The Inanity of Krishnamurti’s Talks and Books Versus His Life. His life was a series of extreme breaks with those closest to him, his thirty year relationship with his business manager and confidant, Rajagopal, ended in protracted legal cases. In 1954 he cease publication of her autobiography summarily ordered the elderly Lady Emily Lutyens (whom he always called 'Mum') to because of the embarrassment his letters quoted within it would cause him and his "work". In 1969, he suddenly broke with his long time secretary, Alain Naude, and in 1973 with the long time administrator of his Indian society, Madhavachari.
From most perspectives, Krishnamurti was a reasonably admirable chap. Despite being almost worshiped by his close followers he did not indulge in overtly reprehensible behavior. While living in discreet style, even luxury in youth and old age, he was a life-long vegetarian who refrained from any drugs (even tea and coffee) and was generally admired and liked by those who met him. Most of the money he raised in donations seems to have gone to his schools and learning center and supporting his proselytizing although he had a long string of expensive cars. Following his teachings and example would probably produce worthwhile effects, one of the most admirable men I have ever met is a devout Krishnamurtian. However, judged from the perspective of which he spoke, Krishnamurti has many of the defects of the old style gurus he inveighed against. The discrepancies between the public and private personas must cast extreme doubt on the authenticity of his experience of life and ergo his message. He set himself up as the fount of authority and knowledge and produced a system of teaching which he claimed would allow others to achieve the same exit from the stream of suffering, the awakening to the completeness of life, the ending of thought, freedom from fear and awakening of intelligence he claimed to have realized. None of them have and neither did he. In the early 1960s, he (Krishnamurti) made the acquaintance of physicist David Bohm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm, whose philosophical and scientific concerns regarding the essence of the physical world, and the psychological and sociological state of mankind, found parallels in Krishnamurti's philosophy. The two men soon became close friends and started a common inquiry, in the form of personal dialogues–and occasionally in group discussions with other participants–that continued, periodically, over nearly two decades. Bohm would eventually serve as a Krishnamurti Foundation trustee Their falling out was partly due to questions about Krishnamurti's private behavior, especially his long and secret love affair with Rosalind Williams-Rajagopal, then unknown to the general public After their falling out, Bohm criticized certain aspects of the teaching on philosophical, methodological https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodological, and psychological grounds. He also criticized what he described as Krishnamurti's occasional "verbal manipulations" when deflecting challenges. Eventually, he questioned some of the reasoning about the nature of thought and self, although he never abandoned his belief that "Krishnamurti was on to something". See Infinite Potential: The Life and times of David Bohm, by F. David Peat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._David_Peat, Addison Wesley, 1997. Lives in the Shadow With J. Krishnamurti by Radha Sloss Radha Rajagopal Sloss was born in July, 1931 to Rosalind Rajagopal wife of Krishamurti's secretary and editor - personal manager may be the closest description. She was brought up in Arya Vihara the home of Krishnamurti where her mother was the house-keeper and very close friend of Krishnamurti. No other biographies of Krishnamurti disagree with the importance of Rosalind and Radha Rajagopal in the life of Krishnamurti but only this one is written by an observer who grew up as a pampered "daughter" of Krishnamurti and was privy to famliy secrets. Both the older Rajagopals and Krishnamurti had grown up in the hot-house atmosphere of the Theosophical Society and it's ideas about the new world messiah that Krishnamurti was to be. Rajagopal himself was a boy protegé of Leadbeater and was the "reincarnation" of St Bernard of Clairveaux, he was a brilliant student and at the insistence of the Theosphical hierarchy took over the role of Krishnamurti's factotum after Krishnamurti's younger brother, Nitya, after Nitya's death in 1925. The Rajagopal's sexual relationship ended after the Radha's birth at his request, the reasons for this are never gone into, understandably enough this is not a topic a child usually wants to investigate. Krishnamurti and Rosalind began a secret, sexual relationship in the spring of 1932 at his instigation and this continued until the 1950's when it petered out in a welter of long-term recrimination over Rosalind's suspicions about Krishnamurti's infatuation for Nandini Mehta and their general growing-apart and aging. Rosalind Rajagopal was a very warm and compassionate person who's information and veracity on this subject could not be questioned. She was held in high esteem by most who came in contact with Krishnamurti. She was so liked by the Huxley's that she was present at the death of Aldous Huxley. Most of the information available about Krishanmurti's life comes from those who were his devoted followers, the above critique came from close reading of these sources. I later came across the book 'Lives in the Shadow With J. Krishnamurti' by Radha Rajagopal Sloss. The shocking picture it portrays of Krishnamurti appears to be authentic as other sources confirm Krishnamurti's role in her and her mother's life. Although Krishnamurti broke with her father in a bitter and protracted legal case the picture she offers of her parents, Krishnamurti and their long time close followers has internal consistency and shows her parents' lives in ways that no-one could imagine a daughter portraying unless she believed the portrayal was true. This book reveals the other day-to-day side of Krishnamurti's life and as such would be enough to highlight the discrepancies between the public portrayal of Krishnamurti as the idealised, enlightened, chaste being and his all too human pettiness. For most of us in the 1990's his long term monogamous, sexual relationship with the woman whom he was acknowledged as closest to, would not be considered particularly negative, indeed many would consider it, at worst, morally neutral. The secrecy of the relationship could even be rationalized as a bow to the conventional societal/sexual hypocrisy of the times - a harmless deception to prevent scandal preventing people appreciating the purity of the teaching. But not many would be able to accept the three secret, illegal (and therefore dangerous) abortions that Rosalind had of three children of Krishnamurti and the lies, recriminations and emotional trauma that all of the protagonists endured in the 1950's. It will be extremely difficult for anybody interested in Krishnamurti's teachings to see them as coming from an authentic source who has transcended any of the worst of the human condition and without the "authentication" of Krishnamurti's supposed enlightenment and the romantic glamour of his idealized portrayal, they are just another set of utopian concepts. The critic Clive James https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_James took Krishnamurti to task: "Thought was the stuff to avoid at all costs. The aim was to be ‘totally uncontaminated by thought’... A moment’s thought told you that it takes thousands upon thousands of people, all thinking flat out, to support one guru while he sits there burbling on about the contaminating effects of ratiocination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_James
