Page 140 - JOURNAL OF THE KRISHNAMURTI SCHOOLS

the journal of the krishnamurti schools no.25

directly. Refusing to discuss books or theories, he encouraged
people to look at themselves, particularly in their relationships to
other people, things, and activities, and he told them just enough
about what he thought they would see if they did look, to get them
going. It is as if through the habit of understanding ourselves in
familiar ways we are even at the level of experience stuck in theo-
ries. Krishnamurti was—is—extremely good at helping people to
get unstuck, that is, at helping them to have insights that break the
moulds of deeply ingrained patterns of thinking. In other words, his
concern was not that his remarks be relevant to theory—although
often they are—but that they be relevant to life. His intention was
to engage with people who are passionately interested in under-
standing themselves and the world in which they live. The point of
this engagement was to clarify what it means to be oneself and to
live in this world. In my opinion, Krishnamurti succeeds in this as
few others have.
Philosophers and students of philosophy are surely among those
who are passionately interested in understanding themselves and
the world. Many of us have devoted much of our lives to this proj-
ect. We may be surprised, then, to discover how little time and
energy we have spent in the sort of inquiry Krishnamurti tried
to facilitate. The reason for this is that Krishnamurti’s approach
to topics of perennial philosophical interest was more meditative
than rationally discursive. So, the question for philosophers and
students of philosophy in considering how seriously they should
take [his teachings], is whether they’re willing to try an approach
that’s philosophical, in a broad sense, but so different from what
they’re accustomed to doing when they think about or read phi-
losophy that it may be difficult at first for them even to see its
relevance. True philosophers are always open to new approaches.
Indeed, when an approach has promise, the more radically new,
the better.

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