Krishnamurti
and Me

Part 2 - Theosophy and K

        At the time, in 1974, there was nothing of the sort, though. So I took up psychology instead. It didn't interest me so much, too materialist. Didn't take the spirit into account, didn't even take the possible psychic influence of the experiencer on the experiences. Most of my time I spent, rather than follow the courses, with my nose in books. I read a lot. Lobsang Rampa, Spiritism, Edgard Cayce, Swedenborg, you name it. I even read a book, well written, though, that claimed that Humanity evolved out of cannibalism! Of course I was also reading a few of the psychological and philosophical books recommended by the curriculum. I was also following some courses. One that I never missed was the philosophy course. It was given in an outstanding way as well. During this course, I understood more about mathematics, as the teacher explained how the exponential function evolved out of the philosophical theory of Leibniz, than I learned in preceding years of school about math.

        It is only when I started to get into Theosophy that things began to make sense and that the puzzle got together. I started to frequent the Theosophic quarters. In there, I saw a portray of someone I found amazingly beautiful and obviously of high spiritual elevation. This was Krishnamurti in 1926. So much passed through his eyes and his every being, that years of teachings would not even give a glint of it.This, alone, was a revelation on its own.

        The Theosophical Society featured some weekly lecture, some courses, and also had an amazing library. You could find there books that are nowhere in print anymore, and that would dig into very deep and interesting spiritual and philosophical dimension. I got advised as to which books were the best by some of the many old ladies to be found there, and of course Annie Besant was an amazing writer.

        It is only later that I came on Krishnamurti, through a bibliography of his. I remember reading in it poems he made to express his enlightenment. It was so beautiful and hit something so deep within me that I believe I cried. I posted one of these poems some time ago in alt.meditation.

        From there, I became extremely interested in him. I was wondering. How can someone, who have been raised in such a protected environment, taught no doubt the many facets of the fascinating Theosophical cosmogony and philosophy, can shred all of it? Surely, if there was anyone who would know what Theosophy was about, it would be K. I started to read his writing, although I didn't quite understand too much of it at the time.

        In the meantime, I also got to meet, sometimes through friends, sometimes by chance, several spiritual groups. One friend was in DLM and preached to me the holiness of their own type of meditation in which they tasted some nectar. Another in the Sufi movement and meditated rather harshly and intensely. One group was teaching that everything was Satan, while my University neighbors tried to convince me that if I confessed my sins and surrendered to Jesus, I would be "saved". Still other emphasized the importance of prayer to avoid eternal hell.

        The only ones who didn't seem to want to convert me to their own religions were my own parents. They were of Jewish confession but didn't seem to bother about it very much. My mother believed in some kind of vague higher intelligence, and my father was really an atheist. One of the rare times I spoke about spiritual matters with him, he said that he saw so much suffering during the war that, for him, there just can't be a God.