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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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