Osho on Jiddu Krishnamurti

 

 

Contradictions are our creations -- remember it -- because we cannot see the total, because we can only see the partial. Hence the contradiction. We can see only the aspect, never the whole -- hence the contradiction. Have you observed? Even if you are watching a small pebble in your palm, you cannot see the whole at one time. You see one part, the other part is hidden. when you see the other part, the first part goes into hiding. You can never see even a small pebble in its totality; not even a grain of sand can you see in its totality. When you are looking at my face, my back is just an inference: maybe it is there, maybe it is not there. When you look at my back, my face is just an inference: it may be there, it may not be there. We never see anything in totality, because the mind cannot see totality in anything. The mind is a partial outlook.

 

When the mind is dropped, and the meditation has arisen, then you see the total. Then you see the whole as it is, all the aspects together. Then summer and winter are not separate, then spring and fall are not separate. Then you will see that birth and death are two aspects of the same process. Then happiness and unhappiness are not opposites, they are joined together; like a valley and a mountain, they are together.

 

And when you see this togetherness of life, choice stops. Then there is nothing to choose. Have you not seen it? Whenever you choose happiness, you become the victim of unhappiness; whenever you want success, failure comes in; whenever you hope, frustration is waiting for you. whenever you cling to life, death comes and destroys.

 

Have you not seen it happen every day, every moment? These are not opposites, they are together. When one sees them together, then what is there to choose? There is nothing to choose; one becomes choiceless. That's what Krishnamurti goes on saying: Be choiceless, be in a state of choiceless awareness -- but it cannot happen unless you have seen the togetherness of things. Once realized, that all things are together, then the choice becomes impossible. Then there is nothing to choose, because whatsoever you choose comes with the opposite. Then what is the point? You choose love and hate comes; you choose friendship and the enemy comes; you choose ANYTHING, and immediately the opposite comes as a shadow. One stops choosing. One remains choiceless.

 

And when one is choiceless one has transcended all contradictions. To transcend contradictions is to transcend mind, and to transcend mind is to know what love is. Whatsoever you have known up to now as love has nothing to do with love. It is a misuse of the word. `Love' has been very much misused. There are only a few words which have been misused like `love'. `God' is another, `peace' is another. But `love' is at the top of the list. Everybody talks about love and nobody knows what it is. People sing about it, people write poetry about it, and they don't know what love is.

 

 

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Krishnamurti has been saying that there is no need for a Master. He is right -- and absolutely wrong also. He is right because when you become awakened, you also know that there was no need, you were dreaming. When you become alert, dreaming stops, and then you can't feel what the need was.' It was just a dream, I could have shaken myself out of it.' But it is an afterthought. Even Krishnamurti needed Annie Besant and Leadbeater -- he had his own Masters.

 

It is an afterthought. When a thing happens, then you can always feel: I could have done it. But when it has not happened, you cannot even think because your thinking will also be a part of your dream.

 

A Master is needed when you are asleep. When you become awakened, you also will think a Master was not needed. Then for you, of course, the Master is not needed. But then many will be deluded because many egoists will surround you, as you will find. You cannot find anywhere else such a mass of egoists as you will find near Krishnamurti, because the moment the egoist hears that no Master is needed, he feels very happy. He says: Right! He always thinks he is the Ultimate; no need to surrender to anybody because ego resists surrender. And this man says that no Master is needed -- egoists feel very happy. Around Krishnamurti you will find all sorts of egoists because it seems very good, very convenient -- no need to surrender.

 

 

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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.

 

 

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Krishnamurti fell into the hands of a very fanatical group -- theosophists. It was a new religion. Whenever a religion is new, it is very fanatical. By and by, it relaxes and compromises and becomes just a social phenomenon; then it is no more religion. Theosophy was just in its beginning, and Krishnamurti was only nine years old when he fell into the hands of those fanatics. They tried hard. They wouldn't allow Krishnamurti to meet and mix with ordinary children -- no -- because they had a goal that he had to become the world Teacher, JAGADGURU. He had to become the coming-Buddha; he had to become the incarnation of Maitreya.

