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Im a (conditioned) muslim but his teachings provide real insight into social and personal behavior and I believe are somewhat essential to understand conditioning and may even play a part in helping people find some peace if understood
I used to buy tons of Theosophical pamphlets and cheap occultist ephemera at the Hartville Flea Market to resell, Mainly Theosophical authors and Manley P. Hall pulp. That stuff was big during the depression years and the Theosophical Society even bought a big House on Kenmore Boulevard in Akron during that time. Ralph Shelly had some similar stuff at his store, but he was mostly interested in fiction, primarily Sinclair Lewis, his favorite writer.
Hunh? His method was self observation. He was constantly asking his audience to do it along with him. And he was disappointed because people simply thought about what he was saying as opposed to observing their current state. This happened over and over again in every lecture he ever did.
First we have to understand what krishnamurti was signaling. He didn't want to give straight answer because people will blindly follow it as a rule and make cult around it. So he always asked his listeners to "Investigate together" rather than just seeking answers from him. He was only against spiritual/psychological authority not the authority of systems like government, companies etc which are necesaary for normal functioning of society. He was telling people to see the total picture which would bring radical change in ones psyche rather than being identified and polarized which divides people.
I went through a Krishnamurti phase. I took to heart his maxim that "truth is a pathless land" and bought a whole bunch of his books to try to understand how to live in a state of choiceless awareness. In hindsight, I don't think it's possible, because humans are not the emotionless automatons they would need to be to live in such a way. In hindsight, I'm not really sure K even bought his own story. Here was a guy plucked out of obscurity to be a world teacher and then turned his back on the whole thing and insisted that he had nothing to teach and didn't want any followers -- and then he spent the rest of his life giving talks around the world as a kind of anti-guru. And he mostly just talked in evasive circles and riddles, giving obfuscating and needlessly digressive non-answers to all the questions he got, which makes sense because he always insisted that even the slightest whiff of dogmatic thinking will derail you -- so how can you ever definitively teach anything at all? I wouldn't say he was a conman, but when he ditched the Order of the Star, I think he knew he had to come up with some kind of a hook to keep people listening to him. He sounds impressive and deep at first, but the more you listen, the more it feel like he's just BS-ing his way through.
I agree and both Krishnamurti's were hypocrite's and basically just grumpy old men with way too much opinion on everything and knew they had fools to listen to it. To me they both came off as bitter old men
It means you didn't understand what krishnamurti was signaling. He didn't want to give straight answer because people will blindly follow it and make cult around it. So he always asked his listeners to "Investigate together" rather than just seeking answers from him. He was only against spiritual/psychological authority not the authority of systems like government, companies etc which are necesaary for normal functioning of society. He was telling people to see the total picture which would bring radical change in ones psyche rather than being identified and polarized which would divide people.
The picture is Blavatsky and cofounder Colonel Henry Olcott and first president of the society. HPB was married to a guy named Blavatsky. Leadbeater was the cohort of the Annie Besant the second president of the society.
Earache my eye! Loved that song. Cheech in the tutu and all. I read the book you referenced by Radha Rajagopal. I'm glad you mentioned the circumstances around K's 'affair' with Rosalind. I came away from that book with an even higher regard for him, despite the author (Mr. Rajagopal's daughter) trying her best to trash K. I loved the stories she told of K repairing a fence, listening to records with her when she was a child and more anecdotes. My late teacher, Toni Packer, decided to leave the Rochester Zen Center after she attended K's talks during the eighties. I was already a fan of K, so I happily left with her when she started what became the Springwater Center. I see J. Krishnamurti very much like another Indian sage you recently discussed, Nisargadatta Maharaj. K spent twenty or so years sitting meditation when he was younger. His teaching was essentially shikan taza without the formal posture, as I understand it. 'You are the World' was also my first Krishnamurti book. I read it when I was 14. Great video! .
For a guy who said that Gurus were rubbish, JK sure has a lot of disciples. It's almost Pythonesque in a way, something like- "Please of Great Jiddu, teach us how to get enlightened!". ..."You don't need me, you just need to find the Dhamma within yourselves"..."Yes, yes, Oh great Jiddu, so lead and teach us to where we will find it within us!".........
Love the song this time! Another associate of Madame Blavatsky was my distant relative Henry Steel Olcott. Olcott traveled to Sri Lanka and took the precepts with a Theravada monk. He was the first white American to take the precepts and consider himself a Buddhist, though he elaborated his Buddhism a lot with Theosophical ideas.
Then there is UG Krishnamurti, his relationship with JK, his energetic experience at the last talk of JK he attended which precipitated what UG called his Calamity (also referred to as his death….even clinical death). Post calamity, there seemed to be genetic changes: His wrists changed positions into an ape-like wrist, his earlobes grew a bunch, and apparently sex was no longer a possibility for him.
Look up Benjamin Crème, Maitreya in Africa…..and you’ll see another project about bringing forth a world teacher. In this context, JK was supposed to be like a vehicle for maitreya.
