Insights of Krishnamurti & David Bohm are the best we have to find truth, but they missed something …
As soon as one starts making a “we are the only people that know the truth” group. As soon as one comes to a conclusion and then take ownership of that set of ideas to monopolise over other people — that is how mind limitation and mind control starts. Only a static idea can ever be claimed by this kind of ‘authority’.
But luckily, the ideas of Krishnamurti and Bohm tell us that truth is not static. As a former Brockwood Park student, I look at the ideas of Krishnamurti and Bohm, but then I provide some testimonial evidence of my interviews with people who used to know Krishnamurti, in order to reveal something very important that was missing from the whole ‘solution’ they offered.
1. Why Krishnamurti and Bohm were right — Giving Examples
The Scientific American recently published an article “The Science of Spiritual Narcissism,” but then quoted Chogyam Trungpa as if he was somehow an expert on this topic.
“Likewise, in his classic book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader Chögyam Trungpa wrote:
“Walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle process: it is not something to jump into naively. There are numerous sidetracks which lead to a distorted, ego-centered version of spirituality; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spirituality when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques.”
Sounds like a lovely set of words — so wise. The sad thing is that he really was not at all fighting against spiritual abuse and spiritual narcissism, since he clearly was a narcissist himself.
If you read the recent testimonials of sexual and physical abuse against Chogyam Trungpa, one can see that, clear as day. I also published the words of Leslie Hays in my recent article on how Chogyam had brutally tortured a cat.
Likewise, Jules Evans has just written about how Ken Wilber has also spoken about the dark side of spirituality but then critiques whether there is also narcissism in what Ken Wilber does.
In the article, he pointed out that even though Ken Wilber is speaking about narcissism, the whole idea of Ken Wilber to create a framework of a ‘hierarchy of evolution’ is flawed because, in practice, people start to see themselves as the superior ones, so there is inherent narcissism in that. (Please read his article as he describes it better than I do).
“(Ken Wilber) has pointed out the dark side of spirituality for some years — its tendency to narcissism, spiritual inflation and other ‘shadow’ aspects (shadow in the Jungian sense of unrecognized behaviour patterns that can possess us).
(but he then quotes Ken Wilber, which shows how he makes people feel more special than the rest)… “A small percentage of the human population, around 5%, is now undergoing a “quantum leap” to this emerging stage of evolution. These rare individuals, from every corner of the globe, are now blazing a new evolutionary trail for all of us, and breaking through to new levels of consciousness and capabilities, beyond anything that human beings have ever experienced before.””
In practice, when people see a chart like this, people believe themselves to be in the special top section, while the rest of the humans who do not understand the evolved ideas of that organisation, are in the lower section. Then after this, a sense of superiority develops and there is even implicit competition, even though there is no overt claim to superiority — that is what people do unconsciously with this information in practice.
The consequence of doing this is that you shut yourself down to other ideas and to the rest of the world in the belief that you are more evolved — something which cults do often — it is a common trait of cults.
I will give another example of this. In my first article, I wrote about how I was raised in Benjamin Creme’s cult — I was indoctrinated into that kind of idea of a spiritual hierarchy also.
Benjamin Creme had built upon Alice Bailey’s ideas and he developed upon her idea of the seven cosmic rays in nature, to be applied directly to the personality and soul of a person. He dictated to everyone what level of evolution their soul had and what their rays were on their personality. So he had developed a highly complex ‘astrological personality chart’ of his own, and his followers all subscribed to it. It is a nice framework and it works pretty well to match up with personalities, but now I can see very clearly how flawed it is.
He created a separate system of hierarchy of the soul’s evolution. 5 is the ‘Master’ level. Avatar is ‘God.’ (I have described the dangers of thinking someone is God elsewhere.)
On Benjamin Creme’s scale, Hitler was 2, while most of the initiates, including his relatively lowly followers (in comparison to himself), were probably only 1.4 on average. However, THE REST of humanity mostly had not even gone beyond 0.3 and Elvis was 0.8, etc. He had an entire list of the picture of many historical figures, that many had written in to ask him about over the years (as I watched).
He became the total authority, along with his master of wisdom, on who were the ‘achieved’ ones of humanity.
Over time, I eventually found myself finding the scale deeply inadequate. If Hitler and Stalin were a 2, and even if Churchill was 3, why on earth would I care about such a scale?
