No path? No sadhana? No guru?
August 2010
Attempting to deconstruct the teachings of J Krishnamurti
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(A reader sent this piece in response to the interview with Rajesh Dalal in the July 2010 issue: We are afraid to be stripped)
When it comes to existential reality I feel there is no limit to my confusion or cluelessness. Hence, I am left with no choice but to write from my level of experience and understanding.
And it is this, precisely, which is also at the root of my bone of contention with the teachings of J Krishnamurti and others such as Rajesh Dalal (featured in the July issue of Life Positive). Their message that no path, sadhana, or guru is needed to realise the ultimate, may well be existentially true. But it is also existentially true, we have been told, that matter does not exist. Yet human beings, including seekers, are firmly entrenched in matter.
So, of what use are these truisms to seekers for whom they are not a living experience? To them, Krishnamurti’s teaching sounds as futile as that of a massively built body-builder telling a weakling that all he has to do to lift 300 pounds of weight is to bend down and pick it up: “See? Bend down. Grab. Pick-up. Now you do it!” Absurd?
It is no different when it comes to advice on non-doing. It seems to ignore the fact that different human beings are at different stages of evolution. Why then a blanket admonishment that nothing be done? It seems to negate the lifetimes of karmic structures that don’t allow most seekers to just be. Can a juggernaut as unspeakably complex as transcending the limitless creation be resolved without massive human application? Can it and should it be left to the meager resources of one’s own puny self? Is it not better to be open and available to help from creation itself? Help in the form of a guru and a path and a process?
So when non-doing is preached, why does the preacher ignore the lifetimes worth of doing that may have gone into bringing them to the place of non-doing?
What is it that these teachers see that I can’t, which prevents them from saying, “Do what you must–sadhanas, paths, and gurus – and eventually you will come to a place where none of these are needed, and in fact, are impediments.”? But is even that needed to be said? Why, in the first place, teach that which one day will become self-evident, but which, till then, is meaningless, and may be even counterproductive?