The Link No. 15 · Autumn/Winter 1998 The Newsletter Dear Friends 3 Letters to the Editor 4 Was Krishnamurti Conditioned? 7 Authority and Perception 10 In Search of the Sacred 13 Krishnamurti Excerpts 15 Meeting K Changes 17 Brockwood Park Rendezvous 18 The First Step Editor’s Note 21 Confessions of a “K” Fanatic 22 Self-Education and the Evolution of the Thinker 25 On Studying the Teachings 26 On Education Editor’s Note 29 Krishnamurti at the University 31 Academic Philosophy and K’s Teachings 34 Radical Negation 35 Krishnamurti in Academia 36 The New Mysticism 38 Nondualism 38 International Network Saanen Gathering 1998 40 What Is Your Agenda? 43 An Inner and Outer Voyage 44 Two Retreats – Hawaii and Pune 46 Notices and Addresses 49 The Link is produced by Krishnamurti Link International (KLI). The members of the team are Jürgen Brandt, Javier Gómez Rodríguez, Claudia Herr, Nick Short, Raman Patel and Rabindra Singh. Photographs were taken by the publisher, Friedrich Grohe, unless stated otherwise. Contributions, whether anonymous or not, do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or publisher. Cover-Picture: Last light, Algarve Coast, Portugal 2 The Newsletter Dear Friends, IN MY LAST ‘DEAR FRIENDS’ LETTER, I WROTE I feel that the travelling which the Link group that I find it difficult to understand how people is doing, and The Link itself, could help in this, can come into contact with the teachings and not only bringing people together who are already not develop a life-long interest in them. In the interested in the teachings but who may not have current letter, I would like to begin exploring easy access to like-minded people, but also intro- whether The Link should ever try to reach be- ducing the teachings to others. But a friend, yond the ‘K world’, should ever try to interest shown this ‘Dear Friends’ letter, responded: “I ‘new’ people in the teachings. think there is so much to be done just bringing together the people who are interested, and I recall in discussions between K and trustees somehow or other The Link gets into the hands of of the Foundations that K said: you cannot spread other good people, so maybe that’s all that’s the teachings – you have to live them, then they necessary.” will spread. He also said: the teachings must be kept as they are and not corrupted. And: you can- I must confess that I did make a mistake with not protect the teachings, they have their own my family in this regard, and perhaps some of protection. you have made a similar mistake. I tried to get my family interested and, when they didn’t Why would I want to reach beyond the ‘K respond, I tried hard to convince them and also world’? I feel it is a pity that more people don’t to show them how little meaning there was in have access to the joy and challenge of the our lifestyle. Of course this caused resistance, as teachings, and also that the world can’t then when parents who are interested find that their benefit from that. Also, there are just too few children aren’t, or are even against the whole interested people to do all the work of the thing. One of my family recently said to me: you Schools, Study Centres and Foundations. The are all the same, looking for crutches, making a Schools need more interested teachers, more cult. This concerned me, that he got this im- interested students and parents. The archives pression. I think what he said is generally false, work of the Foundations, and their publication/ but I also see that there may be a measure of translation activities (which includes books, of truth in it. Perhaps there is devotion or identi- course, but also Bulletins, Newsletters, Cata- fication (wanting to defend K against detractors) logues, Educational Journals, CD-ROMs and or making K into an authority (quoting him too Internet web-sites) could use more technical much). Do I have a motive in wanting to interest expertise. There are public gatherings and people in the teachings? I think not, but I am education conferences, Committees and disappointed when they do not see the beauty Information Centres. The Study Centres could of it. Am I disappointed for them or for my- house more guests. All of it needs lots of work self? and financing. If the teachings were more widely known, there would be more people wanting to Concerning crutches, I am reminded of the help. time when someone said to K: you are taking The Newsletter 3 away our crutches before we can walk; to which the ‘K world’, to develop The Link to appeal to he replied: then you will learn to fly! people who aren’t yet interested in the teachings? K never looked for popularity. But he also said When K was around, my attitude was not to that the teachings are for everybody, and that put questions to him but to try to find my own intellect isn’t needed in order to understand answers. And recently I heard from someone who them. attended the Talks in the ’70s that K said: when you have a question, ask yourself. So, I put the I am asking myself this question, but I would question to myself: am I considering making the be interested to hear from you about