Tendencias Sobre la Inimputabilidad Penal del Adolescente

Mrs. Besant made her entry into the Indian political scene in 1913, just before the outbreak of World War I. Under the guidance and blessings of the Rishi Agastya (who, according to the Theosophical Society, had special charge in the occult hierarchy of the destiny of India), she was launched into the center of the growing political ferment.

She was already famous throughout the country. Known for her brilliant oratory, she was recognized as an educator of the highest order and admired for her courage as a social reformer. Concerned as she was with new values, and with her immense pride in Indian culture and thought, her entry into politics was welcomed by her many intellectual friends and admirers. With her temperament it was inevitable that she would grow deeply involved. Soon she lost contact with the occult hierarchy; her insights into the sacred and her psychic powers began to ebb, and she had to rely on C. W. Leadbeater to bring through messages from the occult world of the Masters.

By 1925, with growing age, Mrs. Besant’s mental faculties began to decline and with it her iron control of the affairs of the Society. The intrigues and machinations to gain power over her and thus of the Society were gaining momentum. Aware of her failure to reawaken kundalini shakti chakras (or the six centers of dormant psychic energy placed along the spinal column) and her aspirations to regain contact with the Mahatmas, many of her associates claimed clairvoyant powers and the ability to bring through instructions from the Masters. Dabbling in the occult, claiming to have awakened the serpent of kundalini, seeking power and giving free play to illusion, often linking what did not fit their scheme of things as emanating from black powers, the actions of some of its senior members were to make a mockery of the Theosophical Society.

In Sydney, Australia, Leadbeater, clad in purple robes with crozier and jeweled cross, was busy creating the atmosphere and the energy for the emergence of the sixth root race.1 _{Surrounding himself with young boys and girls}

who were his chosen disciples, his occult powers and their uses had reached bizarre levels. He was magnetizing jewels for fairies in the National Park in Sydney, in return for permission to take some fairies back to “The Manor,” where he and his disciples lived. To add to his occult resources, while crossing the ferry in Sydney harbor Leadbeater claimed to be creating invisible nets in which he caught water sylphs from the sea; attaching them to his aura, he sent them out on command to succor people in distress.1

1 _{In Theosophy the sixth root race would follow the fifth root race—our present society; similar to the}

In Europe, George Arundale and Wedgwood claimed to have established a direct channel of communication with the occult hierarchy and to have been accepted as disciples by the Mahachohan. The atmosphere was charged with excitement as a number of new initiations were announced by Mrs. Besant as brought through by Arundale.

Having been ordained Bishops of the Liberal Catholic Church, the purple- clad Arundale and Wedgwood were in rapid succession to attain Arhathood1 _by

passing through their third and fourth initiations. Arundale’s wife, Rukmini,2

passed three initiations in three days.2 _{Mrs. Besant and Leadbeater were already}

Arhats, having passed the fourth initiation. Krishnamurti, in Ojai nursing his seriously ill brother Nitya, was unaware of the occult ferment taking place in the Netherlands at Huizen and later at the Star Camp in Ommen, an annual convention attended by members of the Order of the Star. Without his knowledge an announcement was made that his astral body from Ojai and Jinarajadasa’s from Adyar had traveled and appeared before the magnificence of the gathered occult hierarchy to receive their blessings in their journey through the fourth initiation. Later, when the camp was over, Mrs. Besant at Huizen called Lady Emily, Miss Bright, and Shiva Rao to her room and told them that she and Leadbeater, Krishnaji, Arundale, and Wedgwood had passed their fifth and final initiation. All of them were now not only Arhats but Adepts, and so free of the causal chain of karma and rebirth.

A report that appeared in the Theosophist journal Herald of the Star gives some insight into the Ommen camp, where these great tidings were being announced by Mrs. Besant. Under the heading “By command of the King,” the

Herald published Mrs. Besant’s words:

The new World Teacher will choose, as before, his twelve Apostles. I have only the command to mention seven who have reached the stage of Arhatship... The first two, my brother Charles Leadbeater, and myself, passed that great initiation at the same time. The other Arhats are, C. Jinarajadasa, George Arundale, whose consecration as Bishop was necessary, as the last step of his preparation for the great fourth step of initiation. Oscar Kollerstron, Mrs. Rukmini Arundale, Krishnaji, and Bishop Wedgwood.3

Later, realizing that she had made a major error by including the name of Krishnamurti, who was the vehicle, in the list of Apostles, she corrected her statement. Various other lists existed in which were included the names of Lady Emily, Nitya, Rajagopal, and Theodore St. John, a golden-haired fifteen-year-old protégé of Leadbeater.

