Douglass Harding

In Harding's book Knowing Yourself: The Science and Art Of Self-Realization, Harding pits two Titans head-to-head: Ramana Maharshi and Jiddu Krishnamurti. This essay focuses on the two teaching styles of the two teachers, and the core and incompatible differences that arise from these differences. Here is a brief sample:

"For Krishnamurti . . . the practice he advocates, of approaching Self-knowledge by studying the movements of your mind, is certainly a very gradual one, in which you never catch up with yourself." He contrasts this "endless river" approach with Maharshi: "Maharshi's way . . . is by no means a matter of degrees or stages. It's all-or-nothing, sudden, complete, perfect. While time and practice are needed, as a rule, to establish Self-realization, they add nothing to the experience. They habituate it, so that it's no longer occasional or intermittent." Also they allow it to take effect in all the areas and levels of one's life. The Self can't be partially seen, much less mis-seen'"

 

Barry Long:

"He is of the East even though he embraced the West." (implying that his ability to teach Westerners is limited). (Rawlinson).

 

Osho:

"You have been so involved in activity that you cannot just drop it. So persons like Krishnamurti may continue to say, "Just drop it," but then you will continue to ask how to drop it. Krishnamurti will say, "Do not ask how, I am saying: just drop it! There is no 'how' to it. There is no need for any 'how.'"
And he is right in a way. Passive awareness or passive meditation has no "how" about it. It cannot have, because if there is any "how" then it cannot be passive. But he is wrong, too, because he has not taken the listener into account. He is talking about himself.
Meditation is without any "how," without any technology, without any technique. So Krishnamurti is absolutely correct, but the listener has not been taken into account. The listener has nothing but activity in him: to him, everything is activity. So when you say, "Meditation is passive, nonactive, choiceless. You can just be in it. There is no need of any effort; it is effortless," you are just speaking a language that the listener is unable to understand. He understands the linguistic part of it - that is what makes it so difficult. He says, "Intellectually, I understand completely. Whatever you are saying is completely understood," but he is unable to understand the meaning.
There is nothing mysterious about Krishnamurti's teachings. He is one of the least mystical teachers. Nothing is mysterious! Everything is obviously clear, exact, analyzed, logical, raional, so anyone can understand it. And this has become one of the greatest barriers, because the listener thinks he understands. He understands the linguistic part, but he does not understand the language of passivity." (from Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy)

Something can be understood, but understandig that comes through another can never be more than intellectual. That is why Krishnamurti demands the impossible. He says, "Do not understand me intellectually" - but nothing except intellectual understanding can come from someone else. That is why Krishnamurti's effort has been absurd. What he is saying is authentic, but when he demands more than intellectual understanding from the listener it is impossible. Nothing more can come from someone else, nothing more can be delivered." (from The Psychology of the Esoteric)

 

Other Accounts:

Krishnamurti describes an apparent "kundalini experience" which seemd to play a significant part in his own understanding, yet, is no part of his teaching or system. In Serpent Of Fire: A Modern View Of Kundalini, Darrel Irving describes writing to one of Krishnamurti's biographers, Pupul Jayakar, "and inquired if she knew why Krishnamurti had directed the focus of his teaching away from the kundalini that appeared to be the very source of his own spiritual awakening. Mrs. Jayakar replied that she herself had tried to discuss this with Krishnamurti but that he had little memory of what had taken place." Irving concludes "it seems apparent, nevertheless, that the means by which Krishnamurti himself ahd become released from the bonds of psychological memory was nothing less that that of activated kundalini energy."

 

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