Código de la Niñez y la Adolescencia

Krishnamurti resigned from the Theosophical Society in 1930. Writing in the

International Star Bulletin in that year he had said, “My teaching is neither occult

nor mystic for I hold both as limitations placed on man in his search for Truth.” Mrs. Besant’s one concern on hearing the news of his resignation was anxiety about Krishnamurti’s future. She was aware of his total lack of worldly values and wondered how he would survive the cruel world without the protection of the Society. I am told that she prevailed on B. Sanjeeva Rao and his wife, Padmabai, eminent educators and her close associates, to resign from the Theosophical Society so that they could join Krishna’s work, to be with him and protect him.

He did not return to India until November 1932. From Bombay he went directly to Adyar to see Mrs. Besant. She had become very fragile, had lost her memory, and was living in the past. But she recognized her dearly beloved son. It was tragic to see her, and Krishnamurti was deeply saddened. On his return from Varanasi he was to see her again. He had grown a beard and she commented on his beautiful face and said that he was frail and should look after himself. This was their final meeting.

His speech at the Theosophical convention held at Adyar in 1932 was met by critical comments from the elders of the Society. He told me many years later that they had cornered him and questioned him relentlessly, asking him to affirm or deny the existence of the Masters. He had refused to reply.

On his way back to Europe he met George Bernard Shaw at the home of Sir Chunilal Mehta. They spoke of Mrs. Besant. Shaw enquired how she was. “Very well,” said Krishnamurti, “but at her great age, she cannot think consecutively.” “She never could,” whispered Shaw. Krishnamurti merely smiled.

Later Shaw was to describe Krishnamurti to Heskith Pearson as the most beautiful human being he had ever seen.1

Annie Besant died at Adyar on September 20, 1933. Half a century later I asked Krishnaji about the impact Mrs. Besant’s death had on him. A look of intense gravity touched his eyes as he responded. “I read the notice of her death in The New York Times—they never informed me.”

Throughout their two lives, so closely intertwined, Mrs. Besant and her adopted son Krishna were to spend little time together. But from Mrs. Besant’s earliest letters to Krishna an intensity of love, a wave, flows from her to reach out and envelop the child, holding and protecting him.

The bonds fused between her and Krishna, transcending time and space. As a boy he wrote to her every week describing his dreams, his studies, his daily life, and his little problems. She was first a mother, anxious that no harm should befall him; then the teacher; as the years passed she sometimes took the role of disciple and sat at his feet to listen to his words. As her intellect faded, her mental powers diminished and her letters to Krishna grew pale; his were affectionate, yet formal. But Krishna’s deep love and respect for her rested undiminished throughout his life.

She was an influence not in molding or giving direction to his mind and teaching, but in providing the ground of a total security of love. He had seen the fire in her blaze and sink to embers, but the warmth and unselfish love of Mrs. Besant was perhaps the one constant factor in his early life.

With the dissolution of the Order of the Star the group of young people who were always around Krishna dispersed. The organization of his travel plans and talks were for a time divided between Jadunandan Prasad, a young and much- loved associate, and Rajagopal. Jadu’s sudden death in 1931 at the age of thirty- five left Krishna with few companions. Many who had left the Theosophical Society with him felt lost and in despair; the Society had provided shelter, solace, and a purpose in life. Money was scarce.

Jadu had been a close friend. Krishna wrote to Padmabai Sanjeeva Rao in Varanasi, sharing her grief. These letters reveal Krishna’s mind in the days following the severing of his membership with the Theosophical Society. On August 30, 1931, he wrote:

My dearest Akkaji,

Isn’t it terrible that Jadu has gone away. It is really tragic and dear Padmabai, I can imagine what you must be feeling and how depressed you must be. I can hardly believe such a thing is possible. Jadu was just getting into his stride and you have no idea how much he was liked on his tour and what a success he made of it. I heard during the camp that I had a cable from John Ingleman—Jadu had a heat stroke and his blood pressure 220; again a few days later, that he was steadily improving. We were naturally anxious about it but he didn’t think that anything serious was afoot. When I came here, I had a cable of which you know. Akkaji, you must have had a grievous shock and I wish I were with you, but...!

In your letter—thank you so much for it—you were prophetic as you said how many of us will be alive when we all meet again! Nitya has gone and so has Jadu. Jadu was so clever, liked by everybody and very intelligently critical. We shall miss him and my dearest Padmabai, all my love is with you.

You were all depressed and this will be another dreadful blow. Akka, there are so few of us that we must pull ourselves together and we have got to change and we have to realise there is something infinitely greater than birth and death. We have to realise it and the effort is colossal. I wish I were with you but there it is. Life is like that and cruel if we are not master of it.

I wish, I were with you dearest Akka.2

Padmabai’s reply must have expressed her own profound anguish, for in another letter, on September 29, Krishna refers to his sorrow at Nitya’s death, his enquiry into the cause of sorrow, and a blazing awakening.

