Knocking at the Open Door: My Years with J. Krishnamurti

By R. E. Mark Lee

J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986) was thought by many to be a modern-day equivalent of the Buddha. In fact, he was once even considered to be the second coming of Christ. While many think it wonderful to live and work in close proximity with such a person, its difficult to understand the depth of what this means and how challenging this might be.

In Knocking at the Open Door, author R.E. Mark Lee provides an ordinary person view of what being close-up and working together with such a man means, how it challenges one at every turn, and how it causes one to question ceaselessly, even more deeply than one ordinarily would. Lee offers an insightful, candid, and heartfelt narrative that reveals various unknown facets of the eminent world teacher J. Krishnamurti and highlights his distinctive vision for education worldwide.

This comprehensive volume brings alive the practical and everyday interactions Lee had with Krishnamurti during a twenty-year period in India and the United Sates. Knocking at the Open Door shares a clear and honest account that demonstrates the challenges of working with Krishnamurti in running a school that is true to the teaching and yet able to function in the reality of modern parental, student, and educational establishment expectations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Sep 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504365031

R. E. Mark Lee

R. E. Mark Lee grew up in Santa Barbara, California, and received a master’s degree in education from the University of California in 1977. Most of his professional career was spent in schools in India and America. He was principal of the Rishi Valley Junior School from 1965 to 1972 and founding director of the Oak Grove School in Ojai, California, from 1975 to 1985. He served as executive director of the Krishnamurti Foundation of America for twenty years and was director of Krishnamurti Publications for five years. He was the chief editor of the seventeen volumes The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life, and The Little Book on Living. From 1995 to 2010, Lee was the owner-publisher of Edwin House Publishing, which specialized in memoirs of Krishnamurti’s associates. His interests include architecture, gardening, travel, and reading. For the past forty years, he has lived with his wife and daughters in Ojai.

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Copyright © 2015 R.E.Mark Lee

Second Edition Balboa Press (Hay House, California)

Copyright © 2016 R. E. Mark Lee

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-6502-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-6504-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-6503-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016914898

Balboa Press rev. date: 11/21/2016

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 The Early Awakening

Chapter 2 The First Meeting with Krishnamurti, and Beyond

Chapter 3 Going Home to India

Chapter 4 Fire Them!

Chapter 5 Interacting with the Dalai Lama

Chapter 6 Teaching Arts

Chapter 7 Do You Love Her?

Chapter 8 You Saw It. There Is No Other Explanation

Chapter 9 Our Lives Change Forever

Chapter 10 What Is Religious Education?

Chapter 11 The Opening of the Oak Grove School

Chapter 12 What’s Wrong with You?

Chapter 13 The School: Architectural and Cultural Structures

Chapter 14 The Man from Seattle

Chapter 15 Don’t Let Anything Become a Habit

Chapter 16 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi Visits the Rishi Valley School

Chapter 17 The Final Phase

Chapter 18 Changes at the Oak Grove School

About the Author

To Sequoia Lee Rao

and her generation of innocents

PHOTOGRAPHS

Cover photograph

J. Krishnamurti circa 1965 at Rome, Italy, © Frances McCann

Lady Luia Forbes circa 1961 at South Africa

Krishnamurti and Nandini Lee meeting on his arrival at Ojai in 1977, © Fritz Wilhelm

Krishnamurti speaking with Valley School students, 1978, © Michael Mendizza

Krishnamurti speaking with Oak Grove students in the pavilion, 1978, © Michael Mendiizza

Krishnamurti speaking about animals with Oak Grove students in the pavilion and Rene Rhoades demonstrating the monkey, 1978, © Michael Mendizza

Krishnamurti speaking with Oak Grove students in the pavilion, 1978, © Michael Mendizza

Krishnamurti and Mark Lee urging Nandini Lee to help plant a ficus tree on the grounds of Oak Grove School in 1979 © Earl Scott

Oak Grove School staff and faculty circa 1980

Krishnamurti on the podium, speaking with a Rishi Valley student, 1985, © Michael Mendizza

The Lee family on grounds of Oak Grove School 1985, © Earl Scott (L to R) Mark Lee, Nandini (standing), Gitanjali, Asha, Gayatri

PREFACE

At an early age, when I became aware that life was more than a series of experiences and events, questions arose as to exactly what made up the life of anyone, including me. What did it all mean when it was said that someone led a happy life or a hard life? As the years progressed, I was aware that anything that happened in my life was layered, the seen and then the unseen, and there was a background to almost everything.

