General
Many Masters have walked the earth from ancient days to the present. One such is J. Krishnamurti who gave his message to humanity in the last century through his talks in different countries. He has been regarded as one of the greatest spiritual teachers of all times. Free from affiliation to any religion or school of thought, he talked from his own state of inner transformation that could take his listeners to higher dimensions of awareness. His messages bring about a paradigm shift in the minds of those who are open to the esoteric side of life and who wish to step off the conventional rut.
Human beings have lived for thousands of years on the surface of their consciousness, leading to widespread unrest and violent clashes. Unfortunately, religious practices too ended up dividing humanity and sustaining hatred across the divisions. Great Masters appeared here and there at different periods in history and attempted to wake people up to deeper awareness that would lead to unity. However, in spite of their well-meaning presentations, their messages were wrapped up by some people into sectarian religious practices and the consequent unfortunate deterioration. However, the messages of some Masters could not be encapsulated into religious systems. To that extent, they made sure that they did not allow further divisions to be precipitated from their communications. J. Krishnamurti was that kind of a Master – affectionately called Krishnaji.
Krishanji was born and brought up in South India and was later taken to England by the theosophist Annie Besant. During his teenage and further years, he had a strange transformation that took him away from the conventional neurology into a higher dimension of consciousness. All great Masters had this ravishing transformation into super-consciousness and that is why they were called the Enlightened Beings. The Sanskrit word for such people is Thathagatha, meaning the one who has gone beyond and returned.
Once settled in the new dimension of universal consciousness, Krishnaji began his communications with people to alert them so they can release themselves from the habitual neurology. His messages were meant to move the listeners into unfathomable inner tranquillity, conducive to Divine awareness. For about sixty years, he was invited to give talks and hold discussions in Europe, India, America and other places. He never encouraged the guru-disciple kind of relationship as it would only encourage people fall into self-enclosing systems. Typically, his talks were free of the preaching type which are filled with Dos and Don’ts in order to reach some ego-satisfying ends.
The Primary Message
Those people who listened to Krishnaji felt intuitively that they should free themselves from group psychology and strike their own trails on their journey of discovery. It is obvious that group psychology is different from mob psychology only in degree and not in kind. Above all, he emphasized pure self-awareness as the prime-mover towards transforming the mind from its shallowness into one of in-depth perception. The mind then glides itself into natural silence without compulsion. That helps one be an affectionate bystander to oneself, progressively clearing the mind of its accumulations and attachments.
The following paragraph taken from his book “Think on These Things” reflects his esoteric message about the radical transformation possible in human beings.
The function of education is to bring about a release of energy towards the discovery of goodness, truth or God, which in turn makes the individual a true human being. As a river creates the banks which hold it, so the energy which seeks truth creates its own discipline without any form of imposition, and as the river finds the sea, so that energy finds its own freedom.
The NDE
Many episodes of the Near Death Experience (NDE) show pointers to the same focus that Krishnaji used to emphasize. For example, let us look at the following expression by a lady who had a NDE during her attempt to commit suicide (Jeffrey Long, nderf.org):
I was at peace with myself. Nothing hurt. I could only see my life and self through that Being’s Love. There was no negative in myself or from that Being for anything I had done, including killing myself. It [my deed] was changed by the power of the Truth of Love, with which it was seen. That Loving Grace, total acceptance, complete love and truth created a joy in me. I saw that love was in me too, not just from the Being shining down on me; it was in me as part of myself. I was full of love and peace. I felt the joy in that truth. I have no right words for it.
People who feel drawn to the above state of mind sense a deeper purpose to life than just wallowing in self-centered activities in the name of religion. To those people, Krishnaji’s messages would serve as a catalyst to bring the above NDE spirit into everyday life. He thus functions as a compassionate wayside companion to the listeners through his insightful talks and pointers.
In a world where abominable killing is going on for food and sports, where competition is encouraged and its hidden poison rarely understood, where the practice of religion divides people and brings about antagonism, Krishnaji’s words have remained a cry in the wilderness. If you feel drawn to his messages, you will make a difference and affect the collective consciousness to the point of transforming it to one of unity and harmony.
Related topics are covered in the book “In Quest of the Deeper Self” details of which are given in the website http://spirituality.yolasite.com
Gopalakrishnan T. Chandrasekaran was born in Madras (now Chennai), India. He received his doctoral degree in Coastal Engineering from the North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA in 1978; served on the research and teaching faculty of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, the North Carolina State University and the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Kuwait.
Aside from his professional involvements, he was interested in the philosophic issues of life for the last forty years or so. This led him to the messages of Ramana Maharishi, Lao Tzu, J Krishnamurthy, UG Krishnamurthy, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Eckhart Tolle, Marcus Aurelius and similar Masters. His book entitled “In Quest of the Deeper Self” is the outcome of his reflections on those and his wish to share the outcome with others.
Gopalakrishnan is a member of the International Association for Near Death Studies, Durham, NC, USA. He lives in Kodaikanal, a hill town in the southern part of India, with his wife Banumathy.
Blog: http://nde-thedeeperself.blogspot.com