Thank you very much for your letter. I know, Padmabai the fight you must be putting up, Akkaji, because we want the perfume of love through one person only, death [darkens] our love. There will be always death as long as our understanding is limited by personal, egotistical outlook. I tell you. Akkaji dear, as long as there is consciousness of oneself there is death, loneliness and sorrow. I went through this when Nitya died and I understood what lay behind sorrow, the cause of it. I have cheated death. So, Akkaji, this is the time to understand in the midst of this sorrow and loneliness. You must understand, probe into the deepest and you will see, Padmabai dear, that there is something more permanent, eternal than all persons. We all must die and while you are in the midst of this sorrow, this is the time to understand. Don’t postpone it, Akkaji. In the gloom, you must seek the way out and not wait or let sorrow eat your heart and loneliness darken your smile. So Padmabai, be eager to understand, though it hurts. Detach your mind from loneliness, sorrow and examine and you will see that by freeing your own consciousness, you go beyond birth and death. Try it dear Padmabai and don’t say these are just words.

I wish I were with you, perhaps I could be able to help you. Oh, Padmabai, you have no idea the joy of true impersonal love.

You are in my thoughts and in my heart.

All my love, my dearest Padmabai. My love to everyone.

Krishna

His letters express a longing for India; he was drifting away from many of his close friends in the West whom he had known from his childhood. From Ojai he wrote of being alone, resting and going into samadhi.

My dearest Padmabai,

Thank you very much for your letter of October 29th. I am so very sorry that you are having a hard time and I wish I were there to help you along. It would be good to talk things over and that has to wait till we meet again, which will not be till the end of next year. I have been by myself for the last fortnight and I have been over the thoughts of the past years. I wish, I could have a good talk with you which is much better than writing.

This place is lovely and one day (?) you must come here. I am taking a complete rest and going into samadhi.1 _{I only see people on Sundays and the rest of the days I am giving to}

thought. Rajagopal and Rosalind are in Hollywood as Rajagopal has to see to his rheumatism which is pretty bad.

I hear Amma is pretty bad and that she is not expected to live long. Rama Rao wrote to me that she is stone deaf and can hardly recognise. It is tragic and I wonder what is going to happen to the Theosophical Society...

With all my love, Krishna

Krishna’s friend Rama Rao went blind and was seriously ill. With the death of Jadu, Krishna turned to Rajagopal and his wife Rosalind (they had married in 1927), who remained with him and were free to journey with him across continents.

While Nitya was alive Rajagopal’s role in the young seer’s life was peripheral —Nitya had taken over all organizational matters connected with Krishnamurti’s work. Nitya’s death created a functional vacuum that had to be filled. Inevitably, 1 _{Samadhi: A state of final liberation. A state where the ego entity has ceased to exist and the seeker has}

at first Jadu and then Rajagopal took charge, planning lectures and tours and setting up the infrastructure to support his future work. Rajagopal’s marriage to Rosalind, a very close friend of Nitya’s, brought Rajagopal closer to Krishnamurti. Soon Arya Vihar in Ojai became their permanent home.

A relationship born of an act of friendship to protect the young, vulnerable Krishnamurti—whose utter lack of worldliness made protection necessary— slowly underwent a sea change. In the earlier period of his life, protected by Mrs. Besant, he was the World-Teacher-to-be—and the attitudes of Krishnaji’s comrades reflected this awareness and a reverence. There was always a distance between the World Teacher and his disciples.

However, with the dissolution of organizations and the negation of all spiritual hierarchy by Krishnamurti, new attitudes were inevitable. Slowly, the distance between the teacher and his associates lessened. Soon Rajagopal and Rosalind assumed the role of guardians, sarvadhikaris, holders of authority around the young seer, taking over all decision-making in Krishnamurti’s personal life and the work connected with his teaching. The shy, hesitant young man who was feeling his way in the iridescent ocean of energy being released within him, groping for words that could contain his observations and insights, was totally unconcerned with worldly affairs. He was happy to leave everything in the competent hands of Rajagopal. K seemed vague, passive, naive, and even juvenile. His former disciples, living in close proximity to Krishnamurti, found him eager to perform the most menial chores; and this blurred their vision. They lost contact with the immensity in their midst and in time started to treat him as a child, who could be scolded, ignored, bullied, told what to do and whom to meet.

It is part of Krishnamurti’s mystique that, time and again, he permitted this. His very nature made any assertive or aggressive response or action impossible. He never lost his temper. His pliant mind, lack of the ego, and total trust in those around him made it possible for others to take him for granted. He would sign any paper placed before him by his close friends, and at times even echoed their irrationalities. This led to seemingly contradictory statements and actions, which confused his friends. Yet, when he appeared to be totally hemmed in and dominated, the situation would explode out of its complexities, leaving Krishnamurti untouched, free to move on; while those who dominated him would be left angry, bewildered, often broken.

