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Biography of J. Krishnamurti #1
Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening
In 1909, a boy of fourteen years was designated the savior of our age by the mystic leader of the Theosophical Society. Sent from his native India to study at the finest school in Britain, the charismatic youth was groomed for the messianic role of World Teacher—a mantle he would ultimately cast off, unleashing a storm of controversy within the spiritual community. And through inner doubts and physical agony—through bitter trials of the mind, the body, and the soul—he would follow his own path to enlightenment and become a shining beacon of joy and truth to millions the world over.
325 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1984
About the author
Mary Lutyens
42 books9 followersMary Lutyens (31 July 1908 – 9 April 1999) was a British author who is principally known for her biographical works on the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 19, 2009
An astonishing book, written by someone who knew Krishnamurti intimately. Actually, it is also a disgraceful tale of well-intentioned child-abuse by a bunch of bizarre people who should have known better. Krishnamurti himself comes across as a very impressive figure who had the wit not to be overwhelmed by the nonsense heaped on him by others.
July 16, 2014
Years ago, this book was useful to me, when I was profoundly interested in the awakening of Krishnamurti. But that awakening interests me less today. For although I have no doubt that K's awakening was real, I now see there a different forms of Awakening.
There is, for example, the Awakening of the Heart. And as awakened as K no doubt was, another Master of the West (rather than the East) gave me much more understanding of the Awakening of the Heart. More about that Western Master of the Heart here … http://corjesusacratissimum.org/2009/...
There is, for example, the Awakening of the Heart. And as awakened as K no doubt was, another Master of the West (rather than the East) gave me much more understanding of the Awakening of the Heart. More about that Western Master of the Heart here … http://corjesusacratissimum.org/2009/...
November 30, 2008
Reading Krishnamurti always seemed as if it was missing something, namely, how did his life influence his teachings? This biography was very informative and perfect for its purpose. Read more of what I thought about it here: http://descriptedlines.com/reading/kr...
June 30, 2007
A very good biography of one of the best philosophers of Modern India.
October 21, 2013
Mary Lutyens is a good biographer. I really enjoyed this book but it's probably of interest only to someone who is already a student of Krishnamurti's teachings.
January 27, 2023
Well I've read this book after having just read, "The Life and Death of Krishnamurti" also by Mary Lutyens. What I have to say about this book will be highly influenced by what I already wrote about it, so if you care to read that review first, here you have it: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I ended up enjoying this book a little bit more, maybe because I was numb about all the things that troubled me before. The book "The Life and Death of Krishnamurti" contains already many things that are exposed here, but clearly many things are also clearer.
Like it happened before, this book helped me crush the image I had of K., I saw the human being, I saw the mistakes and above all I erased many misconceptions. This is something that I am very glad to have experienced in me, to have watched (we are the books that we read, meaning, each of us gets a different book by reading the same text).
What I believe to have really happened with K. came to a great conclusion after having read this one. Clearly K. faced the brain-washing machine of Theosophy and distilled everything that it had tried to convey. Their confusion at the end proved this and it really pinpointed things out very clearly.
I am confident that K. survived it all but I still sustain that he reached a limit, a physical one, and that his body needed that cycle so he could re-fuel himself, so he could sustain that state. It was his life, it doesn't matter to anyone else and it doesn't affect anything. I am glad that he was so open about all the nonsense that was around him and what really happened and how it happened. There were no epiphanies no impulsive decisions, everything was mapped out by a very conscious human being that wanted to survive, with dignity and promote something truthful, something that wasn't created by anyone, just a very deep sense of reality that must be preserved by us all!
All of us make mistakes but this doesn't mean that we must sustain the mistakes of others nor judge anyone by their mistakes. We must defend ourselves, care for each other and live till we can't do it no more. Don't let fear rule your life. Who cares if you are poor, unpopular, untalented or whatever, just do that, love life, do all that you can muster. I always did this, but unfortunately I also fool myself many times, calling myself brave just because I am afraid. This fears destroys my life, it always have, since forever. You are the solution for yourself. Fix yourself and just make sure it works. Be honest!
Overall this is a great lesson about the limits of life. It is a major torn that can make us bleed psychologically.
What one gathers is very simple. We are what we hold inside of us. Learn to watch yourself and let yourself go, all the junk that doesn't matter. Gain a sense of direction, do what you love and may that truly give something back to others. It is all that matters.
We are all going to die. Lets do that right too. Lets learn to do that regularly (psychologically). Lets abandon everything and stay in the void. Without practices, methods.
I want to live freely and enjoy all this beauty without the stains of my past. Without pleasure. Just in peace.
All the best to you and your own. Have a great life!
