No website of mine would be complete without paying proper homage to Krishnamurti, which is actually kind of ironic, since Krishnamurti would say something like, “You should pay homage to no man.” Then he’d probably go on and say … Let’s think about this. When you say, I look up to so and so, aren’t you placing them in position to look down on you. Aren’t you placing them in a position higher than yourself? Is this fair to you? Is it fair to the person you admire? To place someone in a position as teacher, guru, leader, or some other fixed role, and you as student, follower, disciple, this is a dangerous action. To call someone a teacher or guru, you are placing certain expectations on that person, your own expectations of what you believe a teacher or a guru to be. When you do that, are you not placing limits on whom that person really is? Aren’t you, in a way, closing off your own mind? And by placing yourself in a position as a follower, a disciple, aren’t you taking the easy way out, giving up your own responsibility? Aren’t you saying, well I don’t know what to do, so I’m just going to follow this person. Or I don’t know what to think, so I’ll just believe what this person tells me. When you follow somebody, aren’t you giving up your responsibility to think for yourself? There are no teachers. There are no gurus. We are all students, learning together.
That’s Krishnamurti - a hard-ass, a purist, a free thinker. That’s why I love the guy.
Anyway, as if that’s not introduction enough, I’ll describe him more with a story. Stories are good.
One night I was at this party out on a farm. I didn’t know many people there. I felt a bit out of my element, so I spent most of the night sitting on the ground, staring into the fire, poking at it, thinking of something to say, and not finding much.
But later in the night, the sound of dogs howling in the distance was heard and it woke a long, lost memory. “Are those coyotes?” someone asked. “No, coyotes have a more eerie sound to them,” I said. Then I shared what was found...
“This one time I was at a Vipassana meditation retreat out in the middle of nowhere. A Vipassana retreat is where you go out and spend ten days doing nothing but meditating. There’s no distractions - no TV, no radio, no books, nothing to write with, nothing to read, no cell phones, nothing. You can’t even talk. All there is to do is meditate and walk the grounds. As you can imagine, after a few days of that our senses were kind of starved for excitement. So, even the smallest things seemed amazing. Looking on a blade of grass was like looking upon the universe itself.
Anyway, this one night at like four in the morning, we were all sleeping in the dorm room, and all of a sudden this pack of wild coyotes starts howling in the hills. They were yipping and making all these crazy sounds. Like I said, it was really eerie sounding - sent a chill up my spine. It would’ve been awesome any time, but the fact that our senses were at an all time high, made it even more amazing. So, we just laid there in our beds, in the dark, listening to the manic coyotes, not able to say a word.”
“Have you ever read any Krishnamurti?” this punk-rocker girl jumped in and asked. “Krishnamurti kicks some serious ass,” I replied twisting my head as I said it, adding emphasis.
“Wow. That has got to be the best response I’ve ever got about Krishnamurti at a party.”
“Who?” a girl across the fire asked. The fire light was dancing across her face. She sat in a kind of lotus position. I looked around the fire – everybody was listening.
“Krishnamurti,” I replied, “He’s like this eastern philosophy guy. But he’s not Buddhist or Hindu or Taoist. He doesn’t believe in any of that stuff. And he doesn’t believe in meditation either. He would say by meditating, you’re trying to be something. And you can’t try to be something; you just have to be it. Like you can’t try to be happy; you just have to be happy. But he’s got this attitude, like he’s pissed, like he can’t be happy till you’re happy. Yeah, that's Krishnamurti.”
We all sat there in silence for a moment pondering. Then the conversation drifted on into the night.
Anyway, that’s the end of my story. No point really, except to share a memory and introduce one of the greatest thinkers of our time – normally I’d say something like “all hail Krishnamurti,” but I don’t think he’d like that. So just go read him and decide for yourself.
