Krishnamurti, Vedanta and Nisargadatta
—Three Perspectives On Ultimate Realization 
by The World Teacher

Shivo’ham.  I am Shiva.  I was Adam Shiva, the father of all Aryans on Earth.  That body is still preserved in a secret chamber within Mount Kailas.

 

I also incarnated as Shankaracharya, the youthful teacher of renewal of Vedanta.  That body is still in the holy Himalayas above Kedarnath, frozen at high altitude.  In this present Western body, I was once traveling as a child of ten years of age.  I was riding in the backseat of a car.  My parents were in the front.  There were beautiful snowy peaks growing ever larger as the car moved across a great plain.  This was in 1952 while traveling through the state of Utah in America.  The main peak ahead was Mount Nebo.  I was so inspired by this scene, so uplifted, that it triggered a vivid memory of riding in a cart toward the Himalayas.  In a huge rush within my consciousness, I remembered!  I knew I was Shankaracharya.  In this state of Samadhi, of Atmajnana, knowing my Real Self, I was ecstatically aware of both bodies in a leap across time itself.  I even knew Sanskrit and could think in it in my consciousness.  It was fantastic to remember the teachings and realizations of Vedanta!  I remember thinking, “I must not forget that I am the Eternal Spirit beyond life, death and rebirth.  I am ever the same”. 

 

Naturally, most people who read this account will be upset about it and dismissive.  However, a tiny minority of reincarnated Mahatmas will intuitively know that it is true and that they need to re-listen and re-realize in their own new bodies and minds where their causal consciousness is now functioning.  They will know what I am doing here and what they have to do as well.  The cynical deniers will not concern them any more than I am concerned.

 

That I have been Self-realized as a child in more than one body should not come as a surprise to any mature seeker.

 

Now, the issue at hand here and now in the Twenty-First Century here on the troubled and tortured planet Earth, is how the mature souls, ripe for Self-realization, are to make the best use of the best teachings.  So, what I propose to do now on my Nisargadatta and Krishnamurti websites is to be Adinath Shankar, Shankaracharya and the World Teacher, simultaneously in reference to the teachings of Krishnamurti, Vedanta and Nisargadatta.  To facilitate this, I am going to comment on a dialogue that took place in the early 1970’s between Krishnamurti and Swami Venkatesananda on Four Sayings From The Upanishads in the book of J. Krishnamurti entitled, The Awakening Of Intelligence (Harper and Row, 1973).  I want to go very deeply into all this with special emphasis on the contribution of Nisargadatta Maharaj, who some consider to be the reincarnation of the Great Buddhist Siddha, Tilopa.  I myself also had a Tibetan life as the Yogi Milarepa, so I am to remain an expert practitioner of both Vedantic Self-awakening and the Tibetan Buddhist teaching of Mahamudra, the Great Attitude, that came down to us from Tilopa.  Hail to that Mahatma who has appeared on Earth as Tilopa and Nisargadatta!

 

Four Sayings From The Upanishads

Swamiji: 

Krishnaji, we are sitting near each other and enquiring, listening and learning.  Even so did the sage and the seeker, and that is the origin they say of the Upanishads.  These Upanishads contain what are known as Mahavakyas, Great Sayings, which perhaps had the same effect upon the seeker then as your words have upon me now.  May I beg of you to say what you think of them, are they still valid, or do they need revision or renewal?  The Upanishads envisaged the Truth in the following Mahavakyas:

Prajnanam Brahma: “Consciousness is infinite, the absolute, the highest Truth.”
Aham Brahmasmi: “I am that infinite”, or “I is that infinite” – because the “I” here does not refer to the ego.
Tat Tvam-asi: “Thou art that.”
Ayam Atma Brahma: “The self is the infinite”, or “the individual is the infinite.”

Shankar:

Swami Venkatesananda is already botching the original Sanskrit and his definitions are often wrong and misleading.  As Shankaracharya, I have to say this for the good of all.

Prajnanam: This cannot be rightly translated as “consciousness” or Chit, in Sanskrit.  Better would be the English term, “Wisdom” or even “Direct Knowledge”.

Brahma: “infinite”, “the absolute”, the “highest Truth” are rather inadequate for Brahman, the Absolute Being, the Supreme Non-dual Truth Beyond Intellect.

Aham Brahmasmi: In Sanskrit, this better mean simply “I, Brahman, AM”.  The spatial fixation on “infinity” obscures other qualities like “eternity”.  That the “I” does not refer to “ego” depends on the definition of “ego”.  The “I” that is of the essence of infinite and eternal Brahman is certainly The “Self” as Spirit beyond mere dualistic and causal ego-consciousness of ahamkar, buddhi and chitta.  The “I” thus refers to Atman, which in Sanskrit can be translated as either “Spirit” or “Self”.