Between 1933 and 1939 Krishnamurti traveled several times to India, giving talks to fairly large audiences. With the death of Mrs. Besant in 1933 and the election of George Arundale as president of the Theosophical Society in 1934, all contact between Krishnamurti and the Society had been severed. Krishnamurti had spoken of the Theosophical Society as an organized belief, “and the idea of a Master leading man to truth does not enter my belief.”3

The world and the media had lost interest in the “World Teacher” after his rejection of the role the Theosophical Society had conceived for him. For a long time his name disappeared from the newspapers and he led a life of anonymity.

Toward the end of those years, a new foundation, Krishnamurti Writings Inc. (K. W. I.), was established with headquarters at Ojai. Krishnamurti was nominal

head, but Rajagopal played the pivotal role in determining the membership of the new body and its areas of operation. However, there was one area where the young seer, however hesitant, refused to permit any intrusion: That was in the unfoldment, the flowering of the new mind and the silent ground of perception that was coming into being.

Krishnamurti was in Ojai in 1939 when World War II broke out in Europe. For nearly eight years he lived in Ojai in comparative isolation. The war restricted his movements, and it was no longer possible for him to travel. He had been sent for by the U. S. draft board, and had to give detailed explanations as to why he could not fight and join the army. The board suggested that he return to India. He agreed and asked them to send him back, but there was no transportation. So they let him stay, but he was forbidden to give talks and had to report to the police regularly.

In later years Krishnamurti was to speak of those forgotten years in Ojai. He cherished his walks in the silences of the mountains surrounding the Ojai Valley. He walked “enormously,” for endless miles, spending whole days in the wilderness, alone, forgetful of food, listening and observing, probing the world within him and around him. He recounted episodes of meeting wild bears and rattlesnakes, facing them without movement of body and mind. The wild beast would pause, its cautious, watchful eyes meeting K’s silent eyes for several minutes; the animal, sensing a total absence of fear, would turn and move away.

The observing mind of Krishnamurti, free of any inner direction or pressure, blossomed; and with it an elemental perception, a mind-body awareness through which earth, rocks, trees, budding leaves, insects, reptiles, birds, animals communicated the story of earth’s history and the mystery of a bottomless pit of time. He said, “When I walk, I don’t think, there is no thought. I just look... I think my solitary walks must have done something.”

Krishnamurti recalled gardening at Arya Vihar, growing roses and vegetables, milking cows, washing dishes. His intense interest in mechanical things, which he had cultivated from childhood, was to continue; he still enjoyed taking apart watches and automobile engines to understand how they worked, and then putting them together again. He had been given a gift of a car by some of his friends. Gas was scarce but, whenever possible, Krishnamurti enjoyed driving at a tremendous speed along the curving roads of the valley.

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. This was made especially vivid to him one day when he went to nearby Santa Barbara. A woman approached him, offering Japanese souvenirs. Krishnamurti declined, but she insisted on showing him what she had in her box. She opened it to reveal a shriveled human ear and nose.

Miss Muriel Payne, who claimed to have nursed Krishnamurti in Ojai when he was very ill, told me that his response to the devastation and cruelty of war had been traumatic. He asked repeatedly, “What is the use of my talking?” He sought refuge alone in the mountains, with trees and wild animals. He spent several weeks in solitude in a hut in Wrightwood, in the San Gabriel mountains near Los Angeles, and in Sequoia, further North. He had grown a beard.

Krishnaji recalled the routine of his life in the sparsely furnished log cabin in the wilds. He would awake early in the morning, go for a long walk, cook breakfast, clean the dishes and the house and for an hour every day play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (the only record available), listening, meditating. There were no books. In the evenings he would chant Sanskrit hymns remembered from his early childhood. His favorite was one to Daksinamurti— Shiva as the supreme guru. The sound of Sanskrit rose from the depths of his belly—it filled forests, virgin sounds heard by pine and ancient redwood trees, by skunk, bear, and rattlesnake. A spider shared the hut with him. Every morning Krishnamurti swept away the spider’s web, in which were trapped flies and insects; carefully picking up the spider, he would place it outside the hut, but every morning, the spider was back, spinning its web.4 _{A verse from the}

Upanishads, learned in his childhood, may have come to his mind. “As a spider

emerges [from itself] by [spinning] threads [out of its own body], so too from this self, all life breaths, all the worlds, all the gods, and all contingent beings rise upon all directions.”5

For days the ritual between the spider and Krishnamurti continued, a wordless communication; then one day Krishnamurti said to the spider; “Pax, let us share the hut.”

Krishnamurti had occasional visitors. Aldous Huxley, who had settled in California and who was losing his eyesight, walked with Krishnamurti for long hours. At times they spoke of the senses and blindness. Krishnamurti helped Huxley; the power to heal was alive. He used it sparingly and in secret, was rather shy of it, and apologized before he even spoke of it.

Many years later, when asked what he meant when he spoke of all the senses operating simultaneously, Krishnaji told of meeting a blind friend while he was living in the hills. They had discussed the senses. Later, alone in the hut, Krishnamurti spent a week with his eyes bandaged, to see what happened when a