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KRISHNAMURTI and GANDHI

by Prof. P. Krishna

Rector, Rajghat Education Centre, Krishnamurti Foundation India, Varanasi

221001, India

( Talk delivered at the Gandhian Institute of Studies in Varanasi on 8.1.1996. )

Krishnamurti and Gandhi were two eminent outstanding personalities of this

century, both born in India, educated in the west, whose teachings and
philosophies have had a global impact and become the subject of much
investigation all over the world. Both persons were crusaders in the quest for
truth. Outwardly, in their life, they may appear to be very different but we have to
go beyond the outer appearances to understand deeply the significance of each
one of them. I do not intend to compare Krishnamurti with Gandhi or try to
evaluate who was greater or superior. It would be impertinent to assume that we
have the capacity to judge or measure either of them. Moreover, such an
endeavour is trivial because it does not lead to any deeper understanding in
ourselves to try and compare two great men and try to place them in an hierarchy.
To me, it seems more worthwhile to dwell on what we can learn from their
teachings and their lives. The objectives which Krishnaji and Gandhiji had set
before themselves in their lives were similar and yet significantly different. Both
were dissenters from the social norm that was prevalent around them and both
were concerned with a deep inner transformation in man. To come upon a
religious mind was their mission. Krishnamurti having explored into this question
very deeply in his youth, set himself the mission of setting man free - free from his
shackles, his particular conditioning, his illusions - which was in a sense similar to
the objective which the Buddha had set before himself. Having realized the truth,
he wanted to help fellow human beings to come upon it and see it for themselves.
Gandhiji also was interested in this religious quest, but he had also set before
himself very definite social objectives. He wanted to work for the political
independence of India, for the eradication of poverty and superstition, for social
reform in the status of women and of harijans, for the eradication of casteism and
so on.

Krishnamurti did not take up any such local issues, in any particular country of
the world. His concern remained global. It is not that he was not interested in
social reforms but he said that real change in society can only come about through
a change in the consciousness of the individual. It is not merely a question of
adopting a particular religion, a particular philosophy or choosing to follow
someone in one's life. Nor does it come through following certain commandments
or taking a vow and struggling to keep that vow - to him all this was not reform at
all. He often said, " You are the world and the world is you", which means it is
only in reforming ourselves that the world reforms in actuality. This connection
between the individual and society, he explained in great detail. It was his view
that so long as human beings are aggressive, violent, hateful, egoistic, no social
reform, no regulation, no government, no political system can create a society,
which is peaceful, harmonious or non-violent. Society is composed of individuals,
and if we have a society comprising of millions of individuals each one of whom
is self-centred, ambitious, greedy, violent, you may organise it on Gandhian lines,
or on communist principles or in capitalist manner, the violence that is there
within the individual is going to find expression in society. You man contain it in
certain directions, it will express itself in other directions. So we see that in
communist society there is tremendous violence and in capitalist, so-called free,
society also there is tremendous violence, though it may be of a different kind. He
did not think that mere control could result in any fundamental change. He
demanded a total inner revolution in the psyche of man and that was the objective
he set before himself. The consciousness of man must fundamentally change from
within and unless that takes place, we are merely playing with outer symptoms
and making patch-work changes in the name of social reform. The very manner in
which that social reform is performed itself contains elements of division,
aggression, ambition, which has its own consequences. So, though it may appear
that the social reform has produced some order in society, that is an illusion,

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because that order will inevitably break and you will require a new reform to
overcome the new disorder and this is an endless process. There have been great
reformers, there have been revolutions and yet man has again established a new
tyranny and then had to revolt against the new tyranny. Temporarily it may
appear that one has broken the old tyranny but so long as the human beings are
tyrannical they will establish a new tyranny and therefore he felt that any
fundamental reform in society can only come through an inner change, it cannot
come merely through an outer change that one tries to bring about in society.

