The Teachings Mature
1935 – 1944
So you want to know now what K thinks of the World-Teacher? I really don’t know. He has never said: “Who am I.” Is this question relevant at all? What is relevant are the teachings. Who the teacher is is not relevant.
“So you want to know now what K thinks of the World-Teacher? I really don’t know. He has never said: “Who am I.” Is this question relevant at all? What is relevant are the teachings. Who the teacher is is not relevant. But to investigate who the teacher is we have to find out if you can grasp the mind of the teacher. Personally I feel it’s something so immense that the brain saying I am going to find out, can’t find out. But there is something extraordinary which happens, which shows, which occurs, which gives hints and opens the door. And after that I don’t want even to open the door to say what is all this. No, I don’t think the brain can understand it.”
J. Krishnamurti
Eight-month tour of South America; speaks in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Mexico
Catholic priest publishes pamphlet Contra Krishnamurti
Men bring tear gas bombs to break up talks
Social Security Act
Federico Garcia Lorca
Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias
John L. Lewis founds CIO
(Congress of Industrial Organizations)
Rumba becomes popular
Italy invades Ethiopia
Persia changes its name to “Iran”
Shirley Temple at age seven:
“Curly Top”
Marx Bros: “A Night at the Opera”
Howard Hughes
slashes speed record
Alcoholics Anonymous founded
in New York
Religion, which is an organized form of stupidity, has become your destroyer. It has become an instrument of power, of vested interest, of exploitation. You as individuals must awaken to this structure or opposition to intelligence, which is the result of your own fears, desires, cravings and secret pursuits.
Krishnamurti’s 1st Public Talk in Buenos Aires, 1935
Krishnamurti – Latin America Tour, 1935
Sunday Talks
Oak Grove, Ojai, California
Krishnamurti returns to California, becomes friends with poet Robinson Jeffers – opening lines of poem Credo presumably refers to Krishnamurti
Author Rom Landau does interview for his book God is My Adventure
Talks are given in New York City, Eddington, Pennsylvania; Ommen, Holland; and Madras [Chennai], India
Germany, Italy & Japan form axis
Spanish Civil War begins
Stalin’s purges: the great terror
Federico Garcia Lorca dies
Berlin Olympic Games:
Jesse Owens wins four gold medals
George Gershwin: “Porgy & Bess”
Dale Carnegie: How to Win
Friends and Influence People
Leni Riefenstahl film
“Berlin Olympic Games”
Astaire and Rogers: “Top Hat”
King Edward VIII abdicates
Roosevelt reelected in landslide
Chiang Kai-shek declares war
on Japan
“As long as the spirit of nationalism exists, the spirit of class distinction, of particularity, and possessiveness, there must be war. You cannot prevent it. If you are really facing problem of war, as you should be now, you will have to take a definite action, a definite, positive action; and by your action you will help to awaken intelligence, which is only preventive of war. But to do that, you must free yourself of this disease of ‘my God, my country, my family, my house.’”
Collected Works, Volume 1, 1933-1934
Last Ommen Camp
During WWII the Ommen Camp became a German concentration camp and was never used again by Krishnamurti
Visits Rome, public meetings banned by Mussolini
Meets Vanda Scaravelli, friend of musicians Toscanini, Schnabel, Horowitz
Sino-Japanese War
George VI crowned King of England
Picasso: “Guernica”
John Steinbeck writes
Of Mice and Men
Joe Lewis wins heavyweight title
Eleanor Roosevelt:
“Housewives Entitled to Salaries”
Rockefeller dies
Disney: “Snow White”
first feature animated film
Amelia Earhart disappeares during
Pacific flight
Partition of Palestine
Hindenburg explodes
Japanese take Peking, Shanghai,
Nanking and Hangehow
“…the most impressive thing I have listened to. It was like listening to a discourse of the Buddha – such power, such intrinsic authority… ”
Aldous Huxley on Krishnamurti
1930s were known as “the Hollywood years”
British authors Gerald Heard and Aldous Huxley meet Krishnamurti
Talks held in Bombay [Mumbai], Karachi, Lahore, [Pakistan], New Delhi, Benares [Varanasi], India
Kristal Nacht:
beginning of Holocaust
The British pledge aid if Czechs
are attacked
Nazis invade Austria: “Anschluss”
Forty-hour work week established
Chamberlain meets Hitler at
Berchtesgarten
Alan Watts & Laura Huxley Talk About Krishnamurti
Extensive speaking; Benares [Varanasi], Nagpur, Calcutta [Kolkata], Vizag, Madras [Chennai], Rishi Valley, Madanapalle, Calicut, Tiruchi, India; Colombo, Ceylon [Sri Lanka]; Adelaide, Newport, Melbourne, Australia; Auckland, Wellington, New Zealand
Britain and France declare war
on Germany
World War II begins: U.S. neutral
Germany and USSR sign
Nonaggression Pact
Germany attacks
Poland and Finland
General Franco captures Madrid
Spanish Civil War ends
Film “Gone With the Wind”
highest grossing film
James Joyce writes
Finnegans Wake
Steinbeck writes
The Grapes of Wrath
Sigmund Freud dies
Women & children evacuated
from London
Germans enter Prague
Einstein writes Roosevelt letter
warning about nuclear bomb
A School in Ojai
The world at war
Chamberlain resigns:
Churchill becomes Prime Minister
of England
Battle of Britain
Lescaux Caves discovered in
France; neolithic paintings
United Nations chartered
Germany occupies Denmark
and Norway, invades Holland,
Belgium and Luxembourg
Italy declares war on Britain
and France
Churchill speech “blood, toil,
tears and sweat”
Germans occupy Paris
The British bomb Reichstag building
Germans bomb London
Marshal Petain: Vichy Regime
Frank Sinatra opens at Paramount
Penicillin used
Atlantic Charter
Germany invades Russia
German battleship “Bismark” sunk
Krishnamurti remains in Ojai until 1946 – the longest period in one place during his adult life
He began twice weekly discussions in the Oak Grove as well as twice weekly meetings in Hollywood
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
USA declares war
Hitler invades Yugoslavia and
Greece
Manhattan Project begins
atomic research
Germany invades Russia
Joe DiMaggio:
sets major league record
Orson Welles films: “Citizen Kane”
John Huston films:
“The Maltese Falcon”
Lend Lease Act passed
Xerographic machine
The British attack Italy
Dunkirk evacuated
France surrenders
Battle of Britain
Italy invades Greece
Aldous Huxley encouraged Krishnamurti to write the book Commentaries on Living, which consists of a series of dialogues with ordinary human beings whom Krishnamurti met in different parts of the world. Set in India, Europe and America, against a variety of landscapes, the encounters recorded here are both intense and illuminating.