 

He was not allowed to move with any girl, because he might have fallen in love and the whole dream of the theosophists would have been shattered. He was constantly guarded. He was not allowed to move alone; somebody was always with him, watching him. And he was forced to follow very strict rules: three o'clock in the morning he had to get up and take a cold bath; and then he had to learn Sanskrit and he had to learn French and he had to learn English and he had to learn Latin and Greek -- because a World Teacher should be well cultured, sophisticated. Just a nine-year-old child!

 

When he was twelve years old, they started forcing him to write a book. Now what can a twelve-year-old child write? In fact, the teacher, Leadbeater, he was writing in his name. Krishnamurti would write and Leadbeater would correct it and make it perfect. The book still exists. A beautiful book, but you cannot expect it of a boy just twelve years old. It is not from him. Even Krishnamurti cannot remember it. When he has been asked he has said, "I don't remember when I wrote it -- I don't remember at all how it came into being."

 

And they were talking nonsense -- esoteric nonsense: "In his dreams he goes to the seventh heaven, and there God Himself is teaching him." And just a twelve-year-old child -- very vulnerable, soft, receptive; he would trust. And these people were world-famous; they had great names. And the movement was really big and worldwide; thousands and thousands of lodges were opened all over the world. Just a twelve-year-old boy had become a world-famous personality. Wherever he was going, thousands of people would gather just to see him.

 

If you look at those pictures, you feel pity for him, compassion. He was continuously in a cage. And it was natural, I think it would have happened to anybody -- it had nothing to do with Krishnamurti. Anybody in his place, if he had any spirit left, would have renounced this whole nonsense, and would have come out of it. It was too much of a prison. He could not write letters to anybody because he might have made some relationship through the letters. A World Teacher needs to be completely unattached. He started feeling a little love for a woman who was old enough to be his mother, but even that was stopped. It was nothing to do with sexuality or anything; he just started feeling love from the woman. The woman was already a mother of three children -- but the theosophists wouldn't allow it. They stopped it.

 

He was completely in seclusion, never allowed to move into the outside world. He was not allowed to enter in any school, in any college, because there he would meet ordinary people and he would become ordinary. Special teachers were appointed; he was taught specially. And all around him, just a nine-year-old boy, all around him such big talk -- of Masters, Master K.H. sending messages, letters falling from the roof. They were all managed! Theosophists were caught later on -- they were all managed: the roof was specially made and a letter would drop suddenly, and it was for Krishnamurti -- a message had come from the unknown.

 

Just think of a small boy.... No freedom allowed became a great urge to be free. One day -- nobody was expecting it, that he would renounce it -- the theosophists had gathered from all over the world for the first declaration in which Krishnamurti was expected to declare that he was the World Teacher and that God had entered into him.

 

Suddenly, without saying anything to anybody.... He could not sleep the whole night. He brooded over it: he has become a slave, and they are all do-gooders; they have made you a slave because they want to do good to you; and they love you and their love became nauseating; and their well-wishing became poisonous. The whole night he brooded: what is he to do? Whether he has to continue and become part of this nonsense, or get out of it?

 

And blessed he is that in the morning when they had gathered and they were waiting for God to descend in him and to declare that he is now no more Krishnamurti but Lord Maitreya -- Buddha has entered in him -- he suddenly declined and he said, "It is all nonsense. Nobody is descending in me. I am simply Krishnamurti and I am nobody's Master. And I am not a Jagadguru, not a World Teacher. And I dissolve this nonsense and this organization and the whole thing that has been made around me."

 

They were shocked! They could not believe it: "Has he gone mad, crazy?" They had put much hope in him, much money; it was a great investment, years of training. But it was going to be so. If he had been absolutely a dead man, then only would he have accepted it. He was alive. They could not kill his life, that aliveness exploded. If he had been a dull, mediocre mind, maybe he would have accepted -- but he has an intelligence, a tremendous awareness. He got out of it. That whole movement and the whole organized thing functioned as a positive challenge.

 

 

♦

 

 

Krishnamurti is right when he says no Master is needed. Yes, one day you will also know that no Master is needed, but you will know only when somebody has awakened you or you have become awakened in somebody's presence. Then you will know, you will say 'Krishnamurti is right.' But if you listen to Krishnamurti right now and believe that no Master is needed, you will never come to know that Krishnamurti is right. You will remain unawakened.

