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In 1980 the Ojai Talks did not occur in April as in previous years but at the beginning of May, since they were then less likely to be rained out. There were six talks on three consecutive weekends, with four intervening question-and- answer meetings. A professional crew videotaped them.

When, a few days after the conclusion of the Gathering, we bid Krishnamurti farewell beneath the pepper tree, he was full of a subtle energy, with an inner fire that touched all of us. Despite his delicate physique, he appeared to be at the height of his powers, at eighty-five years of age.

For the next nine months I was in Ojai, working at the school. But in my mind I was following his journey across the face of the globe—to Europe, India and Sri Lanka—eagerly awaiting news of his talks and discussions.

*

Krishnamurti and Mary Z. arrived at Pine Cottage in the late afternoon of Friday, February 20, 1981. They had come via England, where they had stopped over at Brockwood Park for five days on their return trip from Bombay. Krishnamurti looked frail and tired, not only on account of the long journey, but also because of the demanding program that he had gone through in India.

For lunch the following day I prepared a Waldorf salad, a cucumber salad with sour cream, a white bean soup, spinach fettuccini with a tomato sauce and baked zucchini, and for dessert, three types of ice cream and sherbet. It was the first day of the school’s spring break, so only the regular guests showed up, bringing the number to twelve. More than anything else, Krishnamurti wanted to be filled in as to how the school was coming along and calmly listened to the director’s report, every so often asking a question. I had to wait a while before the right moment arose to ask him, “Have you heard any good jokes recently, Krishnaji?”

I was sitting on the opposite side of the table two places away from him and used my loud voice to address him. He appeared startled for an instant before focusing his surprised gaze on me. His face lit up with a wide smile, and he didn’t take more than a second to come up with the most recent one in his collection of jokes. Looking around the table, he prefaced it by asking, “Are there any Christians here? I don’t mean to blaspheme or offend anyone.” Since nobody declared themselves to be religiously affiliated, he continued, “The Lord and St. Peter are in heaven observing the action down on earth on a television monitor. They are amazed by what they see: people are forever rushing about, ceaselessly digging and constructing, building large cities, everywhere busy, busy, busy, from early morning throughout the night. The Lord turns to St. Peter and asks incredulously, ‘What are they all doing, busy from morning till night, never resting, forever striving, battling, competing? What’s the point of it?’ St. Peter replies, ‘Well, Lord, these people are your followers, they believe in you and obey you. And you told them to eat their bread in the sweat of their brows.’ And the Lord says to St. Peter, ‘But I was only kidding.’”

We started to laugh, but Krishnamurti gestured us to calm down, calling out, “No, don’t laugh yet. There’s more to come. St. Peter switches channels and they see a magnificent banquet hall in the Vatican with huge tables filled with

expensive delicacies. There are caviar and truffles and the finest wines and so on. Hundreds of big men in purple robes are seated around these tables, feasting and laughing, drinking cognac and smoking cigars. They are the cardinals and bishops, having a feast. ‘But what about these people,’ the Lord asks St. Peter, ‘they don’t seem to be eating their bread in the sweat of their brows. If you ask me, they seem to be having a jolly good time.’ St. Peter says, ‘Well, Lord, these are the ones who knew you were only kidding.’”

When our exhilarated laughter had died down, he turned to me and asked with a twinkle in his eye, “What is the news, sir?”

I had been extremely busy the last few days, preparing the A.V. kitchen for his arrival, and hadn’t spent much time following the most recent news developments. Taking a deep breath, I quickly tried to gather my wits about me. “Well, Krishnaji, you are probably familiar with most of these events. If you don’t mind, I’ll give a quick recap of the most important current affairs. As you know, last month Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the new president. By coincidence, after almost a year and a half of captivity, the American hostages at the American embassy in Teheran were freed around Inauguration Day. Meanwhile, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is continuing with much bloodshed, and the conflict between Iran and Iraq appears to be intensifying.” In that vein I provided a headline survey of the world events of the last few months. Krishnamurti listened with full attention to my account, a smile playing around his eyes and lips. When I could not think of anything more to report, I turned to him directly, “And you, Krishnaji, have also been in the news. Mr. Lilliefelt and Mr. Hooker told us that Indira Gandhi visited you in Rishi Valley with many armed guards and under strict security. And, before that, you were invited to Sri Lanka and had a talk with the prime minister there. What was it like, sir?”

Krishnamurti gave a shrug and a characteristic gesture, indicating that all of that was of little importance. Alan Hooker and Theo Lilliefelt, both of whom were present at the table, had been with him in India in December 1980 and, on their return to Ojai, had provided an amusing and detailed account of the Indian prime minister’s visit with Krishnamurti at the Rishi Valley School. Everyone now turned toward Krishnamurti, eager to hear an account of his visit to the jewel island, Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon and Serendip.

Pulling a funny face as he looked at us, he asked, “You want me to tell you about it?”

“Yes, sir,” several of us intoned.

