U.G. & J. Krishnamurti

I, Me, Mine has a great quote from U.G. Krishnamurti that I stumbled across as a teenager and found fascinating.

"So-called self-realization is the discovery for yourself and by yourself that there is no self to discover. That will be a very shocking thing, I tell you. It's not going to be an easy thing. It's not going to be handed over to you on a gold platter. You have to become completely disillusioned then the truth begins to express itself in its own way. It is useless to try to discover the truth. The search for truth is absurd."

Reading this quote again brings to mind the words of his contemporary, J. Krishnamurti I thought others might appreciate. J. Krishnamurti's words never cease to cast wonder onto whatever spiritual path one is on (for everyone is on a spiritual path) and are reminders that The Journey is everything- and nothing. J. Krishnamurti was born in India in the late 1800's and discovered at age 14 by Theosophists Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater and proclaimed as the "way" for reincarnation of Christ and Buddha. There was much promise resting on young Krishnamurti- but in his early 20's he would have no more to do with it and left the religious sect set up by Besant & Leadbetter proclaiming:

"Truth is a pathless land and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. My only concern is to set humanity absolutely, unconditionally free. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection."

In the late 40's early 50's these two Krishnamurti's began a "dialogue" that was strained at best- but I believe each found the other quite fascinating. Both, at times had almost the exact same philosophy on enlightenment, but as you know, the devil is in the details...and one can argue they were worlds apart in reality. Of the two, I have always found J. Krishnamurti to be the more 'unbelievable', holding a more mystical aura; a sweeter tasting bewilderment- his proposition of "enlightenment". Both mystics are to be respected and ignored (as they wished at times) but no spiritual education is complete without knowing of them both.

Here are two other quotes of U.G. Krishnamurti I have always found intriguing.

"People call me an 'enlightened man' -- I detest that term -- they can't find any other word to describe the way I am functioning. At the same time, I point out that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all. I say that because all my life I've searched and wanted to be an enlightened man, and I discovered that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all, and so the question whether a particular person is enlightened or not doesn't arise. I don't give a hoot for a sixth-century-BC Buddha, let alone all the other claimants we have in our midst. They are a bunch of exploiters, thriving on the gullibility of the people. There is no power outside of man. Man has created God out of fear. So the problem is fear and not God."

"I am not interested in changing the society. What I am saying has absolutely no social content at all. What is wrong with this world? Why do you want to change this world? This is an extraordinarily beautiful world! You want to change the world so that you can live in a world of your own ideas. The real problem is that you want to change yourself and you find it's impossible, and so you want to change the world so that you can fit the world into your own pattern."