Running away from Krishnamurti

 

The main criticism against Jiddu Krishnamurti seems to be "he didn´t answer the question". (OK, I know he is deceased, or perhaps reincarnated into another root-race, but since he is forever new on YouTube, I might as well speak of him in the present tense!) For a long time, I shared this criticism. At the very least, I thought, he "answers" people´s questions in an *extremely* roundabout fashion. But then, I started thinking, or perhaps non-thinking. Many of his fans react in a way that mirrors the reactions of his criticis. They essentially concede that K didn´t answer the questions, but then make up strange excuses for it: K tries to communicate the uncommunicable, K´s explanations are really beyond all explanations, in short, K is enlightened so how *dare* you, a mere inquisitive mortal monad, question (!) him. Or not really so strange, since this is how all guru-worshippers always defend their chosen savior-figure. 

Something´s clearly up.

I think this becomes obvious when Krishnamurti explicitly *does* answer a query. Thus, in one of the clips linked to above, he very explicitly says that he doesn´t believe in God, and that man is left to his own devices, as if all alone in a jungle. How is that *not* answering the question? Really, we are hard to please! It´s also obvious from the clips that K didn´t believe in an immortal soul (at least not in the traditional sense), that he doesn´t regard enlightenment as a process of discreet stages but as something effortless and instantaneous, and that he absolutely repudiates all gurus. Only a weak person needs a savior. He also mocks the notion of atman ("Who is he? Who is Atman?") and the soul ("Soul? What do you mean? The sole of a shoe?"). 

I think people pretend not to understand Krishnamurti´s answers because they, at bottom, make them feel uncomfortable. Something which tends to confirm his message, ironically enough. Krishnamurti tries to declutch the guru-worshippers from the chosen objects of their worship. This is probably doomed to fail. We all need a God or a guru (or a nanny state). That´s why it´s safer pretending that you don´t understand, or fall down before his lotus feet, making *him* the new guru, once again pretending that you don´t understand...

Maybe that´s the secret of the human condition. We are all running away from Krishnamurti.