I used to listen to a lot of Krishnamurti about 15 years ago but never really understood what he was talking about. In the end I decided he wasn't a very good communicator. He actually put me off spiritual stuff for about 10 years until I rediscovered nonduality and Advaita Vedanta. Now when I listen to Krishnamurti I just think he is talking rubbish, I much prefer David Bohm now. I'm surprised that you rate him highly and realise that I might be missing something. By the way I got back into non duality through Nisargadatta Maharaj and I definitely think he knows what he is talking about but it would be great if you could say why you like Krishnamurti. Thank you for the great videos and music.
I had a similar experience when I first read a few of his books. I took up a formal zen practice and decided K was just an intellectual, like Alan Watts. I dismissed his teachings for over a decade. After sitting zazen 10 or 15 years, I re-read some of his books. There was a huge change in my perception of his words, and I devoured the remainder of his books, plus all the videos and audio talks I could find. K is like a brilliant college professor that can't teach very well. I agree, he was a bad communicator in many ways. He knows what he's talking about, but if you're just starting with an interest in spirituality, (I hate that word) he is very confusing and can seem as if he's speaking abstractly. He's not. I have a new-found appreciation of both K and Watts. Neither were perfect teachers, but I'm not sure such a thing exists outside our idealized imagination.
I've read a lot about theosophy and Blavatsky for many year and I had no idea that krishnamurti was linked to them! Thanks for the video it was very enlightening!
Interesting. The book mentions that in recent years Theosophy has downplayed their involvement with Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti also stopped referencing Theosophy after around 1933, although towards the end of his life he began to acknowledge them again.
A very good review. Thanks very much. I was in NZ with K devotees when he died. They were brother and sister computer programmers. In the last few hours of his life they were getting continual updates. Alan Watts always said that a world teacher would deny he was a world teacher because he would renounce everything, so K must be bona fide. I can see the glint in Watts's eye... I have always found that people never question their Gurus. Whatever the guru does is always perfect. My critical mind has never found a Guru that fits the bill, the true devotees of gurus tell me this is a great problem. So I never followed a Guru...
Thanks, Brad, I used to read him when I was young and I was really into him but I think I was just play acting and pretending to understand when really I didn't. I now feel that K set his audience up to see the world in a certain way-his way- and then berated people when they failed to get the essence of his teaching. How can you speak on a stage and not be an authority? How can you really 'be a light to yourself' when you have been massively influenced by a very charismatic person with this incredible back story who claims to know how to end all human suffering? I am not saying there isn't worth in his teaching just that maybe 'choiceless awareness' isn't the answer K claimed it to be.
I read the First and last freedom by Krishnamurtii. And it was pretty good. There was hit piece on him in the Skeptical Inquirer, and they got several emails that defended him, because it was clueless hit piece, unfair to the philosophy, and they published several, including mine, and the author was like OmG, i cant believe this many Krishnamurti fans Read the skeptical Inquirer, lol.
Brad, have you read the recent book 'The Nirvana Express: how the search for enlightenment went west' by Mick Brown. very good, i think you like it, goes from Edwin Arnold, thru Vivekananda, the first british Buddhist monk, Krishnamurti, Alistair Crowley, Meher Baba, Ramana Maharshi, thru to Timothy Leary, Beatles, Santana and Rajneesh.
I don't recall reading that Nichiren claimed he was Maitreya. In fact, that would have run counter to the theological understanding outlined in his major works, as he placed the Bodhisattvas of the Earth over the other bodhisattvas (like Maitreya and Manjusri) due to the fact that the Buddha entrusted the Lotus Sutra to them in particular. I think there is some idea that he was a Buddha within Nichiren-shoshu, which uses texts that are seen as apocryphal by other Nichiren Buddhists, but I've never heard of the Maitreya thing. Also I got the special message 😀
@@HardcoreZen After his death some of his disciples proclaimed that he was a Buddha. Nichiren himself said his teaching was the only "true" and "real" Buddhism, that everyone else is a heretic, and that especially Zen monks should be beheaded or burned alive. Having that in mind, I'm not sure he actually claimed to be Maitreya, but it wouldn't surprise me if he did (or at least something similar), he took himself quite seriously...
@@HardcoreZen it’s really hard to parse out what Nichiren meant in his writings. Certain Nichiren schools, like Nichiren Shoshu and SGI, believe that Nichiren is the Buddha of our age and a manifestation of the Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha. Nichiren-shu, a more normal Mahayana school, honors Nichiren as the founder of their tradition but not as a buddha or bodhisattva in particular. Nichiren apparently held that we all become one with Shakyamuni Buddha when we take refuge in Shakyamuni and follow his teachings, and that anyone who upholds the Lotus Sutra (like himself) becomes one with Maitreya… this is all very confusing and comes from the Tendai principle of mutual interpenetration of all realms (ichinen sanzen)
He was a bit of a populist and demagogue. But as a life long chanter, I think nam myoho renge kyo is a very powerful one that any one can do. A sort of people's buddhism. And I have an SGI friend so I can say that they are probably a good, honest group. Low on corruption I would hope. So could be worse, but there is more than one path or method.
It's weird to see JK videos where he seems to be speaking directly to the audience and saying, "Don't make me into a cult of anything". I really appreciate your musical intros.
