Deconstructing Krishnamurti

” ‘There is a principle, proof against all argument, a bar against all progress,

and which if persisted in cannot but keep the mind in everlasting

ignorance-and that is, contempt prior to examination.’—PALEY.

Just read this quote and thought it described K perfectly. K was a master at Zen, Hinduism, Vedanta, Buddhism and Christianity. He spoke authoritatively of all these traditions as “time-binding nonsense”. All this, without first examining the tradition in question. Everything that others said was reduced to “time binding nonsense” and everything he himself said was gospel truth.

He asked his “followers” not to read books, and yet he wrote more than 70 books. Once when he was asked which books of his one should read. He said read them all, in the reverse sequence (the last book first, and the first book last). He said that there was an advantage in not knowing what Marx, or the Buddha or others said, as that could become a conditioning, not realizing or not wanting to realize that reading his own books could result in conditioning too.

He thought he was the greatest being on earth for all time (because of the process – which was experimental, and was being tried on a human being for the first time in history, specifically, leaving the crown chakra open for an extended period of time, which was very painful, and unique in the world’s history).

When Bohm at last becomes enlightened he will be a much better teacher than K.

-saurab”

This message is from the yahoo group J_Krishnamurti, 12/18. .Thank you very much, Saurab. Am also posting your qualifier which followed the above message, and will make some comments later.

“There is one contribution that K has made in my life, and that is to expand the horizon of my personal enquiry.

Being a Hindu, before I read K, I was of the opinion that *devotion* was the most important thing in spirituality. Devotion to the guru, devotion to saints, devotion to God, and so on… which is more or less in line with mainstream Hinduism, and also Christianity (which is similar to Hinduism in this respect).
Even though today I do not accept his teachings fully, they have been responsible in shaping my world view. The topics he raised in his dialogues, the questions he would put forward, were all responsible in triggering my own enquiry into these things, even though my conclusions sometimes differed from his. For that I am very grateful to him.
–saurab”

So, thanks again to Niko for the work put into making this blog. We did not try as yet to promote it, so the number of readers is limited, but please share this link, as there is going to be more frequent activity here, with a focus, at least from my end, on comparing these two approaches. You know,  looking at different kinds of teachings  can be used as means or device to convey something else.  in principle there is nothing at all wrong with this, depending upon if/how much you distort the actual material to convey what you want to convey.  Of course, along the way there is also, hopefully, discovery–I know there is for me– but I do not find anything wrong about having a particular intent. The ground is not just to walk on. There are other functions for it;  in short, the earth needs to be turned in order to garden. Now let’s go slow.

Re what Krishnamurti wrote about Gurdjieff  ( https://www.jkrishnamurti.org/content/series-i-chapter-47-spiritual-leader ),  he used this material of what a particular person told him and deliberately turned it into something else.  Again, this is okay, as it is how the mind creates, but it depends where the intention is to go with it. Some people say that intention is the single most important thing, and with this I tend to concur, but K did not seem to have this perspective.  I believe he referred to intention as having a motive and he considered the mind working in this mode to be counterproductive in that it was interconnected with a person’s subjective sense of “the me ” as being independent from the (perceptual) field.  He was speaking, from the angle of accumulation on an emotional/psychological level as being counter-productive. Obviously some truth here,  even ‘great’ truth, but imo the way he put the emphasis is not only not helpful, but even counter-productive, and I will be going into this in detail, maybe in a different blog.

This is intended to be an inquiry.

Many of us have had very powerful and deeply meaningful experiences when reading and/or listening to Krishnamurti, which experiences (at this point in my understanding, which understanding  is radically greater then it was when I first read K) I would advise others having these kinds of experiences to not place so much store in.  I, for one, being prone to very strong and vivid experiences of the kind labeled “mystical” almost immediately became deeply hooked after finding in a library  a book from the series, Commentaries On Living (forget which one) and then reading Freedom From The Known. As I wrote on a K forum many years ago,  I was so energized with joy I was practically dancing in the streets! My personal subjective experiences as a result of reading K were of many different varieties, but all  very powerful. I found another person my own age who was also reading K to dialogue with and we had many thrilling conversations.

I do feel sad to have to say it,  but by the experiences I had from reading K, which experiences were to me so vivid, beautiful and meaningful at the time, I was led on my personal spiritual quest (to which I had already dedicated my life at the age of fourteen)  very far off track. So how to understand what I am saying to you now? How to explain this so as not to just deconstruct Krishnamurti, but to also make a greater sense?

Put another way, the question arises, if you take away what to you does not make sense,  will you find underneath it, sitting there waiting for you, what actually does make sense?  Does this really make sense? So, is sense or meaning already intact and just waiting to be uncovered? The analogy is often used of peeling the layers off an onion, but we know if we do this, we do not ultimately come to the real onion. Another analogy is used in Buddhism which is maybe more practical–that of clouds obscuring the light of the sun.

