Krishnamurti and Nitya
1895 - 1904
In May of 1895 in a cramped house in Madanapalle, in the south of India, a child was born. The eighth child of an orthodox Telegu speaking Brahmin family, his mother Sanjeevama, and father Narayaniah named him Krishnamurti.
“At the moment of light, thought withers away, and the conscious effort to experience and the remembrance of it, is the world that has been. And the word is never the actual.
At that moment -which is not of time- the ultimate is the immediate, but the ultimate has no symbol, it is of no person, of no god.”
J. Krishnamurti
J. Krishnamurti born in May 11 Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh, India
Lumiere Bros.
1st Paris screening of moving pictures
Gillette invents safety razor
Marconi invents wireless radio
Oscar Wilde sent to Reading Gaol
Wurzberg:
Prof. Roentgen discovers X-rays
Frederick Douglass,
abolitionist, reformer, dies
Karl Marx – Das Kapital
posthumous publication
Art Nouveau style in vogue
Sigmund Freud:
Studien uber Hysterie
Louis Pasteur dies
In May of 1895 in a cramped house in Madanapalle, in the south of India, a child was born. The eighth child of an orthodox Telegu speaking Brahmin family, his mother Sanjeevama, and father Narayaniah named him Krishnamurti (the image or likeness of Krishna) after the Hindu god, Shri Krishna, who was considered the eighth incarnation of the god Vishnu.
Beginning of
Klondike Gold Rush
Richard Strauss composes
Thus Spake Zarathustra
Puccini: La Boheme
Modern Olympic Games
inaugurated by Coubertin in Paris
Gold discovered in South Africa
Besant tours America, founds 23 new branches of Theosophical Society
War between
Greece and Ottoman Empire
George Melies opens studio for moving pictures
Bram Stoker writes Dracula
Germany occupies
Kiao-chow, China
Russia occupies Port Arthur
Italy defeated by Abyssinians
Dr. Annie Besant’s visit to Cardiff, Wales, 1924
Krishnamurti’s brother Nityananda was born. He was to become very close to him. That same year the frail and sickly Krishnamurti contracted malaria and barely survived.
J. Nityananda born, brother of Krishnamurti
Besant founds Central Hindu College
USA seizes Guam from Spain
Battleship Maine blown up
in Havana harbor
Spanish-American War begins
USA occupies Cuba
Emile Zola writes J’accuse in response to the Dreyfuss Case
Pierre and Marie Curie
discover radium
Lewis Carroll, author of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, dies
Photographs taken
using artificial light
Philippines proclaim
independent government:
conflict with USA
Scott Joplin: “King of Ragtime”
writes Maple Leaf Rag
Leo Tolstoi writes
Resurrection
1st Peace Conference at
the Hague
Mr. Warrington, the acting President of the Theosophical Society, kindly invited me to come to Adyar and to give some talks here. I am very glad to have accepted his invitation and I appreciate his friendliness, which I hope will continue, even though we may differ completely in our ideas and opinions.
I hope that you will all listen to my talks without prejudice, and will not think that I am trying to attack your society. I want to do quite another thing. I want to arouse the desire for true search, and this, I think, is all that a teacher can do. That is all I want to do. If I can awaken that desire in you, I have completed my task, for out of that desire comes intelligence, that intelligence which is free from any system and organized belief. This intelligence is beyond all thought of compromise and false adjustment. So during these talks, those of you who belong to various societies or groups will please bear in mind that I am very grateful to the Theosophical Society and its acting President for having asked me to come here to speak, and that I am not attacking the Theosophical Society. I am not interested in attacking. But I hold that while organizations for the social welfare of man are necessary, societies based on religious hopes and beliefs are pernicious. So though I may appear to speak harshly, please bear in mind that I am not attacking any particular society, but that I am against all these false organizations which, though they profess to help man, are in reality a great hindrance and are the means of constant exploitation.
