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the journal of the krishnamurti schools no.25

all kinds of self models which “fragment the ever-present space of
the observation-without-an-observer into an individual first per-
son perspective.”

Raymond Martin, who has edited the book of talks and writings
by K, titled Reflections on the Self, sees a similarity between Socra-
tes and Krishnamurti, in that both were questioners of all received
wisdom and authority. However, while Socrates’ questioning was
by means of ‘critical thinking’, K’s has to do with what Martin calls
‘critical looking’. The difference lies in the fact that in such looking
we look beyond the thinking mind into the very way we think,
into the content of our consciousness. Martin states that K’s “inten-
tion was to engage with people who are passionately interested in
understanding themselves and the world in which they live” and in
his opinion he “succeeds in this as few others have.”

Mark Edwards, listening to K as a young person, was struck by his
assertion that there is no such thing as ‘psychological evolution’. An
examination of the entire gradualist approach to so-called human
‘progress’ and its consequences shows that the material progress of
the Industrial Revolution has not led to any fundamental enrich-
ment of human life. It has on the other hand come at a terrible cost
to humanity, evidenced by its “headlong collision with nature” and
the “gathering collapse of our life support systems.” A celebrated
photographer, Mark has been a single-minded crusader, bringing to
attention the outward as well as inward dimensions of this crisis. His
involvement with K and with physicist, David Bohm, leads him to
affirm that the amelioration of this crisis needs both ‘going upstream’
to observe how thought is working in a fragmented way, as well ‘com-
ing downstream’ to find practical solutions to immediate problems

Ananthapadmanabhan (Ananth) took serious heed of K’s conten-
tion that “the outer and the inner cannot be separated and kept in

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