Ley Orgánica de Transporte Terrestre, Transito y Seguridad Vial

On August 15, 1947, India became independent and Jawaharlal Nehru its first prime minister. Tumultuous yet nonviolent in character, the struggle for independence had been from the early twentieth century guided by Mahatma Gandhi. By 1944 the courage of a nonviolent struggle against the military might of the British Empire had inspired people in a world struggling to rehabilitate itself after the most violent war in history.

But independence in India had also brought a bitter aftermath. To achieve it, the vast subcontinent had been partitioned, territories in the North, West, and East cut away from the main heartland, to form the new Islamic State of Pakistan. Families were divided, friendships broken. Violence exploded; massacres, rape, looting, arson were witnessed along the borders and in the hinterland. Vast migrations of people took place; the Hindus moved eastwards, the Muslims westwards. The new rulers of India, most of whom had spent half their lives in jail, were suddenly called upon to bring order to a continent in flames and to deal with a refugee problem the like of which had never before been witnessed.

K’s arrival in India, two months after independence, could not have been at a more propitious moment. An old age in India was dying, and the birth of the new was beset by travail and disillusionment. The massacres that had erupted with freedom and the partition of India had been traumatic for minds nurtured on theories of nonviolence. There had been little time to pause, to ponder, to look into the distance, to cogitate, to ask fundamental questions. For India’s leaders and builders, action based on immediacy had overtaken the possibility of action born of long vision.

Vast resources of energy were held in abeyance in the startlingly young body and mind of Krishnamurti. His face in 1947 appeared qualitatively different from earlier photographs of him in the 1920s and 1930s. It was evident that the long period of withdrawal in Ojai, brought about by forces beyond his control, had provided the spaces in which exploding energies could converge. An intelligence was coming into being, a perfection of mind, heart, and body that was supremely beautiful, majestic, and awake. When asked about his years in Ojai, K said, “I think it was a period of no challenge, no demand, no outgoing. I think it was a kind of everything kept in, everything held in; and when I left Ojai it all burst.”

A splendor and inward incandescence had transformed K’s face; ancient yet untouched by time. The blue-black eyes reflected the long vision of the seer. Profoundly empty yet grounded in compassion, they were prophetic eyes that had journeyed vast distances. His slightly greying hair, swept back, revealed the majesty of his forehead. The earlobes were long, the head and spine erect, the

waist slim, the shoulders sloped. He walked with long strides, his feet pressed down, sinking into the earth, creating spaces within which he walked. The long arms rested at his side, the palms open and held inward. From my first meeting with him, I was aware of the deep stillness of his body. In repose there was little movement of head, shoulder, or spine; no movement was superfluous; when need for action arose, the body responded with a natural dignity and grace, with precision and a minimum expenditure of energy.

In dialogue the hands assumed symbolic gestures, they opened, questioned, probed, contained, pointed the way. Relaxed, the hands rested.

He arrived in India alone for the first time. All outer bonds and constraints had dropped away. Throughout his life he had been held, protected. At first by the affection and concern of his father, then by the Theosophical Society and their expectations of the role he was to play as the World Teacher. When he left the Theosophical Society, its rituals and hierarchies, his outer life was taken over by Rajagopal and Rosalind. The nine years in Ojai had separated him from his friends in India. Slowly, the old, loyal friends were dying or being pushed away. Now, however, there was no one to question him, to plan his day, to decide whom he should meet, where he should go. Outwardly and inwardly he was totally free.

All through the years, whenever he was to return to India, his first act was to take off his Western clothes and wear Indian garments. With this change of clothes his personality, attitudes, and responses also changed. In the West he was more formal, with exquisite Old World manners. He lived a secluded life, meeting few people; the long discussions and insights that arose at breakfast and lunch, intimately woven into his life in India, were absent. The perceptions that arose on walks or in apparently casual conversations have not been recorded.

With the Indian robes, the length of which gave him the look of a mendicant, he naturally assumed the role of the teacher. The centuries of meditation and concern with otherness held in abeyance in the Indian earth entered into him. He appeared to grow taller, the sloping shoulders revealed by the shape of his garment. His walk had the majesty of the king elephant in a forest.

The young men and women who gathered round Krishnaji in Bombay (many of whom, like myself, were to remain with him for over thirty years) were drawn from various disciplines—political, literary, academic, and social. Many of them had participated in the freedom struggle and had been acclaimed political heroes. Filled with horror by the events that followed the partition of India, they lacked the prophetic insight to see the chaos that was to face the India of the future. They were sensitive enough, however, not to share in the wild euphoria of freedom that led large numbers of people to believe that with the retreat of the British Raj a Golden Age based on the ethical values of secularism, socialism, and an ending of poverty had dawned.

They had glimpsed the wasteland of ambition, bitterness, and greed that lay behind their slogans and grandiose words. The ideals that had carried them through years of political struggle had crumbled under them, and with it the

verbal structures that had nourished them. They were faced with confusion, contradiction, and what seemed a blank wall.

