This is a remarkable and strange story, told by a person close to Krishnamurti. A young man is taken from his family in India (seemingly at random) and trained to be a "world teacher" of Theosophy. After several years of traveling around the world, having fun with his friends, meditating, and developing doubts, he has an intense and torturous mystical experience. He comes to the conclusion that the only salvation is that we find within ourselves, and strikes out on his own.

I can see why the Dalai Lama likes Krishnamurti. His own autobiography tells a story that is similiar in many respects -- a lonely young god-king who finds himself, but also shows an attractively human side along the way. (In the D. L.'s case, he tinkered with watches rather than cars.)

The author knew Krishnamurti when both were young, and she was in love with him. She's evidently still in love, yet manages to tell Krishnamurti's story in an honest manner, including faults and errors as well as a bit of hero-worship. While I sympathized with him and found him an attractive human being in some ways, I can't say I came away admiring K quite as much as the author clearly does. As a youth, he seemed to me (being bourgois at heart) like a lonely and mixed up young man who needed a real job and a real family more than anything. After a long, slow build-up, K's mystic experience is described in painful detail. Like Mohammed gurus like Muktananda and Sai Baba, it was a painful and bizarre experience that even the principles thought might involve evil spirits. But then the story takes an unexpected twist. Rather than launching jihad, or founding an ashram with himself as God, K sets out to teach the world that God -- or "life" -- is no more (or not much more) his monopoly than that of anyone else.

Given Occam's razor, where should we slice? The author gives little reason to assume that K's grand pronouncements at this stage are true. She points out, for example, that after his experience, he was still capable of accusing her, falsely, of having an affair with a married man. Nor do the "un-dogmas" given in this book, at least, strike me as extraordinarily deep. Truth is "unconditioned" and "pathless," organized creeds are "crystalized" and "dead." "There is neither good nor evil. Good is that of which you are afraid; evil is that of which you are not afraid." These are cliches in some circles, and strike me as the kind of sophism that is just iconoclastic enough to seem profound to mild intellectual rebels. One can only be called bold for questioning one's own dogmas, not those of someone else.

Many of K's ideas given here appear to me to have been influenced by the Dharmapada and Zen Buddhism. People couldn't live with such an individual self-help form of Buddhism 2600 years ago. The author seems to show (see what happens to the other characters in the book) that they can't live with it today, either. (Even if self-salvation "works" -- or is the highest goal -- which I doubt, especially the latter.) Tell myself, "I am one of the strong ones. I can save myself." Or is that my pride speaking? Which means, I am most lost of all? K himself seemed to entertain similar doubts, at least early on. His mystic experience may have assured him, while I, frankly, was left wondering why.

This book is mainly the story of K's early life, not his teachings, however. It is a well-told and touching story. It gives an inside view of the Theosophy society, and portrays the main characters with sympathy and, most the time, kindness. (Sometimes to the point of naivitee.)

author, Jesus and the Religions of Man

The first of two books about the man groomed for messiahship by those who took him for the reincarnated World Teacher, the man who later dissolved the Order of the Star, gave back the wealth he'd been given, and told the world it was all bunk: "Truth is a pathless land..."

I've been reading several of Krishnamurti's books before reading this biography of his early years, through age 38, and definitely consider this must reading for anyone who has been studying his philosophy. Here in the earlier stages of his life, one can see the elements that shaped the man and his philosophy.

Mary Luytens, the author of this biography, was a close friend of his and she refers to herself in the third person several times through the book. Her mother was active in the Theosophical Society directed by Mrs. Besant during J. Krishnamurti's childhood and young adult years.

As the eighth son born to a family of the Brahmin caste in India, he was automatically given the name of Krishnamurti. A horoscope was immediately cast for him by an Indian astrologer, and needless to say, it predicted that he would be a singularly important spiritual influence.

This is a fascinating account of those early years, and of how the Theosophical Society gained control of his upbringing, and cast him in the role of the great world spiritual leader whose advent the society predicted. The author details events of this period and the reader will see how Krishnamurti, although under the tutelage of this group, developed an independent spirit and an independent philosophy, and eventually stepped out of the role created for him.

The emphasis throughout the book is on the biographical events and not on the eventual philosophy. For this reason, I feel that the person familiar with the philosophy will get more from this book than will one who hasn't read this man's writings.

I believe anyone who is spiritually attuned will gain a tremendous insight through this book.

Includes private talks with close friends and students, toward the end of K's life, about what he called "the process," something akin to shamanic illness and an awakened kundalini.

A preposterous and disingenuous response to the well documented revelations found in Radha Sloss's shocking book "Lives in the Shadow". One immediately senses how hastily this book was assembled by noticing, for instance, that the 30 year period of relationship between Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals encompassing the years between 1930 and 1960 is disposed of in only 25 pages. And Lutyens, the most prominent of his biographers, by her own admission, confesses that by the time her final biographical volume was published in 1988, she knew about this affair but made no mention of it in her book. This is clearly inexcusable in a biographer.