He objected to people calling themselves Gandhians or Krishnamurti-ites or even

Christians, Buddhists and so on. He said "What does it mean ?" What does it
really mean when I say, I am a Christian or I am a Gandhian ? We must examine
that question deeply, because we often accept a very superficial definition of
words which is prevalent in society. What exactly does it mean to be a Gandhian
? Does it mean wearing Khadi ? Does it mean believing in non-violence as a
political means ? Does it mean coming upon a deep understanding within oneself
of the love and compassion which Gandhi had ? Does the proclamation of an
intention make me Gandhian ? What does it really mean to be a Gandhian ? Can
one really practice non-violence or decide to practice non-violence so long as one
is violent within, inwardly ? To Krishnamurti violence went far beyond its
external manifestation, he did not accept the definition of non-violence as not
hitting anybody else physically. To him anger, aggression, greed, possessiveness
were all forms of violence and he said so long as these are there within, what does
our decision to be non-violent mean ? One of his famous statements is that virtue
cannot be practiced. It is a state of mind, either one has come upon that state of
mind or one has not come upon it. If the mind is self-centred, aggressive, then
non-violence is merely a decision and decisions are unimportant things, they are
hypocritical things in the field of consciousness. Because if you do not feel love
for your neighbour, what does it mean to decide to love him ? Does it mean that
when he comes you will be warm to him, you will smile at him and you will
express that you love him ? Inwardly you do not really love him, you dislike him,
you are irritated with him, you are envious of him, but outwardly you show love,
because you have decided to love him and this creates hypocrisy. One is
projecting oneself outwardly, differently from what one is inwardly and hypocrisy
is certainly not a virtue. Similarly, one can decide to become a vegetarian, not to
hit anybody, to help old people across the road, to care for someone who is hurt,
one can do these actions because one has decided to do them and yet inwardly
one may be very violent and cruel. The violence will express itself in other ways.
One may be dominating over other human beings, in the management, in the
office. One may hurt psychologically, though one does not hurt physically and
one may be sadistic, one may enjoy another person's discomfiture. We see this
process going on in the name of non-violence in our society today, when people
gherao an individual, do not permit him to go to the toilet, do not permit him to
eat his food and consider that they are non-violent merely because they are not
attacking him ! So, this kind of triviality enters when one decides to practice a
virtue and defines the virtue in terms of a few actions which have been specified
and then performed. Those actions in themselves do not constitute the virtue.

To be religious is not merely a question of going to the temple, performing some

ritual, lighting a lamp or bathing in the Ganga. These things are easy to do,
anybody can do them and after doing it, one can feel that one is religious without
being religious. Krishnamurti pointed out this danger of conveniently feeling that
one is virtuous without actually coming upon virtue. You cannot come upon
virtue except through self-knowledge, through a deep understanding of the
working of your own consciousness, of your own mind, which is the quest for
truth. To him religion was such a quest for truth. It was so for Gandhiji too,
because he called his life itself an experiment with truth. So, in a deep sense, both
Krishnamurti and Gandhi regarded religion as the quest for truth. A truly religious
mind is a mind that is in quest of truth. The differences that one sees between
them are more in the mission which they took up as the objectives of their life and
work. In my view people often misunderstand and consider that there is some
dichotomy or fundamental difference between Gandhi's approach and
Krishnamurti's approach. To me, they appear to be complementary. The
difference is in the outer manifestation but at the deeper levels the need for an
inner transformation, the need to come upon a religious mind, not to posit the
religious mind as a Hindu mind or Christian mind or a Buddhist mind, to come
upon virtue through self-knowledge -- all this was deeply the mission of both
Gandhi and Krishnamurti. I do not think Gandhiji's reforms and his public life
could have been what they were if he did not have this inner strength. That is, if
Gandhiji did not really love the British, if he was not really non-violent from
within, if he had not freed his consciousness of hatred of any human being
irrespective of his attributes, if he had not freed himself of fear, I do not think
merely the outer manifestations of his actions would have succeeded. In other

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words, it is not merely a question of the social reform which one undertakes, but
the inner motives which propel that social reform are fundamentally important. If
it comes about as a natural manifestation of an inner state, it is a totally different
thing from a calculated plan thought out by a clever and cunning mind.

