Below is the script I used to present my "Poetic Moments" show on Jiddu Krishnamurti, one of the most important spiritual figures of the 20th century.

Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on May 11, 1895, in south India. He was the 8th of 16 children. He was often taken to be mentally retarded, and was beaten regularly at school by his teachers and at home by his father. But, he had a bond with nature that continued throughout his life.

In April 1909, he met C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant, leaders of the Theosophical Society (Theosophy: system of beliefs and teachings of the Theosophical Society, founded in New York City in 1875, incorporating aspects of Buddhism and Brahmanism, especially the belief in reincarnation and spiritual evolution), who saw him as a future world teacher. They created a world-wide organization, and the young Krishnamurti was made its head. He and his younger brother Nitya were privately tutored at the Theosophical compound in Madras, and later continued their education abroad. Within six months, Krishnamurti was able to speak and write competently in English.

Krishnamurti came to view Annie Besant as a surrogate mother. His father sued the Theosophical Society in 1912 to protect his parental interests. But, Besant took custody of Krishnamurti and his brother Nitya.

Both brothers visited England and other European countries between 1911 and 1914. After the war, Krishnamurti embarked on a series of lectures, meetings, and discussions around the world. While n California, they lodged at a cottage in the Ojai Valley. It became Krishnamurti’s official place of residence and it was there, in August 1922, that he went through an intense, "life-changing" experience of mystical union that he and those around him would refer to it as "the process". This process continued, at very frequent intervals and varying forms of intensity, until his death.

Krishnamurti’s brother died from tuberculosis at 27. It fundamentally shook Krishnamurti's belief and faith in Theosophy. In the next few years his new vision and consciousness continued to develop and reached a climax in 1929, when he dissolved the organization. He claimed allegiance to no nationality, caste, religion, or philosophy, denounced all organized belief, the notion of gurus, and the whole teacher-follower relationship, vowing instead to work in setting man absolutely, totally free. He referred to his work as "the" teachings" and not as "my" teachings.

After dissolving the organization, he returned all monies and properties donated to the organization to their donors, and spent the rest of his life giving public talks around the world. He accepted neither followers nor worshipers. He constantly urged people to think independently, to explore and discuss specific topics with him. He accepted gifts and financial support freely offered to him by people inspired by his work.

From 1930 through 1944, the first of several schools based on his educational ideas opened in India. His objective was that children should be educated to become sane and whole individuals free of conflict.

Throughout the 1930s, he spoke in Europe, Latin America, India, Australia and the United States and made the acquaintance of Aldous Huxley. Their friendship endured for many years. In the early 1960s, he met physicist David Bohm. The two men soon became close friends and started a common inquiry, in the form of personal dialogues and occasionally in group discussions with other participants, that continued over nearly two decades. Several of these discussions were published in the form of books or as parts of books, and introduced a wider audience, especially scientists, to Krishnamurti's ideas.

Krishnamurtiy was mostly concerned about his legacy. He warned his associates on several occasions that they were not to present themselves as spokesmen on his behalf, or as his successors after his death.

A few days before his death, in a final statement, he emphatically declared that "nobody" had understood neither what had happened to him nor the teaching itself. Here is his statement: "I was telling them this morning – for seventy years that super-energy – no – that immense energy, immense intelligence, has been using this body. I don’t think people realize what tremendous energy and intelligence went through this body. ...Nobody, unless the body has been prepared, very carefully, protected and so on – nobody can understand what went through this body. Nobody. Don’t anybody pretend. Nobody. I repeat this: nobody amongst us or the public know what went on. ...You won’t find another body like this, or that supreme intelligence, operating in a body for many hundred years. You won’t see it again. When he goes, it goes."

J. Krishnamurti died on February 17, 1986, at the age of 90, from pancreatic cancer. His remains were cremated and scattered by friends and former associates in India, England, and the USA.

Influence:

Krishnamurti influenced the works of many, including Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, and Iris Murdoch. He is also considered as a great teacher by diverse religious figures, such as Anandamayi Ma and Osho. He also attracted the interest of the mainstream religious establishment in India.

Important Themes:

1) Knowledge, Thought, and Mind

According to Krishnamurti, our perception and full understanding of the world are distorted, simply because we rely on our past experiences to think and draw conclusions.

