The First and Last Freedom
A sixteen-month retreat began in Ojai and continued in India at Vasanta Vihar; in Madras [Chennai] resulted in months of public silence
USA builds hydrogen bomb
North Korea invades South
Korea; captures Seoul
USA invades Korea with
United Nations troops:
Korean war begins
Thor Heyerdahl: Kon-Tiki raft
China invades Tibet
George Bernard Shaw dies
USSR and China sign
a thirty-year pact
Joseph McCarthy warns Truman:
“State Department is infiltrated by
Communists”
Univac: first commercial computer
Carl Sandburg: Pulitzer prize for
Complete Poems
J.D. Salinger: The Catcher
in the Rye
William Randolph Hearst dies
Mies Van der Rohe – architect,
Chicago, Lake Shore Drive
Peron reelected
President of Argentina
Color television introduced in U.S.
Talks were held in Madras [Chennai], Bombay [Mumbai], Rishi Valley and Benares [Varanasi] India; London, England; and Ojai, California
Mau Mau uprising in Kenya
Big Bang Theory
Norman Vincent Peale:
The Power of Positive Thinking
Rocky Marciano:
boxing champion
Christian Dior “haute coûture”
King Farouk abdicates
Truman: seizure of steel illegal
Revolt in Bolivia
New immigration quotas
King George VI dies
Gene Kelly: “Singin’ in the Rain”
USA explodes hydrogen bomb
at Eniwetok Atoll
North Korea bombed by U.S. planes
Krishnamurti’s interest in and position on education was made clear in his first commercially published book Education and the Significance of Life
A long-standing association with Rajagopal, who looked after the more practical side of the work, was drawing to a close
Samuel Beckett:
“Waiting for Godot”
Stalin dies after twenty-nine year rule
Double helix: structure of DNA
Soviet gulags: slave labor
of 1.7 million
Supreme Court hears
school desegregation argument
Korean War ends
Elizabeth II crowned Queen
Kinsey Report published
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing
Norgay conquer Mt. Everest
The Rosenbergs executed
Shah of Iran deposed
Korean Armistice
France grants Laos
independence
Yugoslavia: Marshal Tito
becomes President
The First and Last Freedom, with a lengthy introduction by Aldous Huxley, was published, attracting greater numbers to Krishnamurti’s talks
J. Robert Oppenheimer
suspended as head of
Atomic Energy Commission
Jonas Salk develops polio
vaccine
J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings
McCarthy hearings underway
Marlon Brando films
“On the Waterfront”
Elvis Presley: first commercial
record – “That’s All Right Mama”
Brown vs. Board of Education:
school segregation banned
Francoise Sagan:
Bonjour Tristesse
France forced out of
Dien Bien Phu
Fellini: “La Strada”
Four Power meeting in Berlin
Geneva Accords
Revolt breaks out in Algeria
Nautilus submarine launched
US backed coup in Guatemala
Boeing unveils the 707 aircraft
First kidney transplant

“When we train our children according to a system of thought or a particular discipline, when we teach them to think within departmental divisions, we prevent them from growing into integrated men and women, and therefore they are incapable of thinking intelligently, which is to meet life as whole. The highest function of education is to bring about an integrated individual who is capable of dealing with life as a whole….”
“Let us not think in terms of principles and ideals, but be concerned with things as they are; for it is the consideration of what is that awakens intelligence, and the intelligence of the educator is far more important than his knowledge of a new method of education.”
Education and Significance in Life



“The brain is nourished by reaction and experience; it lives on experience. But experience is always limiting and conditioning; memory is the machinery of action. Without experience, knowledge and memory, action is not possible, but such action is fragmentary, limited. Reason, organized thought, is always incomplete; idea, response of thought, is barren and belief is the refuge of thought. All experience only strengthens thought negatively or positively.”
A sixteen-month retreat began in Ojai and continued in India at Vasanta Vihar; in Madras [Chennai] resulted in months of public silence
USA builds hydrogen bomb
North Korea invades South
Korea; captures Seoul
USA invades Korea with
United Nations troops:
Korean war begins
Thor Heyerdahl: Kon-Tiki raft
China invades Tibet
George Bernard Shaw dies
USSR and China sign
a thirty-year pact
Joseph McCarthy warns Truman:
“State Department is infiltrated by
Communists”

Univac: first commercial computer
Carl Sandburg: Pulitzer prize for
Complete Poems
J.D. Salinger: The Catcher
in the Rye
William Randolph Hearst dies
Mies Van der Rohe – architect,
Chicago, Lake Shore Drive
Peron reelected
President of Argentina
Color television introduced in U.S.
“When we train our children according to a system of thought or a particular discipline, when we teach them to think within departmental divisions, we prevent them from growing into integrated men and women, and therefore they are incapable of thinking intelligently, which is to meet life as whole. The highest function of education is to bring about an integrated individual who is capable of dealing with life as a whole….”
“Let us not think in terms of principles and ideals, but be concerned with things as they are; for it is the consideration of what is that awakens intelligence, and the intelligence of the educator is far more important than his knowledge of a new method of education.”
Education and Significance in Life
Talks were held in Madras [Chennai], Bombay [Mumbai], Rishi Valley and Benares [Varanasi] India; London, England; and Ojai, California
Mau Mau uprising in Kenya
Big Bang Theory
Norman Vincent Peale:
The Power of Positive Thinking
Rocky Marciano:
boxing champion
Christian Dior “haute coûture”
King Farouk abdicates
Truman: seizure of steel illegal
Revolt in Bolivia
New immigration quotas
King George VI dies
Gene Kelly: “Singin’ in the Rain”
USA explodes hydrogen bomb
at Eniwetok Atoll
North Korea bombed by U.S. planes

Krishnamurti’s interest in and position on education was made clear in his first commercially published book Education and the Significance of Life
A long-standing association with Rajagopal, who looked after the more practical side of the work, was drawing to a close
Samuel Beckett:
“Waiting for Godot”
Stalin dies after twenty-nine year rule
Double helix: structure of DNA
Soviet gulags: slave labor
of 1.7 million
Supreme Court hears
school desegregation argument
Korean War ends
Elizabeth II crowned Queen
Kinsey Report published
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing
Norgay conquer Mt. Everest
The Rosenbergs executed
Shah of Iran deposed
Korean Armistice
France grants Laos
independence
Yugoslavia: Marshal Tito
becomes President

The First and Last Freedom, with a lengthy introduction by Aldous Huxley, was published, attracting greater numbers to Krishnamurti’s talks
J. Robert Oppenheimer
suspended as head of
Atomic Energy Commission
Jonas Salk develops polio
vaccine
J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings
McCarthy hearings underway
Marlon Brando films
“On the Waterfront”
Elvis Presley: first commercial
record – “That’s All Right Mama”
Brown vs. Board of Education:
school segregation banned
Francoise Sagan:
Bonjour Tristesse
France forced out of
Dien Bien Phu
Fellini: “La Strada”
Four Power meeting in Berlin
Geneva Accords
Revolt breaks out in Algeria
Nautilus submarine launched
US backed coup in Guatemala
Boeing unveils the 707 aircraft
First kidney transplant

“The brain is nourished by reaction and experience; it lives on experience. But experience is always limiting and conditioning; memory is the machinery of action. Without experience, knowledge and memory, action is not possible, but such action is fragmentary, limited. Reason, organized thought, is always incomplete; idea, response of thought, is barren and belief is the refuge of thought. All experience only strengthens thought negatively or positively.”