In the West I have often been asked the question whether Gandhiji's strategy of
non-violence was not part of tactics, because the British were infinitely more
powerful and violence could not have, by any means, succeeded against a
powerful adversary like the British empire. So did he choose non-violence
because violence could not have succeeded ? They do not know whether Gandhi
took this decision out of seeing the situation and then deciding what will succeed
or it was a religious decision for him, irrespective of whether it succeeds or not.
For a religious mind, if that is intrinsically the right thing to do, then that is the
only way to go, there is no choice and it does not matter if it succeeds or not. The
end does not justify the means.

So did it come out of an inner strength within him because of the religious mind
and heart which he had or did it come as a strategy to be followed ? Many of our
politicians today, including our student leaders and so on, adopt it as a tactics and
it does not serve the same purpose. Christ said, in the Sermon on the Mount that if
somebody hits you on one cheek show him the other also. Is it just the action that
matters ? If you just show the other cheek also, but are inwardly feeling hateful
and angry it will have no effect. What brings about the transformation in the other
human being is not the act of showing the other cheek also, but the inner love and
compassion from which this must follow as a spontaneous consequence. Then you
do not retaliate, do not meet violence with violence nor hatred with hatred. We
have another instance of this when the Buddha meets the murderer Angulimal. It
is the inner state of the Buddha that is important. It was not a fearful Buddha
using non-violence as a tactics in order to overcome Angulimal. It is not the
tactics which works, it is the religious quality which acts. So, was Gandhi's
non-violence an outcome of his inner religious perception or was it merely a
policy ? When we call ourselves Gandhians are we wanting to come upon that
inner consciousness or are we accepting only the tactics ? If we are accepting the
tactics, it is superficial, it is only the outer manifestation. If it is born out of an
inner perception then you are sharing in the consciousness of Gandhi.

In the same way one can ask who is a true Christian ? What does it mean to be a
true Christian ? After all Christ came upon love and compassion and he spoke out
of that truth, that inner state, and he wanted to express that. But the followers did
not come upon his love and compassion, they merely picked up the outer details
and converted them into rituals. Then came the differences in opinion about how
these should be performed, how which commandment should be followed and to
what extent. So they divided themselves as Catholics and Protestants, both of
whom claim to be Christians and yet for the last 50 years they have been fighting
and killing each other in Ireland ! Can a man who is killing other human beings in
the name of religion be a Christian ? Therefore, being religious has nothing to do
with these outer manifestations and so long as we give to the outer forms a
tremendous importance, we do not come upon a religious mind. The strength of
both Gandhi and Krishnamurti, lay not so much in the course of action which they
adopted but in the consciousness from which they acted.

I once came in close contact with some people who claimed to be Gandhians.
They stood for certain ideals which they thought were Gandhiji's ideals. They
wore khadi and lived simply and all that. They wanted to do social reform of
villages which Gandhiji had also done. But they came into conflict with other
people working with them and they were extremely contemptuous of those
people. They came to discuss their problems with me as they were idealistic,
sincere persons. I asked them what they had picked to emulate in Gandhi -- the
khadi, the Charkha, the ideals of social reform ? What about the fact that Gandhiji
worked with Nehru and Patel, who were extremely different from him and yet
there was a tremendous bond of affection and co-operation between them ? I
asked them, "Have you learned to work like that with your colleagues ?" Is not
that a requirement to be a Gandhian or are only the outer things and the
intellectual pursuits required to be a Gandhian ? So we must ask ourselves what
definition we give to being a Gandhian ? When you deeply inquire into that you
will find that to be a true Gandhian is the same as being a true Christian, is the
same as being a true Buddhist, is the same as being a true Hindu, is the same as
coming upon a religious mind. These divisions which we see and which we have
created by calling ourselves Krishnamurti-ites, Gandhians, Hindus and Muslims
are all an outcome of a superficial understanding of religion. The problem is not
whether one is a Gandhian or a Krishnamurti-ite or whether one is a Christian or a
Muslim, --the real problem is superficiality. Both Gandhi and Krishnamurti fought
against superficiality and fought against accepting tradition blindly.

