Urgency of Change • The Krishnamurti Podcast

Conversation with Ravi Ravindra – Is death a matter of continuity, or ending?

This conversation between Krishnamurti and Ravi Ravindra was recorded in Ojai, California, in 1985. The inquiry includes:

What do we mean by energy?

The brain has tremendous energy.

Is it possible for me to know what happens when I die, without inventing theories?

Is all I have collected different from the ‘I’?

The world is in disorder and 99% of people are disorderly.

We rarely ask what death is. What does it mean to die? How do you find out?

Ravi Ravindra was born in India and later moved to Canada. He holds a Ph.D. in physics and an M.A. in philosophy, and is professor of Comparative Religion at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. He met Krishnamurti in the 1960s and the two met formally and informally over the years. Among his many books, Two Birds on One Tree and Centred Self, focussing on his time with Krishnamurti.

Find us online at kfoundation.org and on social media as Krishnamurti Foundation Trust

Terence Stamp reading Commentaries on Living – Part 6

Commentaries on Living is one of Krishnamurti’s most well-known and best loved books. In it, he recalls many of the private conversations with those who came to see him. With encouragement from Aldous Huxley these meetings were written down by Krishnamurti and published in 1956. Two further volumes were published in 1958 and 1960. Chapters included in this episode are titled ‘The Known and the Unknown’, ‘The Search for Truth’, ‘Sensitivity’, ‘The Individual and Society’, ‘The Self’, and ‘Belief’.

 

Terence Stamp is an Oscar-nominated actor, known for his roles in The Limey, Superman, The Collector, Wall Street and many others. It was through working with Fellini that he met and became friends with Krishnamurti. Stamp includes his experiences with Krishnamurti in his recent memoir The Ocean Fell Into the Drop.

 

Find us online at kfoundation.org and on social media as Krishnamurti Foundation Trust

Interview on Education by Fred Hall

This interview with Krishnamurti was recorded for television in Ojai 1975, in the context of the foundation of The Oak Grove School. Questions asked include:

You are working toward the realisation of a new school in the Ojai Valley. Why another school?

Would you mind explaining the words: ‘whole’, ‘sane’ and ‘holy’?

You say a school is a place where one learns both the importance of knowledge and its irrelevance. Can you explain ‘irrelevance’?

I’d like to ask you about three more words: ‘thought’, ‘love’, ‘death’.

You have travelled far and spoken often and have been heard by millions, and you have created several schools. Do you feel that you have made a dent, that you have communicated meaningfully with large numbers of people?

Fred Hall was editor of Ojai Valley News and a radio pioneer. He was known for his interviews with famous musicians, bandleaders and singers of the 1930s, '40s and '50s. He lived Ojai for over 40 years and his newspaper often featured articles on Krishnamurti.

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Conversation with Pupul Jayakar 6 – Can we live without the burden of a thousand yesterdays?

This second conversation between Krishnamurti and Pupul Jayakar from 1982 was recorded at Brockwood Park. They ask:

Is it possible to keep the mind very young, and yet ancient?

What is consciousness?

Is it possible to completely end the whole content of my consciousness, of human consciousness, which has grown through millennia?

Can the brain ever be free from its own bondage?

Is it possible to look at life as a whole, without fragmentation?

Pupul Jayakar, was a trustee of Krishnamurti Foundation India, and for decades was a friend of Krishnamurti’s. She helped publish many of his books in India, along with writing a biography which was published soon after his death. Her other books include The Earth Mother, The Buddha, and God is Not a Full-Stop.

Find us online at kfoundation.org and on social media as Krishnamurti Foundation Trust

Conversation with Pupul Jayakar 5 – How does one inquire into the source of all life?

This conversation between Krishnamurti and Pupul Jayakar was recorded at Brockwood Park in 1982. The inquiry includes:

What is the source of all existence, all life, all action?

What is the approach of a mind that wants to inquire into something that it doesn’t know, something that demands an extraordinary quality of deep subtlety, deep capacity of order?

Why doesn’t one feel totally responsible for the wars, the brutality, the terrible things that are happening in the world?

Human beings have created such disorder in themselves and therefore outwardly. How does one comprehend or be aware of the origin of disorder?

What is the state of action that is born out of complete attention?

Is it necessary to go through the process of watching one’s reactions and observing diligently one’s relationships?

Any person who gives attention, who really says, 'I must find the source of life,' who is passionate about it, not just casual, will listen. They will listen: it is in the air.

Pupul Jayakar, who died in 1997, was an Indian cultural activist and writer, best known for her work on the revival of traditional and village arts, handlooms and handicrafts. She was a close friend of prime minister Indira Gandhi, and was her cultural advisor and biographer. Having been to a school established by Annie Besant, Pupul became involved with Krishnamurti’s work in the 1940s, becoming a trustee of the Indian foundation.