Is it true that life is lived on many different levels? Is it true that one can live superficially or deeply? These and other questions began to come up when I was in my teens and persisted through the school years. But this chronicle of questions, or whatever I call it, has as its outstanding fault a lack of real proportion. That is what characterized my life: a lack of boundaries and reference points with regard to what is normal and conventional. If there is anything virtuous about the narrative, it is my steadfast insistence on rewarding and unusual relationships, without which life would be unmemorable. Therefore, I have given the names of people who have meant a great deal to me, and I have focused on those people and my life around the time of our friendship as opposed to writing a traditional chronology of events without names or designations.

As I woke up to life and asked why things were the way they were, I found fewer and fewer friends and family members to share my questions with or who were even interested in questioning or asking about the why of anything. More and more, I had internal dialogues with myself as I asked questions more seriously, not waiting for answers, just listening and observing each response.

What attracts us to philosophy, the esoteric, and the mystical? Why do we read books on these subjects, seek out speakers, and spend time trying to gain experiences of these entities? What are we after? In a family, one person can be fascinated by all this and another completely caught up in material pursuits. It seems that if someone begins to question life because of pain and suffering, or begins to doubt certain accepted societal norms and practices, he or she is immediately introduced to a different dimension of life.

Seeking intelligence or wanting enlightenment or awakening are age-old longings of humankind. Cultures and religions refer to aspirations as satori (a Japanese Buddhist word for inner awakening"), nirvana (a state of perfect happiness), grace, salvation, and realization.

The teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti put things in a whole new perspective.¹ He denied the seeker, the aspirant, the religious chela,² saying that if one has a goal to attain something or one wants to become someone other than what one is, inherent and serious conflicts will arise. He also denied outside religious and psychological authorities, saying that one has to discover for oneself who one is and find the answers to the great questions of life and living. His reasoning and approach were against the traditional stream, immediately attracting the attention of listeners not satisfied with the conventional.

Alas, this sets up expectations of a fast-moving zinger of a narrative, which is misleading. My life has been held together less by a progression of experiences than by a progression of unfolding spiritual insights over several decades and in relationship with people. The story has no early beginnings of any importance because of the casualness of a childhood without much drama or consequence. If chance favors the prepared, it is from other earlier lives that I have had the advantages of rich friendships and the inclination to the untraditional spiritually.

§

The title for this book has a story in it. In the spring of 1979, Krishnamurti had just finished a series of dialogues on education and the Oak Grove School at Pine Cottage, both in Ojai, California. At the conclusion of the last session, Krishnamurti and I went for a walk south on McAndrew Road. After about a minute, he stopped, held my arm, and asked, Who was that woman sitting on the floor in front of you? I gave him the name of the teacher. He then said, Sir, every year she asks me the same questions. Every year, sir. Doesn’t she see that the door is open? Why doesn’t she just come in?

This vivid analogy illustrates the enigma Krishnamurti lived with. Countless people listened to his talks and had public and private dialogues and interviews with him. Millions read his books. Yet they didn’t evidence understanding, which led to going over and over the same issues year after year. If there were people who understood even a small part of his message, they were silent and kept whatever understanding they had to themselves. To him it was simple, so simple that he said, Even if you understand one part of it [his oeuvre, referred to as the teachings], that is enough; you understand all of it.

The doors of perception are indeed open, and this became a perpetual challenge for me as I worked with teachers in schools where there was more to learning than content. All any of us have to do is stop knocking (asking questions), stop seeking, and just watch. In waiting, we are watching, listening, and acutely aware. In that empty state, nothing happens, but everything is present.

§

For centuries, humankind has striven for moksha (individual liberation), nirvana, enlightenment, illumination, and satori. Krishnamurti’s lifelong concern was change in human consciousness rather than simply individual or personal change. Science has shown that a change in one member of a species means it is possible for there to be a general, widespread change across the species. He addressed that pervasive psychological change through his talks. In various ways, he invited people to step through the open door into a world of great beauty, love, wonder, and understanding—all brought about by the irreversible change in outlook and perception of the new mind.

§

Without really acknowledging it or having the language to express it, understanding consciousness has been an extended interest of mine. Without a doubt, the narrative that stands out most prominently in my life is my fifty years spent in the Krishnamurti Foundation India (KFI), the Krishnamurti Foundation of America (KFA), the Rishi Valley School (near Madanapalle, now in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where Krishnamurti was born on 12 May 1895), and finally the Oak Grove School (OGS). You are never as alive as you are when your consciousness is turned upside down. That was the state I was in for years in the foundations and their schools.