This books seems to me as pretty good at proving that R.Sloss is an unnacurate and biased accounter of K`s affair with Rosalind R. M.L. shows herself as an erudite on K`s life, who easily points out big mistakes in R.S`s book. Enough of them to untrust R.S as a reliable source. However, the book also keep unresolved some important questions on K's behavior in this affair. The abortion matter is apparently solved by suggesting that R.R. was never pregnant and that if so, she had to abort for the sake of her life. But, even though this may have been true, it still remains the fact that K`s reaction was on the basis that he believed she really was pregnant. And, in this respect, M.L. does not refute R.S account, which shows not only a careful and affectionate K but also a conveniently distant partenaire, who waits outside the abortion clinic for the result(feared of being involved in something illegal?). Also, even if we have to assume that the abortion was necessary, it is not less true that this did not lead K to stop sexual relations, despite the evidence that they may result in the need of breaking a human life process. For somebody who asked to leave drugs just by seeing the danger of them and expressed his devotion and sacredness vision about life, it is certainly extrange that he was not able to stop a relation that showed clearly as liable to demand repeated abortions (recall also the severe response given in Brookwod to sexual relationships between students and the dialogs on sex with them, at "begginings of learning"). Even more extrange is that he NEVER - and I have checked this on his complete works CD ROM - talked about abortion itself. Just in a few ocassions he used the word as a metaphora but he never discussed that especific matter (did he have scruples about it?). Before knowing about this affair, one may think that he never dealt with it as his position on it should be evidently derived from his radical defence of life and opposition to suicide. But, certainly, things are not so clear after this affair has been known.
Also, it is curious to see how K`s attitude towards his life evolves with time. In her previous biography, M.L says how she - and also Mary Z - are encouraged by K to write about his life and how was to live with him. He even suggests that people should make hundreds miles to talk to those who knew him. This approach changes with time conveniently to the one we hear today: what matters are the teachings, not the man. In my view, this puts K on the same level as most of the conventional espiritual leaders or Popes, who only are supposed to tranmit the truth when they talk about it but not in their day to day behaviour (by the way, the roman philosopher, Seneca, used to say his disciples: do what I say not what I do. This is a very old trick). The question is not to make K a perfect being but to see whether the teachings work on real life or not. He could make mistakes but the truth is suppose to reveal also through the way he faced them. The teachings may be like a beatiful architectural design, nice to see and talk about it, but impossible to translate into a real building. And one has a bit of this feeling when sees how so many people fought and even tried to kill (if we rely on K`s account on an attempt to kill him by R.R) for the property of these teachings. One feels that to live them did not matter at all but to have their property, as they proved to be an article with a profitable, loyal and wide market.
What is evident for me is that M.L. was unable to gather from K enough data on this affair. I think K did not try to hide it even though he did not help to put more light on it. It was his right, as a private and personal matter but, extrangely, it indicates a priority given to his image instead to the defence of the teachings (which - no doubt about it - will be damaged later or sooner by this issue). On the other hand, I do not share the views on K`s cheating by proyecting a false chastity image. Read his books and talks. Nobody can find an assesment supporting that view. As far as just this matter is concerned, I do not see any contradiction with the teachings.
Finally, I find no excuse to the fact that M.L. did not mention it in his K`s biography, even though she recognised she knew about it by this time (another "kind" suggestion not to mention it, like "the process" removal from her mother's book?). The fact is that she only wrote about it when she had to react to R.S`s book. Too late and too incomplete.

My opinion of this little book is tarnished by the fact that I haven't read "Lives in the Shadow", to which this is a reply. It should be mentioned that Mary Lutyens was a devotee of K when she wrote this book. She does not like Sloss's book at all and gives her impression of Sloss's inconsistencies. The RS book though is very long (over 300 hundred pages) and it is unclear how the Lutyen book could answer all the allegations in her tiny book Still, Lutyen's book is pretty good at giving some good explanations for K's actions, if that's what you're after. For example, it is quite clear that K didn't exactly say he was celibate or gave that impression personally. Certainly books like Years of Fullfillment give the impression K was celibate, but Lutyens didn't know of K's affair then. I actually agreed with Lutyens on this point, I don't find anything in K's teachings which say he is celibate, or that we should be celibate - and I've read a lot. The other allegations are that K sanctioned Rosalind's abortions. Birth control at that time wasn't what it is today, and it seems unclear what K's intentions were. I think only a fairly bitter person would suggest that K didn't want an heir, and would therefore suggest to kill the child because of that. Lutyens says that Rosalind had a medical condition that would cause her to die if she didn't have an abortion, so who really knows about that. In other cases, RS seems to go too far in her speculations on K. For example, that K faked the process to procure the attention of women. Or that K was always childish or dishonest. Or that K deliberately tried to cover up his affair. On this later point, I have some grave, grave doubts he ever did. I've asked on numerous occcasions for people to give me evidence of this, yet I haven't got any. Also, if RS and her circle know the truth about K, then why is it that it is only her book that make this allegation? Why aren't these "people" who apparently knew K so well in other books? It does seem that Rajagopal (a very, very strange person ... and that's not just going by Lutyen's account, it goes by most accounts of K biographers, often who are actually pretty understanding towards Raja and make excuses for him) felt K was not enlightened. Rosalind didn't think so either. Why not? Pupul wrote revealingly in her own biography how easy it was to get used to K, to take him for granted and not to see his "qualities". It's also doubtful K loved Rosalind as much as claimed. Lutyen's book deals with this in detail. K knew his "position", which was the World Teacher, and that came before other things. He also fell in love with a woman called Hellen Knothe. If you read Knothe's account, you will realise that while K was deeply in love with her, it was not a jealous obsessive love and that K was the one that had lost interest, not her. She saw in his eyes that it was over, and that was that. Yet it seems from many reports that Rosalind's character is in question. People were surprised how badly Rosalind treated K. Rosalind was wrote a letter to Rajagopal when he found a new love which congratulated him, but when Raja wanted a divorse she fought it. Rosalind even by her own admition was a hysterical, and why people place her word over K's seems odd to me. Overall, K and the Rajagopals will seem to confirm the beliefs of those on the "K side" or simply say to those who are not (a very vocal minority) how much his devotees want to defend him. Yet it seems that the truth exonerates Krishnamurti, as far as I see it. Again, I will have to read Lives in the Shadow to make a full assessment.