help themselves by an act of understanding the way things are without being entangled in theories and conceptual puzzles. It is the intention of this paper to analyze, understand and critically evaluate Krishamurti's concepts of self, action and freedom.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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Footnotes

*

This is an enlarged and modified version of my paper, on the same subject, presented at the XVII World Congress of Philosophy at Montreal, Canada on August 22, 1983.

References

1 Mary Lutyens, in her Foreword to Krishnamurti's Notebook, points out that Krishnamurti underwent in 1922, at the age of twenty-eight, "a spiritual experience that changed his life and which was followed by years of acute and almost contin uous pain in his head and spine." Krishnamurti refers to his pain as "the process" in his Notebook.

2 Krishnamurti's lectures, talks and question-answer sessions, have been pub lished in the form of a score of books. Harper and Row have brought out quite a few in paperback editions. Though he has condemned repetitive thinking, his basic thoughts appear time and again in all these writings. Yet the approach to the various problems is always fresh and original. Some of the prominent books are: The First and Last Freedom, New York, Harper and Row, 1975. (First published by Krishna murti Foundation of America, Ojai, California, 1954). The Awakening of Intelli gence, H. and R., 1973. Explorations Into Insight, H. and R., 1980. Truth and Actuality, H. and R., 1980. The Impossible Question, H. and R., 1972. The Flight of the Eagle, H. and R., 1972. Think On These Things, H. and R., 1970. Krishnamurti's Notebook, H. and R., 1976. The Wholeness of Life, H. and R., 1981. Freedom from the Known, H. and R., 1975.

3 The First and Last Freedom, New York, Harper and Row, 1975. pp. 21-22.

4 Ibid., p. 20.

5 Ibid., p. 20.

6 Ibid., p. 20.

7 Ibid., p. 27.

8 Ibid., p. 48.

9 Ibid., p. 287.

10 Ibid., p. 287.

11 Ibid., p. 287.

12 The Awakening of Intelligence, New York, Harper and Row, 1973, pp. 528.