Theos-Talk Archives (January 1999 Message tl00007)

Part five, the last:

David Walker wrote:

  Dear Friends,

  This is the fifth and last piece by Dr. Ruben Feldman-Gonzalez recalling
  his dialogues with Krishnamurti.

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                         Five Years in Ojai

  I saw Krishnamurti many times in the last five years of his life.

  I can't remember the dates well except that my meetings with him
  happened during the two or three weeks the public talks in Ojai
  were being held.

  It was clear for me that I was not going to depend on Krishnamurti
  for anything, but I still was intent in discovering "the complete
  silence of the mind".

  Whenever we met in Ojai it was with David Bohm and a small group of
  friends, or occasionally by chance close to Arya Vihar (his
  residence) or at the Oak Grove School.

  One day I told him the eternal That, the immense joyful energy...
  had "touched" me. I also told him that very soon it left me. The
  meaning of That touching me was immense, it made me very strong
  during the few big adversities of my life.

  I asked him, "Why that doesn't come more often?"

  Krishnamurti said, "What do you do with your energy?"

                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  I think it was in 1981 that a birthday party was organized for him
  (in May) by the people working at the four Foundations.

  Krishnamurti arrived and stood in silence for three or four
  minutes.

  Suddenly a gentleman with a Bostonian or perhaps English accent
  approached Krishnamurti and said: "I understand you are a Brahmin
  from India".

  Krishnamurti said, "I only have a passport from India".

  He soon left the party.

                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  When the last talk of 1985 ended in Ojai in May I decided I
  wouldn't attend any more Krishnamurti talks.

  Krishnamurti died in February 1986 anyway.

  It struck me, after his death, while I was listening to the last of
  his talks in England, held in 1985, that he said: "I will not use
  the word meditation anymore".

  I had asked him to do that several times.

  One day we were at an orange grove in Arya Vihar, simply enjoying
  the scent of spring in silence.

  I said, "I worry the schools are going to become elitist and that
  only the wealthy will be able to send their children to them."

  Krishnamurti said: "We have to work with what we have and we have
  to talk with the words we have. I was born in a very poor home and
  some of my brothers died from tuberculosis or malnutrition. But
  look at me! I'm doing very well, huh?"

  I said, "you were lucky you had teachers like Leadbeater who was
  even clairvoyant."

  Krishnamurti said, "Yes, I was very lucky. Leadbeater was
  temporarily clairvoyant, and I was lucky that everything he said
  entered through my right ear and left through the left."

                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  We were sitting with David Bohm and Krishnamurti. I told
  Krishnamurti:

  "From the conversations the three of us have had, including the one
  with Dr. Sheldrake, one may infer that when one human mind is
  consummate in intelligence and love, that mind will inexorably
  influence (non-verbally) in an energetic (holokinetic) way, all
  human minds at the same time.

  Now if Krishnamurti is totally transformed or consummate, how come
  one doesn't see it more in people around us or even in the whole
  world?

  How come the sorrow, the brutality, the vulgarity, the
  insensitivity of people is not reduced? Why don't we see the
  transformation more?

  At that point Krishnamurti told Dr. Bohm, "Professor Bohm, you have
  been a co-worker of Albert Einstein but even so one can still talk
  to you without a mask. (Krishnamurti smiled)... how would you
  answer to that question? Why don't we see the change?"

  Dr. Bohm meditated for a few seconds and said: "As a physicist I
  only know that 99% of all phenomena occurring in matter and energy
  are invisible."

                                May 1983

  Krishnamurti had public talks in Ojai rather late in the Spring of
  83.

  I was with my two sons: Sebastian age nine and Demian age eight.

  We couldn't get a motel in Ojai. They were all full.

  We spent the nights at the Holiday Inn in Ventura right beside the
  Pacific Ocean. My sons were happy. We had the sea, and Ojai was
  only thirty minutes away by car.