Commentaries on Living represents a new genre of writing – a blend of lyrical descriptions of nature, philosophical reflections and psychological insights, all informed by a deeply religious sensibility and couched in lucid, absorbing prose.
Continued seeing Aldous Huxley, his wife, Gerald Heard and others
Huxley asked K why he didn’t write. That may have lead to the later publication of Commentaries on Living
Allies land in Africa
Millions of Jews murdered in
gas chambers in Germany
Japan captures Bataan,
Corregidor, Philippines
Japan captures Singapore,
Java, Rangoon
Gandhi in nonviolent campaign
demands independence for India
Japanese forces land on Aleutian
Islands
Rommel in Egypt
Tobruk (Libya) falls
Battle of Stalingrad
USA sends Japanese Americans
(‘Niseis’) to internment camps
Enrico Fermi splits atom
Bing Crosby: “White Christmas”
“Casablanca:” Bogart – Bergman
“Everybody Goes to Ricks”
Singapore surrenders
Bomber attacks Tokyo
Battle of the Coral Sea
Philippines surrender
1,000 aircraft raid on Cologne
Battle of Midway
An educational community was envisioned by Annie Besant, which later took the form of a secondary school that was founded by Guido Ferrando, Aldous Huxley, J. Krishnamurti, and Rosalind Rajagopal. The school is on 520 acres of land that was bought in 1927 by Besant. It opened on October 1, 1946 as the Happy Valley School with Dr. Ferrando serving as the first Head of School.
Krishnamurti’s continuous statements against the war brought him under scrutiny of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. During the Talks at Ojai, agents mingled with the crowd taking notes and keeping him under observation. He was asked why he took long solitary walks and if he met anyone during them. Surveillance was discontinued after it was determined that Krishnamurti was not dangerous. However, he continued to say such things as “War is a spectacular expression of our daily conduct.”
Lifelong interest in education leads to the purchase of land adjacent to the Oak Grove – a school was founded: Huxley, Rosalind Rajagopal and Krishnamurti are trustees
Hitler orders “scorched earth policy”
Big Three meet in Tehran
Italy surrenders
Infantile paralysis epidemic
The Zoot Suit popular in U.S.
Casablanca Conference:
Churchill and Roosevelt
Surrender at Stalingrad
Bombing of Germany
Warsaw Ghetto massacre
Battles of Kursk and Palermo
Quebec Conference
Allies land in Italy
U.S. recaptures Aleutians
Race riots break out in
major U.S. cities
Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem. This freedom gives the ease of full attention; the mind is not distracted by any secondary issues. As long as there is conflict with or opposition to the problem, there can be no understanding of it; for this conflict is a distraction. There is understanding only when there is communion, and communion is impossible as long as there is resistance or contention, fear or acceptance. One must establish right relationship with the problem, which is the beginning of understanding.
Excerpt from Commentaries on Living Part 1
USA captures Rome;
Allies land in France
Nazis surrender Paris
Roosevelt elected for 4th term
Vietnam: independence from
France – Ho Chi Minh
USA defeats Japanese Navy
Battle of the Bulge (Ardennes)
D Day – Normandy, France, 700 ships, 4,000 landing craft
Romania declares war
Russians invade Norway
Antoine de St. Exupery dies
Kathleen Windsor:
“Forever Amber”
Japan: Premier Tojo and
cabinet resign
Bing Crosby: “Going My Way”
US Troops land at Anzio
Russia crosses Polish border
Rome liberated
Battle of the Philippine Sea
Bretton Woods Conference
Southern France invaded
Paris liberated
Philippines liberated
B-29 raids on Japan
Warsaw Uprising
End of 900 day siege of Leningrad