My avocation was a change in consciousness, and my vocation was working in several Krishnamurti-inspired institutions. Each has its own story, and I have tried to chronicle each of them as they connect and intertwine. Most personal and familial antecedents to this story are not worth retelling, except for narrations on the few unusual individuals who significantly influenced my thinking and the way my life unfolded.

§

It was an honor to be associated with J. Krishnamurti. Just to have been alive in his century would have been enough—to hear him speak and discover his teachings. But to know him was a great honor; though, truthfully, I was not an intimate or even a close friend, but an affiliate. I hold him in the highest regard as the teacher to the world, as the term literally means.

I have met several venerated and highly regarded spiritual teachers, men of the age, including Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramesh Balsekar, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and Sri Sai Baba of Puttaparthi. All of these teachers have contributed greatly to Hindu movements worldwide, and they are in line with the ancient traditions and uphold and perpetuate those traditions. A break with tradition and a fresh and modern approach to perennial wisdom attracted me to Krishnamurti and his teachings.

§

The goodness and presence of Krishnamurti had a life-changing impact on me and on others who were privileged to be associated with him. No words can adequately describe his great spirituality, as his was of a dimension not of this common world. He lived on the cusp of two worlds: the seen and the unseen. He was very human, practical, wholly realistic, and grounded, and at the same time, he was mystical. Even for Krishnamurti, it was a balancing act to hold himself in two worlds simultaneously.

Anyone who had been in his presence knew that he would have a role as a world teacher, His teaching life enlarged over decades to give one an understanding and feeling of the profoundly spiritual nature of his being and life. The veracity of Krishnamurti’s teachings was demonstrated through his life. He was himself what he taught. There were not two different Krishnamurtis, as has been alleged. Seeing him up close and observing him in relationships with others provided a further authentication of the living teachings and his humanness.

At the same time, he kept at bay the esoteric and subtle forces present around him, always stressing to friends, readers, and audiences alike that those forces and siddhis³ were unimportant unless life was in complete order and we are living in the present. Then, and only then, can they be understood and have a place in one’s life, as long as one is not attached to them and does not identify with them. The mystical and subtle are the meta teachings, and they were only alluded to, not explicated in detail as the teachings were. I have used the words levels and esoteric in the text but not the way classical occult literature uses them. I am shy of both words and their associations but could find no others to convey the otherness dimension.

§

There is ample extant literature on Krishnamurti’s extraordinary life. The teachings themselves serve as an intellectual biography of the man. He was chary of identifying himself. One time he said he was a philosopher of sorts, then again a teacher, and yet again the speaker, and once even a telephone. Never did I hear him or read in the teachings reference to himself as anyone special or worthy of veneration. He made no claims about himself. In fact, at a talk at Santa Monica, California, a woman stood up and said to the audience as she left the hall, Leave now. He is taking everything away from us. He promised nothing to anyone.

Krishnamurti knew and stated he was the Teacher, as he did on his deathbed in February 1986. During one of the court cases started by the KFA in California in the 1970s, initiated to recover and return his assets and archives that had been sequestered from him for more than forty years, Krishnamurti affirmed before a judge in the Ventura Court when asked if he was the World Teacher, If you mean in the way the Theosophical Society defined world teacher, I am not. But if you consider I have traveled the world teaching, then I am. There are so many questions and speculation about the appellation World Teacher. Only his own words can be used to verify anything in this regard.

§

The human psychology epic portrayed in the classic Indian saga of the Mahabharata is no more of an epic than the 100 million words of Krishnamurti’s oeuvre. Authors usually employ a context in which to externalize the deeper inner movements of a human story: the conflicts, joys, and sorrows, questions and answers, successes and failures, and mysteries of human relationships and struggles. Krishnamurti’s context was daily human life without nationality, time-bound qualities, place, or the specifics that usually provide clues to age, sex, culture, or character. So, in fact the contextlessness and timelessness of the teachings serve as evidence of the universality of his message. Human consciousness as a whole was the context. The other might be the fact of him speaking, writing, and teaching worldwide in hundreds of countries from 1918 to 1986—sixty-eight years with few interruptions.

The longest hiatus for Krishnamurti from travel and public speaking was during World War II (beginning in 1938 and lasting for nine years), when he was forced by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to stay in one place and not hold public talks. That agency reacted to him speaking against all war at a time when the government was particularly sensitive to the current war.⁴ Krishnamurti was in the Ojai Valley throughout the war, and except for short excursions to the Grand Canyon (Arizona), Sequoia National Forest (California), and Carmel, California, he led a quiet, sequestered life until he went to India in 1947.⁵

His teaching life resumed in India, and a whole new cadre of friends were with him to the end of his life. I was fortunate to know and work with most of that group, which included Pupul Jayakar; Sunanda Patwardhan, PhD; Pama Patwardhan; Achuyt Patwardhan; S. Balasundaram, PhD; Ahalya Chari; Shiva Rao; and Nandini Mehta.

