J. Krishnamurti on Life was God

[mcq72]

Oh, not at all,” the devil replied, “I am going to let him organize it.

A bit like the" devil is in the details".

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.

That reminds me of folks who argue for relative truths, opposing the notion of any absolute truth. Of this they are absolutely sure. Get the irony?

Likewise, to rule out “any path whatsoever” is then a path in itself, even another “prison”. This is ironic.

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized;

Again ironic, by placing a condition on access to Truth.

nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path

Anything or anyone leading is not necesarily coercion. Leading style is not limited to “coercion”.

If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief.

Just thinking, but if you take such understanding, you may just have closed the door to any external truth agent and imprisoned yourself to the abyss of self.

 

[mcq72]

belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it.

Agree (I am “protestant”) but also disagree (I am Christian). Indeed belief is a personal matter, but we are more than personal beings. We relate to life and truth in a corporate way also, not in a vacuum, these things as such being common to man. Key word is “also”, as opposed to the restrictive “must not” be corporate/ organized.

If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.

Agree and disagree again. It is inevitable that truth can be duplicated, shared. A creed only kills truth if it’s not true in the first place, for both truth and falseness can not occupy same space so to speak.

But agree to the tendency to " institutionalize". For example, the apostles cast out demons and an unregenerate man wanted same power to profit. No way said the apostles. Jesus transfigured himself before several of the apostles, who wanted to build a shrine there and stay/ remain on such a spiritual high. Jesus said no way, they had work to do.

Christianity has true movements of God and we enshrine them thru a denomination, communal order etc. We also went from a creed of just one page (Nicene Creed) to many pages (Trent decrees). So I agree that the Spirit of God moves as He wishes, and we try to " capture" it thru dogmatism, weakening His move. Like Jesus said, the move of the Spirit in a man to regenerate is like the wind
And what happens to wind when you put it in abox but become still.

Yet God did move thru people even prophets and judges and kings, even a nation and their written word (Israel/ bible…Jesus said “Salvation is of the Jews”, not of the Sanaritans).

For God so chose that by the foolishness of preaching that man be saved, enter into His Truth. For sure the Jews over dogmatized and as a nation were dead to any new dispensation of His plan. But just as sure, the nation, despite themselves, accomplished delivering the Messiah. They (Israel) were a corporate light of the world, just as the church is now.

So again, it is both a personal faith and a corporate one. Not by coercion, but by verbal proclamation of one human being to another. The proclamations are guided by God’s holy writings and by Himself. So mysticism and creed/ intellectualism are not by themselves but work together. Christianity is quite rational.Is should also be given freely, to whom hath an ear let him hear (no coercion).

Again Christianity is more about a relationship with Christ than a religion. Jesus said true religion is this, helping others as in widows and the sick etc…

A true Christian testifies of a saving Christ moreso than a saving church or religion.

 

[mcq72]

Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented

I used to think religion was for weak people.Yet it is interesting that when I was strongest from a wordly point, I was still lacking. Ironic being discontented while having all a youthful man could want. So yes, some men find Christ in a time of great calamity and need. Yet it proves nothing for some find Him while they are on top of the world, so to speak

Again, God resists the proud but the humble He can not deny.

Truth cannot be brought down,

Kindly disagree. The Christian faith teaches that Truth Himself, God Himself, left His lofty heavenly kingdom and came down to became a man, that thru Himself as such, and fellow disciples, His kingdom be proclaimed on the Earth.

rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

Agree. The Christian by God’s grace has done this. There is no deeper a valley to pass thru, as Christ did, to die to ourselves and our prideful ways, and be raised in submission to His way. As He was raised up and exalted. Indeed Jesus says count the costs first, it can cost you everything, for the world hates the truth and it’s messengers.

Christ was offered an easy ticket to the top for the price of compromised truth to His mission, but refused. He chose to die for the sins of the world, propitiating man to a holy, just but merciful and loving God.

It never has been “cool” to be Christian. To speak of God and philosophies intellectually is cool, but to speak of Jesus is freakish. Such is the valley.

 

[White_Tree]

It is inevitable that truth can be duplicated, shared. A creed only kills truth if it’s not true in the first place, for both truth and falseness can not occupy same space so to speak.

I think part of the confusion here is due to there being two different “types” of truth.

In the meaning that Krishnamurti was talking about, a creed isn’t Truth, and can never be, because it is an expression of concepts.

You intuitively understand this, even if you don’t realize it. You wrote:

The Christian faith teaches that Truth Himself, God Himself, left His lofty heavenly kingdom and came down to became a man

But that Truth that came down is not a concept. It cannot be expressed in a creed. You can say things about that Truth in a creed, but the creed will never fully capture what He Is. In that sense, any creed or dogma will always fall short of the reality of that Truth. It’s one thing to say that a creed makes accurate statements about Jesus. But no one would claim the creed is Jesus.

There can be concepts that are “true,” on their level. We can say “the sun is bright” or “the sky is blue.” But the truth or falsehood of any concept is not what Krishnamurti is talking about. He is talking about an Absolute Truth, that is beyond concepts and ideas.

 

[mcq72]

He is talking about an Absolute Truth, that is beyond concepts and ideas.

Thank you for your response.

Well, is Truth beyond concepts, ideas, creeds as in more than (that plus more), or did he mean they are not descriptors or path to Him at all?