They gathered because of the radiance and compassion that emanated from K’s presence; and because of the personal aches and despairs, the sorrow, that they could neither face nor dispel; and their inability to give a meaningful direction to their lives. Buddha had ordained his monks with the call “Ehi Etha,” Come ye. Krishnamurti’s silent call was of the same nature.

Amongst the people who met K at the airport was Sir Chunilal Mehta, a distinguished industrialist, who had served as a member of the Governors Council in what was then the Bombay presidency.1 _{An ardent admirer of K, Sir}

Chunilal was ecstatic when, on returning home, he told his young daughter-in- law Nandini of “this wondrous young being, who ran down the steps of the plane —and like a shaft of light came towards us.” K was staying at the house of Ratansi Morarji on Carmichael Road. It was open house in the mornings, and many people had gathered when Chunilal Mehta and Nandini walked in. What happened is best told in the words of Nandini:

“I went and sat on the floor in a corner, feeling a little nervous. I saw a figure in a long white kurta sitting straight-backed at a distance. The room was full of people, and K was in the midst of a discussion. Kakaji [Sir Chunilal] was sitting facing K and soon joined in the discussion. A minute later K, whose face was looking away from me, turned and looked at me steadily for a few seconds. Time stopped for me. He turned back and continued his discussion. Some time later he turned again and looked deep into my eyes, and again time stopped. K continued his discussion. But I was totally unaware of what was being said.

“The discussion ended and people started getting up to leave. I rose and found K standing in front of me. Seeing K approaching me, Kakaji rushed up and introduced me as ‘Nandini, my daughter-in-law’—Krishnaji had started laughing, not smiling, but laughing—I had never heard laughter as deep and as resonant. The sound of a Himalayan stream falling rock to rock to mingle with another stream. He asked, ‘Why have you come?’ Tears had started flowing uncontrollably down my cheeks. He continued to laugh and my tears continued to flow. He took my hand and held it hard. Again he asked, ‘Why have you come?’ and at last I could speak, though the tears were unabated. ‘I have waited thirty years to see you.’ [Nandini was thirty years old at the time.] K’s laughter continued. Then, letting go of my hand, he placed his palm on my head and left it there for a few seconds. My pranams2 _{to him were through my tears.}

“In the car Kakaji seemed a little bewildered, turned around and told me, ‘Did you see him? That he should notice you is a great privilege. Don’t let it go to your head.’ I started accompanying Kakaji every day to see K. One morning K said, ‘Don’t you want to see me?’ I did not answer. I did not know it was possible to see him.”

K was to leave for Madras shortly, and it was only on his return that Nandini started seeing him.

1 _{The present states of Maharashtra and Gujarat.}

2 _{Pranam and namaskara have the same meaning except that pranam has an element of greater respect in}

Maurice Friedman, a Polish engineer, was also at Carmichael Road to meet K on his arrival. A tiny, bent-backed man, he wore a kurta and a loose, ill-fitting pyjama. It was impossible to determine his age. A Theosophist since his boyhood, he had come to India as an engineer to work in Bangalore. Soon he lost interest in his work, donned a saffron robe, took the vows, and became a mendicant, taking the name of Bharatanand. From the northernmost point of India to Kanyakumari in the deep South, he traveled the pilgrim’s path— barefoot, eating the food given to him, staying in maths (monasteries) or under trees, discussing with yogis and fakirs. He met wise men and held discourses with religious teachers, but found that awakening did not lie in the outer facade of robe or begging bowl. So, giving up the robe, he came and stayed at Ramana Maharshi’s ashram in the deep South. Ramana Maharshi is regarded as a liberated man; a saint who broke all bondages and transcended the self.

An apocryphal story relates how Friedman went to the flooded river one day. Pondering on life and causation, he said to himself, “If I am to die, I will be swept away; if I have to live, the waters will save me.” So he threw himself into the torrential waters, and was thrown back on the banks. Thrice he threw himself, and three times the waters refused to accept him. So, battered in body but undaunted in spirit, he said, “Fate wants me to live.” He walked back to the

ashram. Half-way he met Ramana Maharshi, who looked at him and said gently

but sternly, “Stop playing the fool with yourself.”

While a sannyasin, Friedman had lived for some years at Sevagram, Gandhiji’s ashram near Wardha, in Maharashtra. He used his engineering skills to help evolve the ambar charkha, the many-spindled spinning wheel, and had participated in many of the development programs initiated by Gandhiji. Deeply interested in K and his teachings, he had come to Bombay to be with him. Friedman participated in the discussions with much energy, took on himself the role of interpreter, and prefaced his remarks with, “In other words...” Warm, affectionate, intelligent, intensely curious, but with a somewhat distorted approach to life, he battered himself against his bonds, unable to penetrate beyond his own self-made limitations of words and ideas.

