J.KRISHNAMURTHY-THE GREAT PHILOSOPHER

                                       CHAPTER -5 

A wise soul of such immense spiritual enlightenment [ I would not like to use any of those labels like saint, seer, guru, messiah etc  towards all of which he had a healthy  and reasonable contempt] whose uniqueness was that through his lucid and logical communication he laid bare the simple process involved in having a communion with truth as a birthright of every soul irrespective of all external affiliations, identities and he explained  the complete irrelevance of all these affinities, identities, conditioning etc to self enquiry . He in fact exposed how all external identities and affinities were more of a hindrance to perceive truth.

Thus, he helped everyone to understand in their own terms through their own self enquiry the highest spiritual philosophy of grasping and being part of the ultimate truth.

There are four broad areas of important evolution for life,   namely physical, psychological, social and spiritual, not necessarily in that order.

In biological evolutionary systems human beings like other species have survived purely base on their adaptability to changing environments, situations, contexts etc and have ensured physical survival [Basic aspect of evolution survival].

In psychological evolution too human beings have toyed with many ideas and ideologies that have been passed on through some leading luminaries which of course guided humanity through the myriad wonderful paths that have helped in enhancing life psychologically along with their own individual and collective experience [Second aspect of evolution, psychological evolution, the special faculty over the rest of the species of psychologically making a living beyond mere survival to embellish life].

In sociological evolution human being have tried out and are still trying out various methods to co habit and live comfortably in a civilized manner .[ Third aspect of evolution, the social evolution, furthering the natural instinct of sharing and caring by attempting to live in groups]

In all these three evolutions there have been many foolish and failed attempts, fallibilities etc which in due course where changed to ensure appropriate adjustments to evolve positively, though there are still some who refuse to evolve in all these three spheres. But the majority of human beings have fortunately seen reason and adapted to the best among the systems known them.

Regarding the fourth area of evolution, namely Spiritual truth, because of its inherent nature of not being clearly and concretely measured   and demonstrated either empirically or as perceivable through many of the tools of normal human perception, has remained mostly vague and further complicated by an amazing maze of religions, religious rituals and restraints, scriptural diversions, traditional taboos, cultural constraints etc. So, even to know and then understand what spirituality is all about, is in itself very difficult, leave alone trying to evolve and study its evolutionary trend as in other three areas of life. It does not mean that it does not exist, in fact, all the three other major areas of life mentioned earlier are infused with life only because of some inexplicable power, factor or whatever you want to label it as, it could be even labelled as god or some divine spirit etc for the sake of convenience.

There were many enlightened souls who have had a communion with this universal spirit which injects life into everything and which manifests the oneness of everything, and the interrelatedness, interdependence and interaction of everything in the process of evolution and life. Unfortunately in enjoying the nectar of the ecstasy of the communion or being uneasy about the level of understanding or differing frequencies of the others or for fear of condemnation or criticism of the society they never somehow communicated these communions with the spiritual truth; the minority who communicated had to sandwich the truth within thick layers of religiously, culturally and  socially  accepted or acceptable ideas, theories, rituals etc that very few really could penetrate beyond these thick layers and grasp the essence.

Many of the great souls have even spelled the spiritual truths, but very few have philosophically, logically and lucidly explained the process of self enquiry leading to self realization of the spiritual truth which is beneath, beyond and being part of everything as J.Krishnamurthy has done. This is where his uniqueness is and he also ensured that there was no cult, hero worship, deification or even followers to whatever he contributed which was basically to rely on one’s own self enquiry.

He did this by making everyone realize the importance of observing and listening without conditioning; elucidated the necessity to go beyond the realms of thoughts, words, knowledge, memory etc to grasp the wisdom of actuality of spiritual enlightenment or truth that is uninfluenced by any religion; unhindered by any dogma, ideology or ism; unprompted by any Guru; unprogramed by any specific ritual and culture and which therefore enables the observer to permeate with the observed thereby enabling one not merely to become but in actuality to be part of truth. In short, philosophically he made everyone realize the importance of making their own journeys in self enquiry and exploration based on total attentive awareness with total intensity and intense totality.

