I was privileged to have met Krishnamurti during the latter phase of my life; but even if I hadn’t, my attitude toward the teachings would be the same. In fact, it was coming upon the teachings that made the bigger impression on me. I was fascinated from the first book I read, and am still fascinated. Of course, my interaction with K also made a deep impression on me, because being around him allowed at least some people to glimpse what it means to live the teachings. One could see what a simple life K lived. This contact with him served as inspiration for me to write the book, The Beauty of The Mountain, which numerous people have said is a good introduction to the teachings and especially shows K’s human side. What I really wanted to convey with the book was the perfume of being around him. But it was much more than I could say.
What changed for me, in coming into contact with K, were my activities. Before attending my first of his public talks, I had stopped eating red meat. Then K said, “We eat dead animals,” and I immediately became vegetarian. Earlier I had worked very hard in my family’s company, and found it an interesting job. (I never saw myself as a businessman; rather an industrialist—someone who produces something.) I had to leave the company long before I met K; but even at that earlier point I had the feeling that it was a chance to get off the treadmill of running a big family business. Then when I came across the teachings it made even more sense to have left.
Also, before I met K, I had a period of very intense mountaineering. After meeting him I still did some mountaineering but mainly ski-touring. I always had a strong connection with nature, feeling most at home in the open air. I was also ecologically minded, and had an interest in literature and philosophy but never had the time to pursue them much. After meeting K, there was more time especially for philosophical things. K said on a few occasions that he was a kind of philosopher in the old sense, when philosophy meant ‘love of truth’.
But much more than these changes, for the first time, someone could convey to me a sense of the sacred—the holiness of life— something more than the usual esoteric stuff. He helped me to understand so many things, like the implications of conditioning, attachment, dependence, self-pity, that there is no security; all these things which I had felt somehow, but couldn’t express or explain.
In 1984, K suggested that I become a trustee of the English and Indian Foundations and an honorary trustee of the American Foundation. From then on, I was very engaged in the schools, study centres and foundations. Later, I brought together some former school staff to help support the work of these places. And we began producing The Link, which later became Friedrich’s Newsletter, along with the Calendar of K quotes and pictures taken by me. We also publish other brochures, like Krishnamurti for Educators and Learners, Reflecting Consciousness: An Overview of Dialogue, and other teachings-related topics. This is a way to keep in touch with the many friends who also have been moved by what Krishnamurti was living and pointing to.
We also organised a Krishnamurti exhibition at the Saanen Museum for summer 2019, and it was popular enough for the museum directors to extend it to April 2020. We’ve been surprised at how many people remember the Saanen Talks, or attended them and are still interested in the teachings. Others are coming who are completely new to Krishnamurti, and a good few of them have watched the videos or read the quotes with seriousness.
Of course, the questions that Krishnamurti raised and everything he was talking about have enormous meaning, I suppose even more nowadays, though it seems to be just a few who realise it. Still, K said, “A few people can change the world.” K told us on his death bed that he continued to watch the TV news to see if anything was changing in the world. He also told us that he saw very little evidence of change there.
A statement that touched me recently can be found on page ninety-four of the new book Walking with Krishnamurti, about Nandini Mehta’s relationship with K, edited by Nandini’s daughter, Devi Mangaldas. K says, “The aim of the school is to make the students self-aware and fearless.” I think this is a great statement. Unfortunately, nothing like it was part of my education. Being selfaware is something of a mystery—If I believe that I am so, then something I do shows others that I’m not specially aware after all. Concerning fear, I might have been fearless climbing many high mountains in my middle age, but I don’t think I’ve met the depths of fear. If it means being open to ‘that vast emptiness’, and if each of us would be open to that rather than imagining that we’re becoming something, it might change the world.
Another statement that resonates with me is K’s answer to his question, “Do you want to know my secret?” … After a long pause, he is supposed to have said, “I don’t mind what happens.” It resonates because usually I find it easy to let go of things. Not always! but usually. This might be related to the most deeply meaningful thing I ever heard K say, “Love has no cause.” I’ve never analyzed the statement, but it’s there, saying something very important.
One thing I find amazing is how ahead of his time K often appears to have been. Fifty years ago, he was saying that the brain cells can mutate and regenerate themselves, and in the 1980s he claimed that scientists were only then starting to look into how the brain works. In fact, neuroscientists discovered not so long ago that new neurons can grow in the brain. K was also at the forefront in warning about two things—the huge disruptive impact that computers would have on humanity, and the disastrous consequences of human beings lacking a deeply felt relationship with nature—and maybe these two things are connected. It’s clear that living with such insight as K had would meet so many challenges facing the world, but is anyone really listening? Or are we just trying to invent even more technology to try to get us out of our mess?