By Sandy Bonder and Tony Montano Krishnamurti tells people to think, and they start
believing immediately. – Bubba Free John The last issue of The Dawn Horse (No. 5) included a
short article by Bubba Free John, “On
the Teaching of ]. Krishnamurti.”
Essentially, this was Bubba’s brief and characteristically
exaggerated response to the often repeated suggestion that
what he teaches is the same thing Krishnamurti teaches. His
remarks there were probably not -entirely comprehensible to
someone who is either unfamiliar with Bubba’s own work or
personally attached to Krishnamurti s work. The article was
not fundamentally a criicism of Krishnamurti himself or the
content of some of his best statements, but rather of his
teaching as a whole and as a living event. It was
principally a criticism of how others tend to understand and
use Krishnamurti’s statements and considerations. In any case, the article prompted a flurry of
responses and reactions, some of them quite shrill and
vehement. Of the several letters we have received, we have
printed a single representative below, one which voices the
major arguments that have been brought forward. Following
that is our own response, with lengthy quotes from Bubba’s
recent talks and writings, which we hope will clarify
matters generally as well as address the specific objections
raised in the letter. We hope to show, among other things,
that Bubba’s apparently severe appraisal in the first
article was not an ill-conceived string of epithets, but a
humorous, strongly worded but nonetheless accurate picture
of J. Krishnamurti’s teaching work. To the Editors (August 9, 1975): Re: “On the Teaching of J. Krishnamurti” by Bubba Free
John in issue No. 5 of The Dawn Horse. It always
distresses me when one great teacher attempts to belittle
the intent of another, as is the case I think in this
article. (On the other hand, it must be said that
Krishnamurti has never had one good thing to say about
“gurus” either individually or collectively.) It always
puzzles me why “egoless men” engage in intra-fraternity
snubbing. Why aren’t they rejoicing together in their common
effort to elucidate the Dharma? I do not think it increases the stature of Bubba Free
John or enhances his own teaching to refer to Krishnamurti’s
teaching as “adolescent philosophizing” that attracts “the
most mediocre and sophomoric inclinations in men” by “method
and trickery.” The depth of Krishnamurti’s teaching has been
respectfully acknowledged world over by men the caliber of
Aldous Huxley, Rollo May, and Alan Watts. Also, Bubba’s article contains many inaccuracies or
misstatements of facts concerning Krishnamurti’s teachings.
Krishnamurti never advocated pursuing “the quiet mind” or
any kind of “meditative state” as Bubba suggests. Bubba
states, “It relies on a form of attention that is methodical
or deliberate and certainly oriented toward a specific
goal.” Krishnamurti takes great pains so that people will
not so misinterpret his teaching on “choiceless awareness.”
And I’m sure that Krishnamurti himself would vehemently deny
that his way “pursues a change of state as a specific
exercise.” Is it accurate to characterize Krishnamurti’s teaching as
a “mind dharma”? Do the following statements of Krishnamurti
(from his book Freedom from the Known) suggest this,
and in fact could they not have been made by Bubba
himself? I can observe myself only in relationship because all of
life is relationship. ‘Understanding is not an intellectual process. A man who does not know what passion is will never know
love because love can come into being only when there is
total self-abandonment. Control in any form, like suppression, produces only
conflict. It is not discipline first and then freedom; freedom is
at the very beginning, not at the end. … a living mind is a mind that has no center and
therefore no space and time. Such a mind is limitless and
that is the only truth, that is the only reality. Greg Treleaven Ojai, California Dawn Horse Press Response One of the most common notions in the current “spiritual”
scene is the idea that, “because we’re all one,” there
should be no conflict between different teachings, no mutual
criticism, and no controversy whatsoever. This idea is mere
sentiment. It reflects no genuine understanding of what real
“oneness” or non-separation is about, and only provides
people with a way to become vague, and insulated from the
real spiritual process. Thus, when we are confronted by a
critical stand-off between different teachers, we interpret
it as personal “snubbing” and one-upsmanship and try to
mediate some kind of reconciliation, rather than allowing
the force of these criticisms to undermine our own false
notions, prejudices, and assumptions. In fact, such critical work has always been an integral
part of the elaboration of the Dharma of Truth among men.