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I am reminded of the instance when Gandhiji not only stood up against the British
but he stood up against the Congress Government also when he felt that what
they were doing was wrong. It was when India was divided into India and
Pakistan and a certain amount of money was to be paid to Pakistan but the Indian
Government was putting conditions on giving that money saying it will be given
only if you they first do this and do that. He felt the Government of India was
trying to politically arm-twist, which was an irreligious thing to do, so he opposed
it. He said political freedom was not the main aim of the Congress, it was only a
first step towards the liberation of our villages from poverty, superstition and
ignorance. He wanted India to be the first country in the world to have no army.
He wanted the Congress people all to go and work in the villages and leave the
Government to the administrators but very few were willing. What happened to
all the followers who were with him in the Congress ? They had not come upon
the consciousness which Gandhi had come upon, they were only following his
edicts and following the outer edicts is a trivial thing, it does not work as we have
already seen. The spirit in the Congress degenerated as soon as Gandhi was gone.
The process had begun even in his own lifetime and he was miserable in the last
six months of his life. I believe he is on record, having said that these last six
months of his life were the worst period of his life, because all his hopes had been
shattered.

So, to really follow somebody is not so easy as to just pick up the outer actions.
Indeed we cannot truly live like someone else because we do not have that
consciousness ; and this is what Krishnamurti pointed out. He said do not follow
anybody, be yourself, watch yourself, understand yourself, and in understanding
yourself you will change inwardly and that would be a natural change. But when
you try to live like another human being you cannot, because you do not have
that consciousness. I cannot live like Gandhi, because I do not have Gandhi's
understanding within me and when I try to live like Gandhi I cease to be even
Krishna, I become a pseudo which is worse than being oneself. Because when you
are yourself, there is a possibility that you will understand what you are, which is
the actuality and thereby come upon the truth. When you come upon the truth
deeply, for yourself, there is an inner transformation and you are naturally wiser,
not merely imitating somebody. Imitation is a lie and therefore Krishnamurti did
not believe in following anybody and he refused to accept disciples for himself.
He said I cannot give you the truth, so what does it mean to be a disciple ? You
must discover and find out for yourselves like I have found out for myself and
each person has to be a light unto himself which is what the Buddha had said too.

>From my readings of Gandhi, which are very limited, I feel that Gandhiji
understood the truth of this. The same message is there in the Gita. It says that the
rightness or wrongness of an action is not dependent on the result, it is dependent
on the motives with which that action is performed. Gita also asks us to find out if
we can work like an ambitious man without being ambitious. In it, Lord Krishna
explains to Arjuna, that the enlightened man will outwardly appear to live and
work exactly like an ordinary human being but it is not the same thing because he
does not do it for the same reason. Inwardly they are different. So the true
transformation lies within the consciousness of man and Krishnamurti considered
that only when that inner transformation takes place there is a natural reform in
society. When the change is born out of a motivated action, an ambitious action, a
calculated action, then there is no true transformation in society.

Someone asked Krishnamurti at the end of one of his talks, "I want to do social
work. How should I start ?", and he answered saying * *
____________________________________________________________ **
from "This Matter of Culture" by J. Krishnamurti chapter 27, p ** 212-213,
Gollancz,London 1974.

"I think it is very important to find out not how to start, but why you want to do
social work at all. Why do you want to do social work ? Is it because you see
misery in the world--starvation, disease, exploitation, the brutal indifference of
great wealth side by side with appalling poverty, the enmity between man and
man ? Is that the reason ?Do you want to do social work because in your heart
there is love and therefore you are not concerned with your own fulfillment ? Or
is social work a means of escape from yourself ? Do you understand ? You see,
for example, all the ugliness involved in orthodox marriage, so you say, "I shall
never get married," and you throw yourself into social work instead; or perhaps
your parents have urged you into it, or you have an ideal. If it is a means of
escape, or if you are merely pursuing an ideal established by society , by a leader
or a priest, or by yourself, then any social work you may do will only create
further misery. But if you have love in your heart, if you are seeking truth and are
therefore a truly religious person, if you are no longer ambitious, no longer

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pursuing success, and your virtue is not leading to respectability--then your very
life will help to bring about a total transformation of society.