“All right. The government of Sri Lanka had invited us to come as guests of the state. They put us up in the official guest house, owned by the government. Several dignitaries and ministers came to welcome us, and later we had an interview with one of them on television. There were several public talks, I think four of them. They reported it in the newspapers and on the radio and television. She was with me during this time and can tell you more about it,” he added, pointing at Mary Z. He generally avoided recounting his personal experiences and sometimes even apologized when talking about himself.

Mary Z. readily went on, “Pupul Jayakar and Nandini Mehta were with us, and during the following days we were busy with press conferences and radio

and television interviews. The day after our arrival, Krishnaji met the prime minister, Mr. Premadasa, a very nice man. The four public talks at Colombo were attended by thousands of people and broadcast live throughout the island. After this, Krishnaji held several dialogues with Buddhist monks and spoke at Colombo University. One afternoon the president of Sri Lanka invited us for tea. He was very interested in what Krishnaji talked about and asked for a private interview with him, which eventually lasted almost an hour and a half. At the end, he invited us to visit Kandy, in the interior of the country.”

I had visited Kandy, the former royal capital of Sri Lanka, twelve years earlier. It was an attractive town by a small lake in the tropical highlands, famous in the Buddhist world for the Temple of the Tooth, which housed a relic of the historical Gautama Siddhartha Shakyamuni, the Buddha. During the time of the full moon in August, there was a week-long series of magnificent processions— thousands of Kandyan dancers in silver-filigree attire, accompanied by drummers and pipers, and hundreds of splendidly ornamented elephants—through the torch-lit streets of the town. The parade, known as ‘Esala Perahera’ and of religious significance, started and ended at the Temple of the Tooth. I had been deeply enchanted by the splendor of the procession and the sense of revelry among the hundreds of thousands of participants. Now I asked Krishnamurti, “Did you visit the Temple of the Tooth, sir, while you were in Kandy?”

“No, sir. The three ladies went while I took a rest,” he replied, adding after a moment’s quiet deliberation, “but twenty-some years ago I talked in Colombo, and they took us on a tour of the monuments and temples all around the island. When we visited Kandy at that time, they also showed us the Temple of the Tooth.” A sparkle entered his eyes, and he explained with a wide smile, “They keep one of the holiest relics of the Buddhist world there, a tooth of the Buddha. So it was all very ceremonious and solemn when we entered the temple, and the head monk in saffron robes and with shaved head welcomed us and led us into the inner sanctum.” He was laughing now at the memory of the event. “And they brought out a small box encrusted with magnificent jewels, in which they kept the tooth. They solemnly opened it, so that we could have a look at the tooth. It was a huge old thing, yellow and eroded.” With thumb and index finger he demonstrated the size of the tooth, almost an inch wide. “And I was wondering if it really was a human tooth. It could easily have been a horse’s tooth, that’s how big it was.”

We all burst out laughing at his description. He actually held the Buddha in the highest regard, probably more than any other religious figure in history. At the same time, he never relinquished his fundamental skepticism with regard to rituals and religious traditions, as he had just demonstrated.

*

During the following week there was continuous rain, which at times intensified to heavy downpours and thunderstorms, covering the high mountain ridges of the valley with snow. Some of the teachers started taking turns to join us for lunch at A.V., but unfortunately Krishnamurti felt unwell for several days, and we had to lunch without him.

He took quite a detached view of the frailties that sometimes afflicted him, such as hay fever, sinus inflammation and hearing problems, joking light- heartedly, “First the teeth go, then the ears and then the eyes, and at last you also will go down into the earth.”

Every once in a while, as now, I got to observe the veracity of this statement, not only in myself but also in Krishnamurti. He was feeling exhausted, probably as a result of his grueling program in India, followed by extensive traveling and the consequent change of climate. Besides, he had an upset stomach, maybe the onset of stomach flu. Around noontime I carried his lunch over to Pine Cottage and was surprised that he opened the door for me. Looking into his face, I was even more startled by a radical change in it. The lips were abnormally pulled in, shortening the distance between nose and chin and thereby altering the whole structure of the face. He was immediately aware of my astonishment, and, moving his hand exploringly to his mouth, he stated without embarrassment, “I’ve had some trouble with my teeth. Several had to be extracted, and the doctor put in some removable bridges. I forgot to put them in.”

For some reason, I felt a deep sense of humility, as he explained to me the details of his health with complete openness. When I didn’t respond to his statement, he continued, “You know, sir, my teeth have always been highly sensitive. It’s probably in the genes.”

Several days later, the first Monday in March and the beginning of school after the spring break, he came for lunch by himself, since Mary Z. had gone to LAX to pick up some friends, who were arriving from France that afternoon. He entered the kitchen, and we cordially greeted each other, when all at once I noticed that his mouth was puckered in. Hesitating for a moment, I said, “Excuse me, Krishnaji, could it be that you forgot to put in your dental bridges?”

He covered his mouth with one hand and said, astonished at his forgetfulness, “By Jove, sir, you’re right. I forgot to put them in. I left them in the bathroom. I just have to go back.”