Find us online at kfoundation.org and on social media as Krishnamurti Foundation Trust

Terence Stamp reading Commentaries on Living – Part 5

Commentaries on Living is one of Krishnamurti’s most well-known and best loved books. In it, he recalls many of the private conversations with those who came to see him. With encouragement from Aldous Huxley these meetings were written down by Krishnamurti and published in 1956. Two further volumes were published in 1958 and 1960.

Chapters included in this episode are titled Experiencing, Virtue, Simplicity of the Heart, Facets of the Individual, Sleep, and Love in Relationship.

Terence Stamp is an Oscar-nominated actor, known for his roles in The Limey, Superman, The Collector, Wall Street and many others. It was through working with Fellini that he met and became friends with Krishnamurti. Stamp includes his experiences with Krishnamurti in his recent memoir The Ocean Fell Into the Drop.

We thank the Karina Library in Ojai, California and Terence Stamp for these recordings, most of which have not been released before.

Find us online at kfoundation.org and on social media as Krishnamurti Foundation Trust

Conversation with Donald Ingram Smith 2 – What is living, actually?

This conversation was recorded in Ojai, California in 1980. Subjects explored include: Our conditioning is irrational. Will doubt help me to find out what truth is? Is there a listening without the word, without recognition? Thought can see itself in action. We have got many toys which absorb us. Is it possible to get rid of them? An occupied mind is always limiting itself, narrowing its activity.

Donald Ingram Smith was a well-known Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) broadcaster from Sydney. For many years he was involved with the recording of Krishnamurti’s talks in Australia and India. He also hosted a radio programme on Krishnamurti. Ingram Smith first met Krishnamurti in 1949 and his memoirs of the times he spent with Krishnamurti through to his death are published in the book Creative Happiness: A Journey with J. Krishnamurti.

Find us online at kfoundation.org and on social media as Krishnamurti Foundation Trust

Conversation with Alain Naudé 6 – A mind that is not empty cannot find truth

This conversation between Krishnamurti and Naude was recorded in Malibu in 1972. Naude begins by asking: Are the various scriptures of India and the Middle East similar to or in contradiction to your teaching?

Krishnamurti later asks: Can thought end right through one’s consciousness? Must thought not end for something new to be observed?

How does the mind look at itself? Does it look as an observer different from the observed, or without the observer and therefore there is only the observed?

Can consciousness empty itself of its content?

What has happened to the mind that has discarded the weight of becoming, of tradition, myth, gurus and authority?

A mind that has no space can never find truth. A mind that is not empty can never find truth.

Remaining with the fact of hurt.

When you are nothing, you love.

There is a movement in silence that has no beginning and no end, a movement that is always new.

Inquiry is different from effort, from seeking, from achievement.

Alain Naude was Krishnamurti’s private secretary in the 1960s. He met Krishnamurti in 1963 whilst a music lecturer and concert pianist. He gave up his teaching and performing in 1964 to work with Krishnamurti. Fluent in several languages, he was very helpful at international gatherings and in attracting younger audiences to Krishnamurti’s talks, at a time of cultural change in the West.

Find us online at kfoundation.org and on social media as Krishnamurti Foundation Trust

Conversation with Alain Naudé 5 – Stepping out of the stream of the self

This conversation between Krishnamurti and Naude was recorded in Malibu in 1972. They ask: Is there in us a place where there is no corruption, where there is real, absolute peace and order?

The stream of vulgarity in the world has its source in the self, ‘the me’, the ego.

When there is no self, there is a responsibility for humanity.

What is the relationship between this stream, the self which is perpetuating the stream, and the unknown?

How is one who is in the stream to understand instantly, without going through the evolutionary process?

One steps out of the stream if one denies time, in the sense of becoming, being, achieving, comparing.

Can the mind, without any motive, negate the self?

Alain Naude was Krishnamurti’s private secretary in the 1960s. He met Krishnamurti in 1963 whilst a music lecturer and concert pianist. He gave up his teaching and performing in 1964 to work with Krishnamurti. Fluent in several languages, he was very helpful at international gatherings and in attracting younger audiences to Krishnamurti’s talks, at a time of cultural change in the West.

Find us online at kfoundation.org and on social media as Krishnamurti Foundation Trust

Terence Stamp reading Commentaries on Living – Part 4

Commentaries on Living is one of Krishnamurti’s most well-known and best loved books. In it, he recalls many of the private conversations with those who came to see him. With encouragement from Aldous Huxley these meetings were written down by Krishnamurti and published in 1956. Chapters included in this episode are titled The Rich & The Poor, Ceremonies & Conversion, Knowledge, Respectability, and Politics, none of which have been released previously.

Terence Stamp is an Oscar-nominated actor, known for his roles in The Limey, Superman, The Collector, Wall Street and many others. It was through working with Fellini that he met and became friends with Krishnamurti, who, in Stamp’s words, ‘used his presence to pause my thinking.’

Thank you to the Karina Library in Ojai, California and to Terence Stamp for these recordings.

Find us online at kfoundation.org and on social media as Krishnamurti Foundation Trust