J. Krishnamurti

 

Krishnamurti failed because he could not touch the human heart; he could only reach the human head. The heart needs some different approaches. This is where I have differed with him all my life: unless the human heart is reached, you can go on repeating parrot-like, beautiful words – they don’t mean anything. Whatever Krishnamurti was saying is true, but he could not manage to relate it to your heart. In other words, what I am saying is that J. Krishnamurti was a great philosopher but he could not become a master. He could not help people, prepare people for a new life, a new orientation.
 
But still I love him, because amongst the philosophers he comes the closest to the mystic way of life. He himself avoided the mystic way, bypassed it, and that is the reason for his failure. But he is the only one amongst the modern contemporary thinkers who comes very close, almost on the boundary line of mysticism, and stops there. Perhaps he’s afraid that if he talks about mysticism people will start falling into old patterns, old traditions, old philosophies of mysticism. That fear prevents him from entering. But that fear also prevents other people from entering into the mysteries of life.
 
I have met thousands of Krishnamurti people – because anybody who has been interested in Krishnamurti sooner or later is bound to find his way towards me, because where Krishnamurti leaves them, I can take their hand and lead them into the innermost shrine of truth. You can say my connection with Krishnamurti is that Krishnamurti has prepared the ground for me. He has prepared people intellectually for me; now it is my work to take those people deeper than intellect, to the heart; and deeper than the heart, to the being.
 
-Osho, "Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries, Talk #25"
 
 

 
This is what Krishnamurti has been saying continuously for forty, fifty years: “Don’t follow. People can reach without following anybody” – but the path is arduous and very long because you are not ready to accept any help or guidance which can be given to you – which is possible and which can cut many unnecessary difficulties on the path. This is what Krishnamurti has been saying – nobody has done it.
 
This is the problem of the mind. The mind can accept this – not because it has understood, but because it is very ego-fulfilling not to follow anybody. Nobody wants to follow anybody. Deep down the ego resists.
 
So around Krishnamurti all the egoists have gathered. They are again deceiving themselves. They think they are not following anybody because they have understood the fallacies of following, they have understood that the path has to be traveled alone, they have understood that no help is possible, nobody can help you, nobody can guide you; you have to travel alone. They think that they have understood this, that’s why they are not following anybody. That is not the real thing – they are deceiving. They are not following because their ego won’t allow it. And, still they go on listening to Krishnamurti. For years together they go, again and again.
 
If no help is possible, why do you go again and again to Krishnamurti? If nobody can guide you, what is the point of listening to him again and again? It is pointless. And even this attitude, that you have to travel the path alone, is not discovered by you – it has been revealed to you by Krishnamurti. Deep down he has become your master. But you go on saying that you don’t follow – this is a deception.
 
The same deception can happen from the reverse side. You come to me, you think you have surrendered, and still you go on choosing. If I say something that suits you – that means it suits your ego – you follow it. If I say something which doesn’t suit your ego, you start rationalizing: “This may not be for me.” So you feel that you have surrendered, and you have not surrendered.
 
People around Krishnamurti think they are not following anybody, and they are following. Around me you think you are following me and you are not following me. Mind is always a deceiver. Wherever you go it can deceive you, it will deceive you – so be alert.

-Osho, "My Way: The Way of the White Clouds, Talk #12"
 

 

 
 
J. Krishnamurti, a man who struggled for ninety years – his last words have some great meaning. One of my friends was present there. Krishnamurti lamented, he lamented his whole life. He lamented that “people have taken me as an entertainment. They come to listen to me….” There are people who have listened to him for fifty years continually, and still they are the same people as had come for the first time to listen to him.
 
Naturally it is annoying and irritating that the same people…Most of them I know, because J. Krishnamurti used to come only once a year for two or three weeks to Bombay, and slowly, slowly all his followers in Bombay became acquainted with me. They all were sad about this point: What should be done? How can we make Krishnamurti happy?
 
The reason was that Krishnamurti only talked, but never gave any devices in which whatever he was talking about became an experience. It was totally his fault. Whatever he was saying was absolutely right, but he was not creating the right climate, the right milieu in which it could become a seed. Of course he was very much disappointed with humanity, and that there was not a single person who had become enlightened through his teachings. His teachings have all the seeds, but he never prepared the ground.
 
Zen does not deny entertainment the way J. Krishnamurti condemned it in his last testament to the world. He said, “Religion is not entertainment.” That’s true, but enlightenment can be vast enough to include entertainment in it.
 
Enlightenment can be multidimensional. It can include laughter, it can include love, it can include beauty, it can include creativity. There is nothing to keep it from the world and from transforming the world into a more poetic place, a more beautiful garden. Everything can be brought to a better state of grace.

-Osho, "Rinzai: Master of the Irrational, Talk #5"