Tat Tvam-asi: Swamiji just repeats the usual “Thou art that”.  This is bad, archaic English and throws our consciousness into the stupid Bible talk of “Thou” and “Thee” and the like.  What for?  What would be better would be: Tvam, meaning “You-the- Spirit” are That-Being-Known-as-Brahman.  Also, “You are That” implies oneness or non-duality of the Real Subject with All Real Objectivity on the Divine level of Being; the Fourth State, Turiya, beyond consciousness, mind and body.

Ayam Atma Brahma: “The individual is infinite”, does not tell us the right thing.  The separate individual of causal consciousness is Jeeva or sometimes Jeevatman, which is the one who “lives” and goes up and down in life, death and rebirth.  It is the mere reflection of Atman, Real Self, in the limited causal consciousness or chitta.  It is Atman who is the truly Divine individuality of Real Self.  Ayam indicates “This” Atman, this Divine Spirit center or spark merged in the fiery ocean of Empathetic Oneness that is the Supreme Self or Brahman.

But all of this is lost upon Krishnamurti anyway because he does not want to tackle the deeper meanings and realizations to be found in Vedantic sentences.  As for Me, I dearly loved all that.  There had been a previous Krishnamurti type of person by the name of Gautama Buddha who had heavily bashed and injured the truth of the Real Divine Self pointed at in the Upanishads.  This was impeding genuine Self-realization in Ancient India.  The Four Noble Truths of Buddha were thoughtful and ethical, but they were not getting the job done on the Divine plane of Being beyond the three bodies.  Buddhists were stuck in the Buddhi, the intellectual faculty of causal consciousness.  Intellectual denial of Atman was hurting the awakening of Atman.  Something had to be done!  So I took birth as Shankaracharya to sort out the mess I had made as Gautama Buddha! (I didn’t want to mention here that, yes, I was also Gautama Buddha.  I am not particularly thrilled by that effort!  More than once I have had a causal tendency to undertake prolonged physical fasting as a spiritual tool.  I do not particularly recommend it any longer.)

To get back to Krishnamurti.
Krishnaji:  Yes, what is the question, Sir?
Shankar:  Swamiji already said what his questions were, but Krishnamurti wants to dominate and control the agenda of the dialogue for better or worse.  He does not feel he is there to learn Vedanta, but to refute it without knowing about it, without really going into it.  But he has agreed to have a discussion with a Vedantic Swami, so he cannot entirely avoid Vedantic Issues.
Swamiji:  What do you think of them?  Are these Mahavakyas valid now?  Do they need a revision or renewal?
Krishanji:  These sayings, like “I am that”, “Tat Tvam-asi” and “Ayam Atma Brahma”?
Shankar: Krishnamurti is now playing evasive games by bringing up a “Fifth Mahavakya” that is not strictly a “Mahavakya”, which is the ancient and still popular assertion of “I Am That” as a loose translation of So’ham or Hamsah such as Hindu Yogis have from ancient times used in mental rhythm with their breathing.  This in itself is a profound Yoga Vedanta subject.  But, of course, that is not Krishnamurti’s purpose in bringing up “I Am That”.
Swamiji:  That is, “Consciousness is Brahman”.

Shankar: 

Brahman is Being-Awareness-Bliss.  So, it turns out is Atman, our Divine Spirit-Self.  This is a fundamental Vedantic understanding that requires direct awakening and realization in our own Atman.  It is not a mere toy for social games and arguments between brains on the physical, gross level of existence on Earth.

Our Swami is already desperately trying to get Krishnamurti to look into and appreciate the possible spiritual insights to be found and developed in the teachings of Vedanta.  Krishnamurti cannot stand the prospect!  He has based his whole life on not needing or wanting Vedanta and teaching all his followers to not need or want Vedanta.  The Swami is already out-of-his-depth in this dialogue.  If I had been there, Krishnamurti would have had to make some rather shocking concessions to our Divine Self within him and all.  As things stand in the present dialogue, the good Swami is going to learn a lot more Krishnamurti perspective than Krishnamurti is going to learn the Vedanta perspective.  But both perspectives are extremely useful, so let’s get on with it.
Krishnaji: Isn’t there a danger, Sir, of repeating something not knowing what it means?  “I am that”.  What does it actually mean?
Shankar: 

Krishnamurti has decided it would be “dangerous” to his own spiritual perspective to charitably enter into the real possible meanings of the Four Sayings or of Vedanta in general.  Naturally, all of Krishnamurti’s modern adherents are also in “danger” here of accidentally learning Vedanta.  But there is also a juicy possibility of all the world’s adherents of Vedanta having to learn something of some significance from Krishnamurti.  Look how prejudiced and unappreciative the Swamis of India generally are toward Krishnamurti, Chögyam Trungpa or Idries Shah.  They identify their Atman with Hinduism, the culture of the Vedas and Vedanta.  That is nothing but Ahamkar “ego-maker” faculty at the bottom of the causal body in the dogmatic intellect of intolerance!  External racial, national or religious identification veils the Real Divine Self-nature.