I thought; “Maybe I can just have my own scale, where we are graded on how well we were able to love because that one is all that means anything to me.” It became clear to me that Benjamin’s Creme’s scale was clearly his, and not everyone’s, or at least, not mine. It did not come from within me.
In practice, as I grew up with these people, I noticed how it created a sense of superiority amongst the followers. Even though no one claimed superiority, there was always that implied undercurrent of superiority. It is something quite subtle and possibly not so obvious until you live it.
I felt as if they were unconsciously saying, “We are the ones showing the way to the rest of the people, who do not know.”
How many times can you come across a cult that thinks this about themselves, with their own set of unique particular beliefs? They can’t all be right, can they?
What do you think is, in practice, the effect of thinking you are superior?
Different levels of authority and narcissism are the result.
And because people have shut themselves down to other ideas and information, a lack of true compassion, and lack of mental freedom results.
So, not surprisingly, Ken Wilber has also been identified as a possible cult leader by the International Journal of Cultic Studies under the article, ‘Dis-integration of Ken Wilber.’ This suggests that even though Ken speaks about the dark side of spirituality himself, he might still be contributing to it himself, by becoming cultlike and exclusive.
As we have seen with Chogyam Trungpa, we really need to start worrying when even spiritual narcissists start talking against spiritual narcissism and then we start quoting them as experts!
The question is then, how come sometimes we are still unable to resolve the root of spiritual narcissism, even though we try to pay lip service to the words of it all?
We can consider what a person says, but ultimately we need to always look at what a person does, and not what they say.
I believe that it is because we have got lost in our ideas and our words. We believe thought is real.
I believe it is a problem of thought itself, and then it is the psychological attachment to that thought, which locks that thought into a static place.
Then an authority for that static thought is created, and people start to give their power away to that authority because they are also attached to the authority, who they think will ‘save’ them and help them to feel better.
Then we suffer the consequences of that, as with abusive cults leaders and the various forms of violence that result — and so perhaps it can help push us to re-evaluate what we are doing.
Ken Wilber categorises and codifies concepts and, as always, people get psychologically attached to ‘the solution,’ because they feel superior with it, and forget that it was just a representative framework for understanding and not the actual thing, so there is nothing to really attach to.
When you become attached to any idea and to the person that promotes that idea, it allows for power dynamics to be established. Then they have control over you and there is a limitation on the way you think and perceive.
Even what I am saying now is just an approximation, a different angle to look at something, but not the actual thing.
Thought believes itself to have ‘captured’ the truth and now it can sit on it and stroke it nicely. Then it can use that to shout at everyone else who threatens it (because it made that thought into an identity). Then it can be imposed on others through an authority that everyone adulates and gives their power over to, and the abusive cycle begins.
It's a very limited approach, especially the more people get attached to it. It crystallises and becomes old when the real truth has already moved on. Thought has now closed itself off to anything ‘new.’
That is what Krishnamurti and David Bohm were speaking about — Krishnamurti helped David Bohm to clarify his ideas, and there are many high-level intellectual conversations with them both on YouTube that you can watch.
David Bohm is the famous quantum physicist that Albert Einstein liked very much. He is responsible for the ‘Pilot Wave’ deterministic theory in quantum physics. In his book, ‘Wholeness and the Implicate Order’ he notes the start of where men (and obviously women, but they probably weren't allowed to have opinions at the time) went wrong:
“Men began to learn such notions of measure mechanically, by conforming to the teachings of their elders or their masters, and not creatively through an inner feeling and understanding of the deeper meaning... of what they were learning.
Notions of measure were no longer seen as a forms of insight. Rather they appeared to ‘absolute truth about reality as it is… which it would be both dangerous and wicked to question.” (p.28)
They became observed objective realities that were essentially independent of how they were thought about.
“This confusion is of crucial significance since it leads us to approach nature, society, and the individual in terms of more or less fixed and limited forms of thought, and thus, apparently, to keep on confirming the limitations of these forms of thought in experience.
…In other words, it is just because reality is whole that man, with his fragmentary approach, will inevitably be answered with a corresponding fragmentary response.
