Jiddu Krishnamurti: biography of this philosopher

Jiddu Krishnamurti has been one of the great spiritual lights of the 20th century, awakening consciences and admired by many. Initially seen as a new messiah, at one point in his life there was such a profound change that he rejected any title of teacher or authority.

His maxim was that personal discovery does not come from outside, in forms of dogmas and religions, but by looking inward, within us, which is the place where we will have the answer to the question about who we are.

Jiddu Krishnamurti's life is a long journey, with its twists and turns, in which he had the honor of rubbing shoulders with great figures of his time and influencing 20th century philosophical thought.

Let's see in depth who this great thinker was through a biography of Jiddu Krishnamurti.

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Brief biography of Jiddu Krishnamurti

From being an ordinary Hindu child to being seen as the new messiah, the "instructor of the world". This would be the shortest and simplest answer to the question "who was Jiddu Krishnamurti?".

Giving more detail, we would say that he was a well known writer and speaker on philosophy and spirituality, a native of india but that he had the opportunity to travel to countries like England and the United States, in addition to influencing the Hindu separatist movement. His life is very long, 90 years full of mystical experiences of all kinds.

Early Years: Baptized in honor of the Shepherd God

Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on May 12, 1895 in Madanapalle, in the present state of Andhra Pradesh, in southern India. Being the eighth son of the Jiddu family was named after the shepherd god Krishna, with whom she shared this characteristic.

His father was Jiddu Naraniah, a minor civil servant who discovered a spiritual calling in 1882 by joining the Theosophical Society. His mother, Sanjeevamma, claimed to have psychic powers, saying that she experienced visions and could see the colors of people's auras. The mother devoted herself to little Krishna, who was in poor health, plagued by frequent bouts of malaria.

Sanjeevamma spent her afternoons enlightening Jiddu Krishnamurti by reading to him from Hindu scriptures., telling him about the god he was named after, about Karma and reincarnation. Krishnamurti's mother claimed to see a daughter who had died prematurely in the garden at home, asking her son if he saw her too.

The afternoons spent with her mother were always a fond memory for Krishnamurti, and when she passed away in 1905, she was overcome with terrible grief. Krishna was barely 10 years old when his mother left but, knowing that she was psychic and that she met with his spirits, he served her to overcome the terrible loss and feel that, in a certain way, he was with her. he.

The young Jiddu Krishnamurti did not excel in studies. His lack of interest in class and his somewhat alienated attitude made his teachers think that he had some kind of intellectual disability.. His poor academic performance and the death of his mother added to other bad news that was the forced retirement of his father, whose pension was barely enough to support the family.

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Transfer to Adyar and contact with the Theosophical Society

Seeing that only by working would he get the family to move forward, the patriarch was forced to ask for a job at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society, located in the city of Adyar. The entity's director, Annie Besant, decided to give her a job, pressured by her tireless insistence.

The Theosophical Society had been founded by Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, a Russian citizen who had lived in Tibet and had been in contact with the Masters of the Occult Brotherhood. This lady would later meet Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, a US psychic investigator, and together they would found the organization, which had the mission of studying the ancient wisdoms and the exploration of phenomena paranormal.

Given the father's new job, the Jiddu family moved to Adyar to be closer to the headquarters of the Theosophical Society. At that moment the institution was going through a critical moment, since the approach of the coming of a new messiah had gained strength in many esoteric circles. Blavatsky, years before, had postulated that the purpose of the Society was to prepare for that advent that was not going to take long to arrive, despite the fact that she would die without being able to see it in 1891.

After the death of Colonel Olcott in 1907 Annie Besant would become the president of the Society and would decide reinstate Charles Webster Leadbeater, a former Anglican clergyman who claimed to have powers of clairvoyance. The figure of Leadbeater would be key to Krishnamurti's life, since this cleric would be the one who, thanks to a series of coincidences, he thought he saw in the figure of the young Krisha the arrival of the long-awaited advent in the Society.

While the Jiddu family was in Adyar in 1908, Krishnamurti attended a school in the area and, in the afternoons, played with his brothers by the river, near the headquarters. It was on the banks of the river that Leadbeater discovered the young man, seeing in him a singular aura, devoid of any selfishness. This led Leadbeater to believe that he would make a great orator and spiritual teacher. That is why the former cleric asked his father to allow him to take charge of the education of Krishnamurti and his little brother Nitya.

