Why Do People Go To Krishnamurti?

by Vasantha Surya

They collect at Vasanta Vihar in Adyar, Madras, an hour before he is due to speak. A notice asks you to put two rupees into the donation box if you want a chair. Many sit on the tarpaulin spread before a low, unadorned dais flanked by immense old trees but canopied by a young one. Its smooth, slender trunk and cascading tender leaves shield Krishnamurti from the rays of a setting sun.

Krishnamurti himself is perhaps a sun about to set, in the eyes of those who have orbited their lives around him. At 86 a prophet becomes precious to a hitherto inattentive world. Sitting there, close enough to touch, his old man’s skin and eyes and hair lit up with the splendor of what he has to say, the listener wonders if it will be the last time for him, for the world. For himself, this contact with a seer who has perhaps not long to live suddenly seems very important – more important than Krishnamurti’s words.

Why do people come to listen to Krishnamurti? As the huge, silent crowd moves slowly down the archways of coconut leaf festoons, I stop as many of them as I can to ask: “Why did you come today?”

I put it to a rotund man, dressed in spotless dhoti-kurta made of fine cloth which has a pearly sheen to it and a Gandhi cap stiff with starch. “Why” he repeats, incredulous. “You ask me why I come to listen to the greatest philosopher since Vivekananda! I have been reading the Gita for 30 years and let me tell you, he knows all about it.” The pigeon chest expands, the hands rise in wonder, then fall helplessly to his sides, disappearing into the billows of the dhoti. “What shall I say? He is really marvelous!”

A Buddhist monk smiles with satisfaction at the question and triumphantly produces a practiced answer. “What Krishanmurti says is nothing more, nothing less than what the Buddha said……”
“Then why did you come today?” I ask. “It is like listening to the Buddha. It all becomes clear…..”

What becomes clear? Why did you come, I ask a squat, balding man. “I don’t know,” he replies, a cloud of worry blurring his eyes. “This is the first time I have heard Krishanmurti. I don’t understand it.” Is he dissatisfied with Krishnamurti, or with himself?
“I have been coming since 1921,” announces one man proudly. “But why?”, pausing, he leans on his cane and says with great firmness, in a wheezy voice, “because I want freedom from the mind”.
His friend cast him an ironic glance and says: “Krishnamurti’s talks have made me no wiser, but certainly happier than I was.” His eyes confess that this relative happiness is not enough, not what Krishanmurti wants, not what he should want for himself.

“What he says give me a feeling of peace,” says a simple-looking, plump, middle-aged woman. Her husband joins in: “The first time I didn’t understand any of it. Years later I heard him again, and because I had read some of the Upanishads and other sacred books in the intervening period I felt I understood what he was saying. This time I again feel I have not understood….” Will you come again? I ask. “I think so…”

“I thought he was going to talk about religious matters. I am myself very interested in religion. But he discussed general things…..” Disappointment and perplexity look out of the eyes of this rather vocal clerk. He shuffles towards the gate, his cloth bag flapping at his side as ever.

A young man snaps, a little angrily, “why do I come here?? Isn’t it obvious? What he says is true. Love, sacrifice, duty, responsibility – such words don’t have the meanings which people usually give them.”

“I come because J.K. says things which I have already felt and thought. He says them slowly, taking pains with the language, taking care to be accurate and precise. But what he says is really beyond language – at least beyond English as I know it. I think Tamil is more suited to the sense of what he says. For instance, when he asks you to understand your own anger, he says: Don’t say “I am angry”, say “I am anger.” That is exactly how it is in Tamil – “Naan Sinnamaaga crukkiren.” Total responsibility for what feel, for what you are…..” The speaker´s voice is intense. He had brought along his two little children with him. They don’t look as lively as they had been at the beginning of Krishnamurti’s talk. They hold tight to their father’s hands and gaze around, dazed, as if they have just woken up. “Their names are Anburnirai (full of love) and Arivunirai (full of knowledge),” says the fond father. Dreamily he adds: “I have started a Movement for the Protection of Goodness, ‘Aram Kaapu Iyyankkam.’ Would you like to join?”

A youth with a tee-shirt marked “New Thrill” blinks when I ask him. “Uh…..” says he, “my friends were coming, so I joined them.” What was it like? He shrugs, bored. There was no thrill.

“He’s not – like the others, not quite so obvious,” explains a woman, one who obviously prides herself on her articulateness. “I find Shankarachanya too orthodox, Satya Baba too extraordinary, and Rajneesh of course impossible. There’s nothing like that about Krishnaji……” Her eloquence abruptly runs dry. I wait. She takes a deep breath and bursts: “Frankly, I don’t know what he’s trying to get at.”
The man with a helmet trying to start his scooter pauses as I stand in the way with my question. Thoughtfully he whispers: “He talks about things that really matter, listening to him I can understand my problems a little better.”

These lead to inner conflict which in turn makes for unhappiness, discontent and violence. This may sound little different from the ideas of many who consider themselves members of the alternative society. But, says Krishnamurti, ”even the people who say they are practicing ‘alternatives” are no different I meet hundreds of young people going into communes. They say the world can’t be altered through bloody revolution and bureaucracy, what is needed is love and peace. Then what happens? The commune cracks open because of conflicting egos and ambitions.”

Turning away, I almost bump into Krishnamurti. He is striding towards the gate, with someone following close behind. People look surprised and pleased that he is among them. Close up, the face looks austere yet vulnerable; the eyes flicker briefly over me.

I feel no thrill, no awe, nor reverence. Just recognition. An old man I knew but one who does not need to acknowledge me, has just passed by. He is alive.

I go home feeling alive myself.