I ended up enjoying this book a little bit more, maybe because I was numb about all the things that troubled me before. The book "The Life and Death of Krishnamurti" contains already many things that are exposed here, but clearly many things are also clearer.
Like it happened before, this book helped me crush the image I had of K., I saw the human being, I saw the mistakes and above all I erased many misconceptions. This is something that I am very glad to have experienced in me, to have watched (we are the books that we read, meaning, each of us gets a different book by reading the same text).
What I believe to have really happened with K. came to a great conclusion after having read this one. Clearly K. faced the brain-washing machine of Theosophy and distilled everything that it had tried to convey. Their confusion at the end proved this and it really pinpointed things out very clearly.
I am confident that K. survived it all but I still sustain that he reached a limit, a physical one, and that his body needed that cycle so he could re-fuel himself, so he could sustain that state. It was his life, it doesn't matter to anyone else and it doesn't affect anything. I am glad that he was so open about all the nonsense that was around him and what really happened and how it happened. There were no epiphanies no impulsive decisions, everything was mapped out by a very conscious human being that wanted to survive, with dignity and promote something truthful, something that wasn't created by anyone, just a very deep sense of reality that must be preserved by us all!
All of us make mistakes but this doesn't mean that we must sustain the mistakes of others nor judge anyone by their mistakes. We must defend ourselves, care for each other and live till we can't do it no more. Don't let fear rule your life. Who cares if you are poor, unpopular, untalented or whatever, just do that, love life, do all that you can muster. I always did this, but unfortunately I also fool myself many times, calling myself brave just because I am afraid. This fears destroys my life, it always have, since forever. You are the solution for yourself. Fix yourself and just make sure it works. Be honest!
Overall this is a great lesson about the limits of life. It is a major torn that can make us bleed psychologically.
What one gathers is very simple. We are what we hold inside of us. Learn to watch yourself and let yourself go, all the junk that doesn't matter. Gain a sense of direction, do what you love and may that truly give something back to others. It is all that matters.
We are all going to die. Lets do that right too. Lets learn to do that regularly (psychologically). Lets abandon everything and stay in the void. Without practices, methods.
I want to live freely and enjoy all this beauty without the stains of my past. Without pleasure. Just in peace.
All the best to you and your own. Have a great life!
December 4, 2022
An extraordinary document, such a peculiar story. At once so sacred and so crazy.
“I desire those who seek to understand me to be free, not to follow me…”
This was quite a unique and enthralling read to me, having known relatively well the teachings of J. Krishnamurti and having thought having had a solid grip on the story behind this revered spiritual teacher. I was page by page, enchanted and shocked by the actual story, it’s twists and turns.
Authored with a particular skill I’ve not quite seen before, the immensity of research that went into this book alone to make the facts line up with such accurate perfection must have been quite a feat to accomplish.
There is so much that I would like to add to this review in terms of spoilers. But, if anyone is directed to this book from my writing on it, they should encounter it fully by their discovery I think. It finishes at a perfect point, a true climax.
With beautiful reflections towards beneficial etiquette to live a cultivated life. The story of Krishnamurti as a child, being designated as the reincarnated “world teacher” his path navigating this and his ultimate decision towards it. Everything that happened along the way. It’s quite a read. I could barely put it down. I’ve not been this engrossed in a book for quite some time.
The first part of a series of two, ending at his age of 35 on August 3rd 1929.
“I desire those who seek to understand me to be free, not to follow me…”
This was quite a unique and enthralling read to me, having known relatively well the teachings of J. Krishnamurti and having thought having had a solid grip on the story behind this revered spiritual teacher. I was page by page, enchanted and shocked by the actual story, it’s twists and turns.
Authored with a particular skill I’ve not quite seen before, the immensity of research that went into this book alone to make the facts line up with such accurate perfection must have been quite a feat to accomplish.
There is so much that I would like to add to this review in terms of spoilers. But, if anyone is directed to this book from my writing on it, they should encounter it fully by their discovery I think. It finishes at a perfect point, a true climax.
With beautiful reflections towards beneficial etiquette to live a cultivated life. The story of Krishnamurti as a child, being designated as the reincarnated “world teacher” his path navigating this and his ultimate decision towards it. Everything that happened along the way. It’s quite a read. I could barely put it down. I’ve not been this engrossed in a book for quite some time.
The first part of a series of two, ending at his age of 35 on August 3rd 1929.
November 2, 2019
Most Riveting
After listening to the dialogues between J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm I grew more interested in both their teachings. I became aware of this biography in the dialogue titled "Truth, Actuality, and the Limits of Thought" and have discovered the two additional volumes.