The important figures in the bhāratam⁶ of my life have been my extraordinary wife, Asha Singh Lee, MD, and our three children, Gayatri Anna Lee, Gitanjali Luia Lee, and Nandini Marina Lee Rao, MD. They are the most vital of individuals and have provided authentic love and affection. Our lives have been a continuum of learning and insight, which means that nothing wrong or evil has ever happened to any of us; there is only revelatory learning.

Each of these women has been a guru for me. Each individually has been supremely important in waking me up, keeping me awake, and teaching me that being sensitive and aware is the highest and only way to live. Asha’s love and care for me and the countless others in our lives is a testimony to the ancient saying that she obeyed love without remonstrance her whole life.

§

The time spent with the Krishnamurti Foundations and their schools in India and later in America were perhaps the most interesting years for me professionally. In terms of historical significance, the Krishnamurti Foundations (KFA, Krishnamurti Foundation Trust [KFT], and KFI) are not much different from the Theosophical Society (TS).

Krishnamurti spent his lifetime warning of the institutionalization of his message. Both the TS and the foundations are challenged with preserving, protecting, and promulgating truth that is beyond definition. Both institutions experience the same inherent problems of institutionalization with their organizations and associated individuals. How those individuals dealt with the process of institutionalization in the face of dire warnings from masters and from Krishnamurti himself is another story.

I was a natural teacher but not a natural administrator. Whatever I did as principal and then director was from years of learning the art of working with people, inquiring with others into the teachings, and trying to maintain order. Throughout fifty years in the foundations and schools, my guiding concern was the teachings and less the institutions themselves. It was no mere coincidence that I was repeatedly given great responsibilities for the lives of many people. Whether I acted responsibly and intelligently is not for me to judge, but I can say that authority has never been important to me. There are two kinds of power: power that one dangerously assumes from arrogance and ignorance of the self, and one that comes from active and alive truth. The interplay of the two opposites in a spiritual setting has been a continual fascination for me.

When Krishnamurti asked me to take leadership of the KFA in 1986, I asked him what my role as administrator of his foundation would be. His answer was consistent with the teachings but made little sense in managerial terms: To flower in goodness. Of course, if one did flourish, all things excellent would follow: capacity, proficiency, goodness, and success—and all beyond measure. Whether or not I flowered is not for me to say, but what I learned for myself and other administrators of Krishnamurti institutions is that flowering means to discover oneself. That doesn’t necessarily mean proficiency or success in one’s work. It means that one has seen oneself as one is and has no illusions.

The several foundations are not spiritual organizations; they are business oriented, and their work is religious as defined by Krishnamurti. The potential for self-deception is enormous in spiritual and organizational matters where ordinary checks and balances are hidden by ambitions and fear in oneself and in others. Later, it became apparent that Krishnamurti also used the flowering image as a forewarning; he is not flowering meant impending severance from the foundation or a school.

§

Plato said that philosophy should not be taught to people until they attained thirty years of age. But a philosophy of living—not existentialism, though—begins to emerge even before age thirty, when one is challenged and is aware and awake to who and why one is.

Often, as I watched the sun or the rain beat down on the view out of my window in Ojai, I thought that I would be able to reflect on the years with Krishnamurti and the schools and help bring on younger, intelligent, and vital individuals who would take the schools and foundations into new realms of dedication in preserving and disseminating the Krishnamurti teachings. What actually happened—aside from that somewhat romantic screenplay—was that the schools and the Krishnamurti organizations were vulnerable to their social, economic, and political environments—and to the movement of life itself—and therefore would change or die.

I now understand that when Krishnamurti said, If they survive and Build [them] to last at least five hundred years, he was acknowledging their temporality. The changes in the organizations could never have been envisioned fifty years ago. The generations of people who knew Krishnamurti personally or had at least heard him speak were gone, and wholly new and different generations of people had emerged. Their interest was in the teachings rather than in the phenomena of the man. The significance of the man was no longer relevant and was replaced by a focus on the teachings. Krishnamurti had said to us, Nothing grows under the banyan tree. And with the passing of the teacher, the teachings became the teacher.

