Conversations with Krishnamurti: Stories from 1001 Meetings at the Dinner Table with Krishnamurti by Michael Krohnen

Author:Michael Krohnen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Karina Library Press
Published: 2017-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

KEY TO THE MYSTERY OF LIFE?

During the next few weeks, the opportunity to have quiet, intimate lunches with Krishnamurti became rarer, and the pace of activity quickened. He had several meetings with the staff and parents of the school, before an educational conference, partially funded by a U.S. government program, started on March 20. A professor from San Bernardino State University organized the three-day event, attended by almost thirty professors, teachers and students. Krishnamurti discussed with them the meaning of education, the nature of knowledge and thought, the role of a teacher, and the relationship between what is, insight and right action. All four sessions were videotaped by a professional camera team and subsequently published in book form. 4

During the following days there was a flurry of activity, as guests, friends and associates came and went and often stayed for lunch. Among them were David and Saral Bohm, who again stayed in the guest apartment for about a month. They had a hectic program of their own, and David’s speaking engagements forced them to leave before the beginning of the Ojai Talks in early May. It was the first time in five years that they had missed them.

At the end of March, Krishnamurti had several weekend dialogues with staff and parents at Pine Cottage. These meetings now took place at eleven o’clock in the morning, which required that I prepare lunch the previous evening and early in the morning, unless I wanted to forgo participating in the dialogues. I cherished these meetings with Krishnamurti. Their illuminating beauty lay in the fundamental simplicity with which he started the inquiry into the significance of education and living. The question he pursued over two meetings was, ‘How does one inquire?’ It opened the door to an investigation as to how our minds actually examine a problem and eventually led to ‘respect’ as the holistic attitude necessary to face the complexity of our lives. “Respect is listening,” he stated.

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It was during the late ’70s and early ’80s that Krishnamurti became fascinated by the computer, by the increasing importance it was having in human affairs, and its role in the development of the human mind. What particularly intrigued him was the computer’s extraordinary capacity to out-think and out-perform its creator in most mechanical mental tasks. During his talks and discussions, and also at the lunch table, he often mentioned its positive impact on our lives, without neglecting to see its negative aspect.

Toward the end of March, an Indian friend of his, Asit Chandmal, who provided him with a lot of information about the function and role of computers, visited us for several days. On April 1, 1981, the Bohms returned to Ojai from a seminar they had attended in Los Angeles. During lunch that day the conversation, primarily between the three of them, revolved around electronic devices and artificial intelligence.

Krishnamurti was saying to David, “Sir, there is a great similarity between the brain and the computer. Both are based on memory, are storehouses of knowledge, and function according to programs.

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