There is more.  Both Krishnamurti adherents and Vedanta adherents are in “danger” at some point of learning the incredible teachings of Nisargadatta.  “Danger knows no favorites”, as the saying goes.

But one more thing has to be looked at.  Notice how Krishnamurti is going against the idea of “I am That” but without saying, “Screw those Four Mahavakyas -- I won’t touch them with a ten-foot pole.”  And he does not even go into his own selected idea of “I am That”, but has decided to use it as a corncob to shove up the ass of the Swami!  That is so utterly chicken-shit and transparent.  But that is what he was like.  He was, as they say, “a great speaker but a poor listener.”

At any rate, I say directly to you, dear Krishnaji, the real meaning of “I amThat” per my own Self-realization: I, the Atman, am in a state of oneness, Kaivalyam, with That Being known since extremely ancient times as Brahman.  I am thrilled in the core of My Being (and even Beyond) about this innate unity with Brahman of Myself, this Atman.  Hence (and get ready for a Mahavakya) Ayam Atma Brahma, which you, my poor dear Krishnaji, presently centered in your self-enclosed causal ego of mere buddhi, intellect, (in the Vijnanamaya Kosha, sheath of scientific philosophy) are not going to comprehend.  In fact, you do not even understand ancient Mahayana Buddhist teachings of Zen or direct-pointing-at-Self-nature.  Therefore, I have no choice but to perform now the spontaneous Great Function of my own Self-nature in the form of my Chinese Zen incarnation as Po Chang, which means, (1) I am now spitting in your pompous face, and (2) returning “function” to Great Essence by walking off the platform where you are pissing all over Swami Venkatesananda who understands you one hell of a lot better than you understand him!
Swamiji: “Thou art that”.
Shankar: Bravo!  Swamiji points directly at Krishnamurti’s own Atman or Self-nature with a Vedantic sentence as the answer to Krishnamurti’s smug reference to “I am That”.  But will Krishnamurti now awaken on the divine plane of oneness with Brahman and say, “Ah yes, I get it! I am indeed Brahman.”  Hell no, he won’t go! So he now sinks into brainy trivia and hair-splitting with:
Krishnaji: “Thou art that”.  What does that mean?  One can say, “I am the river.”  That river that has got tremendous volume behind it, moving, restless, pushing on and on, through many countries.  I can say, “I am that river.”  That would be equally valid as “I am Brahman”.
Shankar: A river can be very beautiful and inspiring as a mirror-like reflection of the beauty and bliss of Brahman in our own Atman.  However, a river is just a sensory object in the realm of projected dualistic cognition.  It is therefore nothing but a construct that your consciousness accepts and assumes as a part of the physical so-called “real world”.  The experience in the Self on the Divine Level of Brahman as in “I am Brahman” is far, far beyond your ignorant assertion, “I am that river”.  (But our poor Vedantic Swami does not really understand this, so he stupidly agrees with Krishnaji.)
Swamiji: Yes.  Yes.
Shankar: Krishnaji, the dominant spiritual authority here, is now completely in control of the poor Swami.  In chess tournaments, this is what is called “rabbit-bashing”.  Krishnaji now closes in for the kill:
Krishnaji: Why do we say, “I am that”? And not “I am the river”, nor “I am the poor man”, the man that has no capacity, no intelligence, who is dull – this dullness brought about by heredity, by poverty, by degradation, all that!  Why don’t we say, “I am that also”?  Why do we always attach ourselves to something which we suppose to be the highest?
Shankar: Because, my brilliantly intellectual little Krishnamurti ego, the Self is neither poverty nor riches, neither Hindu nor Westerner, neither brainy quick-witted nor brainy slow or dull.  Your pride in your intelligence became cancer of the brain and killed you while you were reading Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet when you could have been more profitably reading Nisargadatta’s, I Am That.  But, actually, Nisargadatta put no emphasis on “That”, my poor child.  And of course, Nisargadatta’s body also died of cancer from his excessive smoking habit, but He knew that the core issue is Awareness-of-Being as in “I Am”.  He knew that it is useless to make mere intellectual assertions of identity with “That”, the Supreme Being.  He knew that directly searching the core of our being beyond consciousness and ego of the intellect and brain will alone solve our spiritual problem.  He was also an adept of relaxed, natural awareness beyond the activities and efforts of consciousness, mind and body.  Nisargadatta’s teaching included Krishnamurti perspectives about “choiceless awareness” even though the Krishnamurti perspective excludes the “I Am” Self-searching of Awareness-of-Being as a quasi-Vedantic depth of orientation.

Swamiji:

“That”, perhaps, only means that which is unconditioned.
YO VAI BHUMA TATSUKHAM
That which is unconditioned.
Shankar: The Swami is trying to form some kind of meaningful bridge between Vedanta and Krishnamurti.
Krishnaji: Unconditioned, yes.
Shankar:  Krishnamurti likes the term “unconditioned” because he is always concerned about the brain-conditioning of various cultures and beliefs.  He does not want ultimate Unconditioned Brahman.  He wants to hijack the term from Vedanta and turn it on to the issue of deconditioning of brain and mind on the physical and psychological levels, which, however useful or needful, is not what our little Swamiji is bringing up.  The two speakers here are using totally different meanings and implications of words in English.  Professor Hayakawa would probably suggest that we should call these two usages, “unconditioned1”, and “unconditioned2”.
Swamiji: So, since there is in us this urge to break through all conditioning, we look for the unconditioned.
Shankar: Swamiji is trying to point out that what people are seeking through Krishnamurti, which is the innate and unconditional freedom and bliss that are the nature of the Self beyond self-isolating intellectual consciousness, is a significant meaning of Vedanta.  Our Swami also knows that people get stuck in Krishnamurti’s self-isolating and intellectual awareness which is only unconditioned in reference to the mind of beliefs and the body of neuroconditioning.  Both speakers are speaking obviously at cross-purposes.
Krishnaji: Can a conditioned mind, can a mind that is small, petty, narrow, living on superficial entertainments, can that know or conceive, or understand, or feel, or observe the unconditioned?
Shankar: Krishnaji has a point here that is well worth considering.  How can people awaken in the Self beyond consciousness and pure higher intellect when their consciousness and intellect are dull, dark, petty, conditioned and superficial?  Vedanta is indeed too lofty a teaching and realization for the unworthy, for those who do not have awakened higher consciousness and observational intelligence.  The dull, superficial seekers need a Krishnamurti to awaken the intelligent consciousness beyond the stupid religions and traditional fixations of Earthbound nations, cultures and languages.  The real meaning of Vedanta is not limited to Hinduism or the Sanskrit language, but how many Indians really know that?  And they cannot and should not forget that Krishnamurti is an ex-Indian, an ex-Hindu.  As a sort of Theosophical Avatar, he is a very confusing figure for most Indians, much as Buddha was at one time.
Swamiji: No.  But it can uncondition itself.

Shankar:

The conditioned mind cannot uncondition itself.  That is why there has to be an awakening of intelligently observant consciousness.  As long as the causal body, the empirical consciousness, the chitta, is inert, hard, self-enclosed in ignorant egoism, dogmatic and intolerant, unappreciative of alternative higher teachings, the mind will remain egomanic, proud, reactive and conditioned, mechanical and all too heavily rooted in bodily conditions, including not only the semantic net in the brain, but even the kind of food that is eaten.

