Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on 11 May, 1895, at Madanapalle, a small village in south India. Soon after moving to Madras with his family in 1909, Krishnamurti was adopted by Mrs. Annie Besant, President of the Theosophical Society. She was convinced that he was to become a great spiritual teacher. Three years later she took him to England to be educated in preparation for his future role. An organization was set up to promote this role. In 1929, after many years of questioning himself and the destiny imposed upon him, Krishnamurti disbanded this organization, turning away all followers saying:
From that time until his death in February 1986 at the age of ninety, he travelled round the world speaking as a private person, teaching - giving talks and having discussions. Many of these talks have been published as books, audio and video tapes. Krishnamurti evolved his unique teaching from his own being and living, for he had read no religious or philosophical literature. His aim was to set people psychologically free so that they might be in harmony with themselves, with nature and with others. He taught that mankind has created the environment in which he lives and that nothing can ever put a stop to the violence and suffering that has been going on for thousands of years except a transformation in the human psyche. If only a dozen people are transformed, it would change the world.
Krishnamurti maintained that there is no path to this transformation, no method for achieving it, no gurus or other spiritual authorities who can help. He pointed to the need for an ever- deepening awareness of one's own mind in which the limitations of the mind could drop away. Krishnamurti was a world teacher. Although born of Indian parentage, he stated repeatedly that he had no nationality and belonged to no particular culture of group. What he hoped his audience would learn, he himself lived.
Education had always been one of Krishnamurti's chief concerns. If a young person could learn to see his conditioning of race, nationality, religion, dogma, tradition, opinion etc., which inevitably leads to conflict, then he might become a fully intelligent human being for whom right action would follow. A prejudiced or dogmatic mind can never be free.
During his life time he established several schools in different parts of the world where young people and adults could come together and explore this possibility further in actual daily living. Krishnamurti said of the schools that they were places "where students and teachers can flower inwardly." Because, "schools are meant for that, not just merely to turn out human beings as mechanical, technological instruments - though jobs and careers are necessary - but also to flower as human beings, without fear, without confusion, with great integrity." He was concerned to bring about "a good human being, not in the respectable sense, but in the sense of whole, unfragmented". He wanted the schools to be "real centres of understanding, of comprehension of life. Such places are necessary. That is why we have these schools".
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