- “The understanding of oneself is from moment to moment; if we merely accumulate knowledge of the self, that very knowledge prevents further understanding, because accumulated knowledge and experience become the center through which thought focuses and has its being.” The Book of Life, September 15

- “To discover what is God, the mind must be free of all tradition, of all accumulation, of all knowledge which it uses as a psychological safeguard.” Think on These Things, p.160

- “By its very nature, thought is always incomplete as is feeling; thought, the response of memory, can function only in the known or interpret from what it has known, knowledge. The brain is the product of specialization; it cannot go beyond itself.” Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p.157

- “The mind is so burdened with innumerable experiences and memories, so marred and scarred with sorrow that it cannot see anything freshly, but is always translating what it sees in terms of its own memories, conclusions, formulas, always quoting; it is authority-bound; it is an old mind.” The Book of Life, October 15

-: “as long as the mind clings to a belief, it is held in a prison.” Think on These Things, p.235

- “experience does not free the mind, and learning through experience is only a process of forming new patterns based on one’s old conditioning.” Think on These Things, p.180

- “Nothing can open the door save the complete destruction of the known.” Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p.173

- “All experience is a state of immaturity. You can only experience and recognize as experience something which you have already known.” Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p.204

-: “There is no path to truth, it must come to you. Truth can come to you only when your mind and heart are simple, clear, and there is love in your heart; not if your heart is filled with the things of the mind.” The Book of Life, August 1

- “What is known and understood, what is fulfilled and completed does not repeat itself. It is repetition that gives continuity to the thinker.” The Book of Life, September 11

2) Fear and Pleasure

- “Thinking with the images of yesterday’s pleasure, thought imagines that you may not have that pleasure tomorrow; so thought engenders fear. Thought tries to sustain pleasure and thereby nourishes fear.” Beyond Violence, p.66.

- “Be an outsider to everything. Don’t die tomorrow but today, to everything that you have known. Then there is no fear which is the shadow of death.” Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p.347

- “We cling to our children, to our traditions, to our society, to our names and our little virtues, because we want permanency; and that is why we are afraid to die. We are afraid to lose the things we know.” Think on These Things, p.140

- “Fear, with its defences and its courage, is the origin of conflict.” Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p.91

- “Life never comes to the aid of those who merely yield to some demand out of fear.” Think on These Things, p.126

3) Meditation

Krishnamurti defined the word "meditation" in a unique way.

- "Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life-perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy-if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation." Freedom from the Known, p.116.

- “Man, in order to escape his conflicts, has invented many forms of meditation. These have been based on desire, will, and the urge for achievement, and imply conflict and a struggle to arrive. This conscious, deliberate striving is always within the limits of a conditioned mind, and in this there is no freedom. All effort to meditate is the denial of meditation. Meditation is the ending of thought. It is only then that there is a different dimension which is beyond time.” Meditations, preface.

- “it is far more important to understand yourself, the constant changing of the facts about yourself, than to meditate in order to find god, have visions, sensations and other forms of entertainment.” Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p.229

4) Education

- “Surely a school is a place where one learns about the totality, the wholeness of life. Academic excellence is absolutely necessary, but a school includes much more than that. It is a place where both the teacher and the taught explore not only the outer world, the world of knowledge, but also their own thinking, their own behaviour. From this they begin to discover their own conditioning and how it distorts their thinking. This conditioning is the self to which such tremendous and cruel importance is given. Freedom from conditioning and its misery begins with this awareness. It is only in such freedom that true learning can take place. In this school it is the responsibility of the teacher to sustain with the student a careful exploration into the implications of conditioning and thus end it.” Krishnamurti at Ojai, 1984. See Journal of the Krishnamurti Schools - Statement of Intent.

- “The function of education is to help you from childhood not to imitate anybody, but to be yourself all the time.” Think on These Things, p.11

- “Our present education is rotten because it teaches us to love success and not what we are doing. The result has become more important than the action.” Think on These Things, p.116

5) The World Crisis

According to Krishnamurti, the state of any society is the reflection of the individuals that comprise it. He stressed the fact that deeply conflicted and insecure individuals can only produce societies where peace and prosperity will never occur. This situation has resulted in a world in constant crisis. He also maintained that we, as individuals, were as much part of the problem as we are part of the solution. We must first heal ourselves in order to be able to heal the world.

