Theos-Talk Archives (November 1996 Message tl00300)

Excerpts from Krishnamurti’s Truth is a Pathless Land:
>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."

>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.<snip>

>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.<snip>

>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.<snip>

>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.<snip>

>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.<snip>

>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.

As a person who has been disappointed by organizations, I see
Krishnamurti's point.  However, although Truth is eternal and we can all
sit in our houses and meditate for it, there is strength in community.
If we can have groups devoted to the environment, or fighting addiction,
why can't we have groups devoted to helping ourselves and others develop
spiritually?  Okay, suppose a person picks up a piece of Truth, meets up
with a bunch of people who've also picked up some pieces of Truth, and
they organize, this will help a person who has not encountered any piece
of Truth but knows where they are organized and that they will be
shared.  "I'll share the truth I picked up with you!  Let's meet at this
organization."  One may tire of seeing the same truths gathered
together, one may want to rearrange them or dust them off, and one may
wish for a new one to increase the collection, but it's comforting to
know that they are there for us to look at and be mindful of.

There is too much apathy going on nowadays.  We have good reasons to not
believe in organizations and institutions.  Our churches have failed us,
our government has failed us, our schools have failed us, and even some
of our parents have failed us.  Thus, we pull away from everyone and go
behind closed doors to seek Truth.  However, our thoughts sometimes get
muddled, with no clear direction or belief, and we wonder whether
there's anybody out in the world who feels as we do.  Sometimes we want
to do something about what disturbs us, but have no idea how to go about
it.  We feel that nobody else cares about it and our passion about it
can die down.  Maybe we could do more than we are doing, but we make
excuses by saying we have no time or that our everyday routine is hard
enough.  Besides, what can one individual do?

Fear of organizations should not deter their formation.  Although
organizations are often marred by ideological inflexibility and
stagnation, unwillingness to see that the emperor is not wearing any
clothes (try talking about HPB's and CWL's possible shadiness), or just
that you can't stand ole Johnny or Susie in the group, there is strength
in numbers.  If there is tolerance and a willingness to listen and
change,  then organizations can be powerful places where individuals can
inspire each other to do more than they think they could for the common
good, and to help each other speed up their individual searches for
Truth.

I get the feeling that Krishnamurti possibly could have been finding his
running of an organization and people's grand expectations of him to be
too much, and that also influenced his dissolution of the organization.
However, it is pretty presumptuous of him to think that it is in his
power to set all of us "absolutely, unconditionally free."

TTT