Such apparent conflict is necessary to serve the awakening
of real understanding in men. In the great esoteric
traditions many communications, both secular and spiritual,
have always been criticized from a fresh point of view. This
is not a form of conventional warfare. It is not the
expression of childish animosities and jealousies. Rather it
is the expression of the continual refreshment of the way of
Truth. The Dharma is always a purifying influence, and part
of its manifestation through any human Guru is the criticism
of whatever other communications are influential in that
time and place. Anyone who reads the history of human
spirituality must realize that this is so. Look at the
public work of Jesus and Gautama, of the Zen Patriarchs, of
other Siddhas like Shankara, Milarepa, Kabir, Tukaram,
Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi. Such mutual criticism is not a
game directed toward harming or upsetting people, but it may
be interpreted as such by those who are not sensitive to its
real usefulness. All distress at apparent conflict between
spiritual teachers only reflects the desire to escape or
suppress the dilemma, suffering, and conflict at the core of
life, rather than to understand it. Those who do understand
are capable of very dramatic disagreements in human terms,
and this does not in anyway impair or conflict with their
conscious and radical non-separation from all beings.
“Dharma combat” between truly “egoless men” is no less a
form of their rejoicing than a shared cup of tea, or an
embrace. Bubba’s article on Krishnamurti’s teaching was itself a
response to many communications we have received, even from
those entering The Dawn Horse Communion, which assume a
basic equation between the two teachings. It was neither a
personal attack, nor a hasty putdown pulled out of the air.
Bubba felt it necessary to clarify the differences between
his work and Krishnamurti’s because people do not seem to
recognize that they involve utterly different assumptions
and forms of instruction and practice. Mr. Treleaven himself
points to perhaps the basic difference in his parenthesis
about Krishnamurti’s dismissal of the Guru tradition. That
is the aspect of his influence that demands the most
decisive criticism, because it ultimately undermines the
entire spiritual process among men. On the basis of this
distinction alone, it must be seen that there is no equation
to be made between Krishnamurti’s teaching and that of Bubba
Free John. As Bubba said in his article, that should be
obvious to anyone who has read and to some degree understood
his written works. Satsang, the relationship to the real
Guru, one who is alive as very Reality, is the principle,
the means, and even the ultimate realization of the way of
understanding. But in Krishnamurti’s work, Satsang is
denied, the Guru is denied, and Reality or Truth is thus
reduced to a passive function, dependent for its
manifestation upon the mechanisms of the human mind (or
their breakdown). Some of the letters we have received have argued that in
fact Krishnamurti’s discourses, books, and contacts with
others cannot in fact be considered a teaching, because he
claims no authority for himself and consistently refuses to
allow people (at least in public conversations) to relate to
him as a guru or teacher. Furthermore, he denounces all
other forms of authoritative teaching that men have engaged
in, both past and present, as useless, misleading, and
mutually destructive. Because he says all this, people
assume Krishnamurti is somehow not a teacher, and that they
certainly are not his followers. But all that is a lot of
semantics. Obviously he is a teacher! He represents
precisely the type of human activity and posture that we
call “teacher,” “teaching,” and “authority.” He invites
people to come to his discourses, he writes or supervises
the editing of his books, he has a large following, schools,
foundations, etc., all dedicated to the promulgation of his
particular point of view. There is something specific that
he represents, that he communicates more or less
repetitively, and people are expected to relate to it as a
verbal communication. What Krishnamurti is saying, then,
with his condemnation of the teacher-disciple game, is
something entirely different from what it appears to be on
the surface, and what so many people accept it to be. Bubba
Free John recently commented on all this in a taped
discussion: All he is saying, really, is that if you are going to
somebody for the sake of illumination, there is a right way
and wrong way to do it. Otherwise he would never say
anything. He would keep himself in a closet! He is
suggesting the right way is not to consider someone as an
authority, like the Pope, and believe because it is dogma
and must be believed, but to consider it. He wants his
listeners to consider his argument for themselves. Not
simply to consider him a source of Truth, but to consider
what he is saying. Well, true enough! That is a very simple
statement. What’s the big deal? I don’t really know of any
spiritual teacher who asks people to do anything different.
I don’t even know of fakes who ask people to do anything
different. What he means is that you should have a proper
and intelligent relationship to what he says, and that is
all. However, Krishnamurti communicates his opinions in
such a way that, for ordinary people, they seem to imply
judgments of a negative variety on all kinds of teachings,
teachers, spiritual processes, etc., prior to any kind of
comprehension of what they are up to. It is a sort of
blanket rejection. That kind of opinion is clearly contained
throughout his writing, so the people who simply accept his
statements assume that any Guru, or any spiritual process
other than purely considering some mental argument in
yourself, is completely unnecessary. In fact, it is to the verbal arguments, the verbal
teachings, the sayings and philosophy of individuals past
and present that Krishnamurti directs himself critically. He
does not direct himself to the spiritual process,
fundamentally. When he is talking about following an
authority, he is talking about an academic authority, a
philosopher who has a verbal communication for you to
consider or believe. Well, to dismiss some Siddha as an authority is beside
the point. As an authority, even a Siddha-Guru is not worth
any more than an old pair of shoes, relative to the Truth.
