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ANNIE BESANT AND KRISHNAMURTI : TWO GREAT SOULS IN

QUEST OF TRUTH

Prof. P. Krishna

A life-member of the Theosophical Society and a Trustee of the Krishnamurti Foundation, India.

Dr. Annie Besant and Sri J. Krishnamurti ( Krihsnaji) have been two great seekers of Truth.
They were both inspired and influenced by theosophical ideals which state that Truth is the
highest religion. Their life was so dedicated to the quest for Truth that they were prepared
to sacrifice anything and everything for it. Though I never met Dr.. Besant, I think there is a
lot of misunderstanding about her relationship with Krishnaji. Therefore, in this article, I
wish to present a different perspective based both on personal knowledge and my
readings.

It is clear from Dr. Besant’s autobiography that even before she joined the Theosophical
Society and came to India, she never compromised with her perception of what was true,
irrespective of the price she had to pay for it. She did not allow anything to stand between
her and her perception of the truth- neither religious beliefs nor family and friends.
Whenever she saw something was false or unjust, she immediately dropped it and pursued
the truth by transforming her life fearlessly. It was this quality in her which must have led
Krishnamurrti to say to me in reply to a question why people find it so difficult to get the
truth of his teaching, “ Sir, if Amma had been younger, she would have got it.” I think he
was telling me in 1985 that it needs the kind of fearless passion for truth which Dr. Besant
had, for someone to be able to break through all the past conditionings and perceive the
truth of which he was speaking.

That same year in Varanasi, when Krishnaji was asking me to take charge of his institutions
at Rajghat, he asked me, “ Sir, have you read about Dr. Besant?” I said, “A little Sir. I have
read her autobiography but not much else since I was most of the time busy studying
science.” “ You must read, Sir. She was an extra-ordinary woman!”. To my knowledge
Krishnaji never praised anyone or advocated any reading, but on this occasion he made an
exception!

Most people think that Krishnamurti denied the existence of the Masters and this created a
big rift between him and Dr. Besant which led her to feel disappointed in him. This is a
mis-understanding. What Krishnaji really objected to was a belief of convenience and the
dependence on any outside agency for help. When Sri Mahesh Saxena ( A former Secretary
of the Krishnamurti Foundation, India) asked him in Rajghat, “ Sir, do you deny the
Masters?” Krishnaji told him, “ No Sir, I have never denied the Masters; but Leadbeater
and Arundale brought what was sublime to the ridiculous, and I denied the rediculous”. In
1958, when I first met Krishnaji in Delhi, I had asked him, “ Sir, I have read that in the
Esoteric Section you people used to bring messages from dead spirits and talk to them. Was
all that hallucination?” To which he replied, “ No Sir, those things exist. It is another form
of power. It has nothing to do with goodness; therefore I am not interested in it. Of course,
the mind is also capable of hallucinations.” I understood that he was telling me that freeing
one’s consciousness of the ego is far more important than the cultivation of any power and
that includes occult power; because the ego can misuse that power.

Another time when Krishnaji was with Dr. Radha Burnier, he asked her, “ Radhaji, do you
believe in the Masters?” and she said, “ yes, Sir”. He retorted, “ No, not like that. You know
what it meant to Amma? She would give her life for it! Knowing that, now tell me, do you
believe in the Masters?” Radhaji reiterated “ Yeas Sir, to which Krishnaji responded, “
Good!” These episodes point out what one finds is a recurrent theme throughout his
teaching. To him the attachment to any concrete idea or concept was a barrier to the
perception of the deeper truth, which was always to be posited as the unknown and not
projected out of the known because only the direct perception of the truth transforms
consciousness and not the belief in an idea about it. Belief without perception becomes
choice which is egoistic; it creates division and also hypocricy. On the other hand when one
posits the truth as the unknown, it generates humility which is essential for any deep
enquiry.

We must remember that Krishnaji did not deny God; he denied all the concepts people
accept about God. He did not deny the sacred; he denied what people consider to be
sacred. He did not deny love, but he denied all the usual concepts about love. He did not
deny the religious mind, he denied all concepts and beliefs about what is religious. To him,
something imagined and fashioned by thought had little value, as it blocked inquiry and
therefore the perception of the deeper truth. He posited the truth as the unknown and
advocated an approach to it through the denial of the false.

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Dr. Besant’s approach to truth was not very different from this. Let me quote what she said
much before Krishnamurtu’s teachings had even begun to appear in print :

“ All students should understand something about investigations

into the super physical, in order that they may avoid the blind
credulity which accepts all, on the one side, and the equally blind
incredulity which rejects all, on the other……

Our one great danger, as HPB ( Madame Blavatsky) recognised, is

the danger of getting into a groove, and so becoming fossilized in
the forms of belief that many hold today ….. The Society is
intended, always has been intended, to be a living body and not a
fossil, and a living body grows and develops, adapting itself to
new conditions …….

Nothing could be more fatal to a Society like ours than to

hall-mark as true, special forms of belief, and look askance at
anyone challenging them…… If the Society is to live far into
future, as I believe it will, it must be prepared to recognise now,
quite frankly and freely, that our knowledge is fragmentary, that it
is partial, that it is liable to very great modifications as we learn
more and understand better……..