… All our different ways of thinking are to be considered as different ways of looking at the one reality, each with some domain in which it is clear and adequate. One may indeed compare a theory to a particular view of some object. Each view gives only an appearance of the object in some aspect. The whole object is not perceived in any one view but, rather it is grasped implicitly as that single reality which is shown in all these views.
When we deeply understand that our theories also work in this way, then we will not fall into the habit of seeing reality and acting toward it… corresponding to how it appears in our thought and in our imagination when we take our theories to be ‘direct descriptions of reality as it is.” (p.10)
Then he goes into a physical description of this. I will cut out some of his wordiness to make it easier to understand.
… Consider the image of a turbulent mass of vortices in a stream. The… vortices… are not separate from the formative activity of the flowing stream…
So to try to eliminate the vortices without changing the formative activity of the stream would evidently be absurd. (p.24)
…Primary reality goes beyond anything that can be contained in such fixed form of measure, these insights must eventually cease to be adequate…
To develop new insight into fragmentation and wholeness requires creative work…
…When such insight occurs, the source cannot be within ideas already contained in the field of measure but rather in the immeasurable, which contains the essential formative cause of all that happens in the field of measure. The measurable and the immeasurable are then in harmony…” (p. 33)
I have noticed, to my surprise, that many people have no idea what Jiddu Krishnamurti meant when he said “Truth is a pathless land.” I think it is because sometimes it was hard to understand how Krishnamurti spoke.
Some non-dualistic people seem to be convinced that he is saying ‘there is no truth.’ No, he is not.
You do not need to have an existential crisis of nihilism, don't worry!
I explained David Bohm ahead, so it would be easier to understand.
Jiddu Krishnamurti was saying that truth is not static. You cannot make a static path to it. And thought will make everything static.
Truth has no path, and that is the beauty of truth, it is living. A dead thing has a path to it because it is static, but when you see that truth is something living, moving, which has no resting place, which is (something)… no teacher, no philosopher, nobody can lead you to — then you will also see that this living thing is what you actually are — your anger, your brutality, your violence, your despair, the agony and sorrow you live in.
(Freedom from the Known, Jiddu Krishnamurti, p. 13)
If I were foolish enough to give you a system and if you were foolish enough to follow it, you would merely be copying, imitating, conforming, accepting, and when you do that you have set up in yourself the authority of another and hence there is conflict between you and that authority. You feel you must do such and such a thing because you have been told to do it and yet you are incapable of doing it. You have your own particular inclinations, tendencies and pressures which conflict with the system you think you ought to follow and therefore there is a contradiction. So you will lead a double life between the ideology of the system and the actuality of your daily existence. In trying to conform to the ideology, you suppress yourself — whereas what is actually true is not the ideology but what you are. If you try to study yourself according to another you will always remain a secondhand human being. (p.17)
We are often second-hand human beings because we are copying someone else’s ideas.
Another concrete scientific example in life, to help understand the ‘truth-is-not-static’ idea, is to consider Isaac Newtons’ physics which worked perfectly and accurately for everything on planet Earth, so it seemed like the ultimate truth.
However, they discovered in the last century as we observed the skies with better telescopes, that Newtonian Physics did not work for the physics of the entire Universe, and that is why they tried to make new theories.
What is adequate in one scenario will not be adequate (and possibly never will be) in all scenarios, no matter how clever, no matter how ‘integral’ your theories are.
We cannot eliminate repeating more of the same spiritual narcissism in our spiritual groups unless we get to the root of the pattern.
In the same way we can not eradicate David Bohm’s vortices on their own.
As soon as you start making a “we are right” group, come to a conclusion, slam the door shut, and then take ownership of that set of ideas — that is how authoritarianism starts. Only a static idea can be claimed by an authority.
To get to the root of the pattern, you need to drop what you think you know and stay in the uncomfortable unknown. And no one can do that for you. And yes, it's horribly uncomfortable, that is why we are desperate for guides. However, I think the harrowing experiences of spiritual narcissism have become so convoluted and so much worse for us at this point, hopefully, one day it kicks us into action, to search for something else.
Be Scofield says there is ‘Cult 2.0’ is upon us, with yet a new wave of younger fake ‘spiritual’ leaders tragically misleading people through the use of technology and hypnotism. It is actually quite urgent that we do something to stop this.