He started to giggle to himself while he searched for something in his pockets. Finally he pulled out a set of keys. “Well, I’ve got the keys—I’ll be right back.”

Ten minutes later he returned with the dental bridges in place and his splendid face intact and asked, “What’s for lunch, Michael?”

I told him what the menu was, pointing at the respective dishes, “There is, of course, the green salad, and a pasta salad, and an avocado salad, made with avocados, tomatoes, onions and bell peppers. Then we have baked potatoes, and a kind of quiche made with grated zucchini and cheese. This comes with a vegetable dish that is a bit like ratatouille, except it’s made with zucchini, eggplant—or aubergine—and a tomato sauce.”

He was paying close attention to what I was saying. It always surprised me that his keen interest extended to the minutiae of everyday life.

“And for dessert, Krishnaji,” I said with a slightly exaggerated intonation, because of his fondness for a sweet treat, “we’ll be having halvah. It’s a Middle Eastern sweet made from sesame seeds and honey.”

He raised his eyebrows with delighted surprise and, pointing at the dishes, remarked, “But the portions you prepared are rather small today, aren’t they?”

“There are only five of us for lunch today, Krishnaji,” I replied, “so we need a lot less than usual.”

He nodded understandingly, “Who’s coming for lunch, sir?”

“Well, the Lilliefelts are here, Mr. Hooker, you and I—that’s all,” I replied. “Ah, good,” he said, “we’ll be en famille.”

It was, indeed, a very relaxed and friendly meal. While reviewing the current world situation, we began talking about the communist system and the hegemony of the Soviet Union over the Eastern European countries. Erna Lilliefelt mentioned that in several of these countries, especially in Poland and Romania, there was considerable interest in Krishnamurti.

“It’s like an underground movement, Krishnaji,” she said. “They translate your books and secretly make a few copies, which then are passed around from hand to hand.”

“And it’s probably not without danger,” I added. “Despite its relative independence from Moscow, the Ceausescu regime is dreadfully suppressive at home. Any form of dissent is brutally eradicated. I was reading the other day that everyone who owned a typewriter had to register it with the government.”

“Why? To control any form of printed public information?” Alan asked.

“I suppose so,” I answered. “It’s also easy to make copies on a typewriter with carbon paper,” I suggested. Turning to Krishnamurti, I asked, “Krishnaji, did you ever visit and speak in any of the East European countries?”

“I think it was in the early 1930s, when I spoke in Athens and traveled via Constantinople to Bucharest,” he recounted. “The Queen—I’ve forgotten her name—invited us to the palace several times. But there were some fanatical, nationalist Catholic students, who had made threats against my life.”

I gasped incredulously, “But why, sir?”

He uttered a soft laugh, “They saw us as a threat to their plans. We talked against organized religion, against nationalism, and so on. I did not really take the threat seriously but the government did. They posted armed guards at the door of our hotel rooms. Each time we came and went, there they were, following us around night and day. But nothing happened. As we were leaving the country, I all at once became violently ill on the train—throwing up, blood, and so on. I couldn’t keep down any food for days.”

I didn’t quite understand the connection between the threats on his life and his getting ill, so I asked, “But what caused your sudden illness?”

“Somehow they must have secretly introduced some poison into my food. It was strange. I was the only one to get ill. I don’t know how they did it,” he said. “And it stayed with me for a long time.”

“You mean the illness stayed with you?”

“Yes,” he responded, “the illness, the poison, whatever it was. For years afterwards it recurred to varying degrees, and I only slowly recovered from it.”

“Do you still suffer from it now?”

We started talking about the Roman Catholic Church and its tremendous wealth and power, and how throughout history it had colluded with the secular powers, even if these happened to be totalitarian regimes, such as the Fascists.

Krishnamurti suddenly asked us, “Do you know Stresa?”

I thought he was talking about a person and asked, “No, I don’t. Who is it?” He smiled, “It’s a town, a famous resort on Lago Maggiore in northern Italy. In the early thirties, while Mussolini was in power, I was invited to give several talks in Stresa. On the first day there were all the bishops, cardinals and generals sitting in the front row. I don’t know why they came—perhaps they thought I was a guest of the state. I talked about freedom from authority, how destructive it was to follow anyone, and so on. The next day all the front rows were empty, and there was one old woman sitting in the back row.”

We shared his laughter at the vivid scene of fifty years ago. Turning serious again, he continued, “No, sir. They can’t listen to anyone questioning their authority. It was the same in Argentina. I was on a tour of South America speaking in various cities. In Buenos Aires, the newspapers were full of it, reporting every talk, with photographs and so on. They were broadcasting the talks, not only over the radio but also over loudspeakers at a number of street corners. But in the churches they were preaching against me, saying I was the Antichrist, and wanting to deport me from the country.”

“And did they succeed?” a lady asked.

“No, not at all,” he replied. “Some of the newspapers and intellectuals took my side, printing and distributing the talks in Spanish translations.”

We were silent for a while, then Krishnamurti spoke up, “That reminds me of