 

 

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Krishnamurti goes on saying that there is no need to do anything. In fact, for the first-rate mind there is no need to do anything; just by hearing, by right listening, one attains. But where to find the first-rate mind? It is very rare. Unless a Krishnamurti comes to listen to Krishnamurti it won't happen. But why should a Krishnamurti go to listen to a Krishnamurti? It is absurd. It has no meaning. A man who has that kind of perceptivity can become awakened just by listening to the song of a bird, just by listening to the breeze passing through the trees, just by listening to the sound of the water flowing -- that's enough, because from everywhere the Divine speaks. If you are perceptive, whatsoever you hear you have heard the Divine

 

 

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J. Krishnamurti is totally different in his expression, very logical, very rational. The beginning of his work is always with the mind; then slowly slowly he leads you beyond the mind.

 

 

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You can not like or dislike. It is not a question of your choice. Truth is! Whether you like it or do not like it is irrelevant. You can choose lies, but you cannot choose truth -- truth is there. That's why Krishnamurti insists so much on choiceless awareness. You cannot choose truth. Truth is already there! It has nothing to do with your choice, liking, disliking.

 

 

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You will have to become more watchful about the thoughts, dreams, memories, flicking by, moving around you. You will have to have more attention focused on the thoughts. Thoughts are the objects and you will have to become aware of them. This is the first awareness: 'awareness one'. Krishnamurti talks about this, he calls it 'choiceless awareness'. Don't choose. Don't judge whatsoever thought is passing by, just watch it, just see that it is moving. If you go on watching, one day, thoughts don't move that fast; their speed has slowed down. Then, some day, gaps start coming: one thought goes and another does not come for a long time. Then, after some time, thoughts simply disappear for hours... and the road is just empty of traffic.

 

 

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Krishnamurti is right when he again and again emphasizes choicelessness. That is also the taste of Zen.

 

 

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My observation has been this: that Krishnamurti is surrounded by the most egoistic people of this world, and the reason is because there is a safe place -- no need to surrender, no need to drop your ego, no need to follow anybody. Your ego feels very strengthened and your ego feels that many rationalisations are given to you. So you protect yourself with those rationalisations.

 

 

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J. Krishnamurti was very serious -- I don't think he ever smiled. A long life: ninety years. His fame started very early, at thirteen years old; so really he had a very long life of work and disappointments. Even the closest ones betrayed him. His whole life seems to be just a series of betrayals, and those who remained never managed to understand what he was saying. They listened to him for half a century, but still he could not cross their thick minds and reach to their being. And every day... if you look at his life, in the beginning he was very hopeful, very excited that man can be changed, that a new man can arrive. But slowly, slowly that hope disappeared, that excitement was no more there. And as he grew older, he became sadder.

 

 

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J. Krishnamurti goes on talking in abstract terms. The whole approach seems to be mental, as if only mind is to be used. The body need not be involved in it, emotions need not be involved in it: only the abstract mind, as if Brahman is a mathematical problem. It is not, it is an organic problem.

 

 

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Listening to Krishnamurti you are listening to the mind -- the purest mind. You will feel good. Listening, you will feel that you are understanding. Listening, you will feel that you are reaching somewhere. But you are learning only new words. You will learn 'awareness' -- the word, not awareness itself. You will learn 'choicelessness' -- the word, not choicelessness. And they will go on in the mind, and they will move in the mind, and you will become just a mind -- a cerebral center. Your emotions are not touched; your body remains untouched. Only your mind is touched. That is why Krishnamurti has been a failure. He is himself enlightened but he has been a failure. His whole life he has been working with the mind and whatsoever he says is true but it is not applicable because you are not only the mind: you are much more. And that "much more" has to be transformed with the mind. You have to be transformed as a totality.

 

 

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J. Krishnamurti is there. He talks; talks very intelligently. Remember, I will not say logically: talks very intelligently; goes into the analysis of any problem as deeply as is humanly possible. But he is not a philosopher either. All his talk is just like uprooting weeds from the garden. He destroys your problems through his analysis. He does not give you anything; he simply takes away all that you have been carrying in your mind. For a moment you are utterly lost -- and in that very moment you can see his reality. His experience starts flowing in you. People can miss him also.

