Carolyn and I have long appreciated the spiritual teachings of the philosopher, speaker, and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Krishnamurti was born in 1895 in South India. He was described as a “sensitive and sickly” child, and his childhood years were difficult. Because Krishnamurti was often seen as “vague and dreamy,” people thought that he was cognitively impaired, and he was beaten regularly, at home by his father and in school by his teachers. However, he developed a special bond with nature during his childhood and this stayed with him throughout his life.

In 1909, while in early adolescence, Krishnamurti met a man named Charles Webster Leadbeater, who was part of a group called the Theosophical Society. This meeting was to change his life. The Theosophical Society is an esoteric religious movement that was founded in 1875 in New York by Russian mystic Helena Blavatsky and others. Leadbeater saw something special in Krishnamurti, and became convinced that he was destined to become a great spiritual teacher.

As a result, Krishnamurti was raised and educated by the Theosophical Society in Adyar, India, and they prepared him for what they believed him to be, the “vehicle” of the expected “World Teacher” or “Lord Maitreya.” In Theosophy, Lord Maitreya is an advanced spiritual entity, and master of ancient wisdom, who “periodically appears on Earth to guide the evolution of humankind.”

In 1911 the Theosophical Society established the Order of the Star in the East (OSE). The OSE was an international organization based in India that existed from 1911 to 1927. It was established by the leadership of the Theosophical Society to “prepare the world” for the arrival of a reputed messianic entity, the World Teacher or Lord Maitreya.

Krishnamurti was named as the head of the OSE, and senior Theosophists were assigned to various other positions. That same year Krishnamurti and his younger brother Nitya were taken to England by the Theosophical Society. Between 1911 and 1914, the brothers visited several other European countries, accompanied by Theosophist chaperones.

As a teenager, Krishnamurti described having psychic experiences, such as seeing the spirits of his late mother, and sister who had died in 1904. As Krishnamurti entered adulthood he embarked on a schedule of lectures in several countries, and he acquired a large following among the members of the Theosophical Society. Chapters of the OSE were formed in as many as forty countries.

In 1922 Krishnamurti and his younger brother Nitya traveled to California, where they stayed in Ojai Valley. During their stay in Ojai, Krishnamurti had a series of transformative psychological and spiritual experiences over a period of several months. Then, in 1925 his brother Nitya died, and this was a devastating event for Krishnamurti.

After years of controversy within the OSE, in 1929 Krishnamurti left his mantle and withdrew from the organization. He renounced his role, dissolved the Order with its following, and returned all of the money and property that had been donated for this work. He stated that he had made this decision after “careful consideration” during the previous two years. Krishnamurti moved away from the Theosophical Society because he came to realize that neither gurus nor organizations are required for attaining salvation, and he said that he had “no allegiance to any nationality, caste, religion, or philosophy.”

Krishnamurti spent the rest of his life traveling the world, speaking to large and small groups, and writing influential books. He also interacted with a number of other brilliant minds. In 1938 Krishnamurti was introduced to Aldous Huxley and the two became close friends for many years. In the early 1960s, Krishnamurti met physicist David Bohm, and the two men also became good friends and collaborated together. They started a common inquiry, in the form of personal dialogues — and occasionally in group discussions with other participants– that continued, periodically, over nearly two decades. Some of these intriguing discussions were published in a series of popular books.

In 1984 and 1985, Krishnamurti spoke to an audience at the United Nations in New York about peace. His 1985 talk, titled Why Can’t Man Live Peacefully on the Earth?

Krishnamurti is the author of over thirty books, including The Book of Life, The Awakening of Intelligence, The Beauty of Life, The First and Last Freedom, The Only Revolution, Krishnamurti’s Notebook, and The Ending of Time: Where Philosophy and Physics Meet, which includes some of his discussions with physicist David Bohm. Many of his talks and discussions have also been published and much is available online.

Krishnamurti was a lifelong vegetarian who exercised regularly and practiced yoga daily. He died in 1986 at the age of 90. Krishnamurti’s philosophy has remained popular in the years since his death; his books are in print, his foundations continue to maintain archives and disseminate his teachings, and his quotes are regularly shared social media.

Our dear friend Jai Italiaander became well acquainted with Krishnamurti. After spending five years in an ashram in Santa Rosa, Jai met someone at the ashram who took her to Ojai, where she became well acquainted with Krishnamurti, and his teachings became part of her life-long study of consciousness.

Some of the quotes that Krishnamurti is known for include:

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.

Emptiness comes as sunset comes of an evening, full of beauty, enchantment and richness; it comes as naturally as the blossoming of a flower.

You are the world and the world is you… If you as a human being transform yourself, you affect the consciousness of the rest of the world.

It is a waste of energy when we try to conform to a pattern. To conserve energy, we must be aware of how we dissipate energy.

To live in the eternal present there must be death to the past, to memory. In this death there is timeless renewal.

