I finished reading Vernon’s Star in the East, probably the best survey in recent years of the life of the religious philosopher Krishnamurti. As you may or may not know, I’ve been reading books by and about Krishnamurti since 1975. I retreat to the “master” every now and then to replenish myself, for often the well goes dry. especially now, as I move toward deeper old age. And what have I learned. Nothing! I am as obtuse and dense as I have always been. And yet I read him, probably to see through a glass darkly what I might be if I chose to free myself.
I have been fortunate to have come across him many decades ago. At first I read him with interest, then with vigor, and then I began to wrestle with him and what he offered which went against many personal things in my moral and ethical thinking process. He upset my apple cart quite severely; yet I persevered for he was a remarkable man with brilliant and illuminating insights about human behavior. I did not cast him out. And then I got angry with his “perfection,” trying to find something impure about him so that, very humanly, I could attack his weaknesses, not an uncommon human failing. Finally I arrived at a a resolution which meant that I would take from him what I could manage and use and put off those things I could not abide; when I allowed him his humanity I became more accessible to his teachings.
The nub of his teachings for me was that man self-conditions himself, that culture considers that its first priority and rather than helping each individual to become free from interior and exterior systems, beliefs and creeds, it continues to indoctrinate. Consequently to see all this, to work on deconditioning yourself is a self-deliverance. By the way, that is my definition of education. I need no messiah, for I have redeemed myself, and forever grateful for that. And as the years passed and I wrote about Krishnamurti and worked on myself, the filters that covered my inner self sloughed off and I began to consider the world in a different way. In short, I know better now, Knowing better does not mean I do better. I often fail. At least, the fog has mostly evanesced. I see the shoreline.
When you see, when I came to see, society often becomes an enemy, an enemy of the people. I chose to become a psychotherapist to help individuals lift the veils that were imposed upon themselves when young, that they continue to self-impose upon themselves. To know thyself is to be free, free of others, free of society. And Socrates drank hemlock for that.
The older I get the more stupid I am, making mistakes here and there like sowing seed. Krishnamurti once said that in essence he didn’t think he made a difference after fifty years of teaching across the world. I don’t believe this species, my species, is capable of “getting it.” There is despair here. When I observe that 1.5 billion men and women, Catholics, in one way or another believe that a mortal man who probably never existed rose after being crucified, I just slump into my chair and draw a deep breath. Until such groups get past the dragon at the gate, we will not mature sufficiently to become part of the human race. Two thousand years of religious masturbation has brought us to nothing.
Krishnamurti argues that this malady is a product of conditioning. And for that I read him over and over, for it is an axiomatic truth. A neighbor of mine sends her children off to Catholic school, costing her about 25 to 30 thousand a year. And she has helped them become slaves. What was the old Jesuit saying so rich in truth say, “Give me your child until seven, mother, and I will return him to you, but for all time after he will be mine.” Unfortunately true. Jews wandered for forty years in the desert and the subtle and latent genius of that is that they had the minds of slaves and until a new generation came about could they then enter Canaan, for they had lost the memory of being slaves.
There used to be an old theory among psychotherapists that most people walking the streets are psychotic.I feel there is much truth to that. What does a disturbed species, if it can only see itself objectively, somewhat, do about that? On a recent TV show a prison inmate said something tellingly. He said that he was not normal and that is why he is imprisoned. He knows it to be true, unconditionally so. Bless his heart, what an insight. Those outside think they are normal — no such thing.
Brave and courageous is the atheist! for he or she has been emancipated from the worst kind of human slavery, the belief in a god.