We are not dealing with theories, or flights of fancy or a mixture of

the two but with records of observation…..

To proclaim one person as an infallible authority on a subject

unknown to the proclaimer is to show fanaticism rather than
reason. I would ask my own friends not to do that with me…….

It is interesting to notice that the matters on which considerable

differences of opinion arise are matters which do not bear on life
and conduct, but on those which however Interesting as
knowledge, are outside that which is needed for the guiding of
human-life….

Very few people analyse the complexity of what seems to them to

be the very simple act of sight. In most acts of vision there is little
real sight and a great deal of memory. What we call “sight” is a
complex, compacted of the translation of the impression just made
on the retina and the memory of the whole of the past impressions
made by the same or by similar objects…….

Only well-trained and experienced seers will avoid the errors of

looking at facts through a veil of their own thought-forms.

…………Generations far into the future, ourselves in new bodies,

will still be extending the limits of the unknown; we do not want
our limbs to be fettered then by appeals to our present researches,
exalted into scriptures, used as walls to bar our onward progress
then”. ( Ref-1)

One can see the seeds of Krishnaji’s later teachings in the above statement of Dr. Besant. Of
course, Krishnamurti did not accept these statements from her or from anyone elese; he
re-discovered the truth of these for himself. His whole teaching emphasises the distinction
between the knowledge of a truth and the actual perception of it. The mission assigned to
him by Dr. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater, on the basis of messages received by them from
their Masters, was to function as the World Teacher, giving a new interpretation to religion
for the age of reason, and this is precisely what he did all through his life.

In December 1933, after Dr. Besant had passed away and at the end of the Theosophical
Convention, Krishnaji was invited to speak at the Theosophical Society in Adyar. At the
end of one of his talks someone asked him,

“ The one regret of Dr. Besant is said to have been the fact that you
failed to rise to her expectations of you as the World Teacher.
Some of us frankly share that regret and that sense of
disappointment, and feel that it is not altogether without some
justification. Have you anything to say?”,

to which Krishnaji replied:

“ Nothing, Sirs. When I say Nothing,, I mean nothing to relieve

your disappointment or Dr. Besant’s disappointemnt- if she was

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disappointed, for she often expressed to me the contrary. I am not

here to justify myself; I am not interested in justifying myself. The
question is, why are you disappointed, if you are? You had
thought to put me in a certain cage and since I did not fit into that
cage, naturally you are disappointed. You had a preconceived idea
of what I should do, what I should say, what I should
think………… Your disappointment is based not on thought, not
on intelligence, not on deep affection, but on some image of your
own making, however false it may be. You will find a body of
people who will tell you that I have disappointed them, and they
will create a body of opinions holding that I have failed. But in a
hundred years’ time I don’t think it will matter much whether you
are disappointed or not. Truth, of which I speak, will remain- not
your fantasies or your disappointments.” ( Ref-2)

At the end of the next talk at the same time he was asked,

“ During the Theosophical Convention last week several leaders

and admirers of Dr. Besant spoke , paying high tributes. What is
your tribute to and your opinion of that great figure who was a
mother and friend to you? What was her attitude toward you
through the many years of her guardianship of you and your
brother and also subsequently? Are you not grateful to her for
guidance, training and care?”

Krishnaji responded as follows :

“ Mr. Warrington kindly asked me to speak about this matter, but I

told him that I did not want to. Now don’t condemn me by using
such words as ‘guardianship”, “gratitude” and so on. Sirs, what
can I say? Dr. Besant was our mother, she looked after us, she
cared for us. But one thing she did not do. She never said to me, “
Do this” or “Don’t do that”. She left me alone. Well, in these
words I have paid her the greatest tribute ………….”.

We must remember that theirs was not like an ordinary family relationship- it was a
relationship of true love and affection, between two extra-ordinary wise human beings in
quest of truth. Such a relationship is not based on expectations and does not seek support or
gratitude from each other. An enlightened mother wants her child to be true to his or her
own innermost perceptions and pursue what he/she considers to be true. This is what Dr.
Besant did in her own life and to think that she would have expected anything less than
that from her son would be ignorance on our part. It was a relationship based on true love
and respect for each other, neither of which has anything to do with the demand for
support or fulfilment, much less obedience of any kind.

The major philosophical divide between the leaders of the Theosophical Society at that
time ( 1929) and Krishnaji’s teachings was that the former believed that different religions
are different paths to Truth and Krishnaji said, “ Truth is a pathless land.” The rest was
only political division arising from the personal likes and dislikes of those who had vested
interests and who felt hurt because they were not free from ego-reactions. Dr. Besant was
certainly not capable of such reactions. In fact her only concern in 1930, when Krishnaji
parted ways with the Theosophical leaders, was her anxiety for Krishnaji’s future and she
prevailed upon some of her best assistants and close associates to resign from the TS and go
with Krishnaji in order to protect him.( Ref-3)

In fact she told Krishnaji that she wanted to resign as President of the TS and desired only
to sit at his feet and listen to the teaching; but he refused to let her do so. In fact, Dr. Besant
was the one person who never doubted that Krishnaji was the world teacher. She had
warned everyone that when the World Teacher manifests, he may say things completely
contrary to what they expect. Sri Achyut Patwardhan, told me at Rajghat, she used to tell
us never reject what Krishnaji said, however much our opinions may differ from him, since
it is a conciousness that sees very far”. That of course did not mean one must blindly accept
what he says but to listen to it with respect and consider it carefully without quickly
rejecting it. That is what Krishnaji also means when he talks of staying with the question.