I find his upbringing fascinating as written about here in this biography and it helps me to better accept my struggles, particularly my seeming inability to resonate with and become mentored by one teacher. I recommend this biography to those interested in the life of Krishnamurti and how he has come to be not just how is may be commonly known by the world but for Who he Actually is.
After listening to the dialogues between J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm I grew more interested in both their teachings. I became aware of this biography in the dialogue titled "Truth, Actuality, and the Limits of Thought" and have discovered the two additional volumes.
I find his upbringing fascinating as written about here in this biography and it helps me to better accept my struggles, particularly my seeming inability to resonate with and become mentored by one teacher. I recommend this biography to those interested in the life of Krishnamurti and how he has come to be not just how is may be commonly known by the world but for Who he Actually is.
March 3, 2018
unbelievable life story.. Krishna's teaching is smth i am trying to understand for years and still i can not, as many people who met with his teaching. i wanted to read this book in order to find out how he lived instead of making him imaginary entity in my mind. in the book you can find how normal person he was and believed nonsense things all those years and finally transformed as enlightened. highly recomended for people who finds his teaching and personality so interesting..
February 1, 2023
What a trip... a quite crazy life story told by a close observer. Lutyens's inclusion of many of Krishnamurti's personal letters adds a valuable plane of insight into these early years.
In learning Krishnamurti's backstory through this book and reading/listening to his later teachings, his startling genuineness cannot be denied. He's so sincere it's almost heartbreaking.
7.5/10
In learning Krishnamurti's backstory through this book and reading/listening to his later teachings, his startling genuineness cannot be denied. He's so sincere it's almost heartbreaking.
7.5/10
September 14, 2024
THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE ACCLAIMED BIOGRAPHY OF THE SPIRITUAL TEACHER
Mary Lutyens (1908-1999) was a British author best known for her three-volume biography of Jiddu Krishnamurti; the other volumes in this series are 'Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfillment' and 'Krishnamurti: The Open Door.'
She wrote in the Foreword to this 1975 book, "This account of the life of the first thirty-eight years of Krishnamurti's life has been written as his suggestion and with all the help he has been able to give me. Nevertheless I have been left free to tell his story in my own way; no one has ... asked, or been asked, to approve the text. It is a very personal account, recording his strange upbringing and the many phases he went through in growing to maturity... Above all, it shows the circumstances of the unfolding of Krishnamurti's teaching and demonstrates his extraordinary achievement in freeing himself from the many hands that clutched at him in an endeavor to force him into the role of traditional Messiah." (Pg. vii)
She notes that Charles Leadbeater had been encouraging young boys he was teaching masturbation, "as a far lesser evil than either consorting with prostitutes or guilty obsession with erotic thoughts." (Pg. 15-16) Annie Besant agonized, "One of the first requirements for Initiation was absolute sexual purity; Mrs. Besant was, therefore in a most unhappy predicament: if Leadbeater was impure he could not be an Initiate, yet if he were not an Initiate her visions of standing with him before the Masters must have been delusions." (Pg. 17)
She later notes, "As the charges against Leadbeater were denied by all his 'boys,' past and present, the inquiry was closed. Nothing has ever been proved against Leadbeater... Moreover, there is no evidence that any of his 'boys' grew up to be homosexual; indeed most of them made happy marriages." (Pg. 156)
After Krishnamurti had been "selected," "Mrs. Besant was going even further than Leadbeater in stating that it was 'definitely fixed' that the Lord Maitreya was to take Krishna's body." (Pg. 41) But Krishna confided to Lutyen's mother "Lady Emily": "He was... desperately unhappy. He hated publicity; he longed for a normal life. He often said to her, 'Why did they ever pick on me?'" (Pg. 90) But later, Annie Besant issued a statement, "The Divine Spirit has once more descended on a man, Krishnamurti, one who in his life is literally perfect, as those who know him can testify... The World Teacher is here." (Pg. 259)
She suggests, "When he was first 'discovered' at Adyar it must have struck Leadbeater that the boy's empty mind was ideally fertile soil for the implanting of Theosophical ideas. So it was, but what was not realized was that these ideas never took root... All these years of study and Theosophical conditioning have left hardly a mark on Krishna's mind... His true being was all the time slowly, secretly unfolding, hidden even from himself." (Pg. 102) Later, she adds, "he had no real interest in political movement any more than in books." (Pg. 107) She also points out, "He maintains he has never read the Gospels." (Pg. 159)
After a married woman once tried to seduce Krishnamurti, Lutyens says, "No doubt she thought he was a homosexual. All his tendencies were in fact heterosexual but at that time he believed, with the majority of Theosophists, that sex was something unclean that must be sublimated. Part of his attraction for Lady Emily was his horror of sex, for by the time she met him she had come to shrink from that aspect of married life." (Pg. 121)
Upon rejecting his planned role in 1929, he told his audience, "I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect... I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind; please understand this." (Pg. 293-294)
Lutyens' sympathetic, yet detailed and critical biography is "must reading" for anyone wanting to know more about Krishnamurti.
