Sambodhi 1977 Vol 06

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 51

J. Krishnamurti and...
particular country. But all the same lie does not deny the influence of cultural heritage in the development of consciousness. Thus, even though he is an international figure, the spirit of his mind, the orientation of his thinking and the approach to the way of living that he is suggesting in his teachings, is primarily Indian. To mention a few aspects of his philosophy by way of illustration, he assigns the highest value to freedom which is his version of liberation or mokṣa or nirvana though much more dynamic in conception, he points out the necessity of a psychological revolution or a mutation of inind which he realises in the awareness of the prevailing chaos and disorder in human relationship, which is society and this is his version of the interminable suffering of human existence pointed out by the Buddha and the Upanishads; he discovers the vicious circle of 'ignorance-craving-desire-incomplete action-psychological memory and ignorance' as the process of becoming and the quality in consciousness as the description of all existence, which form his version of ignorance as the cause of becoming characterised by the multiplicity of the phenomenal existence spoken of by the Advaita Vedānta and the Mahāyāna Budhistic schools of thought. So much so that the choiceless awareness and the effortless action suggested by hini as the means for freeing the mind from the duality of 'what is' and 'what should be,' too, have a close resemblance to the Buddbistic concept of vijñaptimātra, the Vedantic concept of nirvikalpa-samadhi and the niskāma karma of the Bhagvadgita. It would indeed form a subjectmatter of an independent thesis to carry out a comparative study of the philosophy of J. Krishnamurti and the Indian philosophy.
Yet, his philosophy is not a mere repetition of or a rearrangement of the old concepts. On the contrary he has established himself as an antitraditionalist, though as far as one can see from a close study of his philo. sophy, such an opinion is misinformed, if not misconceived. The correspondence of his ideas with the concepts of Indian philosophy seems to be incidental to the identity of the froblems of investigated and the approach of investigation which happen to be common to both, and is not due to any conditioning influence.
(ii) As far as the cultural and the religio-philosophical background of Krishnamurti is concerned, it is well known that he was brought up among the Theosophical circles during the first quarter of the twentieth century that witnessed a vigorous revival of the Theosophical movement at the international scale under the able leadership and pioneering efforts of Madam Blavatsky and Dr. Annie Besant. The revival of Theosophy itself was highly influenced by the Buddhistic and the Vedantic traditions of the East. It was