2. Why I think Krishnamurti and Bohm missed something
People are desperate to be right and to have that sense of identity and superiority over others because they have not healed the wounds that cause that. So all that also stops us from letting go of our ideas. We really need to focus on healing those wounds of damaged self-esteem, and feeling not loved in childhood etc.
The ‘unknown’ is where your creative solutions that are actually in alignment with love and compassion come from. That is your true intuition. And the natural world, or creative flow, or whatever you would like to call it, speaks more loudly to you when you can become like this. It is very hard to let go of the ‘known’ when you need the ‘known’ to make up for your emotional wounds.
I want to get into some creative insights of my own. There are mistakes that followers of Krishnamurti have made. And there are mistakes that even he himself made.
Or at least they are mistakes in my mind. I went to Brockwood Park school (Krishnamurti’s school), so I have had a while to observe.
Mistakes that Jiddu Krishnamurti's followers make:
- Being followers. :) Reading his books over and over and over again and expecting to get it. Trying to represent Krishnamurti correctly. You will need to just live and observe to get it. To really get it you need to access your own creativity.
- Thinking that Jiddu Krishnamurti was perfect, when he was actually not, and therefore not giving permission to yourself, to be different to him. Benjamin Creme did not help much at all in this regard. Not only did Ben tell his followers that Krishnamurti was a 4th-degree initiate but he also promoted Krishnamurti without understanding him at all — otherwise he would not have done what he did. (Incidentally, I am sure Ben’s promotion is mainly why I went to Brockwood Park… so life is funny!).
At Brockwood Park, people around me treated Krishnamurti as an authority and parroted his words. There is also the same sense that they are competing with each other to see who ‘got it the best.’
I noticed someone say that they are right and have no problems because they have ‘no me,’ as per the Krishnamurti jargon, so it really has become silly. It is not a competition. You have permission to just be your imperfect self.
Mistakes that Jiddu Krishnamurti made (not to criticise him but so that the example can free your sense that you need to copy him):
- He did not stop people from being his followers enough. There were many times when he allowed a ‘devotee’ approach. In this video about Brockwood Park in the 1970s, all the teenagers are trying very hard to please Jiddu Krishnamurti and to get it right, and I do not think he made enough of an effort to be sensitive to how they were feeling, help them and let them know they did not need to copy his idea of what was right. Sarah Zimmerman is the teenage girl doing yoga in the video. She tells me that she felt the need to be perfect all the time and that she suffered from bulimia. But it appears no one was sensitive to that. I have shared the video at one of the many points she appears.
2. There was a man called Ted Cartee — he was Krishnamurti's right-hand man for a while. Another woman who used to be there in the 1970s, who I will not name, tells us that Ted was a sociopath, who was taking advantage of various young girls sexually.
In my interview with Sarah Zimmerman, she told me:
“Sarah: He (Krishnamurti) was not a good judge of character. Ted told this girl that they were going to go Malibu and have lunch with K, and Ted got him a puppy, because he loves dogs, so they went to Malibu to have lunch with K, and when they got there, Ted told her — “Only be about an hour” and left her in the car (for much longer). So Mary Zimbalist came out to walk Ted to the car, and she saw (and was shocked) — I can't even believe — they knew about this (sexual) relationship and they did nothing about it — I am as freaked out as you are, because I knew nothing about this…
If you never knew him and you never knew the original culture, you need to know that because all of us know — several of the people I was at school with — we saw that he was a human being. We also saw that the guys that he would have, you know, that would set up the sound systems — he tended to have one person that he just counted on all the time… He always had somebody like that around him.
(about a gardener that was abusing his own child)…I am sure he was told about (name deleted), but they let him come back. I mean, I dont know, I dont think he should have been allowed back. My friend also said when I asked her ‘ Did you know about (name deleted)?, she said “Oh yeah, I was warned about him, so when he started looking at me I kept way, away.” Why was he even there in the first place?’”
Me: So you're saying Dorothy did nothing?
Sarah: No.
Me: I feel almost a bit like crying now
Sarah: I am sorry but I don't think you should be under the illusion. My experience was that he wasn’t, ever, everything that he was made out to be. Its against the rules to diss Krishnamurti…
I loved him very much and I loved him as a person. I don’t know if you watch the whole film. You can see how hard I was trying in the film.
