A Brief Historical Sketch

The extraordinary story of Krishnamurti, hailed early in life as the messiah for the twentieth century, is a tale of mysticism, sexual scandals, religious fervour and chicanery, out of which emerged one the most influential thinkers of modern times.

Krishnamurti was "discovered" as a young boy on a beach in India by members of the Theosophical Society who were convinced that they had found the new World Leader, a spiritual saviour who would be as historic and influential as the Buddha or Jesus. By the 1920's he was attracting worldwide press attention and idealists, spiritual adventurers, progressive politicians, intellectuals and romantics alike flocked to his talks in their thousands, eager to embrace a new Christ from the Orient.

Then in 1925 Krishnamurti experienced a mysterious spiritual awakening while en route to India from America. And in 1929, in a dramatic act of renunciation he bewildered his thousands of disciples by abandoning the Theosophical Society that had moulded him, setting out on a teaching mission of his own, as a secular philosopher of spirituality with no affiliation to sects or dogmas.

For more than sixty years Jiddu Krishnamurti traveled the world giving public talks and private interviews to millions of people of all ages and backgrounds, saying that only through a complete change in the hearts and minds of individuals can there come about a change in society and peace in the world. He was born in Mandanapalle, South India on May 12, 1895 and died on February 17, 1986 in Ojai, California, at the age of ninety. His talks, dialogues, journals and letters have been preserved in over seventy books and in hundreds of audio and video recordings.