It is not as authorities that the Siddhas are the Guru in
Truth. Just so, the Dharma of Truth is not to be valued
because it is authoritative. It is valued by those who turn
to it for the same reasons that Krishnamurti’s teaching is
valued by those who turn to it. People who truly take on the
form of spiritual life do so not because of the garbage in
their minds, nor because it is spoken by an authority, nor
because it is authoritative in its tone, but because they
have considered the argument in their own terms. What is Krishnamurti doing other than directing
people’s attention toward various things of the mind,
getting them to consider what he says in various ways, to
assume a certain relationship to it, to abandon it or take
hold of it? He is performing a conventional teaching role
and, in that sense, has followers. He does not represent the
great Guru-function of the Siddhas, or even of conventional
spiritual masters, yogis, saints, and so forth. He does not
have that function in any sense. He does not assume it and
does not direct himself toward it. But people assume that he
does. They make generalized assumptions about him as if he
were talking about all of these things, whereas
fundamentally he is directing himself toward things of the
mind, toward philosophy, teachings, and so forth as things
of the mind, and to following or not following as things of
the mind. This gets us into a second important area of distinction
between Bubba Free John’s and Krishnamurti’s teachings: the
specific prescriptions, instructions, or methods for
spiritual practice or sadhana. Here again Krishnamurti and
his defenders insist that he offers no method and asks
people to pursue no goal, etc. Certainly Krishnamurti
recommends no specific or obvious method in the sense of
saying, “Do this and you will realize that.” He wants to
avoid the kind of language that people conventionally get
involved with in spiritual undertakings of this order, in
which they are motivated to attain something specific.
However, if you take his recorded teachings together, you
can clearly find a cycle of argument or a pattern of
consideration that is repeated. His emphasis is on specific
attention to the movements of the mind in order to undo the
limitation of thought. Clearly there is a distinction to he
made between reciting a mantra in order to gain a certain
state of mind, and the more sophisticated consideration
Krishnamurti is speaking of. But that does not make it an
altogether different sort of thing. He still offers his
listeners a conventional and fundamentally methodical
approach to life. It is just that his approach is not
mystical. It has nothing to do with the subtle body, with
subtle dimensions, with areas of conventional siddhi of a
cosmic or mystical variety. Krishnamurti is speaking about a
kind of realization that occurs in life, in the gross
dimension, through consideration of the things of the
mind. The method that Krishnamurti recommends to his listeners
is, as Bubba described it in his article, a process of
examination and insight, a serious investigation of the
functions of cognition and perception at the level of the
mind. To be sure, Krishnamurti does not explicitly advocate
pursuit of “the quiet mind,” attainment of a “meditative
state,” or deliberate adoption of goal-oriented
methodologies. The forms of motivation, seeking, and
goal-orientation in his path are much more sophisticated
than that. His verbal teaching seems paradoxical in this
respect. It is not so easy to pin down. But if you examine
how it is enacted as a living process among men, its
fundamental character becomes obvious. It is for this
reason, by the way, that criticism of dharmas must sometimes
take on what seems to be a personal quality. No teaching
occurs in a vacuum, an abstract, philosophical realm of
truths. To criticize Krishnamurti’s teaching fully, it is
necessary to enquire also as to how it is lived, not only by
Krishnamurti but by his followers as well. The whole process is epitomized by Krishnamurti’s
favorite form of teaching: the sit-down lecture and
question/answer session. Here he best serves to catalyze a
process of self-examination in his listeners. Through this,
he offers hope for the penetration of conventional
“stupidity,’ the seeing of “what is,” and that is
liberation. Naturally, when they respond to Krishnamurti’s
communication, people try to see what they are doing-they
look at their thoughts, feelings, and images, their
reactivity. Krishnamurti talks about fundamental insight and
liberation, but how is it brought about? Thus, Bubba asked,
“What Siddhi does he represent among friends? What sadhana
does he recommend?” No teacher can finally serve anyone’s
real transformation by asking him to sit down and engage in
consideration of a conceptual argument exclusively. Nor is
it served by adoption of an investigation of one’s mental
conflicts, etc., as an ongoing activity. Such a process is
superficial – not in the sense of being flip and silly, but
in the literal sense. Much as he disparages thought,
Krishnamurti is fundamentally asking people to think! He
does not require them to do anything at any level other than
the mind. He tells them that real “seeing what is” cannot be
sought or accomplished through any kind of effort. What else
can he be asking of them, then, but to think it over – to
consider his argument in themselves, and allow its merit to
show in their own minds? Under such circumstances, what can his listeners do but
seek a change of state, even no-seeking itself? If the
process is truly in their hands alone, how can it be
anything but deliberate and goal-oriented? How can they help
but be impressed with images of the “quiet mind” he speaks
of, and how can they help but look for “choiceless
awareness”? The process initiated in relationship to a genuine
Guru requires participation in an utterly different process.
