The Open Door

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) was a independent spiritual writing many books such as Krishnamurti Reader: No. 1, You are the World, Commentaries on living; First series, from the notebooks of J. Krishnamurti, etc.


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 Awakening and Krishnamurti: The Years of Fulfillment.


She observes, "He never liked to look at himself on television or video, just as he never read his own books. When asked at the end of a talk whether God existed, he replied, "'We have invented God. Thought has invented God, that is, we, out of our misery, despair, loneliness, anxiety, have invented that thing called God. God has not made us in his image---I wish he had. Personally I have no belief in anything. The speaker only faces what it, what are facts, the realisation of the nature of every fact, every thought, all the reactions---he is totally aware of all that. If you are free from fear, from sorrow, there is no need for a god.' In spite of his request for no clapping there was applause as he stood up." Later, he said into a tape recorder, "There is no resurrection, that is superstition, a dogmatic belief. Everything on earth, on this beautiful earth, lives, dies, comes into being and withers away."

Lutyens' sympathetic, yet detailed and critical biography is "must reading" for anyone wanting to know more about Krishnamurti.