Anyone who reads his works, the lucky ones who listened to his lectures in person, would be immensely impacted. If they are open minded they would shed their prejudices and conditioning and start on the path of self enquiry. As for the rest, they would at least start to have a relook if not a total rejection of all their existing belief systems. So, in terms of enabling many souls to tread a path of purely philosophically and logically based self enquiry he undoubtedly made a great impact.

Philosophies of the orient, to my knowledge mostly Indian and Chinese are always not about throwing out multiple theories or logic. They were more about exploring and seeking meaning of life of the inner self as it lives and life in its totality beyond and besides the individual and the visible external world. It is in the enquiry of these two realms that the Vedic scriptures and many of the Chinese philosophies have come up with varying and various levels of understanding and interpretations of the micro as well the macro aspects of life and its many manifestations starting from the micro level explanation of matter to macro views and explanations about the universe. So in the process of these enquiries about life there emerged many processes of these enquiries about life, there also emerged many methods of socio morals which were tried and tested as per the contextual requirements of the period but the inherent philosophy of life was held as an unchanged and unchallenged value system .

In the occidental, initially  the great souls like Socrates, Plato , Aristotle etc too manifested similar wisdom, but then, later on social consciousness and  socio morals, as prescribed by or as preferred by the Monarchies, Empires , Religious institutions etc , alone were  allowed to be practised by these power groups [ what we call in modern terms as vested interest groups] with their domination over human race as whole interfering and influencing every activity , so much so, that even many scientific discoveries struggled to show their head for a long time for fear of antagonizing the whims and fancies of those manning these institutions. They were reborn only when these scientific discoveries were found to be useful for commerce and trade which turned out to be the new found tool of dominance as established by the history of colonialism and slave trade. This new found tool of dominance pushed the dominance of religious institutions to the background.

In contrast, in the Orient, the spirit of enquiry was always about all aspects of life in its many faceted splendour without the necessity to create institutions of dominance to make human race flock together. It was the value systems, which spontaneously made human beings here [in the Orient] to flock together voluntarily without any external force. So there was neither any institutionalized religion nor complicated philosophical theories which were to be discussed only by the scholarly and established as axiomatic certainty against which everything else has to be evaluated.

On the contrary a very philosophical attitude, scientific enquiry and freedom of expression to experiment and enquire into the nature of soul, spirit, body, psyche, space etc thrived side by side without any institutional authority either rewarding or punishing. So every individual had the liberty to practice these virtues. The capable ones came up with their discoveries and the rest valued them [discoveries] and made of use of them without publicity or promotion of any single institution and this is one of the reasons for lack of documentation or records of many discoveries by the Oriental giants as there was no dominating institution to decide what is to be accepted and what not and what is to be publicised and what is to be suppressed on behalf of whole of humanity. So there were less conflicts more spontaneous co operations and co habitations sticking on to certain value systems, not code of conduct prescribed and enforced by any institutional authority and this value system had in- built important components of freedom, tolerance, compassion, care, love, learning, exploring and questioning everything and the liberty to accept, adopt and assimilate more preferable and suitable aspects of life that came from outside sources.

 Many of our great seers and saints, shared and not preached their experiments, experiences, expertise and explanations about and into the meaning of life and spirituality and therefore they did not , or to be more precise were not bothered to establish any religious institution to promote any single god/goddess . Even in worship the individual had the freedom to choose any form or name of worship if its appeals to and tunes in with his spiritual vibration or frequency at that moment. That’s why, in the Indian value system, otherwise called, Sanathana Dharma, we have not only millions of Gods and Goddesses but we also worship trees, reptiles, animals, birds etc and we have scriptures which extol the greatness of atheism. This orientation of free spirit to enquire has led to unravelling of many spiritual truths, unfettered by any institutional authority or edict. J.Krishnamurthy is the pinnacle of this healthy tradition of free enquiring spiritual souls in which he has explained the art of the process of self enquiry and the science of self realization both for their own sake and helped everyone emancipate and get enlightened beyond the circumscription by the limited boundaries of our mind and intellect.