Mary Lutyens (1908-1999) was a British author best known for her three-volume biography of Jiddu Krishnamurti; the other volumes in this series are 'Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfillment' and 'Krishnamurti: The Open Door.'
She wrote in the Foreword to this 1975 book, "This account of the life of the first thirty-eight years of Krishnamurti's life has been written as his suggestion and with all the help he has been able to give me. Nevertheless I have been left free to tell his story in my own way; no one has ... asked, or been asked, to approve the text. It is a very personal account, recording his strange upbringing and the many phases he went through in growing to maturity... Above all, it shows the circumstances of the unfolding of Krishnamurti's teaching and demonstrates his extraordinary achievement in freeing himself from the many hands that clutched at him in an endeavor to force him into the role of traditional Messiah." (Pg. vii)
She notes that Charles Leadbeater had been encouraging young boys he was teaching masturbation, "as a far lesser evil than either consorting with prostitutes or guilty obsession with erotic thoughts." (Pg. 15-16) Annie Besant agonized, "One of the first requirements for Initiation was absolute sexual purity; Mrs. Besant was, therefore in a most unhappy predicament: if Leadbeater was impure he could not be an Initiate, yet if he were not an Initiate her visions of standing with him before the Masters must have been delusions." (Pg. 17)
She later notes, "As the charges against Leadbeater were denied by all his 'boys,' past and present, the inquiry was closed. Nothing has ever been proved against Leadbeater... Moreover, there is no evidence that any of his 'boys' grew up to be homosexual; indeed most of them made happy marriages." (Pg. 156)
After Krishnamurti had been "selected," "Mrs. Besant was going even further than Leadbeater in stating that it was 'definitely fixed' that the Lord Maitreya was to take Krishna's body." (Pg. 41) But Krishna confided to Lutyen's mother "Lady Emily": "He was... desperately unhappy. He hated publicity; he longed for a normal life. He often said to her, 'Why did they ever pick on me?'" (Pg. 90) But later, Annie Besant issued a statement, "The Divine Spirit has once more descended on a man, Krishnamurti, one who in his life is literally perfect, as those who know him can testify... The World Teacher is here." (Pg. 259)
She suggests, "When he was first 'discovered' at Adyar it must have struck Leadbeater that the boy's empty mind was ideally fertile soil for the implanting of Theosophical ideas. So it was, but what was not realized was that these ideas never took root... All these years of study and Theosophical conditioning have left hardly a mark on Krishna's mind... His true being was all the time slowly, secretly unfolding, hidden even from himself." (Pg. 102) Later, she adds, "he had no real interest in political movement any more than in books." (Pg. 107) She also points out, "He maintains he has never read the Gospels." (Pg. 159)
After a married woman once tried to seduce Krishnamurti, Lutyens says, "No doubt she thought he was a homosexual. All his tendencies were in fact heterosexual but at that time he believed, with the majority of Theosophists, that sex was something unclean that must be sublimated. Part of his attraction for Lady Emily was his horror of sex, for by the time she met him she had come to shrink from that aspect of married life." (Pg. 121)
Upon rejecting his planned role in 1929, he told his audience, "I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect... I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind; please understand this." (Pg. 293-294)
Lutyens' sympathetic, yet detailed and critical biography is "must reading" for anyone wanting to know more about Krishnamurti.
November 13, 2016
Refreshing from so many angles. Sets you free from the guilt of organized religion. His character throughout reflected his purity and ultimate destiny to bring about a new world order without the old shackles. Each one of us has a direct path to his higher Self. All middlemen are just distortions of this ultimate truth.
January 23, 2012
A fascinating look at Krishnamurti's childhood. It shows how he was groomed, and how he cast off all the expectations of people, as well as the status and power they gave him. Made me respect the man even more, and I didn't know I could.
July 24, 2008
A bio about his childhood and initiation into the Theosophical Society. His personal letters can be a drone at times but if you can get past that it's a great read.
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May 20, 2019You'll definitely like to read his life story.
How a small kid raised as a god grew up to finalize let go of this 'God' title by his famous speech
'Truth is a pathless land'
How a small kid raised as a god grew up to finalize let go of this 'God' title by his famous speech
'Truth is a pathless land'
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews