As a former student of Rishi Valley School who has long been moved by Krishnamurti’s teachings, I was invited by one of the editors of this journal to write something about the impact of these teachings on my life. Without a moment’s hesitation, I poured out a ‘raw and unfiltered’ account of my recollections and feelings on this topic, and the ways in which the teachings continue to shape my life. I was then encouraged to slow down and elaborate further on these thoughts, by being posed with a set of questions to help me reflect and express a little more of my journey with the teachings and the various outer expressions it has drawn from me. This writing is hence structured more like a conversation prompted by these questions.
How did you come to be a student at Rishi Valley School? During which years were you there?
I became a student at Rishi Valley School at the age of six, when my uncle who worked in Madanapalle as a banker for the school told my parents that it was a ‘good school’ and helped me secure admission. I studied and grew up in this beautiful valley for a little more than a decade, from 1965 to 1975, when I completed my ISC exams.
What are some vivid impressions from the early years of your life at the school that have remained with you?
The landscape of Rishi Valley is stunning and so it was an exciting place to grow up in. I have vivid impressions of cave rock hill, the lost lake, and the waterfalls around the valley. There were occasions when there were torrential rains, and the rushing waters overflowed the first and second bridge on the road that leads out of the valley. We used to go on weekend hikes to different parts of the valley. All these are unforgettable memories. As the years passed, I began to enjoy the sunsets from Astachal hill and this for me was the ground of ‘meditation’. I have ever since never lost touch with this beautiful valley and with K’s teachings.
What do you recall of Krishnamurti’s visits to the school, his presence in the valley and the interactions that he had with students?
K used to come to the school year after year and talk to us. I recollect his visits as being a festive time in the school. There were moonlight dinners, great plays, as well as dance-drama performances. There was also a sense of ecstasy with K’s presence; his interactions were full of love and affection. These charged the air and left strong imprints that last to this day. It felt as if we were in the presence of a great soul who walked the Earth. Without exaggeration, it was something like a sacred blessing year after year!
When did you seriously begin to try and understand what Krishnamurti had to convey? In what way(s) did this happen?
In my younger years, I understood nothing; but just felt the presence of a great soul with great affection. There was no pressure to understand but there was a feeling of goodness and sacredness lingering all round. Among my fellow students, there were very few who would directly engage with the teachings; in fact, the few who did were often treated by their peers as ‘outsiders’. It so happened that a person called Shivaram, who came as a visitor during the talks, introduced me specifically to K‘s teachings. That was the greatest thing that happened in my life. I started reading all his books starting with Commentaries on Living series 1 to 3. This was in the year 1975, when I was just passing out of school. Ever since then, K’s teachings never ever left me despite all the diversions in life and all its ups and downs. Later, I watched many of his talks on tapes, and to this day I keep going to them whenever I feel like, along with reading his books, because each time I find there is something new to learn without a memory of the old. That’s the beauty of K’s teachings: you never feel you have read or heard it before even after so many years passing by in studying the teachings!
How did meetings with Shri Shivaram influence your understanding of K or give a direction to your life?
With Shivaram I had many intense discussions, and we watched tapes together and talked about them. I also continued to read the Commentaries on Living. These are great books to be read for a whole lifetime, full of a living quality and deep understanding! After my school years, I used to meet Shivaram on the beach near Nellore, my hometown in South India, and especially discuss K’s vision of education. We talked about what it would mean to start the ‘right kind of school’? At that time, I felt education was the only way to bring about a new generation and a new World, and one needs to give everything to it. I became interested in helping start a new school based on K’s teachings.
You spent six months with David Horsburgh, the founder of Neel Bagh. You observed his school in action and had many discussions with him. What did you learn from these experiences and discussions?
I spent six months at Neelbagh with David Horsburgh, to try and understand how a rural school could be run and what a good school other than a K school could be like. David had also worked for Rishi Valley and was a sort of rebel in his own right. I had many discussions with David, a great soul who has contributed much to creative education and enriched the learning process for many children. He had worked with the British Council and had a collection of all the right books in education. I read many books, learned much about methods of teaching and experiments in education, and debated on these with David. The textbook-cum-workbooks he developed, which start with ‘thinking and doing’, were a great contribution to children’s learning. However, in my numerous encounters with David I also disagreed with him on many counts. For instance, I wondered if one could drink and smoke and eat meat, and at the same time teach morality in these matters to children. While David saw no contradiction, my view was quite the contrary. I also felt that along with a skilful way of learning, unless there was an inward blossoming, even this creative education would be limited.
You also helped start a village school along with Shivaram and Eleanor Watts, as an experiment with a new kind of education for rural children. How do you think it impacted these children? What is your connection with this school now?
Later in life, I supported a small rural school for village children started by Shivaram and an English lady, Eleanor Watts, whom I had met at Neelbagh. My main interest was to promote a school that incorporated K’s teachings; but I was not involved in academic matters. I believe the Srujana School was unusual in some ways, with a curriculum that drew much from their own local environment and the children learnt in freedom. But I really don’t know how it impacted the children. I believe Shivaram and Eleanor Watts made some useful contributions to education. Shivaram’s approach of combining classroom learning with K’s teachings seems to have been popular among many rural schools in and around Andhra. Eleanor Watts went on to write highly regarded textbooks and workbooks published by Orient Longman. But what I felt was missing was a group of committed people who were seriously interested in the teachings. It seemed that the purpose for me, of starting such a school into which I had put all my savings, did not turn out to be what I had expected. Being a free school, being in a village, did not attract a person really interested in K‘s teachings. So, it ran like another good village school, doing lots of experiments in education in a small way. I slowly disassociated with its day-to-day activities. I kept in touch with Shivaram but lost my earlier interest in schools and education.