My assertion is that only wrong concepts, ideas, creeds are not paths or descriptors of Him. Right creeds and thoughts can be had of the Truth.

God is the author of speech and thoughts and feelings etc…He is the originator of language. Just as surely as we are made in His image, so can our thoughts and precepts be after Him also. On one hand God is the “I Am”, and on the other He is Logos, the Word. He can communicate thoughts, concepts, creeds, even religious activity to be had.

To go “beyond” His Word, as if thereby being more transcendant even freer or lending to more enlightenment is “talking about”, even critiquing creed and religion. Some would say it is a way around it.

but the creed will never fully capture what He Is

Again, is the intent to fully capture Him, or disregard, jettison creed, like an either or proposition?

Jesus is both fully God and fully man. He has words, precepts, creeds to be believed and meditated upon. His Spirit and Word cuts us asunder, is our mirror. Look at Him and we see our true nature. One can study themselves as a book per Krishnamurti, but one can also let a Spirit thru His book (Word) study us.

Sorry, I see Krishnamurti as a new age phenomenon, mostly in the West, filling a void in unspiritual people, with eastern philisophy and touches of some of it’s religions (some Buddhism). He may have been sincere but still created his own niche by disavowing all other spiritual paths. I would agree with disavowing all other save One path, as found in Jesus.

 

[White_Tree]

Forget about Krishnamurti for a moment. He is a distraction.

I agree with most of what you said, and I want to zero in on something:

God is the author of speech and thoughts and feelings etc…He is the originator of language. Just as surely as we are made in His image, so can our thoughts and precepts be after Him also. On one hand God is the “I Am”, and on the other He is Logos, the Word. He can communicate thoughts, concepts, creeds, even religious activity to be had.

To go “beyond” His Word, as if thereby being more transcendant even freer or lending to more enlightenment is “talking about”, even critiquing creed and religion.

Yes, absolutely. God gave us thought, speech, feelings, language, and religion. But these things are not ends in themselves, but rather are just a vehicle to take us to something greater.

Think of religion like a car that you can use to drive to the beach and go in the ocean. To say that the ocean is deeper, more expansive, more awe-inspiring than the car is in no way a denigration of the car. It could be a very luxurious, very expensive, very fast and powerful car. It does not belittle the car to say the ocean does not fit inside the car.

The Reality of God is something that cannot be imagined or described with words. And so the only way God has to share that Truth with us is to show us! God gave us all those gifts–thought, feelings, speech, religion–as the tools by which we can come to experience the Reality that is Him, in the same way that the car can transport us to the ocean.

But once we drive the car to the beach, in order to experience the ocean we need to get out of the car! Because if we are trapped inside our mind, we will never be able to experience that which is beyond the mind. The mind is meant to be a tool, to be used to take us to God. But we turn our mind into a god! We worship concepts and beliefs.

I think one of the most unfortunate things that happens with religion is we receive these really fantastic teachings from great teachers like Jesus, and rather than wisely applying those teachings to carry us to direct experience of the Absolute Truth of the Father, we instead think the teachings are the end in themselves. We become trapped in the very thing meant to liberate us.

At the end of the day, regardless of who we believe in, who we avow or disavow, if the path we chose is not carrying us to God, is not delivering us to the direct experience of the Truth that is Him, then it is just another plaything for the mind. It is a game of make-believe.

 

[Anesti33]

 

[mcq72]

Forget about Krishnamurti for a moment. He is a distraction.

I can easily forget about Krishnamurti as a “distraction”, just as he calls creeds or all other paths “distractions”.

 

[mcq72]

The mind is meant to be a tool, to be used to take us to God.

Agree, the mind is a gift, and by His grace, helps us to see the need for the death of it, death of self, so as to make room for His mind and His life, in us. A seed must die to grow into new life. We are made in His image. We are spiritual beings, though dead to it’s purpose because of sin leaving us with stinking thinking, that must be repented of.

think one of the most unfortunate things that happens with religion is we receive these really fantastic teachings from great teachers like Jesus, and rather than wisely applying those teachings to carry us to direct experience of the Absolute Truth of the Father, we instead think the teachings are the end in themselves.

Well at least for Christians it is about believing and doing. It is about first finding new life in Christ thru the Holy Ghost, and then living out this new spiritual life. It is not self centered in one’s direct experiencing of Him, that not being the end either, but rather to serve Him and do the works He has called us to.

Yes we are warned not to be just hearers of the Word but doers also.

At the end of the day, regardless of who we believe in, who we avow or disavow, if the path we chose is not carrying us to God, is not delivering us to the direct experience of the Truth that is Him, then it is just another plaything for the mind. It is a game of make-believe.

Indeed, Judaism was a very exact and absolute path so to speak, as is Christianity. Again the narrow gate that is Jesus Christ and His gospel. All other ground is sinking sand.

By the way, of course you know Christians believe that Jesus is much more than a teacher or prophet but Almighty God Himself, come in the flesh. No man goes to the Father but thru the Son, and no one goes to Jesus unless drawn by the Father.

He is quite a personal God, existing as a Trinity, as we are made in His image. He is not just a cosmic force as we are not just part of unindividual consciousness. Indeed we can be one with Him and yet be quite individual, as He is with Himself.