He was a human being, he was a fallible person. I think he was wonderful. He wasn't good in the world, in terms of practicalities. In terms of human relationships — he didn’t have them. He did have them, sort of, with Mary Zimbalist but she just took care of him — you know. The things that bother us, really didn’t bother him and he really didn't want to have to deal with them — honestly. That was the culture of not really caring about… of suppressing your emotions.
He didnt like emotions. He didnt deal with emotions. I dont think he recognised emotions. I think he felt that they were the result of the ego, and ‘all that’ and I think that is why the tone of the school is the way it is.”
Here is another example of Krishnamurti, obviously from what we know now, being oblivious to Chogyam Trungpa and who he was.
I think that the 1991 book, ‘Lives in the Shadow of Jiddu Krishnamurti’ by Radha Sloss also provides a few examples, of how he was insensitive to people, including his brother, Nithyananda.
The book also describes many very sweet moments with Krishnamurti. Although it is supposed to be a critical book, it reveals Krishnamurti to be a relatively beautiful person compared to all the other abusive gurus out there. He was very sweet and loving with his ‘adopted’ daughter, as he was with animals.
So what this is showing us that he was not perfect, not enlightened.
He was a genius - yes, just like Albert Einstein and David Bohm.
I personally do not care about his sexual relations. The only damage that would have been done by lying, would have been hurting the man he lied to and then by proxy making other people believe that they could not have sex themselves (which apparently happened).
It just shows that he was human, not enlightened, not a 4th degree initiate, Arhat.
Once I was giving psychic readings to people on the phone, and MOST of them were asking when the object of their love would leave their spouse! It's sad, but it is human.
Again, the fact that Krishnamurti was appearing not to lead a sexual life, meant that others felt they could not either, was a testament to the fact that they were treating him as an authority. A mistake they clearly should have not made. That was not his mistake.
I think the lack of responsiveness to the feelings of teenagers and others carried on as a ‘culture’ of blocking out these emotional issues in Brockwood Park. Because Krishnamurti was this way, so was the school in some way — again because he was the authority.
I should say that now they have learned their lesson and that any adult trying to have sexual relations with the kids at the school, is swiftly kicked out, which is the right thing to do. However, things like self-harming at the school just continued on and no one was sensitive enough to help the kids find ways to heal. I remember that was what I saw when I was there in the 1990s.
Again, when I was there, they kicked any kid out that did not contribute to their peaceful life in the woods, and in my experience and opinion, they were possibly not quite brave enough to really go deep with that teenager and try to understand them more with compassion — after all that was their responsibility. There was an incident where the very young brother of my friend died, and she was distraught. Again, one teacher there said insensitive things about how she should be ‘detached’ in some way or the other.
I partially blame the culture that was created for trying to copy the flawed personality of Krishnamurti. He also tried to block out ugly emotions. He tried to repress emotions, but we know from people like Bessel Van der Kolk, a trauma specialist, and Peter Levine, a somatic healing specialist, that we need to fully uncover and face our ‘ugly’ emotions in order to truly dissolve them. We need to stop judging our negative emotions and bring love and acceptance to them in order to heal them.
Anyway, I am not trying to criticise Krishnamurti at all…
I just want to reveal in these experiences, that with his own mistakes, he showed us that he was right.
His own imperfections proved the point in itself that you should not follow an authority. Philosophy is one thing, but the experience of Brockwood Park students perhaps really drives it home.
That experience leads me to suggest that we need to study Jiddu Krishnamurti and David Bohm deeply because I do believe they are touching on the solution, but we need to improve upon Jiddu Krishnamurti in that we should add emotional healing to the philosophy.
How can we live in the unknown, hold on to our deep compassion with sensitivity to each other, and not be afraid to face our painful emotions head-on without trying to run away from them?
I believe that Krishnamurti did not face his painful emotions, and that is what made him insensitive to the people around him. The more you can face your own emotions, the more you can face the difficult emotional experiences of others.
That suggests that we should be committed to healing our emotional wounds, in order to implement a proper solution.
Perhaps, we all must carve our own path to enlightenment that feels right to us, and not be guided by an external human authority.
We must not let fear get in our way, and we should open ourselves up to the creative flow of the universe, always being ready to change paths and ideas when something new and more adequate comes along, especially when we discover signs of abuse.
