6 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 8 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 2 2 an answer while swiftly disproving any of their statements. This paradoxical condition puts unusual pressure on the brain, which is accustomed to “movement in time”; thus, in the absence of movement, there is tremendous focus of energy, which, according to Krishnamurti, causes the brain cells to mutate in order to conduct this extraordinary state of undirected awareness (Jayakar 1986, 121). This mutation, which constitutes the basis of “total insight” and the discovery of reality beyond thought (Rodrigues 2001, 112–119), can be understood as the ultimate purpose of Krishnamurti’s method, as well as the new dimension that he added to the field of religious inquiry. 3 First Dialogue Analysis The Krishnamurti dialogue continued to evolve “in subtlety and insight” after the 1948 shift (Jayakar 1986, 117). Its major characteristics, as outlined above, nonetheless persisted, regardless of the identity of the discussants, specific locations, periods, or subjects of discussion. To demonstrate this consistency, I shall analyze two sample dialogues derived from different sources and contexts: the first took place in Ojai, California, in 1977 (Krishnamurti 1996, 227–236) and the second is a dialogue from 1980 with friends and associates in Delhi, India (Jayakar 1986, 385–391). The first dialogue revolves around the question: What is the relation between Krishnamurti’s teaching and truth? This discussion is particularly revealing, since the way Krishnamurti treats a subject that calls for a reflection on the objective validity of his teachings greatly emphasizes his method of turning the question into an intense self-observation of the questioner themselves. In addition, the epistemological nature of the question – how do we know Krishnamurti is telling the truth? – is employed by Krishnamurti to evaluate the epistemological tools one has at one’s disposal when one approaches such inquiry. The dialogue commences when two anonymous discussants introduce the question in the presence of a small group of disciples. In response, Krishnamurti asserts that there are only two possibilities: he is “either talking out of the silence of truth” or “out of the noise of an illusion” (Krishnamurti 1996, 227); but quickly thereafter he asks his companions: “So which is it that he is doing?” (Krishnamurti 1996, 227). From then on, although both discussants and readers can still recognize the authoritative figure in this conversation, it is the questioners’ question. The mystic is determined to “go slowly, for this is interesting” (Krishnamurti 1996, 227); there is no rush, since the transformation does not lie in supplying an answer but in the tortuous unfoldment of the question and the ways in which the brain handles it. Aware of criticism of his work – that his approach could be a mere reaction to a conditioned childhood – Krishnamurti challenges his interlocutors by asking them: “How will you find out? How will you approach this problem?” This is an obvious trap, since one of the most consistent principles of Krishnamurti’s method is that the very search for “how” is inherently flawed, an expression of a fragmented thought (Jayakar 1986, 119). “I am asking what you do,” Krishnamurti states, pressing his companions to shift the focal point of the inquiry to the mind of the one who listens to his teaching (Krishnamurti 1996, 227). Now what is scrutinized is not the truthfulness of the discourse but the quality of the mind that assesses what it hears: “Am I listening to him with all the knowledge I have gathered… or what my own experience tells me?” (Krishnamurti 1996, 228). And then: “Am I capable of listening to what he is saying with complete abandonment of the past? Are you?” (Krishnamurti 1996, 229). We started by asking whether the speaker speaks out of silence, but this is useless, Krishnamurti indicates, since what should trouble us is whether the evaluating faculty is too conditioned to tell the difference. Impressively, he advocates cultivating a skeptical mind, in the sense of questioning both everything that is being said by him, the teacher, and one’s own prejudice (Krishnamurti 1996, 228). From here on, Krishnamurti progresses carefully, tirelessly returning to the question “[h]ow would you answer this question?” (1996, 229), while blocking all mental pathways and angles and building up the energy in the room by fending off gratifying answers. He rejects even reasonable statements, ones he himself is likely to voice later on – i.g. , “[w]hen I have come to the conclusion that it is the truth, then I am already not listening” (Krishnamurti 1996, 229). We can only assume that he rejects them on the grounds that they are derived from the storehouse of memory and are driven by the wish to diminish the intensity of what is happening. More generally, he begins to deploy his method of inclusive negation, which, in this dialogue, is aimed at repudiating all the different epistemological tools, one after another. After the teacher has negated past knowledge as a tool of evaluation, he points out that the logical instrument, one’s sensitivity to false or incoherent statements, can be “very false” in itself (Krishnamurti 1996, 229) [5]. Soon after, he negates one’s deepest feeling, intuition, and self-verification based on direct experience of change in response to the teaching, since “it may be self-evident to you and yet an illusion” (Krishnamurti 1996, 230). The skepticism he demon-
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