Jiddu Krishnamurti Biography

Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1920.Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on May 11, 1895 in the small town of Madanapalle about a 250Km north-west of Madras (today, Chennai) in a Telugu-speaking Brahmin family. Being the eighth child, in accordance with Hindu orthodox tradition he was named after Sri Krishna who had himself been an eighth child.

His father, Jiddu Narianiah, graduated from Madras University and worked in the Revenue Department of the British administration, rising by the end of his career to the position of Tashildar (rent collector) and District Magistrate. The Jiddu family was middle class by Indian standards.

His mother, Jiddu Sanjeevamma and his father were second cousins. She had eleven children, but only six survived childhood. In those times the caste system was rigid, and Europeans were considered like “untouchables.” Sanjeevamma would throw away food even if the shadow of a European would fell on it. If a European would enter the house, the rooms he or she walked in would have been scrubbed and children given fresh clean clothes.

Sanjeevamma felt that her eighth child will be special and wanted to give birth in the puja room, normally reserved for prayer in orthodox Hindu homes. For Hindu, the moment of birth is when the head of the baby is visible and is important for astrological calculations. Kumara Shrowtulu, a renowned astrologer in the region predicted next day that the boy will be a great man.

At age two, Krishna contracted malaria, which made him suffer from fever and nose bleeds. His weakness made him a soft target for mistreatments from people around him, including his father and teachers, who thought of him as a frail and intellectually challenged boy. His father frequent work transfers and his poor health made him fall behind on learning.

In 1904 Krishna’s eldest sister died at age twenty. In a memoir written when he was eighteen, he said that his mother used to “see” her dead daughter: “They talked together and there was a special place in the garden to which my sister used to come. My mother always knew when my sister was there and sometimes took me with her to the place, and would ask me whether I saw my sister too. At first, I laughed at the question, but she asked me to look again and then sometimes I saw my sister. Afterwards I could always see my sister. I must confess I was very much afraid, because I had seen her dead and her body burnt. I generally rushed to my mother’s side and she told me there was no reason to be afraid. I was the only member of my family, except my mother, to see these visions, though all believed in them. My mother was able to see the auras of people, and I also sometimes saw them.”

In December 1905, Krishna mother died. In the same memoir he wrote: “The happiest memories of my childhood centre round my dear mother who gave us all the loving care for which Indian mothers are well known. I cannot say I was particularly happy at school, for the teachers were not very kind and gave me lessons that were too hard for me. I enjoyed games as long as they were not too rough, as I had very delicate health. My mother’s death in 1905 deprived my brothers and myself of the one who loved and cared for us most, and my father was too much occupied to pay much attention to us ... there was really nobody to look after us. In connection with my mother’s death, I may mention that I frequently saw her after she died. I remember once following my mother’s form as it went upstairs. I stretched out my hand and seemed to catch hold of her dress, but she vanished as soon as she reached the top of the stairs. Until a short time ago, I used to hear my mother following me as I went to school. I remember this particularly because I heard the sound of bangles which Indian women wear on their wrists. At first I would look back half frightened, and I saw the vague form of her dress and part of her face. This happened almost always when I went out of the house.”

In 1907 Krishna and his younger brother, Nitya were admitted to High School at Madanapalle. Same year, Krishna’s father retired with half salary. He was a Theosophical Society ¹ member and wrote to Annie Besant ², the president of the Society, offering his full time service in return for free housing for his four sons ³and himself in the compound of the Theosophical Society, in Adyar. Mrs. Besant declined the request stating that there was no school at Adyar that the boys could walk to, and they would be a disturbance on the compound. He didn’t give up and after few more appeals his request was accepted when a need for an assistant position arose at the end of 1908.

In January 1909 Jiddu family moved in a dilapidated small house, without indoor sanitation, outside the Society compound. Krishna and Nitya joined the Pennathur Subramanian High School at Mylapore, walking five kilometers each way every day. Their physical condition was very bad.

Krishnamurti and Nityananda in 1910

In February 1909, Charles Webster Leadbeater⁴ arrived in Adyar, after being readmitted in the Theosophical Society, following a scandal accusing that he had given advice to boys under his care that encouraged masturbation as a way to relieve obsessive sexual thoughts.