Bubba has also clarified this recently: The process involved with the true Guru, the
Siddha-Guru, is not this one of just considering the things
of the mind. There is a conventional and minimal aspect of
any spiritual process in which there is consideration of the
things of the mind in this way – sitting down and
considering what is said, considering it in yourself-but
that is not fundamentally what the process is that is
communicated in the company of the Guru. The kind of
involvement that is required of a person in this process of
Satsang is total life-involvement. The Guru demands your
life! It is not a process in which people do things to the
body and mind in order to attain various states. It is one
wherein the totality of a person’s existence is brought into
a functional condition that serves the crisis of
consciousness by reflecting all this content in disarming
ways, in situations in which the individual has no arms, no
methods, no philosophy, no spiritual practice to distract
him. In other words, the Guru does not merely ask people to
consider his argument (though that is certainly part of his
teaching work). He also takes them “by the neck,” requires
them to surrender every moment to him in the most practical,
functional ways, and deals with them face to face over time.
He demands their life-level participation in an ongoing
process. And at the foundation of all these demands and
disarming confrontations is the grace manifested in the true
Guru: the Siddhi or Conscious Power of the Divine. This
Siddhi is not some remarkable psychic capacity, or an
authority-conferring form of subtle knowledge or energy. It
is living, unspeakable, absolute Truth. This is what the Guru brings to his devotees
through his mere presence, and he is always “pressing it
upon them with more and more intensity, always to the degree
just beyond their preferred tolerance.” As long as they
cleave to the Guru’s practical demands and maintain
themselves in his presence and Community, the Divine
Presence that he perfectly communicates will literally
manifest in them as them, with the force of intelligence
that precedes the conventional and lower mind. It involves,
on the fundamental level of consciousness, a more and more
inclusive comprehension of one’s whole life of strategic
suffering, to the point of direct intuition of Truth, and
ultimately perfect dissolution in that same absolute
Consciousness. Secondarily, through the “yogic” aspect of
the Guru-Siddhi, the way of understanding involves thorough
transformation and harmonization of one’s life functions,
gross, subtle, and causal. All this is initiated through the
humorous agency of Grace, and is fulfilled through absolute
responsibility in the devotee. Lacking Divine Grace and living responsibility, a path
like Krishnamurti’s amounts to an aesthetic cleaning out of
the head. But even that is not always the case. In a recent
essay, intended to elaborate on his original article, Bubba
Free John appraised the effects of Krishnamurti’s teaching
work on others: DEVOTEE: J. Krishnamurti says, “No Guru is
necessary.” MAHARSHI: How did he know it? One can say so after
realising, but not before. – Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi Krishnamurti’s talks contain many descriptions and
considerations that seem possibly true of realization. Thus,
the hearer may imagine that, if he comprehends or enjoys
sympathy with these statements and considerations to some
immediate and profound degree, he is in fact enjoying
realization. Therefore, he imagines the Guru and the process
of life-obliging sadhana are either false or unnecessary for
him. And he leaves the lecture hall full of the ego of
liberation, imagining God, Guru, Self, and sadhana to be
anachronisms in his pure comprehension. His adolescent
search for independence has been justified and fulfilled.
But such a little thing has happened. Krishnamurti convinces people that authorities, methods,
effort, belief, goals, all such things are false and
unnecessary. And so they imagine, on the basis of that
conviction, that they are free of all of that. It is not so.
In the case of realization such confessions may be true in
one’s own case, but prior to that the individual is
compulsively bound to the ritual limitation of existence.
Therefore, in spite of their best conceptions, individuals
always re-create authorities, methods, efforts, beliefs,
goals, and all the rest. For this reason, those who are most
convinced by Krishnamurti make him an authority; they make
his teaching a method, an instrumental consolation, and all
their comprehension becomes a source of righteousness with
which they are preoccupied to the point of satisfying their
felt need for immunity and no change. Such people have a
dogma to undermine their own effort and to defend themselves
against the processes that would truly undermine their
suffering and ignorance. They are true believers and ardent
seekers, even though they disavow every symbol in the
mind. Until there is realization, there is no realization.
