Donald: On the subject of Krishnamurti, I think his process has many valuable uses for clearing the mind of unhelpful vasanas. I see there are some apparent conflicts with Vedanta, but I still feel there are many parallels. A couple examples of what I mean from the book “Freedom from the Known” are:
Similar to the Vedanta description of non-duality, our identity as awareness, and that everything is made up of awareness, Krishnamurti writes: “I am the source of every image I have therefore the observer is the observed.”
Sundari: We do not disagree with this statement, but who exactly is Krishnamurti referring to with the term ‘I am’? Is it Pure Awareness, the non-experiencing witness, or is it the jiva that knows about Awareness? He does not explain or make the distinction between Satya and mithya. In the old days, Vedanta had a tradition of “dharma combat”. The rishis would take on those who challenged Vedanta, and in the light of the impersonal scripture, not in their own opinion-based beliefs, would dismiss erroneous views. We don’t argue with individual’s spiritual ideas. James and I teach Vedanta. It is not a hard sell. You either get the difference between it and the plethora of teachers/teachings ‘out there’, or you don’t. It is not our place to convince you for Vedanta or against any teacher or teaching.
Vedanta is called a brahmavidya, which means the Science of Consciousness. It is an objective analysis of the true nature of reality and your experience, based on the facts. Like any other science, it is not personal, and it has a strict methodology which, if taught with great dedication and commitment, provides irrefutable knowledge that leads to moksha if the student is qualified. Vedanta is simply the truth about you. Not your truth or my truth or anyone’s truth. The Truth.
If you insist on your allegiance to Krishnamurthi, be my guest. But I must warn you that although like many other teachers over the millennia, he had some good ideas, he had some very bad ones too. He took ideas from various sources and cobbled them together to form a ‘teaching’. In many cases the ignorance is obvious. In others the knowledge is right there next to the ignorance, so close it is hard to tell them apart, unless you have the clear non-dual vision of Self-knowledge.
The problem is that what he taught was filtered through his vasanas, his conditioning. It was Krishnamurthi teaching as Krishnamurthi. Maybe he was enlightened, maybe not. Who knows, it is impossible to say. One thing is certain though, he taught indirect knowledge of the Self, at best. He talked about the self, not as the Self. He did not have an independent teaching so how would one who does not know what enlightenment is, know if what he was teaching was knowledge or ignorance?
Vedanta is called apauruseya jnanam, meaning not the composition of anyone one person. It is an impersonal and independent teaching, not from the mind of man. It is a sruti, which means what is heard; it is revealed to the mind of man, not thought up by him, which is why you can trust it. If someone teaches according to their own experience, be very careful. Check it out against the scripture to see how it stacks up to Vedanta.
If you really want to be free, why waste time with a teacher who did not know the difference between knowledge and experience, even though some things he taught contained the truth? What you do not seem to understand is that Vedanta is not a philosophy or ‘school of thought’. It is a tested and proven science that removes ignorance of your nature. Vedanta is not in competition with any other teaching. Other teachings may contain some truths found in Vedanta because Vedanta is the truth that runs under all teachings. But there is no complete teaching to compare with Vedanta. The truth is the truth. What else do you need if you have found it? It is the Holy Grail and it works to set you free of the person you think you are.
Donald: Similar to what I have taken from James’ talks on Karma yoga that it cleans major conflicts and smaller ones can be ignored
Sundari: What do you mean here by “it cleans major conflicts and smaller ones can be ignored’? Karma yoga negates the doer and thus helps to burn up the binding vasanas. It relieves the stress of getting or not getting what you want because by signing on to the logic, you understand that you are not in control of the results of your actions.
Donald: Krishnamurti writes ‘no reality of ourselves should be rejected, but embraced and observed’.
Sundari: What does Krishnamurti mean by ‘reality’ in the statement ‘no reality of ourselves should be rejected, but embraced and observed ‘? The whole point of self-inquiry is to investigate the nature of reality in order to discriminate between that which is real, Satya (always present and unchanging, i.e. the Self/Consciousness) and that which is only apparently real, mithya (not always present and always changing, i.e. the jiva and its subjective reality). What good does that do you if you don’t understand what the true nature of reality is, the forces that run it (the gunas) and how they are behind everything including our conditioning? Krishnamurti does not explain it because he does not know what it is either.
Donald: Krishnamurti does not lay out a complete system such as Vedanta, but I feel that the elements he does address, he does so well.
Sundari: I disagree with you, for reasons given above. Additionally, he was an angry man for at least two reasons one of which he gave often: failure of people to ‘get it’, meaning ‘his’ teachings. He believed that there is something wrong people, and with the world and he had the vanity to think that he could so something to save it. But we know very well that the world has always been full of ignorance and tens of thousands of ‘saviours’ have come forth with plans and programs to remove it. Yet, the ignorance remains. A solution to that seems to have eluded most human beings since time immemorial, because only Self-knowledge can remove ignorance, and for that, qualifications are essential.
It seems obvious that the real reason Krishnamurti was angry was that he was not a skilful teacher because he did not have an impersonal time-tested teaching. He was never properly taught Vedanta and cobbled together bits and pieces of different ideas as he went along. His anger was frustrated desire combined with the fact that the people he addressed were not spiritually mature. The second reason he was angry, I believe, is because he violated dharma. He slept with his best friend’s wife for years, a man who supported him financially. Not to mention, the anger he must have felt toward Annie Besant and Colonel Ledbetter for trying to make him into the Maitreya Buddha, which he resented, yet he bought into the myth. And it was just that: a cooked-up myth.
Om Sundari
