Page 173 - JOURNAL OF THE KRISHNAMURTI SCHOOLS
P. 173
It was 1975. I was seventeen years old.
I stood before our family deity, Goddess Shantadurga, in the
inner sanctum of her temple in Dhargal, Goa, our family home,
along with my Dad.
The priest placed four petals on each shoulder and arm of the
heartbreakingly beautiful idol carved in black stone, and my father
said, “What do you wish for most in life? Hold that wish in your
mind.”
The priest waited for the Goddess to decide my future.
One petal fell.
The priest smiled. “Your wish will be granted.”
What was my wish?
“I want to know what truth is.”
It is 2019, I am 61, and I have no clue what truth is.
But I know with certainty the man who pointed out the pathless
path to it.
It was 1977.
In my pursuit of truth, I had read, The Critique of Pure Reason by
Immanuel Kant, Being and Nothingness by Jean Paul Sartre, Albert
Camus, Hermann Hesse, the Upanishads, the Vedas, watched my
Dad practice kundalini yoga…and understood nothing.
All so confusing, all words and concepts.
Then on a Colaba sidewalk shop, I spotted a book that said, Talks
and Dialogues by J. Krishnamurti.
It had a striking black and white portrait photograph of Krish-
naji (as I later started referring to him in Benares) by Cecil Beaton,
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