Leadbeater was convinced that Krishnamurti was the messiah long awaited by the Society and associated esoteric circles, while his little brother Nitya would be his spiritual companion in his lifetime. Leadbeater predicted that they would both be great, that they would be central to history, and that in their previous lives they were disciples of the Buddha himself.

Annie Besant listened to Leadbeater's assertions, becoming convinced and going even further. Besant believed that Jiddu Krishnamurti was nothing more nor less than "the teacher of the world", the Bodhisattva Maitreya, who was manifesting himself through the body of the young man.. Taking advantage of Besant's support and his fanaticism, Leadbeater managed to get the two brothers out of his father's house and take them to live at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society.

Upon arrival at the organization, the Society built a protective wall around the young messiah-to-be Krishnamurti and his spiritual companion Nitya. This is how they began to be introduced to all kinds of spiritual practices and, very soon, Krishnamurti granted Annie Besant the title of her mother.

However, many saw in the Society an institution that tried to do business of the messiah. The Society depended, for the most part, on donations and no one would have thought it strange that they had seized on the tale of young Krishna being the messiah to their advantage. In addition, the rumor arose that Leadbeater was homosexual and that he tried to extract sexual pleasure from little Krishna.

When in 1911 Besant tried to take Krishnamurti to England, His father, who had heard the rumors, filed a lawsuit to get his children back., trial that he ended up losing. This is how the "messiah" began his pilgrimage around the world, "protected" by an organization that, more than a philosophical school, had the vision of a sect.

Travel to England

What was going to become a simple trip to England, of perhaps little more than a year, became a stay of ten, extending until 1921. Jiddu Krishnamurit, who until recently was just an ordinary Hindu boy, had become the future "messiah", wandering as a guest in the houses of large wealthy members of the Society Theosophical. He was away from his family, only accompanied by his little brother Nitya, discovering the western world in all its splendor..

He attended all kinds of society galas, went to the theater and was the center of attention. Surrounded by all kinds of luxuries and new experiences, his life was far from being that of a messiah. he bought himself expensive clothes, developed a taste for cars, and it seemed that his spiritual life had been replaced by a more earthly one.

But the paths of fate are inscrutable, and in 1922, everything changed. That year he traveled with his brother to the United States, specifically to a property located near Santa Barbara, California. It would be there that the young Krishnamurti would awaken spiritually, changing the course of his life.

The young man he begins to suffer severe pain, faints and calls his mother in his native language, asking to be taken to a forest in India where he said there were powerful beings. Between his pains he had visions of Buddha, Maitreya and other masters of the occult hierarchy. It is, both according to his brother Nitya and Krishnamurti himself, the opening of his third eye.

After that, he kept quite a busy schedule, traveling to different countries to attend conventions organized by the Theosophical Society, accompanied by his brother. But, contrary to what Leadbeater and Besant had predicted, his sister was not going to accompany him any longer since, on a sad November 13, 1925, the young Nitya left this world.

The loss of his brother shattered him. He cried, moaned and sobbed loudly, remembering his dear brother. It seemed that his life was all misfortunes: first, his mother dies; then, he is separated from his father and his brothers by a mysterious and shady organization; and, finally, the only relative he had by his side, who had been with him for 15 years, suddenly passed away.

Nitya's death triggers a great change in the life of Jiddu Krishnamurti and the way he saw himself. Besant and Leadbeater had told her that he was the messiah, the instructor of the world, and that his sister was going to be his companion, just as they had seen in his predictions. But one of them had clearly failed, since Nitya was dead. It is then that he doubts whether he is the messiah and, especially, the powers of his two teachers in the Theosophical Society.

The break with the Theosophical Society

After Nitya's death, Jiddu Krishnamurti begins to distance himself from the Theosophical Society. He becomes independent of the hierarchies imposed by the organization and adopts a more self-centered discourse and message. He demonstrated his independence at the conventions he hosted, exposing his new point of view even though Annie Besant was present..

By giving the freest and purest opinion of him, she felt how he was becoming more and more independent, and shared his vision of being one unit with the universe. It is from 1927 when we can say that Krishnamurti begins to speak in a way that is radically opposed to how the Theosophical Society promulgated his teachings. These new notions upset the Society, which began to spread the word that it was not Lord Maitreya who was speaking through Krishnamurti, but evil spirits.