One evening, on the Society’s beach on the side of Adyar river, Leadbeater noticed a boy that looked “under-nourished, scrawny and dirty; his ribs showed through his skin and he had a persistent cough; his teeth were crooked and he wore his hair in the customary Brahmin fashion of South India, shaved in front to the crown and falling to below his knees in a pigtail at the back; moreover his vacant expression gave him an almost moronic look. “

Leadbeater was impressed by “the most wonderful aura he had ever seen, without a particle of selfishness in it.” The boy was Jiddu Krishnamurti. Leadbeater believed that in his later life, this boy would become a great spiritual leader and orator. Most importantly, Leadbeater predicted that he would be the “vehicle for the Lord Maitreya,” an advanced spiritual entity who appears on Earth as the World Teacher to guide the evolution of humankind.

Leadbeater later began to describe Krishna’s former lives to a small audience, and his narration was written down by Narianiah. Krishna knew very little English and due to his shyness and timidity, the communication with Leadbeater was very difficult. At school classes were in English and Tamil, but speaking only Telugu, he was seen as stupid by his teacher and was constantly expelled from classroom and caned almost every day for not learning his lessons.

Until 1910 Leadbeater investigated thirty lives of Krishnamurti. His alias in these lives was Alcyone. The lives ranged from 22,662 B.C. to A.D. 624. Alcyone was a female in eleven of them. Besant appeared in them under the pseudonym of Heracles, Leadbeater as Sirius, Nitya as Mizar, Krishna’s mother as Omega and his father as Antares; Hubert van Hook⁵ was Orion.

Annie Besant arrives in Charing Cross Station, London with Jiddu Krishnamurti, his brother Nityananda, and George Arundale, prominent Theosophist and tutor to the boys, 1911.

In October, when the boys were badly beaten at school, came the opportunity to convince their father to move to the society compound where they were tutored by Society’s staff. Leadbeater took care of their spiritual development by taking the two boys “in their astral bodies while they were asleep” to his Master presence for a discipleship probation period. The following morning Krishna would write down what he remembered of the Master’s instructions.

In November 1909 Krishnamurti and his brother Nityananda met Annie Besant for the first time and on December 5 she admitted them to the Esoteric Section or the Society. Soon Leadbeater “conveyed” messages from the Master to say that the boys’ father must be made to realize that his sons no longer belonged to him but to the world and for the next few years they “should associate only with those who were under Theosophical influence.” On December 31st, Leadbeater told Besant that Master Kuthumi ⁶ was going to accept Krishna as his disciple and initiation ordered for January 11th. Next day Krishnamurti gave his own account of his Initiation to Besant.

On March 6 Jiddu Narianiah signed documents granting Annie Besant the full rights of a guardian over the boys.

The “Lives of Alcyone” began to be published in the Theosophist magazine in April 1910 under the title “Rents in the Veil of Time”.

A small book titled “At the Feet of the Master”, purportedly about the teachings given to Krishnamurti by his Master, was published in December 1910. Krishna stated in his Foreword: “These are not my words; they are the words of the Master who taught me.” His original notes have not survived and there is no indication to what extent Leadbeater revised them. Although many doubted the authorship, the book was translated into some forty languages.

On January 11, 1911, on the anniversary of Krishna’s Initiation, the Order of the Rising Sun was established, an organization to help prepare public opinion to the world spiritual teacher. A few months later, under the new name of the Order of the Star in the East, the organization became international. Besant and Leadbeater were made Protectors of the new Order of which Krishna was the Head. A quarterly magazine, printed at Adyar and called the Herald of the Star, with Krishna as its nominal editor, was also started; the first number appeared in January 1911.

On April 22nd, 1911, Annie Bessant sailed from India to England along with Krishnamurti and Nityananda. During the four months stay there, they took arithmetic and algebra lessons, Sanskrit, essay writing and studied Shakespeare and a dive into Western life with theater shows, cricket matches, fireworks and zoo visits. In June Besant took the boys to Paris for a few days where she lectured at Sorbonne. Back in England, in June and July, Besant gave three lectures at the Queen’s Hall in London on ‘The Coming of the World Teacher’.