In keeping with what K was saying in 1928, Dr. Besant closed down the Esoteric Section
throughout the world and wrote to him,

“ Beloved,…. I am suspending the E.S. altogether indefinitely,

leaving all teaching to you. I have done my best to make a clear
field for you, you the only authority.” ( Ref-4)

That winter in Adyar she insisted on sitting on the ground with the rest of audience instead
of with him on the platform.

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Other leaders of the T.S. at that time did not agree with her actions, as they could not
accept K’s teachings. They pleaded with her to re-open the E.S. saying the T.S. believed in
several paths to the Truth and K could follow his own path but they had a right to follow
their own. So Dr. Besant had to re-open the E.S. We must remember that whatever she may
have felt personally, she could not as President of the T.S. insist that other members must
accept her views since the Constitution of the TS permits everyone to hold any view and
nobody has the right to impose one particular view on the organization. It is in that sense a
truly democratic and secular organization with freedom to every member to pursue the
truth in any way he or she chooses to, without being disrespectful of others. Since the other
senior members of the TS were unwilling to accept K’s teaching and wanted the E.S. to be
re-opened, she had no option but to accept their plea.

Krishnaji summed up the situation beautifully in his letter to Dr. Besant in Feb 1930.

“ My own beloved Mother. I know and it does not matter to me

that CWL is against me and what I am saying, but please do not
worry over it. All this is inevitable and in a way necessary. I
cannot change and I suppose they won’t change and hence the
conflict. It does not matter what a million people say or don’t say. I
am certain what I am and I am going on my way”. ( Ref-5)

In December 1933, writing to Mrs. Emily Lutyens he said,

“ we have nothing against the TS and its tenets. I am not fighting

them but the world’s ideas, ideals.”

So the man who was proclaimed the “ World Teacher” had to renounce the title in order to
become the World Teacher ! All through his life Krishnaji retained a deep affection for the
TS and remained concerned about its welfare. He also extended his help to the Society
whenever he felt it was needed. During the last meeting of the Foundation held with him
in India in January 1986, someone wanted to ask him a question,

“ Sir, when you left the Theosophical Society,….”

But Krishnaji intercepted him and said with strong affirmation,

“ Just a minute Sir. Let me make it absolutely clear. I never left the
Theosophical Society. They did not want me there….”

The next day I went to him and asked,

“ Sir, if the TS were to say to you today that they will close the E.S.
and accept your teaching as the basis for the exploration of the
Truth, will you be willing to go back?”

He listened intently and asked me animatedly,

“ Is anybody offering that?”

I said,

“ No, not yet. But if they did, would you accept that?”

His reply was,

“ When they do, we shall consider.”

He was not willing to deliberate on a hypothetical question, but he was open to consider it
if it actually arose!

The last meeting between Krishnaji and Dr. Besant took place in Nov. 1932, when Krishnaji
went to see her on her death-bed. ( Dr, Besant passed away on 20 September, 1933]. We do
not know what actually transpired between them but the following imaginary
conversation, taken from a play on the life of Dr. Besant, written and directed and staged
by Dr. Irawati of the Vasanta College for Women at Rajghat in Varanasi to my mind very
aptly sums up the essence and character of that relationship :

A.B : Krishna, my son, what will you do if you leave here? We

have not brought you up to earn a living.

K : Do not worry, mother. If there is something in me, I shall float

on the seas of life; and if there isn’t, let me sink!

It reminds me of the last conversation between Krishnaji and me when I visited him on his
death-bed in Ojai, California in February 1986 :

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K : Sir, do you have enough money for yourself, your wife and
children?

P.K.: Yes Sir. I have enough money for the way I want to live.

K : You may think so, Sir. I do not think so ! I want you to know
that I trust you completely.

PK : I will keep your trust, Sir.

K : Sir, never dominate anybody and do not let anyone dominate

you.

PK : Sir, the first I promise. The second I shall try.

In conclusion, I only want to say that we cannot fully understand the quality of their love
and their relationship unless we attain to their level of wisdom. Until then, it is best not to
speculate, judge or attribute motives to their actions and their relationship.

References
1.Adyar Pamphlet, No. 36, 1913

2.The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti, Vol. I, KFA, Ojai, CA, 1991, p.165.

3.Pupul Jayakar, J.Krishnamurti : A Biography, Penguin Books, New Delhi, 1986, p. 83.

4.Mary Lutyens, Life and Death of Krishnamurti, Srishti Publishers, New Delhi, 1999, p-76.

5.Ibid, p.81

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