Jamnadas Dwarkadas, another constant visitor, was a rotund figure who wore a spotless dhoti, a white Gandhi cap, and kurta. Dwarkadas came from a very affluent family from Kutch. Long settled in Bombay, the several brothers had distinguished themselves in various fields. Jamnadas Dwarkadas, a politician and businessman, had been a close associate and friend of Dr. Annie Besant. Generous of heart and with a deep devotion to K, he had given of his wealth with abundance. Through the years he was to lose his family fortunes, but his generosity did not diminish nor did misfortune sour his bountiful nature. He would embrace K, weep with emotion, and sit with his eyes closed during the discussions, an ecstatic look on his cherubic face. He would tell us stories of K’s childhood; for Jamnadas had a remarkable memory and a fund of anecdotes. The children in our family gathered round him, for he held them spellbound with stories of K and Dr. Besant. A vaishnava,1 _{he brought K exquisite garlands of}

1 _{A vaishnava is a devotee of Krishna. But the word also conveys a certain ethical behavior, such as}

jasmine interwoven with rose petals to resemble pearls and rubies; he would insist that K wear this fragrant garland after his discussions and talks. I remember standing with Nandini at the foot of the staircase that led to the terrace where K held discussions. K stood at the head of the stairway, a slender figure in white, with jasmine around his neck, a garland that fell to his knees. It was always late evening when the discussions ended, and the glow of the lights used to catch K’s hair, swept back from his brow, while his eyes smiled down at us.

Also amongst the people who gathered at Madras to meet K in October 1947 was a young chemist named Balasundaram, who was teaching at the Institute of Science in Bangalore. K was staying at Sterling Road, Madras, where he gave talks and held public discussions. His host was R. Madhavachari, the Indian representative of Krishnamurti Writings Inc. and an engineer in the Southern Railways.

Attendance at the talks was small; a few old Theosophists, some writers and professors, and a few young people were the audience. Amongst them was Shanta Rao, the bharat natyam1 _{dancer; she spent the day at Sterling Road,}

taking K his orange juice, helping serve his food, and acting as a dwarpal, a doorkeeper outside K’s door.

These were the years before Shanta Rao had emerged, resplendent on the Indian landscape, as one of the most brilliant bharat natyam dancers to perform in free India. Shanta entered K’s surroundings with the same eloquence and assured presence with which she entered a stage. She was to spend long periods of time in Madras listening to his talks, having interviews with him, or just being around. Young, with a panther-like body and strong, arrogant mind, she had studied the Natya Sastras2 _{and had learned to dance under the discipline of the}

great gurus of bharat natyam and kathakali.3 _{Her supreme confidence was}

evident in her poise and her words. She questioned K on the nature of beauty— whether it was outer or inner, and what was its measure.

Perhaps she influenced K, who wrote of a dancer in his Commentaries on

Living:

She was a dancer, not by profession but by choice. She must have felt proud of her art, for there was arrogance about her—not only the arrogance of achievement but also that of some inner recognition of her own spiritual worth. As another would be satisfied with outward success, she was gratified by her spiritual advancement. She not only danced, but also gave talks on art, on beauty, and on spiritual achievement.1

Another visitor who was closely associated with K through his years in India was doe-eyed, lissom Sunanda, the daughter of an old Theosophist. Sunanda, a

1 _{Bharat natyam: Dances born out of the rituals of worship in the temples of South India. It was in the}

middle of the twentieth century that bharat natyam began to be danced by women of the higher castes and was transported from the temple to the stage, from ritual to art and entertainment.

2 _{Natya Sastras, written between 200 B.C. and A.D. 200 by the sage Bharat Muni, was a treatise on the}

dramatic arts, mime, dance, stagecraft. A theory of aesthetics formed the basic element of the book.

3 _{Kathakali is dance, mime and theater. Accompanied by powerful drumming and song, it evolved in the}

courts of the Nayar kings of Kerala. The stories were based on the epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The Nayars were a military class. The society was matriarchal. The Brahmins (Namboodries) were learned and powerful. Costumes, painted masks, and highly stylized gestures were integral to the

graduate of Madras University, had a finely honed intellect and was studying law and preparing for the foreign service examination. She too spent some time every day with K at Sterling Road—speaking of her dreams of the future, her personal problems, or watching him as he sat polishing his shoes or sitting quietly while K was writing letters. K bantered with her, chanted with her, told her that she was too young to consider settling down, and asked her to go out and see the world. Her senses afire, she responded passionately to K’s presence and was swept away in the torrent of his attention.

In those years K was very accessible. Mukund Pada, a young man who would later don the saffron robe, wrote to me many years after of his meeting with K in 1947:

Back in Madras, I attended for the first time in December 1947 a talk by one Theosophist named J. Krishnamurti as described by an elderly person. The talk stunned and rocked me out of my core. Standing lost and helpless after the talk, Krishnaji who was passing me, suddenly stopped and putting an arm around me asked Shri Madhavachari to grant me some time for an interview. The interview between an insignificant pebble and the Himalayas was a blast of the Eternal, Cosmic breath. It left me shattered and trembling in every limb. As Krishnaji was speaking, I was thunderstruck in an awareness that the seeds of his message were already there in my brain. It was the voice of truth that had spoken to me. His last words to me on parting, as he came to the door “Sir, two flowers or things can be similar, but not the same,” suddenly opened an immense space. Quietly words surfaced in my mind. “Yes, Sir, thou are Blessedness walking amongst humanity. Two flowers may be similar. You are the thornless flower—me, I