  It is claimed that "Ojai" means "The Nest of God" in the local
  American-Indian tongue.

  On the morning of Saturday, May 14th, 1983 we arrived at the Oak
  Grove School in Ojai (Founded by Krishnamurti in 1974) at about
  9:30 A.M.

  We parked the car and went for a slow walk under a sunny light-blue
  sky among the oak trees.

  There was a delightful breeze between the blue mountains and the
  ocean.

  There were already more than 1000 people for the lecture that would
  start two hours later.

  I met many friends from different parts of the world. We were
  elated by our mutual company and by the expectation of listening to
  Krishnamurti in person again. The blend of nature, friendship and
  the sacred is beauty itself. And that day we were deep into the
  glorious light of beauty and the rare presence of love.

  Krishnamurti talked for an hour or so about the deplorable
  spiritual state of mankind. Three thousand people listened in
  silence.

  It was only Krishnamurti's voice and the breeze among the Oak
  trees.

  Hundreds of birds were chirping.

  He said we have to be a light to ourselves because "there is no one
  to go to". Social and individual corruption grows.

  He said it's perfectly possible to relate without a shadow of
  conflict.

  At the end he shook hands with me and my two sons. "It's good to
  see you for a moment", he said.

  Demian said, "Krishnamurti has cold hands, Dad".
  I said, "Krishnamurti is eighty-eight years old, and he was talking
  for more than an hour under the trees in the breeze".

  It was during that weekend that we met at Arya Vihara in Ojai.

  There was a circle of chairs with at least ten people sitting with
  Krishnamurti. It was three or four P.M., and it was easy to lose
  track of time in that kind of atmosphere after a cup of tea.

  After Krishnamurti joined us we remained in silence.

  One had to absorb his presence before any action was possible.

  At one point he asked, "Am I a freak?"

  I said, "You may not be a freak but possibly the genetic pool you
  come from makes you definitely more able to be free from the
  influence of human memory (both individual and philogenetic). That
  has made you more able to be in total contact with reality, while
  we are at best only partially in contact with it."

  Krishnamurti said something close to the following, "We may have
  genetic differences but we are all able to 'touch' the ground or
  the totality of the mind, and that ground is the most important
  thing for human life".

  I said, "The ground being the cosmic mind or the holokinetic source
  of life...."

  Krishnamurti said, "The ground being complete silence of the mind
  (he emphasized the word 'complete'), then we can talk". He
  finished.

  I said, "Is there something external that comes to us (or to
  Krishnamurti) in certain specific circumstances?

  Krishnamurti said, "It may come now when two or more meet to
  discuss seriously, which means with no wish for money or success
  and letting all the masks that protect us drop off. Water will not
  know what water is. We can only discuss what water is not. You may
  explain water well but you have to swim in the sea as well".

  I said, "We are in California. If you had to only use the words
  from the Bible how would you tell me what you just said to me?"

  Krishnamurti said: "It's revelation. Something that happens every
  time I speak. But now, since that happens, I prefer to use my own
  words which are less loaded with distortions".

  I said, "Tell us more about that."

  Krishnamurti said, "It's too big for words".

  A long silence followed. I finally asked, "what will we do, the
  ones that have tasted a few drops of that water?"

  Krishnamurti said, "Those few will have to shout from the housetops
  before it's too late for mankind".
  I told him that some people were angry at him for the way he had
  said some things.

  Many seemed unable to forgive Krishnamurti for what he had said in
  Saanen in 1980: "God is disorder and if man is God's creation, God
  has to be horrible, a monstrous entity. God must be disorder since
  we live in disorder. If he made us like He is and we are killing
  each other, then He must be monstrous".

  Krishnamurti said: "What God are we talking about? Is it the God
  that man made? Those that get angry want to substitute the
  experience of God, the man-made God. It's not so easy. That word is
  disorder, not the experience. Where the word is, experience is not.
  Where experience is, there may or may not be the word".

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