Mrs. Besant further went on to declare the three lines of activity the Society would follow in the future. A new world religion must be established, with Annie Besant as the head. A new world university must be set up with Besant as rector, Arundale as principal, and Wedgwood as director—because, according to Mrs. 1 _{Arhat is a sramanic (Buddhist/Jain) term indicating the highest spiritual attainment for a monk below}

the status of Buddha/Jina. In the Theosophical spiritual hierarchy, adepts were masters or mahatmas. Members of the Great White Brotherhood, they had attained perfection but remained in human form, to help in the evolution of Seekers on the Path of Discipleship.

2 _{Rukmini was the South Indian Brahmin wife of George Arundale. She came from a prominent family of}

Theosophists. A major cultural personality, she established a well-known dance and music academy, Kalakshetra, in Madras. She died in 1986.

Besant, “he knows both sides—ordinary and occult.” She goes on to say that “you should not oppose them as they are part of the work of the King.” Meanwhile Arundale, claiming the power of prophecy, said,

I think there is no one in the world who has so magnificent, so marvellous a capacity for self effacement, as has my brother Nitya. The way in which he loses himself in his brother is one of the most beautiful things I have seen: And I want you to remember what I am saying today, because I venture to think it is in the nature of prophecy. I think that as the years pass, not only shall we see our Krishnamurti leading the life to which he is so supremely dedicated, but we shall also see at his right hand his great brother recognised throughout the world as one of its greatest statesman-leaders.

Nitya died less than four months after these words were said.4

Meanwhile, Nitya’s illness had taken a turn for the worse. Arundale had given Rajagopal, who was present at the camp and who had been made Deacon of the Liberal Catholic Church, an amulet to take to Nitya, specially magnetized by the Mahachohan. The great ones of the hierarchy had stated that Nitya would live and be one of the main supporters for the work of the World Teacher. According to Arundale, “Nitya’s life was Krishna’s boon on becoming an Arhat.”5

Krishna, hearing reports of Apostles and Arhats, rapid initiations, world religion and world universities, was bewildered and deeply distressed. Leaving Nitya under the protection of the Masters, he departed for Europe with Rajagopal. Lady Emily, who had been present at the camp and had herself undergone her second initiation, had come to meet him at the dock. Krishnamurti told her his views in no uncertain terms. He refused to accept the initiations or the Apostles. He was deeply skeptical of the world religion and the world university. He did not want to hurt Mrs. Besant in her old age, and so refrained from openly voicing his protest; but he conveyed his misgivings to her.

Mrs. Besant was shattered by Krishnamurti’s rejection of the initiations, Apostles, world religion, and world university. Her mental condition rapidly began to deteriorate. “She showed signs of ageing, loss of memory and a tendency to focus on the past.”6 _{But this did not in any way curtail her activities}

or her total commitment to Krishnamurti as the World Teacher.

By early November 1925 Mrs. Besant, Krishnaji, Rajagopal, Rosalind, Wedgwood, Shiva Rao, and Rukmini and George Arundale left for India to participate in the Jubilee celebrations to be held in Adyar. Krishnamurti’s faith in the Masters and their assurance regarding Nitya’s well being was unquestioned. Early in 1925, while in Adyar, Nitya had been dreadfully ill. On February 10, 1925, Krishnamurti wrote a letter to Mrs. Besant describing a dream in which he had visited the Great Brotherhood and pleaded with them for his brother’s life:

With regard to my dream, I remember going to the Master’s house and asking and begging to let Nitya get well and to let him live. The Master said that I was to go to the Lord Maitreya and I went there and I implored there, but I got the impression that it was not His business and that I should go to the Mahachohan. So, I went there. I remember all this so clearly. He was seated in his chair, with great dignity & magnificent understanding, with grave and kindly eyes. My futile description is so absurd, but, it is impossible to convey the great impression of it all. I told him

that I would sacrifice my happiness or anything that was required to let Nitya live, for I felt this thing was being decided. He listened to me and answered “He will be well.” It was such a relief that all my anxiety has completely disappeared and I am glad.

With regard to my own preparation, I don’t know what has been decided but I am willing to do anything. It has been very bad and I am feeling very tired and rather weak, but it can’t be helped.

