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Truth is a Pathless Land
Text of Talk by Jiddu Krishnamurthy
announcing the dissolution of the Order of the Star
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 2 August 1929, the
opening day of the annual Star Camp at Ommen, Holland, Krishnamurti
dissolved the Order before 3000 members.
"...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
organised... The moment you follow someone you cease to follow
Truth...
Then you will naturally ask
me why I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you
for what reason I do this... 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 not because
I want anything from anyone...
You are depending for your
spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else,
for your enlightenment on someone else....
No
man from outside can make you free.....
No one holds the Key to the Kingdom of Happiness. 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..."
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.
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 anything 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.
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.
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.
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 man absolutely, unconditionally free.
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