Just a correction - Blavatsky's birth name was Hahn von Rottenstern, she became Blavatsky by marriage. Also, Leadbeater is not the guy in the picture, that is Henry Steel Olcott the co-founder of TS. Leadbeater was rather a collaborator of Annie Besant who followed Blavatsky as a head of TS and where the story with Krishnamurti begins.
As far as UG’s teaching….his hopeless message…..the closest expression to that in current times would be the ‘radical Nonduality’ message ala Tony Parsons, Jim Newman, Kenneth Madden, Richard Sylvester, Izzy Cloke, Alexis Knight.
UFO contactee Raël has also recently claimed to be the Maitreya. Interestingly enough the first high profile modern UFO contactee George Adamski was a former Theosophist, and not surprisingly whenever I read books and essays by Adamski I can recognise a lot of the basic concepts (that Adamski supposedly got from "aliens") as very similar to ones Krishnamurti wrote about all the time.
Another thing to note is that Maitreya is said to come only after the Dharma has been forgotten. Also, Osho/Rajneesh was another to claim to be Maitreya.
Purely in terms of the described deconstruction of all self and experience…..I would put UG side by side with Bernadette Robert’s (carmelite nun, author of ‘The experience of No Self’ and other works. From a singular message or pointing standpoint, I would put UG within the uncompromising radical nonduality crowd (Tony Parsons, Jim Newman…etc). Then there are certain gurus/teachers that seem to bridge the radical and the direct pointing crowd (Rupert Spira, Adyashanti, Mooji, Gangaji)…..this would be Nisargadatta Maharaj.
Great... i just got my copy of Gotama Buddha and now you recommend another one to read. And on the subject of your music, i am surprised that you don't play more KISS tunes. About anything off Hotter Then Hell would be appreciated.
I've read a biography of Jiddu although I don't remember the author's name. The whole theosophical thing seemed weird to me - talk of godhead etc. I was put off by all the mystical mumbo-jumbo in the book - all the awakening of the kundalini and that sort of thing. His talks on youtube are interesting. I gained some insight by his explorations of thought and memory. I find his insistence of no-path, no-method makes sense, but also doesn't. When he refers to no-path, he appears to be against dogma and following gurus blindly, but Buddhism and Advaita show a method, but the method is not a substitute for self-exploration. In fact, the method only makes you sit quietly and investigate your mind, which is no different from what Jiddu asks his listeners to do in his talks. I found much of what he says to be not that different from Advaita and Buddhism, but he does use modern psychological terminology and the questions he asks are slightly different - such as - why is there war? Incidentally, Nisragadutta Maharaj is supposed to have asked his students to listen to Jiddu, although I don't know if NM himself ever heard Jiddu talk.
I like seeing these teachers, these gurus whom I look to for guidance via their teachings are human. They fail just like I do. They have the same weaknesses. They talk a great game, but do they live it? Guy spends his life lecturing to people who can’t see what’s literally in front of them (watch the lectures you can tell he’s become just annoyed we aren’t seeing it) for decades … he walked the walk, it wasn’t “perfect” but who is? The moniker I have given myself is a joke, Mr. Monkey Mind is more like it… in fact….
'Choiceless awareness' (K) another way of saying 'Do Nothing' (Zen) which is not really a method because 'you' do not do anything. So suppose its the same sensory 'space' appreciated intransitivly (stillness).
Isn't this beginning a video with decent guitar playing but bad singing a sign of your ego? After all, most people just want to see the zen content and aren't interested in your music. By "not caring" and giving it to them anyway (whether they want it or not) just ego?
@@HardcoreZen Ok, I'll try to find another "zen" channel that will also show me something not related to zen at all, and tell me to watch something else if I don't like it. If I want to see good guitar playing or good singing, there are channels that do a better job at that than you do. Good guitar players and good singers are a dime a dozen though.
A few things come up here i think. One the 'authority' of pronouncements by people, even people like Buddha and Jesus Christ (who got many predictions right, but also predicted that the world would end in his own lifetime).. i don't particularly consider them authoritative... interestingly authority was a major Krishnamurti theme. I've been to nadi astrology oracles that UG Krishnamurti had been to where they told him he was the greatest enlightened being on the planet.. haha Well they also told me im liberated while alive and very great.. so this is from an authority! Haha You see the point.. Why should we point to outside authorities. If Krishnamurti accepted the word of these authorities he'd be wandering around thinking he's the second coming of Buddha.. how horrible... self aggrandisement and considering oneself great as a person is not it.. Because the truth of what we are is the same in all and not personalised. On a side note I thought that was a good insight about how in the 19th and early 20th century there was this search for the leader or messiah. Probably due to Hegelian thinking.
@@HardcoreZen :D It does not look like it. I run desperately after Bohm, his dialogues and people who are interested in him and all I run into is this Indian guy ranting about people's unenlightenedness. Have you listened to Krishnamurti videos? How do you find them? Are you sure Tim wasn't punning with you when he said Krishnamurti is one of the most enlightened ones?
Always a nostalgic feeling with Brad. Krishnamurti, classic rock. We chased our pleasures here Dug our treasures there But can you still recall The time we cried Break on through to the other side