it, too. same mistake with The Link as I made with my family? Is it presumptuous to want to go beyond Friedrich Grohe, October 1998 Letters to the Editor Please note that The Link is open to everyone. We welcome contributions for any section, responses to articles, letters to the editor, and in fact any comments you may wish to make. Our space is limited, but we will publish what we can. Most of the letters received recently, like those below, were written in response to ‘The Teacher and His Teachings’ in the last issue of The Link. Faith in the Possibility of Change much awareness am I capable of while being forced to earn a livelihood? What if this feeling Krishnamurti never tired of stating that “the of sacredness, truth, that I experienced when I word is not the thing, the description is not the was reading Commentaries on Living, Krishna- thing described”. He had to use language but he murti’s Notebook, the biographies, is only pointed toward something beyond language. K imagined, is only a projection and wishful think- also said that the teacher as the signpost is not ing? Have I got it wrong? Did K get it wrong? Was important and at some point he will die. So one he just a freak of nature? is left alone with the teaching and the question arises: Does it work? Does it work for me? Why should the teaching be important to me if I find myself unable to live it? Why should I Very few of us have got such an open heart bother about it any longer? One motivation is my and clear mind as to understand or live the suffering and also a strong desire for absolute teaching completely as K laid out for us. I may truth, love and goodness. But what if this desire find various excuses why it doesn’t work for me. is merely an escape because I cannot accept life Undoubtedly, encountering K and his teaching as it is, with its lack of love, with its fragmen- has changed my life. It has given me a com- tation, brutality and destruction? What is the pletely new direction. And yet, it seems that so main motivation which keeps me going on with little has changed, especially when I realise what all this questioning and studying? I think faith is a prominent part fear still plays in my life. What necessary in all of this. Faith in the possibility of about all those insights? Are they simply an changing my life. Faith in the reality of freedom. intellectual plaything, mind acrobatics? How Faith that those moments in which I sensed 4 Rübli through clouds, Rougemont, Switzerland freedom, or felt free, or saw the prison of my tioning. Why should we open our hearts to a conditioning, were not just illusions. The con- teacher who spreads an aggressive atmosphere ditioned mind, the mind which did not trans- while his words speak of love? K certainly did not form yet, needs faith or confidence that as a intend to separate the teacher from the teaching. human being I have the capacity to understand. The main point is not to cling to either the If that faith would be absolutely lacking we would teacher or the teaching, but to see if the teaching feel too threatened to open ourselves to some- “works” or not. If it doesn’t work with me, I am thing new. free to explore other teachings, blasphemous as this may sound in some K circles. And it is in this context, of faith, that the im- portance of the teacher comes into being, that he K says that there is a different state of mind, must show that his life “is of one piece of cloth if not directly then indirectly by exploring what with the teaching”, although not perfect. The love is not, what freedom is not. K has instilled conditioned mind, using faith, is like a child who in me a desire to “… want something tremen- wants to see, feel and touch his parents. What dous to happen there, … something to happen counts is their behaviour and not their words. to blast my mediocrity … I want the door to It is here that we should not abandon our judge- burst open to something enormous … im- ment when confronted with a teacher, even measurable. That I must have …”. K planted though our judgement is based on our condi- this desire in our hearts, which means we find The Newsletter 5 ourselves in another contradiction: the very Krishnamurti, an Icon nature of desire, as K pointed out, prevents us … This stuff that comes out of us around Lives from realising the truth, however noble the in the Shadowand the Bohm biography … To desire may be. Yet without this desire I would me the primary experience was the shock of how not want to read or hear anything about the much I had made Krishnamurti an icon despite conflict of what is and what should be. Listening my verbalizations to the contrary. … to K, this very conflict has been strengthened, whereas before I might not even have been Don Canavan aware of it. … Is a religious figure morally unassailable I will never know what it means to have lived because he/she asserts that only the teachings with a person like K, but I know he has instilled matter? On the other hand, these very human in me this desire to understand, to love, to be dimensions of Krishnaji should make his deifica- good and