'Teacher, not a mirror'

THE TRANSPARENT MIND - A Journey with Krishnamurti: Ingram Smith; Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. Rs. 200.

THE RINGING message from J. Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986) about truth being a pathless land is that once a path is laid out for it, truth ceases to be as it is instantly conditioned by what becomes known and becomes repetitive. ``Truth is always new - never the known. It is an alert, alive state, continually renewed, eternally in the present. There is no thought to divide us from the experience, the experiencing. That state where the mind has stopped is the beginning of reality.''

A mind striving towards truth has to be forever exploring unshackled by past teachings in total disregard for the greatness of their origins - whether they are the Buddha, Jesus Christ or the Shankaracharyas. Krishnamurti had always been driving home the point that he should not be taken as a teacher and he wanted to share his pursuit and perception of truth with everyone who was drawn to him.

``My misconception'', writes Mr. Ingram Smith of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and author of this compilation, ``has been in viewing Krishnamurti primarily as the teacher and not as a mirror.'' The magnetism which instantly absorbs whoever is close to him turned the observer into the observed. A startling assertion he makes is: ``The man I had just met was not Krishnamurti, but me. For the first time in my life, I had met myself - seen myself uncovered, reflected in another human being. That overwrought man in the room had been me.''

This was a flashing awareness of his having been liberated from the shackles of his own consciousness. Though this is not specifically stated in this book, earlier publications on Krishnamurti had made it known that he himself had to struggle for liberation from the spell of a ``non-physical being'' like Kuthumi until one day when he ``got up, walked to him and walked through him. I turned. There was no one there. I did not ever see him again.'' What could this mean except that he had to discover everything afresh?

Krishnamurti never once induced his gatherings to think of miracles or the unusual. And yet one could not help thinking that they were not far from him as someone who existed in a different plane altogether. There is a striking description given with a seeming casualness by Mr. Smith about the ``eleven occasions, he walked invisibly. No one saw him. It was as though the man had walked into nothingness. Certainly he had no persona. That this absence was not often perceived is probably due to the fact that on leaving the stage he went out of sight and as a presence, out of mind.'' Mr. Smith also refers to another dimension which he became aware of in the presence of Krishnamurti. The caging of the mind by the past and all its yesterdays could not take it to the tomorrows unless it is cleared of all the past accumulations to free itself. This is part of the freedom which Krishnamurti was forever trying to present. The caging also left the sensitive ones in a state of excruciating loneliness of the kind experienced by Mr. Smith who was desperately inclined to cry out, ``Hear me. Why can't you hear what I urgently want to tell you?''

There could be no liberation unless and until this overpowering hold of the mind is shaken off though one could not be quite certain whether this is how Krishnamurti should be correctly understood. He raises the sex instinct to a much higher plane by drawing attention to it as the drive of human energy which had to be so perceived. Not very far removed from such a perception is the understanding of the sacred. Krishnamurti's elucidation of the sacred hits us with its almost unsettling simplicity: ``What is - is sacred?'' By its simply being there without any human intrusion, ``what is'' just gives itself a sacredness and must be seen as such though such a pronouncement sounds like a teaser.

Mr. Smith draws attention to Krishnamurti's abhorrence of organisations which only build up systems and smother freedom with the disciplines they impose. The mind could only clutter itself by filling itself with the teachings of the Gurus. It has to be cleansed to reach a state of ``dynamic emptiness'' brought about by a ``thrilling aliveness'' which Mr. Smith says he had experienced. He also writes about Krishna, the much beloved God - and Christ with the words meaning darkness and of life having its birth in darkness - the darkness of the womb to start with. Yet another stunning and rarely thought about fact is the change in the meaning of the word competition which originally stood for ``striving together to share in a common activity''. The destruction of its meaning, believed to have been brought about by the Olympic Games, led to division with the striving to win and excel.

However much it may be disputed, this has only led to aloofness inspired by a craze for achievements. To Krishnamurti it was freedom from the known and the opportunity for direct perception alone mattered and not the achievement of a goal. ``Know thyself'' which was the Greek way of summing up humanity's primary task could ``uncover who and what actually is, the self who is so frightened of ending, of death.'' One has to be free of thought, for the mind to be virgin, innocent and like empty space means liberating the capacity to contain all because it is void. Eternity, writes Mr. Smith, ``is not everlasting time but is timeless and is always present. The task now is a freeing of the limitations of knowledge and the bondage of memory, the unravelling of the self.'' It could be a state of nirvana though one does not know whether Krishnamurti would have approved of such an interpretation.

CVG

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