Krishnamurti may do a service if he leads a man to see that
in fact he is committed to suffering and limitation. Then
such a one may become available to the real process of
sadhana and live it. But the usual man who stands on
Krishnamurti’s arguments has only become enamored of one of
the many idols or consoling solutions that distract men from
the way of Divine Realization, the way of perfect Sacrifice
or Radiant Bliss. Krishnamurti’s apparently revolutionary statements and
considerations may in some sense represent the wisdom of his
own realization, but they do not become realization in
others through mere hearing. Rather, they function as
conventional, ego-supporting concepts for his hearers, and,
as such, serve only to prevent the responsible and
sacrificial process of their real transformation. How much
wisdom is reflected in one’s speech if there is no
accounting for the condition of the listener? Krishnamurti
is willing to argue with any fool in a theatre, but he will
not live with that fool and serve him until he becomes truly
wise. If we separate his public work and influence out from
the whole affair of spiritual life and realization, then its
value as a philosophical criticism of certain conventions of
personal and social life may be seen. But once it is assumed
that listening to Krishnamurti and considering his words is
itself a kind of spiritual or perfect activity, there is the
beginning of the kind of little theatre in which the
stupidity and separativeness of men is so clearly
demonstrated. People quickly realize that the philosophically quiet
mind is of no consequence whatsoever at the point of
terrible death. Nor, if they are sensitive, will they be
consoled by such at the point of terrible life. Not that
radical understanding, as described by Bubba Free John,
provides some form of consolation in life or death, either.
It is only what it is: radical, humorous, free comprehension
of all events that arise in consciousness. Initiated, again,
by Grace, and maintained as one’s own presence in the midst
of all events and forms arising as life and world, such
understanding is absolutely free of the strategic reaction,
or non-reaction, to one’s own dilemma that Krishnamurti
requires in all those who come to hear him out.* It is easy to pick out a few quotes from Krishnamurti
that make him sound as if he were talking about radical
understanding. You can find pieces of anyone’s writing that
correspond to almost anyone else’s teaching, and that
correspond to great archetypal statements that all teachers
have always made. This is not the point at all. What we want
to get down to is what Krishnamurti’s communication
represents for others; what kind of relationship they take
to it, or are asked to take to it (which may be two
different things); what it involves as a process for them,
how it affects their lives-in other words, how it engages
them on an ongoing basis from day to day. That is the point.
All the comparisons by finding fragments that are parallel
are completely beside the point. This present article, along with Bubba Free John’s
original essay in the last issue of The Dawn Horse, should
clarify the distinction between the two teachings as living
events. When Bubba describes Krishnamurti’s work as
“adolescent philosophizing,” he is not throwing out petty
and glib putdowns. On the contrary, he is referring
precisely to the serious, heavy, “meaningful” discussions
that Krishnamurti presents to people. All this is adolescent
in the most specific, comprehensive, and critical sense of
the term: It is an effort to assert and maintain a posture
of freedom or independence in the midst of life, on the
basis of mere mental conviction. That point of view, and the
image of personal fulfillment it represents, are exactly
“the most mediocre and sophomoric inclinations in men.” Such
adolescent, separative striving is the very symbol of modern
man, and in contemporary spirituality it is epitomized by
the teachings of Krishnamurti. To try to become free of the
suffering at the core of your life by arbitrarily
investigating it in such a way that you do not seek but
somehow spontaneously discover “choiceless awareness” is
truly to be taken in by a form of “trickery.” There is no
real transforming process, but only the consoling prospect
of an extremely persuasive, honorable, and heroic
undertaking. It is literally better to be “cooked alive,” as
Bubba wrote, than to continue your life in such humorless
immunity. What Krishnamurti means by “freedom” is not
radical, absolutely non-separate humor, a perfect esoteric
dissolution in the Divine, in which al’. Wisdom is shown.
Rather, it is an exalted form of subjectivity-an apparently
limitless mind, perhaps, but even that is not Truth. Truth
is Absolute, Only God. Thus, none of this communication from mind to mind is
serious. However useful, annoying, right or wrong any
criticism may be, it is not ultimately significant. It is
better to be happy. But we cannot be really happy if we are
not also intelligent. Bubba Free John recently expressed it
very simply: Rejoice in the Dharma in the community of your own
practice. Rejoice in God in the company of all men of humor
and love. As for the rest, be watchful, manly, and without
illusions. *lt is not possible, in such a brief
article, to communicate the fullness of the nature and
process of understanding in Satsang with the Guru. For a
better appreciation, please consider Bubba Free John’s
Teaching as a whole, to be found in his three major works
(The Knee of Listening, The Method of the Siddk.zs and
Garbage and the Goddess), his essays and talks in this and
other issues of The Dawn Horse, and other publications of
The Dawn Horse Communion. 