compassionate, to care and be affec- tion difficult and suggest that the potential for tionate, and to have faith that complete under- transformation of consciousness is there in all of standing, love, goodness, compassion are pos- us. sible. For this I am grateful, in the same way that Samuel Gfeller I am grateful to anyone who puts up a signpost in the right place. And this does not mean The Teachings Are Not His worshipping the signpost or the person. In response to ‘The Teacher and His Teachings’ Iwould like to comment that even the title is Peter Schmid wrong. The teachings, he said a thousand times, were not his. But you will not accept that the Why Only One Teacher? man, Krishnamurti was the same as all human Part of the news [of what is going on in various beings – no better – no worse. I feel that he did places where the teachings are cherished] is the no preparation – no notes – he spoke words that struggle we are having with Krishnamurti as a were ‘out of TIME’. And, out of time, there was personality on the one hand and what he taught no ‘Krishnamurti’ but Universal Intelligence on the other hand. Surely this will be true every being allowed to ‘speak’ … time we limit ourselves to just one teacher. If a Vi Batty person focuses on just one mountain, extolling its beauty and disparaging all others, we would Metaphysical Wrangling surely think him foolish. There is so much … What reluctance there is to snap out of the grandeur to appreciate. Why not also consider the trap inherent in never-ending metaphysical whole mountain range, the impact the mountains wrangling … Yet, break with all conditioning – create together, and how the unique features of regardless of the ghostly opinions of ‘others’ – one in no way denigrate those of another? For one must, for there is no value or genuineness me, other peaks include Ramana Maharshi, in the gamut of human theatricals. A thorough Nisargadatta, Jean Klein and some of their stu- scrutiny of society past, present and projected dents (Papaji, Gangaji, Balsekar, Liquorman and cannot but reveal society’s bankruptcy of all others). Hearing them express the dynamic Truth true value and the utter unlikelihood of its ever helps me greatly in understanding Krishnamurti’s being able to develop beyond its basic, mythic way of expressing it, and obviously how Krishna- pattern: a self-reproducing, self-referent, self- murti said it helps me understand them. justifying failure. Only such obvious, immediate ‘revelation’ at once eliminates the obsession David McMullin with enquiry, dialogue, opinion, argument and 6 dramatis personae, in short, the obsession with Correction people. If the absence of any proposal, any teaching, Prof. P. Krishna’s article ‘Krishnamurti As I Knew should prove to be too simple for the inveterate Him’ in the last issue of The Link was taken, as (or aspiring) stager and one must act up and noted, from a previous issue of The Theosophist. out, let it be done graciously, wittily and humor- Unfortunately, a quote from Sri Ram was in- ously, seeing that a preoccupation with originality cluded at the foot of the article which we had and ‘seriousness’ can only be with an audience mistakenly thought was part of the article itself. in mind! This was not the case and it should not have Best wishes to any who, deeply in love with been included. Prof. Krishna has advised us that the great mystery, don’t long to participate in the that quote does not reflect his views. We apolo- show or help to run it. Rare indeed in a gise for our mistake and for any misconceptions desperately overcrowded scenario! caused by it. Wing Galaxi Editor of Intelligence Research Initiative Was Krishnamurti Conditioned? This article follows on from those by David Moody and Michael Krohnen in the previous Link, concerning the Afterword in the second edition of David Peat’s biography of David Bohm in which extracts of letters from Bohm to a friend were printed. FOR A PERIOD OF EIGHT MONTHS BEGINNING IN were liable to give rise to “false impressions.” June, 1979, David Bohm composed a series of Under these circumstances, the letters have letters to a friend in which he developed a already achieved far greater prominence than comprehensive criticism of Krishnamurti and of their author ever intended. Nevertheless, the the teachings. Extensive excerpts from the letters genie is out of the bottle now, and cannot be put were recently published as an Appendix to the back in. Bohm’s privately-expressed remarks are paperback edition ofInfinite Potential, David now part of the public record, available for any Peat’s biography of Bohm. The fact that the and all critics to do with as they will for the letters were published at all was the subject of indefinite future. Under these circumstances, commentary in the last issue of The Link. The there is little choice left but to confront the genie present article examines the substantive content on its own terms. of Bohm’s critique. Bohm’s critique goes right to the core of the It is crucial to any objective assessment of individual and the teachings simultaneously: he Bohm’s remarks that