Lecture given by J. Krishnamurti, in 1929, when he dissolved the Order of the Star of the East.
The Order of the Star in the East was founded in 1911 to proclaim the coming of the World Teacher. Krishnamurti was made Head of the Order. On August 2, 1929, the opening day of the annual Star Camp at Ommen, Holland, Krishnamurti dissolved the Order before 3000 members. Below is the full text of the talk he gave on that occasion. What he said then is equally valid today.
We are going to discuss this morning the dissolution of the Order of the
Star. Many people will be delighted, and others will be rather sad. It is a
question neither for rejoicing nor for sadness, because it is inevitable, as I
am going to explain.
You may remember the story of how the devil and a
friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man
stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in
his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He
picked up a piece of Truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for
you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to
let him organize it."
I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you
cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is
my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth,
being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be
organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people
along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how
impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter,
and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead,
crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.
This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is
narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are
only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the
individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the
mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must
pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.
You must climb towards the Truth, it cannot be "stepped down" or organized for
you. Interest in ideas is mainly sustained by organizations, but organizations
only awaken interest from without. Interest, which is not born out of love of
Truth for its own sake, but aroused by an organization, is of no value. The
organization becomes a framework into which its members can conveniently fit.
They no longer strive after Truth or the mountain-top, but rather carve for
themselves a convenient niche in which they put themselves, or let the
organization place them, and consider that the organization will thereby lead
them to Truth.
So that is the first reason, from my point of view, why
the Order of the Star should be dissolved. In spite of this, you will probably
form other Orders, you will continue to belong to other organizations searching
for Truth. I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind,
please understand this. I would make use of an organization which would take me
to London, for example; this is quite a different kind of organization, merely
mechanical, like the post or the telegraph. I would use a motor car or a
steamship to travel, these are only physical mechanisms which have nothing
whatever to do with spirituality. Again, I maintain that no organization can
lead man to spirituality.
If an organization be created for this
purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the
individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness,
which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth.
So that is another reason why I have decided, as I happen to be the Head of the
Order, to dissolve it. No one has persuaded me to this decision.
This is
no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The
moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether
you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the
world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning
myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from
all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to
establish new theories and new philosophies. Then you will naturally ask me why
I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do
this: not because I desire a following, not because I desire a special group of
special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however
ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions may be! I do not want to
encourage that absurdity.) I have no disciples, no apostles, either on earth or
in the realm of spirituality.
Nor is it the lure of money, nor the
desire to live a comfortable life, which attracts me. If I wanted to lead a
comfortable life I would not come to a Camp or live in a damp country! I am
speaking frankly because I want this settled once and for all. I do not want
these childish discussions year after year.
One newspaper reporter, who
interviewed me, considered it a magnificent act to dissolve an organization in
which there were thousands and thousands of members. To him it was a great act
because, he said: "What will you do afterwards, how will you live? You will have
no following, people will no longer listen to you." If there are only five
people who will listen, who will live, who have their faces turned towards
eternity, it will be sufficient. Of what use is it to have thousands who do not
understand, who are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but
would rather translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves? If I
speak strongly, please do not misunderstand me, it is not through lack of
compassion. If you go to a surgeon for an operation, is it not kindness on his
part to operate even if he cause you pain? So, in like manner, if I speak
straightly, it is not through lack of real affection - on the contrary.
As I have said, I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him
towards freedom, to help him to break away from all limitations, for that alone
will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditioned realization of
the self.
Because I am free, unconditioned, whole-not the part, not the
relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal - I desire those, who seek to
understand me, to be free; not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which
will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears-from
the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality,
from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As
an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it
is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so I do this and not because
I want any thing from anyone.
You are accustomed to authority, or to the
atmosphere of authority, which you think will lead you to spirituality. You
think and hope that another can, by his extraordinary powers-a miracle-transport
you to this realm of eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on
life is based on that authority.
You have listened to me for three years
now, without any change taking place except in the few. Now analyze what I am
saying, be critical, so that you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally. When
you look for an authority to lead you to spirituality, you are bound
automatically to build an organization around that authority. By the very
creation of that organization, which, you think, will help this authority to
lead you to spirituality, you are held in a cage.
