Jiddu Krishnamurti was an Indian philosopher born into a large poor family in the late 19th century. The leaders of a religion/cult called Theosophy believed that he was “the messiah” ( Jesus, Buddha, etc, all the same person ) since he was born in a rare birth order. They “adopted” him and raised him.
Despite being told that he was the messiah all of his childhood when it came time for his ascension to the leadership of the Theosophists, Krishnamurti turned them down. During the ceremony he gave a long speech against dogma and authoritarianism.
Interestingly, he kept finding interesting philosophical things to talk about. He spent the rest of his life writing books as well as giving talks that were an interesting cross section of philosophy and Eastern religious concepts. He did this with a very secular flavor.
I read literally dozens of his books while I was in college. I can also remember waiting weeks to get videos of him through my campus library, then barricading myself in the multimedia room away from the heat of summer.
I haven’t read much of him for many years. His message from book to book is very similar, just expressed in different ways.
Recently, I was pleased to discover that there are a lot of videos of his talks on YouTube.
Pretty cool.
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