they were confined to a few says that Krishnamurti was severely conditioned. private letters to a friend, and that only weeks Specifically, he was conditioned to think of after the last of them was written, Bohm asked himself as the World Teacher, with all that that his friend to destroy the letters, saying that they implied. “I would say that K was conditioned in a The Newsletter 7 different way from most people, and this made with Krishnamurti’s active assistance, she was certain insights possible to him, while he is even not able to unravel it. “Water cannot know what more caught in nonsense than most people in water is,” said Krishnamurti, rather memorably. certain other areas (especially, when he thinks He also asserted that if Mary Lutyens or Mary about ‘that boy’).” In this way Bohm reduces Zimbalist applied themselves assiduously, they Krishnamurti’s consciousness to a level different would be able to penetrate the issue, and he in only in degree, but not in kind, from the turn would then be able to confirm or discon- standard model issued to most of us. firm their answer. Unfortunately, the matter was evidently not pursued beyond that point. By implication, according to Bohm, there must be something flawed in the teachings Nevertheless, Lutyens does document very themselves. Bohm draws out this implication thoroughly Krishnamurti’s inability to explain his repeatedly and in various ways. At the most own essential nature. The individual who elementary level, he maintains that, “… the emerges from that account is very different from teachings do not go far enough so that a person the figure Bohm portrays. Bohm’s representation who lives them will change fundamentally (and of K is also thoroughly at odds with Krishna- in fact this has happened to no one, not even to murti’s public persona. Certainly one will look in K …).” To suggest that the teachings “do not go vain through the many volumes of Krishna- far enough” merely says that they are limited; murti’s public talks for anything remotely akin to but in addition, “… what is wrong with the the views Bohm attributes to him. On what teachings is the prevalence in them of ‘always, evidence, therefore, is Bohm’s portrait of Krish- forever, totality, sacred,’ and so on. These words namurti based? … radically disorganize the mind and fix it in a static and fragmented mode of activity.” The letters are not designed to present any systematic set of evidence, but they do offer Finally, and most fundamentally, Bohm asks some clues as to the source of Bohm’s impres- whether “the real problem” is not “something sions. Foremost among these was Bohm’s deeper embedded in the teachings themselves.” interpretation of Krishnamurti’s role in limiting He claims it is “an intrinsic part” of the teach- publication of the dialogues the two men held in ings that Krishnamurti himself was essentially 1975. While three of the dialogues appeared in infallible. “Very early he told me that his action Truth and Actuality, the remaining nine were was always right because it was from the withheld1. Bohm inferred from the source.” As a result, “… we are compelled to circumstances surrounding this decision that treat K’s false aspects as inseparable from the Krishnamurti “is adamant on the principle that living truth and thus we become deeply confused only he has anything of value to teach.” and enter into deep inner conflict.” Space does not permit an exhaustive analysis The fundamental question raised by Bohm’s of this incident, but Bohm’s interpretation critique is one that has been on the table and appears to be based on a series of unwarranted unresolved for many years: who was Krishna- inferences. To this day, the circumstances murti? Mary Lutyens rightly made this issue a remain murky surrounding the decision not to central one in her biographical trilogy, but even publish the full series of dialogues. Peat makes a 1 Editor’s note: Five of these remainig dialogues will shorty be published by Routledge in the book The Limits of Thought. See New Publications, page 50 8 great deal of this incident in the main text of his By any reasonable standard, Krishnamurti biography of Bohm (pp. 230-31), and Bohm was in actuality a kind of World Teacher. Pro- alludes to it in dark terms on two occasions in vided that concept is shorn of its theosophical the letters quoted by Peat. Since so much has connotations, the World Teacher is an individual been made of this issue in the public record, it who devotes his life to penetrating the truth would be worthwhile now if the Krishnamurti about the human condition, and to conveying his Foundation Trust, or the Publications Committee understanding to humanity as a whole. Surely of the several Foundations, could make some Krishnamurti is as plausible a candidate for that statement of the actual facts and circumstances role as anyone that one may name. This is not a of the case. In the absence of such a statement, matter of bias or theosophical conditioning; on rumor and innuendo regarding this incident may the contrary, it reflects a limited and conditioned be expected to grow