§

In Pine Cottage, Ojai, Krishnamurti asked me in 1979 and then in 1984, Please, sir, promise you will never leave me. In 1985, when I retired from the school and moved on to head the foundation, with his lips pursed he poked me forcefully in the chest and said, When you know it is time to leave, leave in a minute. These are not paradoxical or conflicting statements—rather, they speak from and to different states of mind and different contexts. I took each admonition literally and in the context of the time and circumstances that prompted him to give them.

On several occasions, I was prepared to leave the work over my fifty-year career with the foundations and schools, but I did not until 2010. The promises I had made to Krishnamurti could not be withdrawn. Additionally, he had said to me in 1982, You will die at your desk with your boots on. This was not the first cowboy reference he used with me, and it flattered me so much that I bought a pair of black cowboy boots after Krishnamurti died. I wore them for years.

From these instances, it is clear that Krishnamurti gave anything but simple advice but did not add special value. It is misleading—and can cause serious psychological mischief—to conclude or assume more than what was said—namely, to give status to Krishnamurti’s wishes or compliments. He rarely complimented anyone except perhaps for a well-cooked meal that he happened to like. In 1983 I saw Krishnamurti on one knee, thanking Erna Lilliefelt (secretary of the KFA) for her successful efforts with Desikachar Rajagopal, an associate of Krishnamurti, to resolve the twenty years of legal battles over publishing rights, the ownership of archives, and the whereabouts of millions of donation dollars.

Krishnamurti’s reproof came easier for those who worked in the foundations or were heads of schools. He held the heads of foundations and schools to a high standard, perhaps because they were responsible for so many people working and living in the light of the teachings. Krishnamurti stated clearly that he had no representatives and no one spoke for him. Everyone who worked in one of his foundations or schools was there because of his or her own interest and passion for the teachings. In fact, if one had any relationship with Krishnamurti, it was only because of the teachings and not because of a friendship or even affection for the teacher. He did not tolerate personality worship or adoration, and if he sensed it in someone, he or she got short shrift from him. He was aware of and appreciated those who were clearly devoted to their work, and eagerly engaged with them informally or in dialogues.

§

I announced my retirement to the board of trustees in 2008, citing health reasons and age (I would be seventy in two years). I thought both were legitimate reasons to step aside and allow younger people to work in the foundation. That year was financially annus horribilis for the KFA particularly and the national economy generally. I had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and the foundation was deteriorating rapidly for lack of revenue; so it may have been the wrong time to retire. But from another perspective, it was the right time. Either way, it was the right thing to take responsibility for the gross loss of foundation equity and the general lack of staff morale.

After I retired in August 2010, it took three years for the administration to stabilize and return to a solid footing, and for the foundation finances as well as the finances of the nation to recover. In recent years, the foundation has increased its programs, broadened its investments base, and recruited a dedicated younger staff. The Oak Grove School is operating without a deficit and is thriving with full enrollment and a stable staff and faculty.

Of greater importance is the continuance of the reified purposes that compelled Krishnamurti to start the American Foundation and the school. He had said in the 1980s that the work of the foundations and schools would perhaps die or at least weaken with the passing of the eldest of those who had known him in life, and that it may take two hundred years for there to be a resurgence of the teachings.⁵ These projections are reminiscent of Buddhist lore or are at least classical in nature rather than prophetic.

Krishnamurti was well aware that it was the responsibility of many people to keep the teachings alive and growing. He said in 1985, a year before his death, There are more teachings to come, but they won’t unless you ask the right questions. With this statement, he depersonalized the teachings, and they became a perennial universal wisdom. The danger of the institutionalization of the teachings remains, in spite of ample warnings by Krishnamurti. It is likely that an outside agency, not one of the four foundations, will try to philosophize, codify, or sanctify the teachings. Even during his lifetime, there were Krishnamurti fanatics and attempts at imposing orthodoxy.

§

Krishnamurti did not think of the several institutions he founded as places where people could retire and live out their lives, even if they were dedicated to the teachings. We can conclude he learned early in life that there was a tendency for people to identify with the teachings and make for themselves a career and expect to work in the foundations and retire there. He had an abhorrence of this possibility and warned of the dangers of it.

In 1977, as we were making long-range plans, blocking out projected campus development in Ojai, we identified staff housing for the so-called Lost Meadow on the western side of the property. Krishnamurti said at the board meeting, very pointedly, Don’t start a community here. And he later added, A community is the most violent thing. Intentional communities become introverted, exclusive, and separatist, which is certainly not appropriate for a school. A natural and nurturing social community of like-minded parents and friends emerges around a school, and that has happened and is