FOUNDER

"I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect."

Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on 11 May 1895 in a pious family of Madanappale town in Andhra pradesh. He was adopted in his youth by Dr Annie Besant, the President of the Theosophical Society, which had its international headquarters at Madras. Dr Besant and others proclaimed that Krishnamurti was to be the vehicle of the World Teacher, whose coming the Theosophists had predicted. The World Teacher, according to various scriptures, takes a human form time to time to bring salvation to mankind. To prepare the world for the event, an organisation called the Order of the Star in the East was formed in 1911 with the young Krishnamurti as its head. In the same year, he was taken to England to be preivately educated and trained for his future mission.

In 1922, Krishnamurti underwent certain mystical experiences that altered his vision of life. A few years later, he renounced the role that he was expected to play, dissolved the Order with its huge following, and gave up all money and property collected for this owrk. In a historic speech in 1929, he explained why religious organisations cannot lead man to Truth. He declared that his intentional was not to found new religions but to set man unconditionally free.

Then, for more than fifty years, until his passing away on 17 February 1986, he travelled all over the world giving public talks and private interviews, speaking, writing, and holding dialogues, not as a guru but as a lover of truth. These have been compiled into several books, translated into all the major languages of the world, and recorded on audio and videotapes.

Long recognised as one of the world's foremost religious teachers, Krishnamurti dedicated his life to awakening man to his own sorrow and the possibility of freedom. Staying nowhere for more than a few months at a time, he considered himself as not belonging to any country or religion. Over the years, his annual gatherings at Ojai in California, Saanen in Switzerland, Brockwood Park in England, and several cities in India attracted thousands of people of different nationalities, occupations and outlooks. He impressed upon his listeners the importance of self-knowledge, as that alone would set them free from the bondage of theor conditioning - from their prejudices, hurts, fears, loneliness, and sorrow. He urged them to examine the workings of their own minds, and asked enduring questions about the source of all problems, the nature of the human mind, and the significance of creation itself.

What kind of education should my child have in order to face this chaotic world?

"Do we not need a totally different kind of education? - not the mere cultivation of memory, which gives the child a technique, which will help him to get a job, a livelihood, but an education that will make him truly intelligent. Intelligence is the comprehension of the whole process, the total process of life, not knowledge of one fragment of life.

So the problem is really: Can we, the grown-up people, help the child to grow in freedom, in complete freedom? This does not mean allowing him to do what he likes, but can we help the child to understand what it is to be free because we understand ourselves what it is to be free?"

-- J.Krishnamurti