Swamiji here in this dialogue is confused about the difference of consciousness and mind, the difference of causal body and subtle body, soul and psyche, ego and personality.
Krishnaji: That is all it can do.
Swamiji: Yes.
Krishnaji: Not say, “There is the unconditioned, I am going to think about it”, or “I am that”.  My point is, why is it that we always associate ourselves with what we think is the highest?  Not what we think is the lowest?
Shankar: Who is the “we” he is referring to here?  The overwhelming majority of humanity are utterly ignorant of the Self and their inner consciousness is inert, dull.  They do nothing day or night but associate their unhappy, disturbed and emotionally reactive egoism with the experiences and prospects of their gross physical bodies.  So who is he referring to?  A tiny minority of spiritually awakening individuals are trying to learn to associate themselves with higher consciousness and the Real Self of Spirit beyond.  That is why awakening consciousness can benefit with learning, through a statement like “I am That”, to identify with the transcendental level of being for a Self-realization of that level.  The Self is the highest and is not the lowest.  This is Reality.  Reality is necessary for Self-awakening.  To do as Krishnamurti recommends and reinforce identification with the lower mind and body is ignorant, foolish, and it only leads to spiritual stagnation that utilizes Krishnamurti teachings to rot in the dull routines of outer physical life as a kind of pseudo-liberation through merely not belonging to one of the religions or traditions.  Through trying to be a silent brain walking around outdoors in nature then seems to solve all our problems.  But does it?  There still needs to be direct inner investigation of our real Awareness-of-Being beyond consciousness, intellect, mind, emotional reactions and life in the habitual structures of physical embodiment.
Swamiji: Perhaps in Brahman there is no division between the highest and the lowest, that which is unconditioned.
Shankar:  Swamiji again tries to point out the teaching and insight of Vedanta on the level of Brahman as truly absolute and unconditioned Being embracing all levels of existence.  But such a concept and potential is beyond Krishnamurti’s aspiration or understanding.  He has to be, in his mind, the ultimate spiritual authority on Earth in denial of what is meaningful and even superior in the world’s greatest spiritual traditions.  This causal egoism of self-enclosing and unappreciative intellect arrested his development.  Through his “choiceless awareness” and his outdoor “sensitive and effortless” mediations in nature as the reincarnation of Henry David Thoreau, he would catch episodal reflections of ecstatic bliss in his consciousness.  Like the Mexican Sorcerers of the Third Attention, he would see God, see Infinity, see Eternity, but someone like Nisargadatta knows himself as God, as Infinity, as Eternity.  Vedanta takes us beyond the Third Attention or causal consciousness, the chitta, into the unconditional superconscious of Self, the state of Chaitanyatma, the Fourth State or Attention.  Krishnamurti was too self-isolating in his own teaching to learn from Vedanta the next step in his own evolution as the Self, the Atman.  I did what I could from within him, but he could not and would not fully listen.  He never really recovered from the number Leadbeater and Besant did on him.  He tried to remain a Theosophical Messiah but without having to really understand even Theosophy.  
Krishnaji: That’s the point.  When you say, “I am that”, or “Thou art that”, there is a statement of a supposed fact…
Shankar: It is not “the point” at all.  Krishnamurti simply does not understand Vedanta and does not want to understand Vedanta.  That is the real point of what is going on there in his dialogue with the Swami.  Those Who are direct knowers of Self/Atman and Being-of-Reality/Brahman, know the Ultimate Fact which is also the Knower of the Ultimate Fact.  Krishnamurti is simply confessing that he is ignorant of both his own Self and the Ultimate Reality that Self pertains to.  When he does not understand or perceive The Fact, he calls it “supposed”.  Then he tries to make it “supposed” and therefore ostensibly false and meaningless for all his dazzled listeners and followers who desperately want Vedanta to be unnecessary.  They will endlessly read Krishnamurti, but refuse to read Nisargadatta.  Unfortunately for Krishnamurti and his followers, he is not an authority at all in highest truth.  The Fact is decided in our own Self, not in Krishnamurti.  Nondual unity of Self with That, The Fact, can and should be directly verified in the only place where it can be verified, which is our own Self in Turiya Samadhi.  All these external debates of outer authorities are wholly secondary!
Swamiji: Yes.
Krishnaji: ……which may not be a fact at all.
Swamiji: Perhaps I should explain here again that the sage who uttered the Mahavakyas was believed to have had a direct experience of it.
Shankar:

Direct experiences of a higher nature than Krishnamurti’s lower level experiences in mere consciousness are not important or relevant for Krishnamurti because they would overthrow his Ultimate Truth Authority role on Earth and put him back on the path of further sadhana under the aid of the teachings of things like Vedanta.  Also, that those higher realizations were communicated in Ancient Sanskrit and not modern English, would cause Krishnamurti to say that they must be “teachings from Hindu conditioning and not unconditional teachings like mine”.  Self-realized people who spoke in Sanskrit were more Unconditional, Free and Universal in Sanskrit than Krishnamurti is in English.  English to this day wholly lacks important concepts developed only in Sanskrit and other languages.  English is a trap that keeps humanity pseudofree in dark materialism and the esoterically limited religion of Christianity or the aberrations of Theosophy.  To not understand significant Sanskrit terminology of Vedanta and the Shaiva Agamas of Ancient India is a pity, not a “freedom from conditioning”.  Krishnamurti, as we would have said in Ancient India, is a thorn of observational consciousness to dig out the thorn of identification of Self with some religion, culture or language.  Once that thorn is dug out, then the helpful thorn is also discarded and one moves on.

