Jiddu Krishnamurti's Concept of
Enacting Positive Change in the Society
Col. (Ret'd) Mahendra Mathur
Jiddu Krishnamurty was a writer and speaker on philosophical and
spiritual subjects. His subject matter included: psychological revolution, the
nature of the mind, meditation, human relationships,
and how to enact positive change in society. He constantly stressed the need
for a revolution in the psyche of every human being.
Krishnamurti
was born into a Telegu Brahmin family on May 12, 1895. In early adolescence, he
had a chance encounter with prominent occultist and high-ranking theosophist on
the grounds of the Theosophical Society Headquarters at Adyar in Madras (now Chennai). He
was subsequently raised under the tutelage of Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater,
leaders of the Society at the time, who believed him to be a
"vehicle" for an expected World Teacher. As a young man, he disavowed
this idea and dissolved the worldwide organization (the Order of the Star)
established to support it. He claimed allegiance to no nationality, caste,
religion, or philosophy, and spent the rest of his life traveling the world as
an individual speaker, speaking to large and small groups, as well as with
interested individuals.At age 90, he
addressed the United Nations on the subject of peace and awareness, and was
awarded the 1984 UN Peace Medal. His last public talk was in Madras,
India, in January 1986, a
month before his death at home in Ojai California.
Education
Krishnamurti
founded several schools around the world. When asked he enumerated the
following as his educational aims:
1. Global
outlook: A vision of the whole as distinct from the part; there should
never be a sectarian outlook, but always a holistic outlook free from all
prejudice.
2. Concern
for man and the environment: Humanity is part of nature, and if nature is
not cared for, it will boomerang on man. Only the right education, and deep
affection between people everywhere, will resolve many problems including the environmental
challenges.
3. Religious
spirit, which includes the scientific temper: The religious mind is alone,
not lonely. It is in communion with people and nature.
The World Crisis
According
to Krishnamurti, many problems in the world such as poverty, war, the nuclear
threat, and other unfortunate circumstances, have their roots in our thinking.
In his view, just as we live and behave according to our thinking so wars and
governments are also a result of our thinking. We each have our own particular
beliefs, conclusions, and experiences, to which we cling, thereby isolating
ourselves from others. Self centered activity is expressed outwardly as
nationalism and religious intolerance, creating a world divided, in which we
are willing to kill for the sake of belief. Understanding our relationship with
the world crisis is necessary to understand ourselves. Some excerpts:
"If
you are not at all concerned with the world but only with your personal
salvation, following certain beliefs and superstitions, following gurus, then I
am afraid it will be impossible for you and the speaker to communicate with
each other. We are not concerned at all with private personal salvation but we
are concerned, earnestly, seriously, with what the human mind has become, what
humanity is facing. We are concerned at looking at this world and what a human
being living in this world has to do, what is his role?"
"The
present crisis is different because we are dealing not with money, not with
tangible things but with ideas. The crisis is in the field of thought, of
ideas, of intellect. Before, evil was recognized as evil, murder was recognized
as murder, but now murder is a means to achieve a noble result. You justify the
wrong means through the intellect. When intellect has the upper hand in human
life, it brings an unprecedented crisis. The other cause of this unprecedented
crisis is the extraordinary importance man is giving to sensate values - to
property, to name, to caste, to country."
These
words ring so true today as we follow in the media every day the ongoing
conflict of Muslims against every body including different sects of Muslims
themselves.
Islamic World's Conflict with the
rest of the World
George Weigel, a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public
Policy Center in Washington,
ably skewers numerous widely held assumptions about the conflict between the
Islamic world and the West. Chief among these is the common illusion
that-despite the ostentatious religiosity of Osama bin Laden and jihadists in
general-what the West faces is a threat of "terrorism" that has no
significant religious component, such that Western governments need only focus
on poverty and political disenfranchisement in the Islamic world, and that Western
strategists need not familiarize themselves with Islamic theology and law. In
contrast, Weigel argues that the conflict is inherently and fundamentally
theological and that it ultimately involves two radically different conceptions
of the nature of the human person and the ideal way to order human society.
This understanding has been impeded by politically-correct
fears of offending Muslims or of appearing "Islamophobic". Weigel decries
Western media acquiescence to these charges of Islamophobia and argues for a more
realistic and honest discourse than has hitherto prevailed. Weigel concludes
with a strong call for the recovery of Western cultural self-confidence and the
discarding of false notions of tolerance, combined with full-scale efforts to
free themselves from energy dependence upon states that would ultimately like
to see the United States
conquered and Islamized. This is also true for India.
John FG
Mcmahon, an Australian journalist writes that "Muslim immigrants/refugees
should return to their countries of origin and take their violent evil
disruptive ways with them. Australia
is a land of immigrants. I am second generation Irish-Australian. Everyone has
assimilated. From Greeks, Italians, Lebanese, Catholics/Christians, Russians,
Eskimos,South Americans, South Africans (black and white), Mexicans etc etc all
get along except for those from Muslim countries".
Why scrutinize Islam and its founder in the first place?
Because unlike all other major religions, Islam is daily associated with
violence, beheadings, misogyny, child marriage, and hostility for infidels and
their ways. Pseudo-respect from non-Muslims shields it from open analysis.
Former Al-Azhar Muslim scholar and imam, Mark Gabriel, abandoned his faith by
simply musing on such matters: "Did the true God of heaven give him Islam, or
did Muhammad invent it? ... Did Muhammad express the heart of the true,
merciful God, or did he merely express the dark corners of his own faulty human
heart? The implication shook me to the core: If the true God never spoke to
Muhammad, then I am a slave to the manipulative imagination of a desert
tribesman from the seventh century! These were dangerous thoughts, and I had
crossed a dangerous bridge in my mind that all Muslims are taught to walk away
from".
Hundreds of Shias have staged protests in recent weeks in Saudi Arabia as
police searched in vain for firebrand preacher Nimr al-Nimr, who breached a
taboo to suggest in a sermon that Shias could one day seek their own separate
state. Saudi officials say Shias make up less than 10 per cent of the
population, although diplomats believe the figure is closer to 15 per cent.
Most live in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy that
grants no political rights. This only proves even in their own ‘homelands'
Muslims can not live in peace with other Muslims becase of theological reasons.
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