 

 

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Krishnamurti has his way, and I am happy that he is in the world. He is at the other extreme. If he is gone, I will miss him more than anybody else in the world. But I can understand your question, Henk Faassen. This is not the only question; you have asked many more about the same thing. It seems it has hurt you deeply that I criticized Krishnamurti. You don't understand me yet. This is my way of paying respects to him. This is my way of declaring that there exists another enlightened person in the world.

 

If my orchestra does not suit you, then the only alternative possible is the solo flute-playing of J. Krishnamurti. There is no other, no third person who can be of any help to you. Either Krishnamurti or me -- there is no other alternative. Right now there is no other alternative. Krishnamurti is bound to criticize me; I can understand it. His standpoint is simple and clear, my standpoint is a little more unclear. Sometimes I will appreciate him tremendously, because I would like him to also become part of my orchestra. And sometimes I will criticize him, because my own liking is not for solo flutes.

 

 

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Just last night I received the last book of J. Krishnamurti, in which he is not speaking to anybody -- he is speaking just to himself. The words are recorded but there was no audience, and perhaps in this book he comes closer to truth than in any of his other books. The audience is a limitation. This has been my experience too. If I am speaking to my own people, then there is no limitation; then I don't feel that I have to say something, or not to say something. Then I simply speak as if I am speaking to myself. When I am speaking to people who don't know me, who don't understand me -- moreover they misunderstand me -- there is a great limitation. Then I am not at freedom to speak. Their very faces, their eyes, their gestures prevent me from saying something that may hurt them.

 

 

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When I say Krishnamurti can get angry, I don't mean, Henk, that he can get angry like you get angry. His anger is out of compassion. This situation is unbelievable! He wants to help this lady and he feels so helpless. He tries this way and that. His message is very simple, singular, one-dimensional. For fifty years he has been saying only a single word. In essence his whole teaching can be printed on one side of a postcard. He has been saying it in as many possible ways as one can invent, but it is the same citadel that he attacks from the north, from the south, from the west, from the east. And still people go on listening to him and go on asking the same old foolish questions.

 

He certainly gets angry. And when a man like Krishnamurti gets angry, he is pure anger. Many in India have felt very disappointed with Krishnamurti because he gets angry. They have a certain concept that a buddha should not get angry. They go with a prejudice. And when they see that Krishnamurti can get angry, they are disillusioned, "So this man is not a buddha, he has not become enlightened yet."

 

 

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J. Krishnamurti has not received a Nobel Prize -- and he is one of those rare human beings, those few of the buddhas, who are really laying the foundation for world peace. And Mother Teresa has received the Nobel Prize for world peace. Now, I don't understand what she has done for world peace! George Gurdjieff didn't receive a Nobel Prize, and he was working hard to transform the inner core of human beings; Raman Maharshi didn't receive the Nobel Prize -- because their work is invisible: their work is that of bringing more consciousness to people. When you bring bread to people it is visible, when you bring clothes to people it is visible, when you bring medicines to people it is visible. When you bring God to people, it is absolutely invisible.

 

 

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The path of affirmation seems the path of effort, great effort: one is trying to reach God, one has to make all the effort that is possible, one has to do the utmost, one has to put oneself at stake. In modern times, Gurdjieff, Ramakrishna-they followed the path of affirmation, VIA AFFIRMATIVA. The other path is VIA NEGATIVA, through negation, through the 'no'. Lao Tzu, Buddha, Nagarjuna -- they followed the path of negation. In modern times, Ramana Maharshi, J. Krishnamurti -- they follow the path of the 'no'.

 

 

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Krishnamurti is the purest statement of the negative path as pure as Lao Tzu, as pure as Ashtavakra. A very pure statement, but pure statements become very difficult because you cannot understand them; they are so far away. You can only misunderstand them. So he has been misunderstood. He is the most misunderstood man. Nobody understands him, not even those who say that they follow him. They also cannot understand, because he says 'No following is allowed. You should not become imitators.' And they have become imitators. He says 'You cannot learn from me.' And they have learned from him. That's why he sometimes beats his own head

 

 

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Intelligence has no choice. That's why Krishnamurti goes on defining intelligence as choiceless awareness.