Another significant fact here that most shallow Westerners do not know is that Vedanta itself teaches the need to disidentify the Self from religious, cultural and lingual conditioning, which are called loka vasana, “realm-clinging-motivation”, in the causal body of reincarnating delusion.  Hence, any identification with teachings in English as a kind of pseudo-freedom of Western culture rejecting Eastern culture, as with Krishnamurti and his followers, is itself loka vasana.  Krishnamurti takes out the first thorn, but leaves that helpful thorn there in the flesh as a new injurious problem thorn.  If all “truth” is to be found only in Krishnamurti and English, what does that really mean?  There is also more than one Cosmic Language or Language of Space, AUI, which is superior to any language on Earth for containing advanced spiritual and evolutionary concepts, teachings and vibrational mantras.
Krishnaji: Now, if he had the experience of it, could he convey it to another?
Shankar: Suddenly Krishnamurti feels the heat.  Can he really deny the fact of other spiritual experiencers on Earth, whether historically or presently?  Swamiji has made a truly powerful point.  So Krishnamurti tries to make light of the point, to make a joke out of it.
Swamiji: (Laughs)
Shankar: Maybe our Swamiji has had a taste of That in Turiya Samadhi.  Maybe our Swamiji knows he cannot convey it to Krishnaji.  Or, unfortunately, maybe Krishnaji is still dominating the discussion.
Krishnaji: And the question also arises, can one actually experience something which is not experienceable?  We use the word “experience” so easily – “realise”, “experience”, “attain”, “self-realization”, all these things – can one actually experience the feeling of supreme ecstasy?  Let’s take that for the moment, that word.  Can one experience it?

Shankar:

Krishnamurti believes he and he alone has had the highest and greatest ecstatic experiences on Earth.  He has also decreed such experiences to somehow be beyond “the experiencer”, yet he still somehow recollected them and wrote endless eloquent passages about his experiences.  Some very heavy Buddhist-like sophistry would be laid out by him.  For him, there cannot be a Divine Self who is of the very essence of all-pervading ecstatic bliss.  He, Krishnamurti, the great “non-experiencer” has somehow had what he considers to be the most authoritative ecstasies!  He does not want to acknowledge superior states of being to his, such as experienced in direct Self-realization by Ancient Indian Rishis and Swamis, Yogis and Sadhus.

And, yet again, when he asks, “Can one experience it?”, who is the “one” he believes can or cannot have supremely ecstatic experiences?  So, he is going to now launch into his usual cognitive theories, which, again, are centered in his intellect and brain of “truth beyond all traditional teachings”.
Swamiji: The infinite?
Krishnaji: Can one experience the infinite?  This is really quite a fundamental question, not only here but in life.  We can experience something which we have already known.  I experience meeting you. That’s an experience, meeting you, or you meeting me, or my meeting X.  And when I meet you next time I recognise you, don’t I?  I say “Yes, I met him at Gstaad.”  So there is in experience the factor of recognition.

Shankar:

Krishnamurti has gone down to the crude level of cognitive philosophy.  He is seeking refuge from the issues of Vedanta, of real unconditional non-dual awareness, oneness and universal empathy or Brahman.  He is also betraying lack of a full understanding of the functions of cognition on the three levels of consciousness, mind and body.  Also, as a cognitive scientist or philosopher, I cannot agree with his pathetic assertions.  Any living experience always has new elements beyond previous experiences in memory.  Fresh experience has the unknown in it, however trivial that unknown may be.  If I meet a stranger in Gstaad, I cannot say I am having no experience due to some lack of “recognition”.  If all experiences were mere repetition of the past, what would be the point in having them?  It is the freshness and unknown elements in experiencing that give us learning and inner growth.  The more vast and unknown the quality of experiencing, the more ecstatic and nearer to the Divine it is, the more it merges with Brahman in the Self.  Experiential oneness with the ecstatic infinite is more than merely witnessing it as a grand object on the near horizon or the intense beauty in the river.  It can include these reflections in consciousness, which are potentially helpful to the Self.

Experience is fundamentally more than mere recognition on any level of memory, whether it be causal memory, subtle dreamlike memory or only gross physical memory in the brain and neurosystem.  Experience on the Divine level of the Self is stored in Divine memory!  Such experiences in cosmic superconsciousness are unbelievably important for our Self-realization.  The Unknown meets the Known and combines with it, blends with it, on any level of existence or Being.  Hence, experiences and realizations are actual and possible for all who have incarnation or valid presence on the level in question.  The sooner we get experiences of That on the level of the Self, the better off we are.  Denying the actual Divine experiences on the part of Krishnamurti is deplorable.  And his denial of even their possibility and potential in our own Self is even more deplorable.  Krishnamurti cannot take My Divine Experiences and Realizations away from Me and from the infinite other Knowers-of-Brahman like me in the infinite realms or on the infinite planets where these things happen in superior sagely beings of higher consciousness and awareness of Being.  His assertions are ignorant, puny, self-isolating and uncosmic.
Swamiji: Yes.  That is objective experience.
Shankar: The poor Swami has to go into Krishnamurti’s cognitive philosophy.  Vedanta has been avoided by Krishnamurti.
Krishnaji: If I hadn’t met you, I should pass you by – you would pass me by.  There is in all experiencing, isn’t there, a factor of recognition?
Shankar: This is bad cognitive philosophy, Krishnaji.
Swamiji: Possibly.
Krishnaji: Otherwise it is not an experience.  I meet you – is that an experience?
Swamiji: Objective experience.
Krishnaji: It can be an experience, can’t it?  I meet you for the first time.  Then what takes place in that first meeting of two people?  What takes place?
Swamiji: An impression, impression of like.
Krishaji: An impression of like or dislike, such as, “He’s a very intelligent man”, or “He’s a stupid man”, or “He should be this or that”.  It is all based on my background of judgment, on my values, on my prejudices, likes and dislikes, on my bias, on my conditioning.  The background meets you and judges you.  The judgment, the evaluation, is what we call experience.
Shankar: Krishnamurti knows there is a big problem with his assertion that experience is the same as recognition.  That people make mistakes in perception and judgment due to their conditioning when they meet with the unknown does not mean the unknown, the unrecognized, is not there.  Disturbed by the experience of the unknown, the unrecognized, the conditioned and prejudiced human mind and brain will try to label the unknown, the unrecognized, as if it is suddenly something known, something recognized.  This is a common cognitive self-deception.  But Krishnamurti goes even farther away from Vedanta.
Swamiji: But isn’t there, Krishnaji, another…?
Shankar: Krishnamurti now discourteously interrupts the good Swami.  Krishnamurti is now holding a clinic in his cognitive theories.
Krishnaji:

Wait, Sir, let me finish this.  Experience is after all the response to a challenge, isn’t it?  The reaction to a challenge.  I meet you and I react.  If I didn’t react at all, with any sense of like, dislike, prejudice, what would take place?
Shankar: Now he is saying that experience is not only recognition, as in the brain processing information.  Now he is saying there has to be a dramatic emotional reaction and prejudicial judgment toward every experience we have of even passing people on the street or being beside them in the supermarket.  His theory of experiencing gets even more ridiculous.  How is it that we are “reacting to challenge” if we merely experience drinking water, taking a piss or yawning?  Krishnaji is out on an intellectual limb and sawing it off behind him.  And our poor Swami has to behave as a cooperative child in class.
Swamiji: Yes?
Shankar: Swamiji knows he can say nothing.  Out of courtesy he can only cooperate and ask Krishnamurti to further explain his theory of social cognition when people meet and judge the hell out of one another.
Krishnaji: What would happen in a relationship in which the one – you, perhaps – have no prejudice, no reaction; you are living in quite a different state and you meet me.  Then what takes place?
Shankar: If he were talking again to the Zen Master in Ancient China, the Zen Master would now React-to-the-challenge from the core of His Nature in the One Mind.  This would now happen as a really hard slap of Krishnamurti, knocking him off his chair, to attempt to awaken Krishnamurti to his Self-nature.  But this does not occur to Swamiji, who is not awake in his Self-nature as well as being untrained in Zen, which taught students to easily cut through the kind of crap Krishnamurti is indulging in there.  So, Swamiji lamely offers an answer about the unprejudiced way of meeting someone:
Swamiji: Peace.
Shankar: Krishnamurti’s cognitive theory of experience has now utterly dissolved.  But he believes he now has the Swami (and the whole audience there) lined up for the kill again.
Krishnaji: I must recognise that peace in you, that quality in you, otherwise I just pass you by.  So when we say, “Experience the highest”, can the mind, which is conditioned, which is prejudiced, frightened, experience the highest?
Shankar:  Only the Highest can experience the Highest!  The lowest, the mind of conditioned prejudice, can obviously only experience the lowest.  But Krishnamurti is trying to say that the entire issue of “experiencing the Highest” is dependent on whether the dull, the crude and conditioned everyday worldlings of the stupid, insane and spiritually stagnate humanity, can or cannot “experience the Highest”.  This is a perverse denial of levels of intelligence, consciousness and even superconsciousness of the vast variety and complexity of human beings on the Earth and in the Universe.  The mature individuals, those with real and immediate potential, can and should learn to experience the Highest.
Swamiji: Obviously not.
Krishnaji: Obviously not.  And the fear, the prejudice, the excitement, the stupidity, is the entity that says, “I am going to experience the highest.”  When that stupidity, fear, anxiety, conditioning ceases, is there experiencing of the highest at all?
Shankar: Krishnamurti is having a big delusion here.  The vast majority of humanity – all those who are normal, who are caught-up in fear, prejudice, excitement and stupidity – have no idea or impulse at all of “I am going to experience the Highest.”  Only a small section of the extremely tiny minority of people who have had some slight spiritual awakening are stirring consciously toward “experiencing the Highest”.  Krishnamurti has no comprehension whatsoever of how this really works.  We have a long way to go in this difficult dialogue.
Swamiji: Experiencing of “that”.
Krishnaji: No, I haven’t made myself clear!  If the entity – which is the fear, the anxiety, the guilt and all the rest of it – if that entity has dissolved itself, discarded the fear and so on, what is there to experience?
Shankar:  For such an admirably unprejudiced, fearless, guiltless and intelligent observational causal consciousness, similar to Krishnamurti, there is still waiting the experiential awakening of Thatness on the level of Self-nature or Atman of Vedanta.  The evolutionary status attained by beings like Krishnamurti is still dualistic, seperative, unappreciative and incomplete!  It is an obvious improvement over the insane and stupid condition of most of humanity on Earth.  It means, in fact, that one is now qualified to learn Vedanta and realize the Self in oneness with That.  Swamiji’s answer was very good: “Experiencing of “That”!