- “What is happening in the world is a projection of what is happening inside each one of us; what we are, the world is.” Think on These Things, p.65

- “If parents were really concerned about their children, society would be transformed overnight; we would have a different kind of education, different homes, a world without war.” Think on These Things, p.79

- “Most of us grow up without love, and that is why we have created a society as hideous as the people who live in it.” Think on These Things, p.194

- “The world is not something separate from you and me; the world, society, is the relationship that we establish or seek to establish between each other. So you and I are the problem, and not the world, because the world is the projection of ourselves, and to understand the world we must understand ourselves. That world is not separate from us; we are the world, and our problems are the world’s problems.” The Book of Life, March 20

- “It is a static society, a deteriorating society that talks of duty and rights. If you really examine your hearts and minds, you will find that you have no love.” The Book of Life, April 13

- “Relationship is a mirror in which you can see yourself, not as you would wish to be, but as you are.” Think on These Things, p.122

- “You see, if you support your parents merely because you think it is your duty, then your support is a thing of the market place, without deep significance, because in it there is no love.” Think on These Things, p.126

- “To seek happiness is absurd, because there is happiness only when you don’t seek it.” Think on These Things, p.72

- “The moment you try to become intelligent, you cease to be intelligent.” Think on These Things, p.164

6) Love and Beauty

- “the relationship between two individuals, very close together or very far, is a relationship of images, symbols, memories. And in that, how can there be real love?” The Book of Life, March 17

- “Love alone can bring about mercy and beauty, order and peace. There is love with its blessing when ‘you’ cease to be.” The Book of Life, April 11

- “When you can see the beauty of a tree, when you can see the beauty of a smile, when you can see the sun setting behind the walls of your town – see totally – then you will know what love is.” The Book of Life, May 9

- “If you love, really love someone, there is no possibility of giving him pain when you do something that you think is right.” The Book of Life, July 21

- “Beauty is in form, beauty is in speech, beauty is in conduct. If there is no love, conduct is empty; it is merely the product of society, of a particular culture, and what is produced is mechanical, lifeless. But when the mind perceives without the slightest flutter, then it is capable of looking into the total depth of itself; and such perception is really timeless. You don’t have to do something to bring it about; there is no discipline, no practice, no method by which you can learn to perceive.” The Book of Life, October 13

- “There is love only when there is no need.” Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p.93

- “There’s no noble or ignoble desire but only desire, ever in conflict within itself.” Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p.125

7) Death

- “one has to live every day dying – dying because you are then in contact with life.” The Book of Life, November 15

- “There is no creation if death does not sweep away all the things that the brain has put together to safeguard the self-centered existence.” Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p.81

- “Death is destruction, final and absolute and so is love.” Krishnamirti’s Notebook, p.339

- “there is this preoccupation with death because we are afraid to lose the known, the things that we have gathered.” Think on These Things, p.143

8) Sorrow

- “The people who are sensitive in life, may suffer much more than those who are insensitive; but if they understand and go beyond their suffering, they will discover extraordinary things.” Think on These Things, p.204

- “The urge for the repetition of an experience however pleasant, beautiful, fruitful, is the soil in which sorrow grows. The passion of sorrow is as limiting as the passion of power. The brain must cease to make its own ways, and be utterly passive.” Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p.24

- “It is only when I am in communion with sorrow that I understand it.” The Book of Life, July 31

9) Creative Energy

- “Creation is the movement of the unknowable essence of the whole; it is never the expression of the part.” Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p.5

- “If you feel deeply and ardently about something, you will find that this very feeling in a curious way brings a new order into your life.” Think on These Things, p.61

- “It is only when you don’t vitally feel the truth of something that you say it is difficult to put it into action.” Think on These Things, p.173

- “As a pebble thrown into a calm lake creates an ever-widening circle, so the action of energy in the direction of what is true creates the waves of a new culture. Then, energy is limitless, immeasurable, and that energy is God.” Think on These Things, p.247

- “If you are in a state of revolution, it does not matter whether you garden, or become a prime minister, or do something else; you will love what you do, and out of love there comes an extraordinary feeling of creativeness.” Think on These Things, p.66

10) Miscellaneous Quotes

- “You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand; for all that is life.” Think on These Things, p.25

- “I suggest that you don’t ask a question unless you are really serious about it.” Think on These Things, p.107

- “when you ask a question, what is important is to find out for yourself the truth of the matter and not merely accept what someone else says.” Think on These Things, p.202

- “Life has to be discovered from moment to moment, from day to day; it has to be discovered, it cannot be taken for granted.” Think on These Things, p.144

Official website: http://www.jkrishnamurti.org

Cendrine Marrouat is a French-born poet, budding playwright, amateur photographer, and translator living in Canada. Her spiritual and positive poetry and messages have helped many readers to reconnect with God and face their fears, especially death.

Cendrine is the author of "And They All Rejoiced! Soul-Stirring Poetry", "Short Poetry for Those Who Fear Death", "Sortons des chemins battus. Poésie de l'âme", "Project: Heartbeats and Elevation", and "Rizen-The CD". She is also the creator of the Soulpoetrysite.com Product Line, and the host of "Poetic Moments", a monthly shows that airs directly on her website.

Feel free to visit her website at http://www.soulpoetrysite.com. From there, you will access her blog, her store, her networks, and much more...