Krishnamurti argued that each one can only be found by looking within himself, leaving aside any external influence. Be it books, friends, schools of thought or any philosophy, all of these cannot lead us to discover who and how we are. How we are we will only obtain it by looking inside ourselves.

He was in favor of abandoning all sources of authority and, especially, the one that had designated him as "the World Instructor".. He went from being a messiah who was going to guide everyone to someone who defended that each one should follow his own inner light. He explicitly said that he wanted those who wanted to understand him to be free, not to follow him, not to turn his thoughts into a religion, into a sect.

This new way of looking at things was a scandal in the Theosophical Society. Jiddu Krishnamurti came to be considered a philosopher hostile to all religious beliefs and resigned from the Theosophical Society in 1930. Just three years later, his adoptive mother, Annie Besant, would die.

isolation from the world

He made the property near Santa Barbara his permanent home and practice center.. Between 1933 and 1939 he traveled several times to India to give concerts, but the world and the media had already lost interest in this "instructor of the world." World War II found him in Ojai, California, where he spent nearly eight years in relative isolation.

As he was a foreigner, the context of the war was not favorable for him in North American territory and he was prohibited from giving lectures, in addition to the fact that he had to appear regularly before the police. But despite these difficult times, he had the opportunity to rub shoulders with great figures of the time, including Aldous Huxley, Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin and Bertrand Russell.

Despite the fact that 1945 was the end of the bloody war and a happy moment worldwide, Jiddu Krishnamurti could not say the same, since he fell seriously ill.. He suffered from urinary problems, had high fevers and spent most days unconscious. Doctors examined him, but were unable to diagnose or treat his illness. But just as it came, the disease went away as if by magic, for no explainable reason. This was used by Krishnamurti as an exercise for his spirituality.

Independent Indian thinker

On August 15, 1947, India proclaimed its independence after a long nonviolent struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi. Krishnamurti would return to his homeland just two months after it had broken away from the British Empire and become a new state. Despite freedom, India was going through a political crisis that had divided it socially, but Krishnamurti served as a spiritual support for all who had made independence possible.

However, Krishnamurti dared to tell his followers, among whom they had fought with all his forces for independence, that political and social action could never change the world deeply. It was the individual himself who had to radically transform himself in order to change the system, and if he expected the system to change people, his waiting was wasted time.

Despite his criticism of the idea of ​​authority, Mahatma Gandhi received Jiddu Krishnamurti very well and, in fact, the government of independent India took great consideration for the spiritual. India's Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was meeting with Jiddu Krishnamurti to discuss the fate of the country.

He also had a very close relationship with Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru. They shared many letters, questioning if the world had come to a standstill, if necessary, to promote a change of action from the individual. Unfortunately, the relationship broke down when Indira was murdered on October 31, 1984 at the hands of her own bodyguard. At that time, Krishnamurti was severely affected.

Last years

After the death of Indira Gandhi, Krishnamurti suffered physical pain again. He would faint, his teeth ached, and he felt severe pain in the back of his neck, in the crown of his head, and in his spine.. He was quite optimistic, since he really thought that the origin of these pains was that some kind of supernatural force was completely cleaning his brain, emptying it. Whatever it was, nothing eased his pain, he came and went at his free will.

Krishnamurti linked these pains with his spiritual growth. Despite the fact that they were truly strong, he never ceased his activities to disseminate his teaching or transform his message into the that he postulated spiritual growth based on knowledge from within each human being and not on dogmas external.

Although it had been a long time since they thought that he was a new messiah, Jiddu Krishnamurti had acquired a remarkable celebrity and importance worldwide. Even being 90 years old, he did not stop, traveling and giving lectures. Unfortunately, the end was drawing near and in January 1986, perhaps seeing his death very close, he gave his last talks in India and said goodbye to his disciples.

On January 10 of that same year, he wanted to go for a walk on the beach of Adyar again, the same city where, 75 years ago, he had been discovered by Leadbeater as the "instructor of the world." Shortly after, On February 17, 1986, affected by pancreatic cancer, Jiddu Krishnamurti gave his last breath in Ojai, USA.

Bibliographic references:

• Lutyens, M. (1990). The life and death of Krishnamurti (1st UK ed.). London: John Murray. ISBN 978-0-7195-4749-2.
• Lutyens, M. (1995). The boy Krishna: the first fourteen years in the life of J. Krishnamurti (pamphlet). Bramdean: Krishnamurti Foundation Trust. ISBN 978-0-900506-13-0.