The Bookshelf

In a curious melange of Hindu theology, "existential" philosophy, and Anne Morrow Lindburgh euphemy, Jiddu Krishnamurti offers a spiritual balm for the "issue confronting all of us." In his attempt to free the self from a changing and complex world-entanglement, Krishnamurti maintains the absolute necessity of tranquility and of the present as a base for realization.

Krishnamurti has written a sensitive and thoughtful book, setting his philosophy in beautiful glimpses of Indian life. His ideas are presented in short sketches reminiscent of Kafka's parables or Pascal's "Pensees." But his advice seems better suited to the Indian peasant plowing a lonely field behind a bony ox than to the American audience for whim he writes.

The author constantly advises the elimination of everything relating to past or future. Ambition, for example, is linked to becoming. And becoming "is the continuation of time, or sorrow." Becoming, he claims, does not contain Being, "for Being is always in the present." Ambition of any sort, even of altruistic motivation, is action postponed. "Desire is ever of the future; the desire to become is inaction in the present."

If the basic assumption that "Being is in the present" is admitted, much of Krishnamurti's advice becomes valid. But is that assumption sound? For the seeker of the self especially, Being may be realized only in terms of Becoming, not in the present. The present, I think, is merely the synopsis of the past and future, the elusive transition from the "has been" to the "not yet." The essence of the self is its very ability to project itself, to plan, to become. Being always includes Becoming, and the search for reality must embrace the future and find its way through the twisted avenues of projects not yet finalized.

But for Krishnamurti, all references to the future veil and obstruct the self from realization in what he defines as the present Being). Gossip and newspapers, for instance, originate from concern for others, lead to externalization and inward emptiness. But he fails to see that the self must define itself by that very concern for those others among whom the self is undeniably and inextricably "thrown." Denying our interest in others excludes a vital part of ourselves.

All of Krishnamurti's conclusions originate from his insistence upon the necessity of tranquility for self-knowledge. This state implies the absence of escapes, what the author calls "veils over reality." Politics is one such veil. A mere play of causes and effects, says Krishnamurti, politics is absorbed in externalities which hide the truth from man, that truth which is beyond cause and effect. Worry is also a veil, because it occupies people's minds, spares them from discovering themselves. Also, claims the author, "one can truly communicate only when there is aloneness. Aloneness is the purgation of all motives, of all pursuits of desire, of all ends."

In short, all projects, temporalities, and self-extensions must be eliminated, the objective being that tranquility in which the present yields its secrets and the self emerges into reality. We must be sensitive to what is, vulnerable to the present, unafraid to face the loneliness of self, detached from all extensions and adornments.

But if as I have said, the self is essentially Becoming, then it is tied to projects, the sum of its possibilities. Sartre recognized the pour soi, but lamented the irreconcilable antipathy of en soi vs. pour soi in man. Stones and seas exist close to the present, but even they have their possibilities, their projects. Certainly man is more pour soi than other parts of Being.

Krishnamurti overlooks the possibilities of possibility, the value of the future, man's concern for and with others, human development within the context of such extensions as politics, crowds, newspapers, and worry ("care"). Always, the greatest things come out of crisis and struggle. Realization and self-consciousness do not arise from comfort, from the present, from tranquility. The man who is frightened by himself, afraid to face his loneliness and his own self, flees to the consoling arms of tranquility and the tangibles of the present. But the seekers of the self--the self-conscious--grasp the future, appropriate their possibilities (and limitations), and form vital projects which become part of themselves.

Tranquility is not the answer to the modern dilemma; it is a refusal to face the problem. Modern man will find satisfaction only when he realizes he is bound up with others, directed towards the future, grounded in dynamic possibility rather than in static aloofness.