exponentially in the years outlook to fail to see and acknowledge this ahead. objective reality. Another source of evidence for Bohm’s Historians and psychoanalysts may ponder portrayal of Krishnamurti is a private remark he why a man of Bohm’s intellectual stature and attributes to K: “Very early he told me that his integrity constructed in these letters such a action was always right because it was from the narrow and distorted image of his friend and source.” Unfortunately, Bohm provides no con- collaborator. Perhaps he was only giving expres- textual information with which to evaluate the sion to the kind of childish resentment that may meaning of this statement. When and where did afflict all of us from time to time with regard to Krishnamurti make this remark? In what sense those we love the most. In any case, Bohm did was he using the word ‘right’? Did Bohm chal- recover the balance of mind to ask his corres- lenge the statement, or point out its implica- pondent to destroy the letters, as they were tions? None of these issues is even broached in subject to “false impressions.” And with pleasure Bohm’s letters, much less elaborated on. we may give Bohm the last word regarding these letters, as he also told his correspondent that Finally, we must ask, did Krishnamurti in fact “… there is, in any case, nothing in them that think of himself as the World Teacher? And if so, needs to be preserved.” what would that imply? Would it be, in Bohm’s word, “nonsense”? David Moody, October 1998 The Newsletter 9 Authority and Perception AT ONE OF OUR RECENT MONTHLY DIALOGUE In the first place, the coherence between what meetings, one of the participants read out a short is said and done is generally considered a test of excerpt about K written by a prominent scholar. integrity and their disjunction an infallible sign This text said something to the effect that, after of hypocrisy. This criteria is applicable to every- his magnificent renunciation of dissolving the one, be they private persons or institutions, big Order of the Star, K had become one more suc- fish or small fry. If word and action are perceived cessful Indian guru, whose penchant for luxuri- to be mutually contradictory, that would make ous living and affair with a collaborator’s wife for incoherence and meaninglessness, and had revealed the duplicitous nature of his specially so in the case of anyone whose teach- character. One other participant, following on ings are concerned with non-duality and whole- this description, proceeded to react, finding K ness, which implies that life and teachings are of morally reprehensible and casting aspersions on one piece. In this sense, nothing K did in his his role as a religious teacher. How could some- own life is irrelevant to the teachings. He himself one interested in luxury teach the virtuous way of emphasized that his words would be empty if he detachment and dispossession? He contradicted didn’t live what he talked about. So for him there himself and was not, like Christ or Mother was no contradiction, whereas for others there Theresa, a perfect example, an ideal to imitate is. So how do we know whether he contradicted and follow. or didn’t contradict himself? And is this a relevant question? We seek the flaw in the other It is assumed that since actions speak louder to justify or avoid looking at our- than words, the words of those who contradict themselves in action deserve no credit. Thus the selves … detection of contradiction would allow one to dismiss the teachings and thus avoid facing the fundamental issues that they raise and that often It turned out that the lady who had brought go counter to the attachments and identifications up the issue had entered into a crisis as a result which nourish our very selves. Finding fault with of reading the chapter on belief in K’s The First the teacher is one way to brush the teachings and Last Freedom. This had introduced a grave aside and thus proceed undisturbed in the pur- doubt into her Catholic faith and she had spent suit of our habitual securities, pleasures and all summer in a state of dejection, at once un- beliefs, however contradictory these may actually able to pray as she used to or to touch the book be. We seek the flaw in the other to justify or that had, as she put it, taken her God away. avoid looking at ourselves, which is clearly not Seeing her in this distress, a friend of hers had areliable basis for judgment. Can we judge an- given her the text she had read out, no doubt other when our outlook springs from our con- meaning to bring her back safely into the fold. ditioned background? So the primary issue in In spite of its obvious motivation, her reading this is whether we can be aware of and free from did pose the question as to the relation between our own prejudices rather than the comparative the teacher and the teachings. Though often moral worth of another. raised, as in this case, in the context of a par- ticular bias, it would deserve to be treated on its Now, when it comes to finding out the truth of own. something, does it matter whether the one saying 10