I think it is very important to understand this. When we are young, as most of you
are, we want to do something, and social work is in the air; books tell about it, the
newspapers do propaganda for it, there are schools to train social workers, and so
on. But you see, without self-knowledge, without understanding yourself and your
relationships, any social work you do will turn to ashes in your mouth.

It is the happy man, not the idealist or the miserable escapee, who is
revolutionary; and the happy man is not he who has many possessions. The happy
man is the truly religious man, and his very living is social work. But if you
become merely one of the innumerable social workers, your heart will be empty.
You may give away your money, or persuade other people to contribute theirs,
and you may bring about marvellous reforms; but as long as your heart is empty
and your mind full of theories, your life will be dull, weary, without joy. So, first
understand yourself, and out of that self-knowledge will come action of the right
kind".

So it is wrong to think that Krishnamurti was against social reform. What he was
pointing out was that the reform itself must be done with a heart of love. You may
engage yourself in social reform, but if you do it ambitiously, if you do it
egoistically, if you do it in order to become the top social worker and get the
Nobel Prize, then in that very reform the seeds of corruption are there and
therefore that reform will turn into ashes in your mouth. We have indeed seen
again and again that you cannot just reform outwardly. True reformation comes
from within. Even Gandhiji's attempt to create a certain political group met with
frustration because the followers had not been reformed from within. They were
merely accepting him as their leader. He was feeling these things from within--he
was fearless and used his own intelligence. He was willing to face the wrath of the
Hindu society when he gave an injection to the calf of a cow to enable it to die
without much suffering. He was living the truth with understanding, not seeking
popularity. But if we do social reform in order to become successful then there is
no difference between us and the businessman. The businessman is also craving
for success and the so-called religious man and the social worker are also craving
for success, only they have adopted different means. If the social reform is merely
a means to an end, then it has very little significance because in that ambitious
process itself there are the seeds of division. You will find that within the
movement of reform itself division will come and aggression will be there and
people will start fighting with each other. Temporarily, under the influence of a
great man like Gandhi, those divisions may subside but that is really not an ending
of division and therefore there is really no reform in that. That reform will vanish
as soon as that great mind or great influence is not there. Therefore, virtue cannot
be acquired through influence. Each one of us has to come upon virtue for
oneself. Then, that state of understanding, your own understanding, will tell you
what is right action for you.

After all who guided Gandhi to do what he wanted to do ? He did not have a
guide in front of him. Who guided the Buddha ? Who guided Christ ? But we all
want to be led, to be guided in our life by another and it is important to see that
that makes us in to second hand human beings. If we come upon a deep
understanding for ourselves and out of that understanding there is a manifestation
in the form of action, only then it is first hand, it is genuine. If really one feels that
love and out of that love one wants to do social reform, then the motives are right
and when the motives are right only then the action is right.

So to me there does not appear to be any contradiction between what Gandhiji

was trying to do, and what Krishnamurti was trying to do. I think there is great
truth in what Krishnamurti is pointing out but that is not a call for inaction. It is
only demanding that that action must come from a heart full of love and
compassion and not an ambitious, petty, self-centered heart and mind. That is
what he is demanding and I do not think Gandhiji would have disagreed with this
because for him also the action came from a heart which was filled with love,
compassion and brotherhood. He really felt intense affection for the British
people, he felt the British are our friends, that they are like any other human
beings, but he said their government should not be here because that is unjust, it is
unfair. He was protesting against the injustice and not against the Englishman per
se. It is a unique case in the history of the world where a foreign rule has been
overthrown without much hatred or bloodshed and you can see certain
consequences of that. The relationship between India and Britain continues to be
friendly. India has continued to be part of the Commonwealth as a consequence
of that policy and that policy came out of a deep inner religious understanding of
one man. That deep religious understanding of one man is more important than a

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million followers blindly following. So long as we do not come upon that inner
quality which Gandhiji came upon and we try to do only the outer actions which
he advocated it will never work. The reasons why Gandhiji's non-cooperation
movement, civil- disobedience movement, his economic policies had effect is not
because they were cleverly thought out plans but because they emanated from a
religious mind and that religious mind is what Krishnamurti is asking us to come
upon.

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