On May 28, 1912, Krishnamurti gave his first public speech at the Theosophical Society Headquarters in London. Besant wrote to Leadbeater: ‘He was very nervous and forgot much of it, but everyone was delighted, and he looked very charming.’

In July 1912 Jiddu Narianiah wrote to Besant that he is rescinding his decision to grant her custody of his sons. Fearing that the boys might be kidnapped by Narianiah’s supporters, Besant made sure the boys were staying in England. Following the lawsuit, it was ruled that the boys had to be returned to their father by end of May 1913, but on appeal the boys remained under Bessant’s guardianship.

With the outbreak of the war, Krishna asked Bessant if he should enroll, to which she replied that it would be a very bad idea “not so much because he might have to kill someone as because he would have to pollute his body by eating meat.”

In March 1917 Krishna and Nitya intended to take the admission exam at Oxford, but it became clear that nor Oxford or Cambridge would accept them. Krishna not only was an Indian proclaimed to be the coming Messiah but was accused of homosexuality ⁷ by his own father.

On January 14, 1918 both Krishna and Nitya sat for university entrance examination. Nitya passed with honors, but Krishna failed and had to retake the exam in September; but he again failed in mathematics. Krishna went to attend lectures at London University and travelled up every day by public transportation. The daily trips were a stressful for him. He later said: ‘I am a democrat, but I don’t like people too near me’. In November he got sick with influenza and by the time he recovered was unable to retake the January examination.

In January 1920 Nitya passed the examination for Constitutional Law and Legal History, but Krishna failed again and after that he moved to Paris to study languages to be able to speak around the world when the time would come for him to do his life’s work. In Paris he was depressed for a while, but made new friends, visited Monte Carlo, had tea at the Casino, played the roulette and golf and wrote letters to his confidante, Lady Emily Lutyens⁸ On May 6 he wrote to her: “Curiously all day I have been very dreamy, more dreamy than usual and in my heart there has been a continual thought of Lord Buddha. I was in such a state that I had to sit down & meditate. Think of me meditating. Extraordinary.”

Around August 1920 the rebellious side of Krishna starts to awaken: “I do hate this mamby-pamby affair we are at present. ... What rot it all is & to think what it might be. We will have to do it. Change it from top to bottom and knock the personal element into thick air. […] Damn! I am really fed up with that crowd but at present it is not my affair. One day, as I am really at the bottom very keen on it all, I shall take it up and do what I think is right and hang everybody who has got any personal element in it. Oh, mother what rot it is. Don’t laugh…”

On August 7th he wrote: “… I really do believe in the Masters etc and I don’t want it to be made ridiculous. A beautiful idea or an object can never be ugly but we human beings can make it monstrously unwholesome. […] I am in a most rebellious mood as you can imagine and personally I don’t want to belong to anything of which I am ashamed [...] if I am to occupy a leading position in the T.S. it will be because of [what] I am and not what other people think of me or have created a position for me. ... I personally must work hard at my studies and get my mental condition into smooth running order.”

At the end of July Theosophical World Convention took place, followed by the first Congress of the Order of the Star in the East. Out of the 30 thousand members of the Order, 2000 attended the Congress. Krishna took a more important role, as Besant wrote: “... he astonished all present by his grasp of the questions considered, his firmness in controlling the discussions, his clear laying down of the principles and practices of the Order. ... But the biggest thing about him was his intense conviction of the reality and omnipotence of the Hidden God in every man, and to him, the inevitable results of the presence of that Divinity.”

In December 1921, Krishnamurti and Nityananda retuned to India for the convention and forty-sixth anniversary of the Theosophical Society. In January they went to see their father near Madras. They prostrated and touched his feet with their foreheads. But the father was displeased being touched by pariahs and went to wash his feet.

In March they sailed to Australia and met Leadbeater. Nitya manifested serious lung sickness and was ordered by the doctor to spend time in a better climate and was decided to return to Europe via San Francisco, with a stopover in Ojai, California, which was recommended for tuberculosis patients.

In July they arrived in Ojai and starting on August 17, 1922, Krishnamurti went through an experience that changed his life, which was later known as “the process.” The meditation was filled with great pain especially on his spine and neck; this condition lasted until August 20th at its peak, leaving him almost unconscious. On August 19th, as he became semi-conscious, he had a vision of him being anything and anywhere.

On the following day, he felt very weak and started to hallucinate, he started to meditate on Lord Maitreya. He could feel that his spirit was leaving his body and was accompanied by Lord Maitreya the entire time. Despite the pain, he found profound peace and calmness. He said: “The fountain of Truth has been revealed to me and the darkness has been dispersed. Love in all its glory has intoxicated my heart; my heart can never be closed. I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated.”

The news about his experience reached Besant, Leadbeater and the other theosophists. They were surprised by this development and how it unfolded and became more convinced that Krishnamurti had finally fulfilled the prophecy to become “the vehicle.”

Krishnamurti and Nitya went on a tour of Theosophical and Order of the Star centers from West to East coast, ending in Chicago on May 27 for the convention of the Society. Krishnamurti gave speeches and raised funds for a Theosophical school at Guindy, near Adyar. During this time the “process” was ongoing, and he was in constant pain.

Neither Besant nor Leadbeater could explain this “process” and could only guess why Krishnamurti was experiencing such suffering, despite stating that they had gone through a similar stage.

In November Krishnamurti and his brother returned to Ojai. The “process” continued with even more pain in the evenings and a dull ache during the day. In April, the “process” stopped. But after a trip to Europe, on August 21st, it started again with even more intensity and lasted until September 24th.

Annie Besant arriving in Bombay with Krishnamurti and Nityananda, 1924

As news of these mystical experiences spread, rumors concerning the messianic status of Krishnamurti reached fever pitch as the 1925 Theosophical Society Convention was planned, on the 50th anniversary of its founding. There were expectations of significant happenings. In the same time with the increasing adulation, Krishnamurti was feeling more discomfort with it.

In related developments, prominent Theosophists and their factions within the Society were trying to position themselves favorably relative to the Coming, which was widely rumored to be approaching. "Extraordinary" pronouncements of spiritual advancement were made by various parties, disputed by others, and the internal Theosophical politics further alienated Krishnamurti.

Nitya's persistent health problems had periodically resurfaced throughout this time. On November 13th, in Port Said, while traveling from Europe to India, Krishnamurti received a telegram that his brother died in Ojai, due to complications of influenza and tuberculosis. Despite Nitya's poor health, his death was unexpected, and it fundamentally shook Krishnamurti's belief in Theosophy and in the leaders of the Society. He did not expect this to happen because the Masters said that Nitya would “be well”.

Pupul Jayakar wrote that "his belief in the Masters and the hierarchy had undergone a total revolution." According to eyewitness accounts, the news "broke him completely," but twelve days after Nitya's death he was "immensely quiet, radiant, and free of all sentiment and emotion; there was not a shadow ... to show what he had been through.”

From August 1926 to April 1927 Besant and Krishnamurti were together in Ojai. It was probably the longest time they had spent together since his youth. Living in close to him she became aware of how far he had traveled from the orthodox Theosophical teaching. In a letter she wrote: “J. K. is changing all the time, but it does not seem as though he stepped out and the Lord stepped in, more like the blending of consciousness.”

Soon became clear that Krishnamurti was rejecting all authority, even the most fundamental, such as belief in the Masters and the esoteric path. He said: “I and my Beloved are one. The vision is total. To me that is liberation.” And then: “The personality of J. Krishnamurti has been swallowed up in the flame—what happens after that does not matter—whether the spark remains within the flame or issues forth.”

On August 2nd, 1928, at the Ommen camp, in front of gathering of over three thousand people, Krishnamurti spoke with great clarity on the need for the listener to abandon all grounds of authority, especially that of the World Teacher. Each one should live only by the light within: “When I was a small boy, I used to see Sri Krishna, with the flute, as he is pictured by the Hindus ... When I grew older and met with Bishop Leadbeater and the Theosophical Society, I began to see the Master Kuthumi [K. H.]—again in the form which was put before me ... Later on, as I grew, I began to see the Lord Maitreya. That was two years ago and I saw him constantly in the form put before me ... Now lately it has been the Buddha whom I have been seeing ... I have been asked what I mean by ‘the Beloved’. I will give a meaning, an explanation which you will interpret as you please. To me it is all—it is Sri Krishna, it is the Master K.H., it is the Lord Maitreya, it is the Buddha, and yet it is beyond all these forms. What does it matter what name you give? ... What you are troubling about is whether there is such a person as the World Teacher who has manifested Himself in the body of a certain person, Krishnamurti; but in the world nobody will trouble about this question ... My beloved is the open skies, the flower, every human being ... Till I was able to say with certainty, without undue excitement, or exaggeration in order to convince others that I was one with my Beloved, I never spoke. I talked in vague generalities which everybody wanted. I never said: I am the World Teacher; but now that I feel I am one with my Beloved, I say it, not in order to impress my authority on you, not to convince you of my greatness, nor of the greatness of the World Teacher, nor even of the beauty of life, but merely to awaken the desire in your hearts and in your own minds to seek the Truth ... It is no good asking me who is the Beloved. Of what use is explanation? For you will not understand the Beloved until you are able to see him in every animal, in every blade of grass, in every person that is suffering, in every individual.”

The news of the rift between Krishnamurti and the Theosophical Society spread rapidly. Annie Besant did not attend the Ommen camp, and on hearing what Krishnamurti refused to accept the role of the Messiah on the terms laid down by the Theosophical Society, fell seriously ill.

On August 3, 1929, in the presence of Besant and three thousand members of the Order of the Star present at the annual Ommen camp, Krishnamurti announced his determination to dissolve the Order of the Star, of which he was the president. The speech he gave then became famous:

“I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path… This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.”

In 1930 Krishnamurti resigned from the Theosophical Society. He returned the money and properties donated to the Order to their donors, including a castle in Netherlands and 5,000 acres of land. He was retaining the £500 per year for life income that Miss Dodge⁹ has settled for him.

He went to Adyar in 1932 and met Annie Besant for the last time. She was very fragile, with a faded intellect, but recognized her beloved son. He was deeply saddened seeing her. Later he said that the elders of the Society questioned him relentlessly, asking him to affirm or deny the existence of the Masters. He had refused to reply.

On September 20, 1933, Annie Besant died at Adyar. Later Krishnamurti said: “I read the notice of her death in The New York Times—they never informed me.” Leadbeater died the following year on March 1st in Perth, Australia, while on his way to Sydney. Krishnamurti’s ties with Theosophy were severed. From that moment he was free to go his own way.

J. Krishnamurti, 1934.

Between 1933 and 1939 Krishnamurti traveled several times to India, giving talks to large audiences under Star Publishing Trust with his friend and close associate, Desikacharya Rajagopal and Rajagopal’s wife at that time, Rosalind Williams. During this period, his residence was in Ojai with Rajagopal and Williams, in the house called Arya Vihara. Rajagopal and with his wife assumed the role of guardians and holders of authority, taking over all decision-making in Krishnamurti’s personal life and the work connected with his teaching, planning lectures and tours and setting up the infrastructure to support his future work.

In 1935 he spent nine months in South and Central America giving talks and interviews, accompanied by Rajagopal and his assistant. He said: “I am really surprised there is so much interest and enthusiasm.”

Krishnamurti was in Ojai in 1939 when World War II broke out in Europe and it was no longer possible for him to travel. He had to give detailed explanations to the US draft board as to why he could not fight and join the army. The board suggested him to return to India, he agreed, but as there was no transportation, he was permitted to stay.

After 1940 he was forbidden to give talks and had to report to the police regularly. He spent the next years taking long walks around Ojai valley, spending days in wilderness in solitude, gardening, milking cows and washing dishes.

In 1944 he started giving talks again, at Oak Grove, in Ojai. His talks were published by Krishnamurti Writings Inc., a charitable organization, the new incarnation of Star Publishing Trust, with Rajagopal and Krishnamurti as trustees. Later, Krishnamurti ceased to be a trustee and Rajagopal became President, a circumstance that was to have most unhappy consequences.

Reports of the war and the atom bomb’s devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki filled him with inexpressible horror, but awakened insights into the nature of violence and evil. Occasionally he had visitors, among them was Aldous Huxley and they became good friends. Huxley encouraged him to write “something,” which he did. These writings afterwards became “Commentaries on Living,” published in 1956, and two more volumes in 1959 and 1960, all edited by Rajagopal.

Krishnamurti and Iyengar.Two months after India became independent on August 15, 1947, Krishnamurti visited India and gave talks and interviews, made new friends and met some aging, former Theosophical associates.

Next year in May, manifestations of the “process” that he experienced in Ojai years before, started again. In Poona in 1948, Krishnamurti met B.K.S. Iyengar, who taught him Yoga practices every morning for the next three months, then on and off for twenty years. During the same period, many prominent Indian personalities came to meet him, including Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

In 1956 Krishnamurti met the Dalai Lama of Tibet who was visiting sacred sites across India. While in Mardas, Dalai Lama was suggested to meet Krishnamurti. The life and teachings of Krishnamurti were related to him and Dalai Lama had expressed a keen desire to meet him. Those around the Dalai Lama were most distressed. It was a shattering of all protocol.

But the Dalai Lama insisted, and the meeting was arranged. Upon meeting Krishnamurti, the Dalai Lama directly asked, “Sir, what do you believe in?” Dalai Lama later said: “A great soul, a great experience.” he expressed the wish to meet Krishnamurti again. ¹⁰

The Rajagopals' marriage was not a happy one, and the two became physically estranged after the 1931 birth of their daughter, Radha and finally divorced in the early 1960s. In the relative seclusion of Arya Vihara, Krishnamurti's close friendship with Rosalind deepened into a love affair. According to Radha Rajagopal Sloss, in her 1991 book “Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti”, the long affair between Krishnamurti and Rosalind began in 1932 and it lasted for about twenty-five years.

In the early 1960s, Krishnamurti met physicist David Bohm, whose philosophical and scientific concerns regarding the essence of the physical world, and the psychological and sociological state of mankind, found parallels in Krishnamurti's philosophy.

The two men soon became close friends and started a common inquiry, in the form of personal dialogues–and occasionally in group discussions with other participants–that continued, periodically, over nearly two decades. Several of these discussions were published in the form of books or as parts of books and introduced a wider audience (among scientists) to Krishnamurti's ideas.

Although Krishnamurti's philosophy delved into fields as diverse as religious studies, education, psychology, physics, and consciousness studies, he was not then, nor since, well known in academic circles. Nevertheless, Krishnamurti met and held discussions with physicists Fritjof Capra and E. C. George Sudarshan, biologist Rupert Sheldrake, psychiatrist David Shainberg, as well as psychotherapists representing various theoretical orientations.

In the 1970s, Krishnamurti met several times with then Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, with whom he had far ranging, and in some cases, very serious discussions. Pupul Jayakar ¹¹ considered his message in meetings with Indira Gandhi as a possible influence in the lifting of certain emergency measures Gandhi had imposed during periods of political turmoil.

In early 1970s, Krishnamurti's relationship with the Rajagopals had deteriorated to the point where he took D. Rajagopal to court to recover donated property and funds as well as publication rights for his works, manuscripts, and personal correspondence, that were in Rajagopal's possession.

The litigation and ensuing cross complaints, which formally began in 1971, continued for many years. Much property and materials were returned to Krishnamurti during his lifetime; the parties to this case finally settled all other matters in 1986, shortly after his death.

J. Krishnamurti, 1983.

In 1984 and 1985, Krishnamurti spoke to an invited audience at the United Nations in New York, under the auspices of the Pacem in Terris Society chapter at the United Nations. In October 1985, he visited India for the last time, holding talks that came to be known as "farewell" talks and discussions. These last talks included the fundamental questions he had been asking through the years, as well as newer concerns about advances in science and technology, and their effect on humankind.

Krishnamurti had commented to friends that he did not wish to invite death, but was not sure how long his body would last (he had already lost considerable weight), and once he could no longer talk, he would have "no further purpose". In his final talk, on 4 January 1986, in Madras, he again invited the audience to examine with him the nature of inquiry, the effect of technology, the nature of life and meditation, and the nature of creation.

Krishnamurti was also concerned about his legacy, about being unwittingly turned into some personage whose teachings had been handed down to special individuals, rather than the world at large. He did not want anybody to pose as an interpreter of the teaching. He warned his associates on several occasions that they were not to present themselves as spokesmen on his behalf, or as his successors after his death.

A few days before his death, in a final statement, he declared that nobody among either his associates or the general public had understood what had happened to him (as the conduit of the teaching). He added that the "supreme intelligence" operating in his body would be gone with his death, again implying the impossibility of successors.

However, he stated that people could perhaps get into touch with that somewhat "if they live the teachings". In prior discussions, he had compared himself with Thomas Edison, implying that he did the hard work, and now all that was needed by others was a flick of the switch.

In October 1985 he went from England (Brockwood Park School) to India and after that he suffered from exhaustion, fevers, and lost weight. Krishnamurti decided to go back to Ojai on January 10, 1986, after his last talks in Madras, which necessitated a 24-hour flight. Once he arrived at Ojai he underwent medical tests that revealed he was suffering from pancreatic cancer.

The cancer was untreatable, either surgically or otherwise, so Krishnamurti decided to go back to his home at Ojai, where he spent his last days. Friends and professionals nursed him. His mind was clear until the very last. Krishnamurti died on 17 February 1986, at ten minutes past midnight, California time.

Over the years, Krishnamurti founded several schools around the world, including Brockwood Park School, an international educational center. When asked, he enumerated the following as his educational aims:

• Global outlook: A vision of the whole as distinct from the part; there should never be a sectarian outlook, but always a holistic outlook free from all prejudice.

• Concern for man and the environment: Humanity is part of nature, and if nature is not cared for, it will boomerang on man. Only the right education, and deep affection between people everywhere, will resolve many problems including the environmental challenges.

• Religious spirit, which includes the scientific temper: The religious mind is alone, not lonely. It is in communion with people and nature.

The Krishnamurti Foundation, established in 1928 by him and Annie Besant, runs many schools in India and abroad.

As of 31 December 2010, according to WorldCat, Krishnamurti-related materials numbered "2,412 works in 4,580 publications in 53 languages and 46,822 library holdings", while Books In Print stated, "His teachings of more than 20,000,000 words are published in more than 75 books, 700 audiocassettes, and 1200 videocassettes. Thus far, over 4,000,000 copies of books have been sold in twenty-two languages."

Among the critics of Krishnamurti, Peter Eastman ¹² wrote in PhilArchive, the largest Open Access Archive in philosophy: “Tellingly, it doesn’t even make sense to ask if there has ever been anyone who, having listened carefully to Krishnamurti, found themselves in possession of the kind of realisation he was talking about. This is because not only did his theory of spiritual realisation not make the least sense from any angle, but also because the whole thing, from start to finish, was entirely selfvalidating, and wholly solipsistic, and offered no means of objective intellectual scrutiny. ”

Some of the most important books of Jiddu Krishnamurti

• At the Feet of the Master (1910)
• The First and Last Freedom (1954)
• Commentaries on Living (1956–1960)
• Freedom from the Known (1969)
• Krishnamurti's Notebook (1976)
• Krishnamurti's Journal (1982)
• Krishnamurti to Himself (1987)

Sources:

• en.wikipedia.org
• Krishnamurti The Open Door, A Biography by Mary Lutyens
• Krishnamurti: A Biography, by Pupul Jayakar
• Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti, by Radha Rajagopal Sloss
• philarchive.org

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Caroline Rhys Davids was one of the first scholars to translate Abhidhamma texts, known for their complexity and difficult use of technical language. She also translated large portions of the Sutta Piṭaka or edited and supervised the translations of other PTS scholars.

Thomas William Rhys Davids Biography

“Buddhist or not Buddhist, I have examined every one of the great religious systems of the world, and in none of them have I found anything to surpass, in beauty and comprehensiveness, the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha.”

Tirumalai Krishnamacharya Biography

Tirumalai Krishnamacharya was an Indian yoga teacher, ayurvedic healer and scholar. Often referred to as "the father of modern yoga," Krishnamacharya is widely regarded as one of the most influential yoga teachers of the 20th century.

Hermann Oldenberg Biography

Hermann Oldenberg was a German scholar of Indology, and Professor at Kiel and Göttingen.

Swami Lakshmanjoo Biography

There is a point twixt sleep and waking, / Where thou shalt be alert without shaking: / Enter into the new world where forms so hideous pass, / They are passing, - endure, do not be taken by the dross. / Then the pulls and the pushes about the throttle (...)