Tell us a little bit about the book.
This work is about the life and philosophy of Jiddu Krishnamurti [1895-1986]. Born in the small town of Madanapalle in south India, he was a Telugu speaking boy, considered vague, dreamy, and almost dull. At the age of 14 he was adopted by the Theosophists, Charles W Leadbeater and Annie Besant, and soon proclaimed the world teacher- to- come, or the messiah-to-be. His younger brother Nityanand was adopted with him to be his companion. Krishnamurti was groomed for the role of a new messiah, a Christ reincarnated, was introduced in his astral body to a hierarchy of hidden Masters, and made the head of the Order of the Star, an organisation founded for him. In 1929, a few years after the death of his brother, he dissolved the Order at a public function in Ommen, Holland, denied his role as messiah, and said he was no guru and had no disciples. At this time he made the now famous and oft quoted statement, ‘Truth is a pathless land’. He went on to develop his own philosophy, and to disseminate it in talks across the world. Until his death, he travelled incessantly, speaking to audiences in North and South America, Europe, India, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand. He spoke in English, having totally forgotten his mother-tongue. His talks have been translated into European, Indian, and other languages including Russian, Chinese and Hebrew.
[Jkrishnamurti.org and Jkrishnamurti.net are two sites which provide information on his talks and books, along with transcriptions, recordings and videos.]
Which of your insights or conclusions do you find most exciting?
Though the question has sometimes been raised about whether he can be categorized as a philosopher, his body of thought does put him in that category. Krishnamurti was to my mind a great and intuitive philosopher, but he was not perfect, and nor were his ideas. I think it is very important to understand this and continue to question every idea, concept, and person. Is there a limit beyond which no one can reach, or which no one has reached so far? ‘Freedom from the Known’, is a title of one of his books, and a concept he frequently discussed. In this context, my conclusion is that one has to free oneself from what he said, too.
How have readers responded? (Or how do you hope they will respond?)
Most readers have responded well. Sandip writes: ‘This is how biographies ought to be written without using paint brushes to hide the flaws and warts—treating the subject holistically yet with honesty and sensitivity’. Ritambhari comments: ‘It is at the same time critical and appreciative of the man and his teachings.’ There are some followers of J Krishnamurti, who feel I should not have written about his relationships or his conflict with his long-time editor and manager D. Rajagopal.
[Online discussion: J Krishnamurti: A Life of Compassion Beyond Boundaries, talk by author Roshen Dalal, 8 November 2020.]
What topics do you discuss in the work, and why do you discuss them?
Apart from his life, I discuss his educational ideas, and the main aspects of his philosophy, including his concepts of good and evil, of time, his analysis of thought and memory, his ideas on reality, on the ‘ground’ or source of all existence, and the connections with quantum physics. What was the background to this extraordinary and influential philosophy? There is also some discussion on similar or related philosophies, in order to situate him in a wider context. He did not like to be compared with others, but one can see traces of Henri Bergson in his work, someone he had read in his youth. His educational ideas have been compared to those of Plato and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among others. In India, his thoughts come closest to those of Osho and U G Krishnamurti , though both were more radical. C V Williams, one of his biographers, feels his philosophy has close links with Vedanta. Others have related his thoughts to those of the early Buddhist philosopher, Nagarjuna.
[See Henri Bergson, Mind-Energy ; Lectures and Essays, H Holt, 1920; www.osho.com; and Rao, Mukunda, The Other Side of Belief: Interpreting U.G. Krishnamurti, Penguin Random House India, 2005. Williams, C .V., Jiddu Krishnamurti, World Philosopher, revised edition, published online at www.sydneyschoolofarts.com , Publisher: Sydney School of Arts and Humanities, 2012.]
How is your work relevant to the contemporary world?
J Krishnamurti’s ideas that are explained in this book, are very relevant in the world today. He spoke against a national, religious, or other identity, and explained how these cause divisions, leading to war and conflict. He aimed for a peaceful world, which would be attained through individual self-transformation. If the individual could only look into the self, instead of blindly following the dictates of family, society, religion and country, this would lead to an understanding of the workings of the mind, and the person would change. Ambition, desire, and the need to ‘become’ something, or to achieve success, would automatically drop away. A state of love and harmony with nature, would then arise. His philosophy has relevance for every person, as he pointed out how to drop one’s conditioning, and analysed the nature of thought, belief and limitation.