If I talk frankly,
please remember that I do so, not out of harshness, not out of cruelty, not out
of the enthusiasm of my purpose, but because I want you to understand what I am
saying. That is the reason why you are here, and it would be a waste of time if
I did not explain clearly, decisively, my point of view.
For eighteen
years you have been preparing for this event, for the Coming of the
World-Teacher. For eighteen years you have organized, you have looked for
someone who would give a new delight to your hearts and minds, who would
transform your whole life, who would give you a new understanding; for someone
who would raise you to a new plane of life, who would give you a new
encouragement, who would set you free-and now look what is happening! Consider,
reason with yourselves, and discover in what way that belief has made you
different-not with the superficial difference of the wearing of a badge, which
is trivial, absurd. In what manner has such a belief swept away all the
unessential things of life? That is the only way to judge: in what way are you
freer, greater, more dangerous to every Society which is based on the false and
the unessential? In what way have the members of this organization of the Star
become different?
As I said, you have been preparing for eighteen years
for me. I do not care if you believe that I am the World-Teacher or not. That is
of very little importance. Since you belong to the organization of the Order of
the Star, you have given your sympathy, your energy, acknowledging that
Krishnamurti is the World-Teacher- partially or wholly: wholly for those who are
really seeking, only partially for those who are satisfied with their own
half-truths.
You have been preparing for eighteen years, and look
how many difficulties there are in the way of your understanding, how many
complications, how many trivial things. Your prejudices, your fears, your
authorities, your churches new and old - all these, I maintain, are a barrier to
understanding. I cannot make myself clearer than this. I do not want you to
agree with me, I do not want you to follow me, I want you to understand what I
am saying.
This understanding is necessary because your belief has not
transformed you but only complicated you, and because you are not willing to
face things as they are. You want to have your own gods - new gods instead of
the old, new religions instead of the old, new forms instead of the old - all
equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches. Instead of old
spiritual distinctions you have new spiritual distinctions, instead of old
worships you have new worships. You are all depending for your spirituality on
someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on
someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years,
when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them
all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for
the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is
willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few.
So why have an
organization?
Why have false, hypocritical people following me, the
embodiment of Truth? Please remember that I am not saying something harsh or
unkind, but we have reached a situation when you must face things as they are. I
said last year that I would not compromise. Very few listened to me then. This
year I have made it absolutely clear. I do not know how many thousands
throughout the world- members of the Order-have been preparing for me for
eighteen years, and yet now they are not willing to listen unconditionally,
wholly, to what I say.
So why have an organization?
As I said
before, my purpose is to make men unconditionally free, for I maintain that the
only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self which is eternal, is the
harmony between reason and love. This is the absolute, unconditioned Truth which
is Life itself. I want therefore to set man free, rejoicing as the bird in the
clear sky, unburdened, independent, ecstatic in that freedom . And I, for whom
you have been preparing for eighteen years, now say that you must be free of all
these things, free from your complications, your entanglements. For this you
need not have an organization based on spiritual belief. Why have an
organization for five or ten people in the world who understand, who are
struggling, who have put aside all trivial things? And for the weak people,
there can be no organization to help them to find the Truth, because Truth is in
everyone; it is not far, it is not near; it is eternally there.
Organizations cannot make you free. No man from outside can make you
free; nor can organized worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause,
make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organization, nor throwing
yourselves into works, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but
you do not put it on an altar and worship it. But that is what you are doing
when organizations become your chief concern. "How many members are there in
it?" That is the first question I am asked by all newspaper reporters. "How many
followers have you? By their number we shall judge whether what you say is true
or false." I do not know how many there are. I am not concerned with that. As I
said, if there were even one man who had been set free, that were enough.
Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the
Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that
key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and
in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity.
So you will see how absurd is the whole structure that you have built,
looking for external help, depending on others for your comfort, for your
happiness, for your strength. These can only be found within yourselves.
So why have an organization?
You are accustomed to being told
how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but
yourself can tell you if you are beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can
tell you if you are incorruptible? You are not serious in these things.
So why have an organization?
But those who really desire to
understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and
without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to
everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will
concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we
must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that real understanding there
will be true friendship. Because of that true friendship- which you do not seem
to know-there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this not
because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation for a
cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the
eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice.
So these are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration
for two years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I
have not been persuaded to it by anyone. I am not persuaded in such things. For
two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and I
have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be its Head. You can form
other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor
with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to
set men absolutely, unconditionally free.
