Page 213 - JOURNAL OF THE KRISHNAMURTI SCHOOLS

Dharma and Svadharma in the Teachings of J Krishnamurti

J Krishnamurti lived once only, uniquely. His teachings are not
like any others’. But he initiated a chain reaction in consciousness,
the reverberations of which are constant and unfathomable. Even
much of the upheaval we see around us may be attributable to his
continuing ‘effect’. Certain it is that consciousness needs a shakeup
and that nothing new can come about without a dismantling of the
old. Are we ready for it, are we strong enough for it? Actually, it is
touch-and-go. And, Krishna’s being ‘born again and again’ may be
transferred, existentially, to the moment’s being born—ever-young,
ever-fresh—to the individual’s being born. Incarnate now!
This revelation bears directly on the topic of dharma and svad-
harma. The rightness and righteousness of the dharma of the
teachings isn’t something that can be learnt and stored: it is not the
outcome of the past at all. Thought begets time and time begets sor-
row, and once we are taken over by them, we are caught. There is no
escape within this loop. That is why perception is so important, why,
indeed, it takes on a moral tone. We cannot live, as we have done,
by the past, following ancient injunctions and laws. It is not com-
mandments and obedience that matter—which is itself a psycho-
social model from the past—but clear, fresh thinking and original
insight. Only these can take us through the current miasma.
To incarnate now is to touch the cosmic order, which is moral
and spiritual as well as material. It is to find again one’s proper place
in the universe, the rounded space in an angular world. Indeed, the
world itself may lose its angularity once it is seen for what it is—a
construct. It may loosen its terrible hold on us. For the darkness
we live in is of our own creation though it goes back for millennia.
Like time itself, we have built and believe in it—just as we believe
in the afterlife, in reincarnation and a continuing time-existence.
We are the prisoners of our own scope and the willing slaves of our
own ignorance.
Krishnamurti, as the World Teacher, has shown us the extent
and the depth of our entanglement, using the light of rationality

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