To be continued…

Wry: Yes it is a matter of discernment in that each human being’s experience is contextual and also to some degree on the bias (at least on the bias according to someone else:-) I think a good teaching needs to account for this, which K did not really do; rather than attempting to shape a given situation at the bias (shape being an interesting concept:-), he attempted (or pretended?) to directly do away with the bias, whereas in actuality it is necessary for each person to work out for himself in his daily activity the non-functional flaws in his own discriminatory processing of data. This is not as easy as K made it sound; he many times used the word effortless, yet at other times, though less frequently, spoke about the process being difficult or hard or work). So… is there a way to address this conundrum that we want our lives to flow, yet sometimes our lives flow in the wrong direction? It is about orientation, isn’t it?

Can someone else help us learn or does each person completely on his own just do it? As we know, any teacher presents information to a student within a certain framework, and also, the bias is to support the way one is processing data so as not to experience suffering, which does make sense on a rudimentary level, and most everyone who has considered this situation, would agree that only self-serving past a certain point is not socially functional.

Re David Bohm, he was not the only one who discerned that K’s teaching lacked fine-tuning. Imo the reason many people do not want to look into this is simply because it does not fit into their own story. So what is the ‘true’ story about David Bohm and how do we fit it into our own story which is interconnecting with this story, or do we omit him? You know, if you know how to really spin a good story you can fit almost anything into it. The question is, what makes a story be good? Again, this would depend upon the perceived function of the story.  -Wry

What bothers me about David Bohm’s story is that K crushed him with the weight of his supposedly non-existent authority.  David Bohm had interesting and insightful things to say about “truth” (the conversations in Truth and Actuality come to mind); in fact things that were more insightful than K’s own replies.  These insights relate directly to certain interpretations of the Two Truths in Buddhism, but K really (and interestingly) didn’t go there.  These encounters shed light onto the question of  how David Bohm plays into the larger “story” of where K’s explanations fall short, and why it is possible to discern this.

A quote I came upon recently from one of Guy Newland’s books:  “To underestimate the importance of terminological distinctions is to ignore the vast power of language to demonstrate a correct or incorrect consciousness in those who hear it.”   To me this is analogous to Bohm’s comment about “fine tuning.”  Yet it’s also true that different people understand the two truths differently, even if they are listening to the same teacher. With this in mind, it may be possible to see that in some respects, Bohm’s understanding could have been greater than K’s.

Niko wrote:

“In an earlier post on this blog, I talked about David Bohm’s doubts concerning the ultimate usefulness of Krishnamurti’s teachings. In his book about the Oak Grove School, David Moody recounts a conversation with David Bohm in which Bohm states that Krishnamurti’s work lacked a “fine focus” in its depiction of the nuances of consciousness. Apparently their exchange did not go forward into the details of why they perceived this “lack”, leaving the question of where the deficiency lies. Many people who are devotees of Krishnamurti tend to dismiss Bohm’s doubts because Bohm was not (even by his own admission), “enlightened.”

This situation is interesting in and of itself because it comes back to the issue of questioning the teachings. Krishnamurti encouraged this “questioning” as long as it was set up as a sort of Koan in his listeners’ minds. There were boundaries set as to what the questioning could be. For example, questions about K himself were off limits. K seemingly knew where he wanted people to go with their “questions” and David Bohm was unable to get there. He also suffered from depression and had dependency issues which Krishnamurti viewed as a sign failure on Bohm’s part.

It had to be Bohm’s failure and not Krishnamurti’s.

Many people think that someone like K is beyond criticism because they take it as a matter of faith that he was enlightened. Following this manner of thinking, David Bohm cannot be right about a lack of fine focus in the teachings because he himself was not enlightened. A question comes to mind: in what way can one’s discernment about a supposed enlightened person be valid if one is not himself enlightened? How might this idea even be functional? How can David Bohm discern that the teachings lack something?

A tentative answer: everything comes down to discernment.

Also, there are different kinds of “enlightenment”.

+++++++

Wry: Yes it is a matter of discernment in that each human being’s experience is contextual and also to some degree on the bias (at least on the bias according to someone else:-) I think a good teaching needs to account for this, which K did not really do; rather then attempting to shape a given situation at the bias  (shape being an interesting concept:-), he attempted (or pretended?) to directly do away with the bias, whereas in actuality it is necessary for each person to work out for himself in his daily activity the non-functional flaws in his own discriminatory processing of data. This  is not as easy as K made it sound; he many times used the word effortless, yet at at other times, though less frequently, spoke about the process being difficult or hard or work).  So… is there a way to address this conundrum that we want our lives to flow, yet sometimes our lives flow in the wrong direction? It is about orientation, isn’t it?