One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end… You can only be afraid of what you think you know.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. 

The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.

by David Jay Brown

When I first met Carolyn in the early 1980s, one of the writers that we passionately discussed was British novelist and poet D.H. Lawrence. We had both enjoyed his novels and been inspired by his sensual writings.

David Herbert Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England. His father was a barely literate coal miner and his mother was a schoolteacher. Nottinghamshire was a coal-mining town, and Lawrence’s working-class background influenced his writings.

From 1891 to 1898 Lawrence attended a boarding school in Eastwood that is today named in his honor: D.H. Lawrence Primary School. Lawrence was the first local student to win a scholarship to Nottingham High School. Lawrence had a great love of books while he was young and throughout his life.

From 1902 to 1906 Lawrence worked as a schoolteacher in Eastwood. It was around this time that he began writing his first poems and short stories. In 1907 Lawrence won a short story competition, and he began working on a draft for his first novel. Lawrence enrolled as a full-time student at the University of London in 1908 and he earned a teaching certificate there.

For a while, Lawrence both taught and submitted his writings for publication to some of the literary journals of the time. His first novel, The White Peacock, was published in 1911. The novel explored the theme of love triangles and the damage associated with mismatched marriages. The book received generally positive reviews, and that same year Lawrence quit his teaching position in order to be able to write full-time.

In 1912 Lawrence met the woman who he was to share his life with, Frieda Weekley, and although she was already married when they first met, they eloped and left England for Germany. Once in Germany Lawrence was arrested and accused of being a British spy, although, thanks to an intervention by Frieda’s father, he was released.

That same year, the Lawrences walked from Germany, across the Alps, to Italy. This magnificent journey, with sights of incredible beauty, and Lawrence’s impressions of the Italian countryside, were recorded in the first of Lawrence’s travel books, Twilight in Italy. During his time in Italy, Lawrence completed his novel Sons and Lovers, and he also spent time with his good friend Aldous Huxley. Lawrence’s novel, about the emotional conflicts associated with suffocating relationships and the realities of working-class life, was published in 1913 and received positive reviews.

While in Italy, Lawrence also wrote the draft of a manuscript that was eventually divided into two of his best-known novels, The Rainbow, published in 1915, and Women in Love, published in 1920 as a sequel. In both of these novels, lesbian characters play prominent roles, and the novels were considered highly controversial when they were published. They were initially banned in the United Kingdom for obscenity. In 1922 the Lawrences moved to the United States and settled in Taos, New Mexico.

Lawrence’s final novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, was first published privately in 1928, in Italy, and in 1929 in France. The story is about a young, married, upper-class woman who has an affair with her working-class gamekeeper, and the novel revolves around the theme that love can happen purely from physical expression.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover wasn’t openly published until 1960 when it became the subject of an obscenity trial in the United Kingdom for its depiction of sexual intimacy and its use of forbidden language. It was initially banned in the United States, Canada, Australia, India, and Japan. Lawrence’s publisher won the obscenity trial in the United Kingdom, three million copies of the book were quickly sold, and the bans was subsequently lifted around the world.

Lawrence’s work, opinions, and artistic preferences, were highly controversial during his lifetime, and there were many people who didn’t like what he was writing; as a result, he endured quite a bit of persecution and much misrepresentation of his work. Many critics viewed his erotic writings as pornography. However, although Lawrence’s depictions of sexuality were seen as shocking at the time that they were published, they seem rather tame by today’s standards.

There is also a deeper, almost mystical philosophy underlying Lawrence’s novels that many of his early critics missed. The leading characters in his most controversial novels go through rebirth experiences, and they grow into more fulfilling versions of themselves. Also, according to Lawrence, “the journey into the unconscious is accomplished through sensual experience.” This is an important theme for Lawrence. He urges us to explore the impulses and desires of the unconscious in order to find our deeper selves. Lawrence didn’t trust the intellect because he believed that the mind distorts reality, and that bodily sensations are more concrete and thus more real.

Lawrence also wrote five screenplays and nearly 800 poems in his lifetime. He had a lifelong interest in painting as well, and this became his main form of creative expression during his final years. In 1929 Lawrence’s paintings were exhibited at the Warren Gallery in London and the show was extremely controversial. Over 12,000 people attended, and after some people complained about the artwork, the police seized thirteen of the twenty-five paintings. Lawrence was able to get the paintings back— but only under the condition that he never exhibit them in England ever again. Lawrence’s paintings are now housed in a hotel in Taos, and in Austin at the University of Texas.

Lawrence died young, in 1930, at the age of 44, and he was buried in Taos. Since 2008, an annual D. H. Lawrence Festival has been organized in his hometown of Eastwood, to celebrate his life and works.

Some of the quotes that D.H. Lawrence is known for include:

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.

But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.

This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women. There is my creed.

Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

One must learn to love, and go through a good deal of suffering to get to it, and the journey is always towards the other soul.

by David Jay Brown