How did K’s teachings impact what you attempted to do in life thereafter? How did your family respond to this?
K’s teachings had awakened my life like a jolt. However, with the advent of time the power of it seems to have wavered from time to time depending on the need for physical security which confronted me and numerous ups and downs that happened, in part due to family responsibilities. But in the background the bells were ever there, ringing all the while, till I got back as fully as possible into it! Coming from an agricultural cum business family, I had begun asking questions like: why should I be like the rest of the world? Why should I become a money-earning machine? Or why should I live a mechanical life going to the office from 9 to 5? My family were fundamentally traditional and had no idea what this whole thing was about. Many a time I felt I had to be a rebel and spend time on things which the family was not for. For example, there was great opposition to my producing the ‘Essence of Life’ dance program, because I was so passionate about it and again put all my savings into it thinking that there is nothing more important than this. This did affect my physical security and it took years to get back some sort of security. So, personally, I had to pay a great price for it. But I never regretted it as I felt I had done something necessary and opened up a whole new world for many people. To date I feel that this is the best thing that happened in my life, and I really enjoyed doing it.
What was the inception of your initiative to convey K’s teachings on ‘meditation’ through a classical dance and music presentation? How did this idea evolve, take shape, and find its audience in different parts of the country?
My initial initiative came from the love of K’s teachings and the love for classical music and dance that I had imbibed at Rishi Valley. The statement that ‘K’s teachings are difficult to understand’ used to haunt me. I really got fired by this idea when I heard the first audio on meditation. It made me ‘go gaga’ because I fell in love with K’s expressions on the essence of meditation. The intention of bringing this deep wisdom to a larger audience took hold of me. Then there was no looking back till everything was done. It was such a beautiful experience, including all the man-made problems of ego, name and fame. It was a journey into a real experience of ‘living the teachings’. Such was the experience during each of the live shows that we had all over India including the one in Rishi Valley and then in Bangalore, which the whole of the Bangalore school attended in perfect silence! Audiences in many parts of India appreciated the live shows, which were held in Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Auroville in Pondicherry. Others could view it on YouTube, where glimpses of the production are still available. The only disappointing factor was that these performances could not go abroad, though an attempt was made; but then there was not enough support.
How did your life undergo a change after you got married? What were some challenges and learnings from this?
I got married quite early on, thinking that it would give me the independence to do what I wanted, because there was pressure from my father to get back to business. But having got married into a family that was also quite traditional, it was a very hard time for me. Without having family support for my other ventures, it forced me back into business, an area in which I knew little, to earn a living. I realized that marriage takes a lot of energy in earning a livelihood, in supporting a family, and keeping a social connect. It makes living a religious life truly challenging.
Can you share more about your interest in ‘holistic health’? What has ‘good health’ come to mean to you and what are your attempts to promote this more widely?
Having been interested in environmentally friendly practices, I started a small eco-friendly farm and community in Hosur, called Dega Farms. This was the beginning of this journey towards ‘good health’. My inspiration in recent times have been Dr Khader Vali, who is known for promoting healthy agricultural practices and the wide use of millets in our diets, and Dr BM Hedge, who advocates a drug-free treatment for most of our health concerns. We had also been buying good organic products from nearby farms like ‘Navadarsanam’ run by Dr Ananthu and Jyothi. We enjoyed the health benefits these had brought and thought why not share these with all the people we know. So, we started to source products from all over India and began selling these online. This was, initially, just to sustain our farm. Then we realised that more than just providing sustenance, it became a passion and we learned more and more about healthy living and good dietary practices. We continue to discover new products and share them with people who come to our farm, as well as those who wish to order these on a popular website like Amazon. We have travelled quite far into this area and today we ourselves make plant-based products which are beneficial as supports for some forms of cancer. We continue to pursue this passion and get great satisfaction from this. It also gives employment to a few, and we continue to spread whatever we do in the area of health products and lifestyles to as many people as possible.
Can you tell us about your attempts at setting up a space and infrastructure where a ‘community’ of people who wish to inquire into life and the teachings can come together? What are some challenges and learnings for you in this endeavour?
I had always felt that a school is a place for real learning. I agree a hundred per cent with K that a school is a place where right relationships can happen. But it is difficult to start and run this kind of school without the right people, the teachers as well as parents. I may be idealistic, but I feel that organizational factors and our human limitations inevitably dilute the intentions of a school based on K’s teachings. So, another dream of mine has been to start an international retreat centre in Coorg, which I call ‘The Pathless Land’, where adults with a deep interest in the teachings can come and live together. But this too has not taken off. Perhaps it is too huge an endeavour for an individual or just a few of us to initiate and sustain. At present, we continue to expand the infrastructure at our small space in Hosur to accommodate more friends who are interested in learning and living the teachings. My challenge in each of these endeavours is finding the right people and making it sustainable. We are now just going about doing whatever we can and seeing how it goes, without having great expectations!
In what ways does K’s teaching throw light on the ‘self ’ and its ‘workings’, even as one is continuing to meet life’s challenges along these varied pathways? What has ‘living the teachings’ come to mean to you?
As far as I understand, the core of the teachings is ‘being free from the self ’ and that seems to be the greatest challenge for mankind. In essence, I feel that that is what ‘living the teachings’ is all about. Even as I write this article, I ask myself: have I, or those of us who are interested in the teachings, really been free of the self? And this question remains as an enigma of sorts! Towards his last days, K talked about ‘nucleus groups’ and I feel those of us who are serious need to rethink how this whole thing can happen. I feel that is the last hope for humanity in this world where each is concerned with ‘the self’.