Thank Heaven, you will be here, my own mother & I love you, with all my heart and soul. Yours Krishna.7

This direct meeting with the Masters had convinced Krishnaji of the powers of the Great Beings to prolong Nitya’s life. If we pause an instant to examine Krishnaji’s contact with the Masters, their manifestations, and Krishnaji’s communication with them, it becomes evident that his encounters with Master K. H., the Mahachohan, Maitreya, and the Buddha were vision, often in the dream state. This had happened so when he was a child; with his tender consciousness exposed to the esoteric imagery and thought forms of Leadbeater, he naturally saw the Masters in the likenesses pictured in the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society. It was so when he described his meetings with Master K. H. in his early letters to Mrs. Besant, and traces of it were to be found in the process at Ojai, though by then he was freeing himself of visions, physical manifestations, and visual imagery. In the early years no sharp division existed for Krishnaji between the dream state and the state of being awake. Visions, dreams, and actual manifestations of thought forms for him appeared to have the same reality. Later he was to say that all images and manifestations, however profound, were projections of the mind. With the death of Nitya and the explosive sorrow that brought him face to face with the actual, all physical references to the Masters ceased.

Even before that, on board ship back to India, Arundale started bringing through messages from the Mahachohan chiding Krishnamurti on his skepticism and subtly implying that unless he accepted the revelations brought through by Arundale at Huizen and Ommen and confirmed the names of the people who had been made Adepts, Nitya would die. Krishnamurti refused.

While in the Suez Canal, Krishnaji received a telegram from Nitya saying that he had contracted influenza. The next day another cable was received in which Nitya said, “Flu rather more serious. Pray for me.” Krishnamurti, faith unshaken, told Shiva Rao that the Masters would not have let him leave Ojai if his brother was destined to die. On November 13, in the midst of a thunderstorm, they received a cable announcing Nitya’s death.

Shiva Rao, who was sharing the cabin with Krishnamurti, has left a vivid account of what followed.

Mrs. Besant asked me to take her to Krishnamurti’s cabin. She went in alone, to speak to him. The news broke him completely: it did more, as I saw for myself during the rest of the voyage. His entire philosophy of life—the implicit faith in the future as outlined by Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater, Nitya’s vital part in it, were shattered at that moment. At night he would sob and moan and cry out for Nitya, sometimes in his native Telugu, which in his waking consciousness, he could not speak. Day after day, he seemed to change, gripping himself together in an effort to face life—but without Nitya.8

Krishna and Nitya had shared their loneliness in an alien world; laughed together; told comic stories; traveled together—planned their future work and life together.1 _{Writing after his brother’s death, Krishnaji was to say: “An old dream}

is dead and a new one is being born. A new vision is coming into being and a new consciousness is being unfolded—I have wept, but I do not want others to weep; but, if they do, I know what it means. Now, I know, now we are inseparable. He and I will work together, for I and my brother are one.”

By the time Krishnamurti, with Dr. Besant, reached Adyar, Krishnamurti had emerged from his encounter with sorrow immensely quiet, radiant, and free of all sentiment and emotion. But his belief in the Masters and the hierarchy had undergone a total revolution. He was rarely to refer to the Masters in physical form again. In later years, speaking haltingly of this period, Krishnamurti accepted that perhaps the intensity of sorrow had triggered a vast, wordless perception. An intelligence that had taken long years to mature, that had rested in abeyance, was to function in the moment of acuteness of suffering.2

1 _{In a letter from Ojai February 28, 1923, Nitya had written to Mrs. Besant “Krishna and I are full of}

schemes we want to carry out in India; and we want to talk to you about them and we both want to get back, I have never in my life been so homesick for India, California has made an Indian of me. I am beginning to realize in a small way of course, what you feel about India.

With all my love, Nitya.”9 2 _{In a message to the International Self-Preparation Group shortly after Nitya’s death, Krishna wrote, “For}

instance, when my brother died, I felt utterly lost. You have no idea how I felt for two or three days—for more than that, for a week perhaps. I still miss him; I shall always miss him physically, but I feel that he and I are working together, that we are walking along the same path, on the same mountain side, seeing the same flowers, the same creatures, the same blue sky, the same clouds and trees. That is why I feel as if I were part of him; and only when I get tired do I begin to say: ‘My brother is not here’. But at once my mind pulls me up and tells me how absurd is such a thought.”10

CHAPTER 7

“The Personality of