Swamiji:

Now that beautiful question was actually put in just so many words.  He asked the very same question:
VIJNATARAM ARE KENA VIJANIYAT
“You are the Knower, how can you know the Knower?” 
“You are the experiences!”  But there is one suggestion that Vedanta gives and that is: we have so far been talking about an objective experience: PAROKSANUBHUTI.

Isn’t there another experience?  Not my meeting X, Y, Z, but the feeling “I am”, which is not because I encountered desire somewhere, or because I was confronted with some desire.  I don’t go and ask a doctor or somebody to certify that “I am”.  But there is this feeling, there is this knowledge, “I am”.  This experience seems to be totally different from objective experience.

Shankar:

Swamiji is just now pointing out the basic teaching of Nisargadatta Maharaj that the true unconditioned state of being is in the realization of the full reality of fundamental feeling and awareness of subjective Being within the natural thought, “I am”.  Our Swamiji knows that the teachings of Nisargadatta are the best bridge between the higher truth of Vedanta and the useful insights of Krishnamurti for awakening intelligent observational consciousness beyond the deplorably dull, prejudiced and emotionally upset conditioned brain and mind.

We need Krishnamurti for undoing the stupid prejudices, dogmas and false exclusive authorities of blind traditionalists who identify with their body’s conditioning in language and culture.  It is a sad fact in our modern world of mass ignorance and insanity, that important evolutionary and spiritual insights, both Ancient and contemporary, are divided by a crashed Tower of Babel that keeps languages and cultures unappreciative of the greatest wise people in them all.

The dialogue here between Krishnamurti and Swami Venkatesananda rambled on beyond this point with Krishnamurti squirming and avoiding Swamiji’s point from Nisargadatta of the feeling-of-being in “I am” as pure subjective experiencing without problems in memory cognition or emotionally reactive social cognition.  In fact, Swamiji delivered a knock-out blow here and is clearly the victor on behalf of the simple fact that there are incredibly important truths, insights and Self-realizations expressed in Vedanta that are in a whole league beyond Krishnamurti’s useful but limited and non-authoritative teaching.  I myself have a great affection for Krishnamurti, who has been my disciple in more than one life, but it is obvious that he is still not quite ready for the Ultimate Realization of “I am” or “I am That”, which is direct and immediate awakening of Self-nature within the One-Universal-Mind-Ocean-Samadhi.  Krishnamurti is Krishnamurti’s prejudice; Krishnamurti is Krishnamurti’s own new authoritarian tradition trap that he and all his adherents are trapped in.

Every year I stay for a few days in Saanen-Gstaad in Switzerland to see if there is any potential for Self-realization in anyone in the area that may be worth retrieving and stimulating, but alas, I have not found any thus far.  People nostalgically clinging to Krishnamurti’s ghost and his old haunts there can still be found, but they are numbly ambling about in the Krishnamurti Dream, the dogmatic belief that Krishnamurti had the ultimate experiences and the ultimate spiritual truth.  They mill about in solitary walks of sensitivity to natural beauty, avoiding any real self-improvements on any level, oblivious to the crucial significance of things like Zen, Vedanta or the Sufi Way.  Paradoxical as it is, Krishnamurti adherents and enthusiasts are some of the most smug, arrogant, dogmatic, prejudiced and silly or thoughtless cultist one can possibly meet, and I have personally met such people for over thirty years.

Every time Krishnamurti would vehemently yell out, “I am not a teacher!” or “I am not an authority!” to his adoring audience who believed in him as the greatest teacher and final authority-to-end-all-authorities, I could only cringe in acute pain.  Of course the Zen Master knows what needs doing, but there has to be a real potential there to receive it.