Can someone else help us learn or does each person completely on his own just do it? As we know, any teacher presents information to a student within a certain framework, and also, the bias is to support the way one is processing data so as not to experience suffering, which does make sense on a rudimentary level, and most everyone who has considered this situation, would agree that only self-serving past a certain point is not socially functional.

Re David Bohm, he was not the only one who discerned that K’s teaching lacked fine-tuning. Imo the reason many people do not want to look into this is simply because it does not fit into their own story. So what is the ‘true’ story about  David Bohm and how do we fit it into our own story which is interconnecting with this story, or do we omit him? You know, if you know how to really spin a good story you can fit almost anything into it. The question is, what makes a story be good?  Again, this would depend upon the perceived function of the story.

In an earlier post on this blog, I talked about David Bohm’s doubts concerning the ultimate usefulness of Krishnamurti’s teachings.  In his book about the Oak Grove School, David Moody recounts a conversation with David Bohm in which Bohm states that Krishnamurti’s work lacked a “fine focus” in its depiction of the nuances of consciousness.  Apparently their exchange did not go forward into the details of why they perceived this “lack”, leaving the question of where the deficiency lies.  Many people who are devotees of Krishnamurti tend to dismiss Bohm’s doubts because Bohm was not (even by his own admission), “enlightened.”

This situation is interesting in and of itself because it comes back to the issue of questioning the teachings.  Krishnamurti encouraged this “questioning” as long as it was set up as a sort of Koan in his listeners’ minds.  There were boundaries set as to what the questioning could be.  For example, questions about K himself were off limits.  K seemingly knew where he wanted people to go with their “questions” and David Bohm was unable to get there.  He also suffered from depression and had dependency issues which Krishnamurti viewed as a sign of failure on Bohm’s part.

It had to be Bohm’s failure and not Krishnamurti’s.

Many people think that someone like K is beyond criticism because they take it as a matter of faith that he was enlightened.  Following this manner of thinking, David Bohm cannot be right about a lack of fine focus in the teachings because he himself was not enlightened.  A question comes to mind: in what way can one’s discernment about a supposed enlightened person be valid if one is not himself enlightened?  How might this idea even be functional?  How can David Bohm discern that the teachings lack something?

A tentative answer:  everything comes down to discernment.

Also, there are different kinds of “enlightenment”.

Am going to try to write more regularly now. Two topics Niko and I both are interested in are the comparison of the approach of the Chittamatrin (Mind Only) School of Buddhism to the approach of the Pransagika Madhyamika (Middle Way) School. This kind of focus significantly relates to the teaching of Krishnamurti and also Gurdjieff (which teachings many of the future readers here are probably interested in) and imo is a very productive simple way to begin to understand ones own mental processing. This subject also relates to the two aspects of truth which is probably the main defining characteristic of the Middle Way,  which school has a distinctive approach to working with this particular concept.

Secondly we are both interested in the subject of childhood trauma and how it may have possibly affected Krishnamurti. I had a quite traumatic childhood and feel this is related to my own strong attraction to K and also. because of my childhood I may have in this area a little more insight then the average person into how K’s childhood experience may have affected his subsequent responses when he was given an opportunity to wear fine clothes, receive lots of love and attention and then become “the great world teacher. I think he did rise to this occasion very creatively, and this is a wonderful testimony to human versatility coupled with the will to survive.

Was K disingenuous? Why ask this? Because not just what K said, but K himself,  K the (supposed) great world teacher, is for many the inspiration.  If K was disingenuous, that is human, and we all may be to some degree until we are “pure,” but if we take as the foundation of a topic the words of a human being who in actuality was disingenuous *at the time* he was presenting a teaching about being genuine and pure, even though *in a particular context* he  was, or, better put, appeared to be pure, then there is a significant discrepancy factor fot which the teaching being given does not in itself, include a check and balance.  In the future I would like to go into detail about this, so, technical case in point,  though K said the futue is now, the future is not now, as I am not going to do this now.

I understand that speaking about K possibly being disingenuous appears to some to be nitpicking because it does not cut to the chase of love and truth,  very beautiful experiences  (much like a sunset?) we all have had in relationship with K,  but if” K” is functioning for us as a golden cow,  ie. a symbol of an evolved human being, then there is behind this veil a  mental obscuration with no way to correct it, so here we come to the the subject of second order impressions, which could in some way be another term for thought.

What IS thought? Are there certain kinds and qualities of thought, and do we need thought to discriminate such?  I guess it is pretty easy to intuit where I will be going with this topic.

