KFA Response to the Radha Sloss Book
From NonSpiritual
The full response is not available online. An excerpt follows.
Any pointers or additional excerpts should be added to this page.
Krishnamurti directly addressed the question of the relationship between the life of the teacher and the teachings during the course of two conversations with KFA trustees in early 1972. But as frequently happened when dealing with fundamental issues, Krishnamurti’s approach to answering the question turned out to be quite different from the approach expected by the questioner.
In brief, Krishnamurti’s answer was that the teachings stand on their own, that no person can judge with certitude whether the acts of another do or do not have integrity, and that the desire for consistency between the teacher and the teachings simply mirrors the conditioning of the questioner.
The questioner’s desire for consistency is seen to be rooted in traditional expectations about what one needs to do to lead a religious life, to be a holy man, or to reach some form of enlightenment. Krishnamurti has harsh words for the spiritual elitism implicit in the traditional approaches:
K: ... First there is this whole idea that it is only for the most super-elite that this can happen. And to come to that state of the elite, you must go through lives, practice, through yoga, through various forms of meditation, you must sacrifice, you must not marry, you must be poor, you must be rich, you must be devout, you must be celibate, do this or not do this, dozens and dozens of things. And people have done it and never got it. They have done all these various things with their lives, tortured themselves ... So it isn’t just something you work towards, or you invite. It’s not progressive achievement. ... It doesn’t function that way ...
Krishnamurti’s deep concern was not to cultivate a spiritual elite, but to reach everyone:
K: But there is the man in the street all the same. What is he going to do? ... He’s concerned with his life, not with Krishnamurti’s life or the Theosophical life or the Catholic life; he’s concerned with his daily life. And when you bring this in, he says, ‘You so immeasurably complicate it.’ And the people want it to complicate ... that is a way of escaping from themselves. So what is the man in the street, the ordinary man - which is you and I really - what does he do? He says, ‘... Personally, I’m not interested in what the Buddha was when he was a young man, whether he had sex, no sex, drugs or no drugs. I’m not interested. What I am interested in is what he is saying’ ... Just tell me, help me, let me enquire, share into this teaching so that I can lead a different kind of life.
Krishnamurti states unequivocally that one should focus on the teachings and forget about the teacher. But, as the following sequence demonstrates, this is much easier said than done:
Q: Still, I must admit that, for me at least, I have to believe in the integrity of the teacher.
K: Wait a minute, Sir. What do you mean by integrity? How do you know?
Q: Well let me put it this way. What the teacher teaches must be applicable to what happened to him.
K: How do you know? Wait a minute. Let’s see. How do you know?
Q: I don’t know but I feel that this has to be true for me to feel motivated by his teaching.
K: Ah, ah. I’m not interested. I am only interested in the teaching. Nothing else - who you are, who you’re not. Whether you’re real or honest. It is my life that I am concerned with, not with your life.
Q: Well, but this is a teaching that states things about human beings. The man who made these statements must know of what he speaks by his life.
K: Apparently. No. What I am trying to say is this, Sir. How do you know whether he is honest or dishonest? Wait. I’m just going seriously into this. How do you know whether what he is saying is out of his own life or he is inventing? Inventing in the big sense? Or he’s leading a double life?
Q: Let me put it the other way round. I can’t know whether he is leading a double life, but if at any moment I believe that he is, that affects his teaching for me. Do you see the difference?
K: I understand. I would say: “Please, leave the personality completely alone.”
Q: As long as the personality doesn’t get in the way of my ...
K: How do you know? You’re prejudiced. You’re conditioned. You say he must not sleep with somebody. He must not tell a lie. He must be a vegetarian. He must etc. etc. etc. That’s your conditioning.
Q: It might be a series of conditionings in order for me to believe.
K: Yes. I say forget that. Concern yourself with your own conditioning, which is much more logical, much more honest.
K: ... All this implies: why do you want an example? And the teaching says don’t have examples ... People, the man in the street wants a perfect example. And perfection isn’t involved in this. That’s stupid. Which doesn’t mean I am defending myself. Please, I am very careful about these things.
Q: This is a new idea to me, that there can be a teaching...
K: Sir, when the book says, ‘Be a light to yourself”, it means that. You are responsible to yourself, you are your own teacher, your own disciple. No authority. It means that. And people can’t stand this, can’t take it at its value, at its depth, but say, `For god’s sake, help me. Why did you? ... You went through all this. I can’t do this. You must help me to come to it by degrees, therefore I must have future lives ...’
Q: We don’t have to be Krishnamurti to understand what Krishnamurti is saying.
K: Certainly not. That’s all. And Krishnamurti may be the most hideous man. It has nothing to do with it.
Q: This is too much for me. Look ...
K: No Sir, do listen to this seriously. This is very important because you see what you’re saying - you’re caught in this too - which is: they used to say in my youth, ‘You must be the perfect instrument: what you do, what you say, how you write. Then only the teacher can use you.’ And you are saying exactly the same thing, in a different way, ‘You must show that you lead the perfect life.’
Q: No, no, no. The only thing that your life must show is that it is of one piece of cloth with your teaching, not perfect, one piece of cloth.
K: As I said, how will you know? It’s in the book. How will you know that it is one piece? By reading, by listening, by talking to the man, you’ll find out? Besides how will you know that it’s one piece of cloth? The piece of cloth will be cut according to your conditioning. And he says, ‘Don’t bother about the cloth. Look at your conditioning.’
(Copyright 1995: Krishnamurti Foundation of America}[1]