Krishnamurti – Public Talk 1, Adyar, 29 December 1933
The Challenge of Change film documents Krishnamurti’s life from the early theosophical days to his mid-80’s when he was still traveling, giving talks and holding dialogues.
The Vacant Child
Montessori pioneers
new teaching methods
Puccini: Tosca
shown in Rome
Oscar Wilde dies
Nietzsche dies
Sigmund Freud publishes
Interpretation of Dreams
Boxer Rebellion in China
The Boer War
Paris Metro opens
US Navy accepts submarine
First Zeppelin
Max Planck formulates
quantum theory
“It’s interesting that when Krishnamurti first asked me to write his biography, he said to me, if he was writing the biography he would start with a vacant mind; and then he went on to enlarge how he’d always had, he said, a vacant mind. And he seemed to think that the vacant mind was so much a part of him, a part of his teaching, in a way, well, part of him, I suppose. And he said it was because of the vacant mind that all he had been taught about Theosophy and all the Theosophical jargon had never taken root; it was all on the surface of his mind.”
Mary Lutyens
Krishnamurti’s biographer
Krishnamurti, his brothers at Mahabalipuram; Shivaram, Nityananda on the right and Sadanand in the back.
“The Theosophical Society, which was founded by Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, was really a ecumenical movement to show that all religions were equal. That was the basis of it, which most people joined.
There was also an esoteric side of it which Madame Blavatsky worked out, saying that a great hierarchical figure, called the Lord Maitreya, came to earth about every two thousand years and took the body of a human being, when they were most needed for the evolution of humanity.”
Mary Lutyens
Krishnamurti’s biographer
Death of Queen Victoria
Commonwealth of Australia
Flatiron building built in New York
Enrico Fermi:
Nobel Prize, Physics
Chekhov:
“Three Sisters” – Moscow
Social Revolutionary Party
Boxer Rebellion ends
Boers begin guerilla war
McKinley assassinated
Cuba becomes U.S. protectorate
Trans-Siberian Railroad reaches Port Arthur
Cadillac: founded in Detroit
The British defeat Boers
in South Africa
Georges Melies films
Voyage to the Moon
Joseph Conrad:
Heart of Darkness
End of war in Philippines;
4,200 Americans killed,
18,000 Philippines killed
Anglo-Japanese Treaty
Britain and Germany
threaten Venezuela
Beatrix Potter writes Peter Rabbit
Questioner: During the Theosophical Convention last week several leaders and admirers of Dr. Besant spoke, paying her high tributes. What is your tribute to and your opinion of that great figure who was a mother and friend to you? What was her attitude toward you through the many years of her guardianship of you and your brother, and also subsequently? Are you not grateful to her for her guidance, training, and care?
Krishnamurti: Mr. Warrington kindly asked me to speak about this matter, but I told him that I did not want to. Now don’t condemn me by using such words as “guardianship”, “gratitude”, and so on. Sirs, what can I say? Dr. Besant was our mother, she looked after us, she cared for us. But one thing she did not do. She never said to me, “Do this”, or “Don’t do that.” She left me alone. Well, in these words I have paid her the greatest tribute.
Public Talk 4, Adyar, 01 January 1934
Wright Brothers:
first powered flight
Lenin leads Bolsheviks
Ford Motor Co. founded
“The Great Train Robbery” tells
first complete story in film
King & Queen of Serbia murdered
Russian Socialist Party splits
Turks massacre Bulgarians
The British conquer Nigeria
First message sent over Pacific cable
Helium discovered
Richard Steiff designs first teddy bears
From The Young Indiana Jones television series: in the first part of this chapter, young Indiana Jones travels to India and meets young Krishnamurti and the leaders of the Theosophical Society.
Russo-Japanese War ends
New York subway opens
Moscow Art Theater produces
Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard”
Puccini: “Madame Butterfly”
James Barrie: “Peter Pan”
Rolls Royce Co. founded