Happy holidays to all! It has been great, really wonderful!  Did you feel the spirit of Christmas (and maybe you/we still feel it)?  You do not have to have a Christmas tree or any of the other trappings to experience the spirit of Christmas.  Of course for some people the concept of Christmas is in so associated with commercialism and false values that they are unable to look past that.  So,  could this be said about experiencing the spirit of K’s teaching? Can we experience the spirit of that without being caught up in various other stuff, such as– did K lie? What IS stuff and how does it function in terms of the brain making distortions?

You know we do like inquiry here:-)

And thank you so much Niko for all of the time and effort you have put into making this blog!

So what does it mean to say that someone is disingenuous?  Basically it means that a person is dishonest, but imo not in the sense of presenting a false picture in order to help someone, such as it said that the Buddha sometimes lies; an example of the latter might be telling a child there is a Santa Claus. An example of the former would be to present oneself as having a certain kind or level of understanding and/or character that one knows in ones heart one does not in actuality have. Of course sometimes we tend to tell ourselves stories and deeply believe in them; I am not sure if this would be lying or not.

And what would be the point of asking this kind of question about K? Personally I would not be doing so if I did not perceive there to be a significant functional value, and here we come to the possible approach of inquiring into K or ‘K’ with the intent to use this topic to also speak about something else,  such as human brain function. It is natural for people to make a golden cow or false image which they idolize, and K was well aware of this, as again and again he warned people not to make him into an authority;  but it would be extremely obvious to anyone who was so smart that saying  this, though it might have a minimal effect, would in no way keep a vulnerable person from inadvertently doing the particular thing he was again and again being cautioned not to do.  In short, saying not to do something is not the same as building into a certain approach various checks and balances which will actually keep this something from happening.

Deliberately building into a teaching certain kinds of checks and balances could be similar to fighting fire with fire, so, for example,  to make an actual golden cow,  either object and/or mental image, but instead of encouraging people to literally believe in it,  using such an object or image consciously to negate the truth of its perceived being as ultimate, which is, as many readers know, the approach of the Prasangika Madhyamaka (Middle Way Consequence School) of Buddhism, whose main identifying characteristic is its particular approach to the two aspects of truth.  So did K deliberately build in such checks and balances or did he (k)not?  This is a really interesting question in that what if in some ways and to some degree he did do this, but in other ways he did not? Is it possible to go half way with such an approach, or does going only part of the way negate or weaken the inherent potential to actualize transformation?

Niko wrote in the intro:

“A central tenet of most Krishnamurti dialogues is that Krishnamurti’s formulations are to be encountered within a framework which was proscribed by K himself. Although he exhorted his listeners to “question everything”, he did set limits by suggesting we look only at his words and leave out various contextual elements.”

Niko thank you very much!. Imo from this perspective, which is how I, too, am seeing it,  virtually everything K wrote and said was disingenuous in that he pretty obviously was leaving himself out of his tabulations and therefore was, for others, functioning as an authority, so the center, and in some psychological as well as physical way he was feeding off of this. He talked about eating meat, and I read someplace, though cannot now find the quote, that he said he would rather die then eat meat, though I did find a mention of eating meat in the quote below. So the implication is that not eating meat is not a habit? That has to be false in that people can eat meat or not eat meat either consciously or unconsciously.

http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/print.php?tid=937&chid=642

“If I may point out – not that you must obey or follow or conform – but if one may suggest, don’t please just merely accept and say: ‘Yes, we do live in a habit, what about it, what shall we do?’ But rather, be aware of it, be conscious of it, be alive to the habits that one has – not only physical habits, like smoking, eating meat, drinking, which are all habits, but also the deep-rooted habits in the psyche, which accepts, which believes, which hopes, which has despair, agony, sorrow. If we could together go into this problem, not only of habit but also of fear, and perhaps thereby come to the ending of sorrow; then there may be a possibility of a love that we have never known, a bliss that is beyond the touch of pleasure.”

Actually if looked at in context, he was mostly talking to young people (such as myself) in the sixties and seventies, and this is the kind of over-generalized material that people at that time were very prone to fall for, especially if they had, when listening, the kind of very strong experience his talks were designed to create (which kind of experience I surely did have).  Actually,  “…what shall we do?”  is an intelligent question, and sure enough, after denigrating  it, he then does proceed to tell people what to do….

So was talking to all of these crowds of young people and repeating with various wrappings the same set pattern over and over, which he did with very limited modification until he died, was a habit?  Once you see through it then it is over.  Does it happen all at once? I suppose that is technically possible, but for me I had to think about it as I was very heavily conditioned by all of the strong experiences I had in relation to K.

At this point for me all of his talks are filled with glaring inconsistencies. The major question that comes up is–can over-generalization be a form of deceit? I think we already know the answer as it is a no (know) brainer,  at least in overt instances, but on a subtle level, how does that work, and more importantly, if it is happening, what is a possible antidote?