What directions would you like to take your work in the future?
Currently I am researching and writing on another Indian philosopher, Sri Aurobindo [1872-1950]. I would like to continue working on other Indian philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries, who diverged to some extent from ancient traditions. My aim is to convey their thoughts in simple terms to the general public, thus bringing their ideas into the mainstream.
What writing practices, methods, or routines do you use, and which have been the most helpful?
My day revolves around research, reading and writing. I like to work in the daytime, and to read something light late evening. I accept all interruptions as part of life. Most important for me is to never give up—there may be days when not much is accomplished, but the next day one starts again. The topics I write about are those which deeply interest me, so it is easy to continue with it day after day. In fact, it is an essential part of my life.
Roshen Dalal
Roshen Dalal is an independent researcher and writer who writes for both adults and children, and has twelve books to her credit on history, religion, and philosophy. She lives in Dehradun, India, and has a PhD in Ancient Indian History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
H. L. Schmidt
H. L. Schmidt currently holds the Becker Fellowship. She has worked as an editor or writer at multiple publications, including Qu, City Magazine, and The Verve. Schmidt is SOPHIA’s Chapter Development Officer and is a doctoral student in the University of Kentucky’s Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation Ph.D. program in Philosophical and Cultural Inquiry, where she focuses on how we develop, communicate, and sustain a personal moral code. She founded the Roanoke chapter of SOPHIA, has presented at a number of conferences, including Philosophy of the City’s 2019 Conference where she presented her research on the role of the public library in a just city. She is part of the leadership of the Philosophers for Sustainability group, where she co-leads the Social Media & Outreach team. At the APA Blog, she edits the Research beat, conducts interviews for the Recent Book Spotlight, and oversees the Diversity & Inclusion beat, which features the Women in Philosophy and Black Issues series. She hosted the Civic Connections podcast featuring conversations with local public policy officials about justice and public affairs. She holds a Master’s in the Humanities from Hollins University where she studied ethics and public policy under Lawrence C. Becker and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. Her interests include practical ethics, public policy, existentialism, and utilitarianism. You can follow her on Twitter @theheidifeed.
Jiddu Krishnamurti is an excellent target for closer examination, so applause to the author for this focus. I first read Krishnamurti fifty years ago in my youth, and his work has had a significant influence on perspectives I’ve carried throughout my life.
I’m expressing what for me has been the most useful perspectives in my own words, but I would credit Krishnamurti as being the influence who aimed me in the right direction.
We are made of thought. And thought operates by a process of division. A great deal of the human condition can be understood through this lens.
Thought operates by dividing the single unified reality in to conceptual objects. The noun is the easiest example.
This process is the source of our genius as a species, as once this division has occurred we can then rearrange the conceptual objects in our mind to generate new visions of how reality could be. That is, we can be creative.
This division process is also the source of our madness as a species. The inherently divisive nature of thought creates a human experience of reality as being divided between “me” and “everything else”. “Me” is perceived as being very small, and “everything else” is perceived to be very big. This perspective gives rise to fear, and the fear in turn gives rise to most human problems.
To illustrate, we are genius enough to be able to create incredible devices like nuclear weapons, and insane enough to actually do so. The genius and the insanity arise from the same source, the inherently divisive nature of thought, that which we are made of, which is why this dance between genius and insanity is a universal property of the human condition in every time and place, it’s built in.
One can take such an investigation only so far in the realm of philosophy, because philosophy is made of thought too, and is thus subject to the same bias for division. One can discuss the unity of all things in philosophy, but not experience that unity. In fact, immersion in the symbolic realm of thought turns out to be the primary obstacle to such experience.
And so as I traveled beyond my youth I’ve spent ever less time reading Krishnamurti and other philosophers, and ever more time in nature.
It seems rational to ask, why study what somebody says about reality when we can cut out the middle man and study reality directly?