Entries Feed
What is RSS?« Review: Our Gods Wear Spandex, by Christopher Knowles | Main | News: Motion 666 calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England »
Review: As One Is, by Jiddu Krishnamurti
By Psyche | January 15, 2008
Stumble it!
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Hohm Press, 1890772623, 147 pp., 2007
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 – 1986) was born in Madanapalle, India, and, after meeting C. W. Leadbeater in 1909, was subsequently raised by both him and Annie Besant, then leaders of the Theosophical Society. They proclaimed him the latest incarnation of the Maitreya Buddha and various spiritual figures, honours which Krishnamurti later renounced at the age of 34. He spent much of his life travelling, speaking to large and small groups, as well as authoring a number of books.
As One Is is composed of a series of eight talks given in Ojai, California in 1955. As noted in the forward, “[t]hese eight talks were spoken without notes, ex tempore, in the shade of a grove of oak tress in the summer…before an audience of perhaps several hundred…”
The lectures don’t bear specific titles; instead they are referred to by number. That the lectures were unscripted comes across clearly; they’re often circular, and as I read, I could, at times, almost hear the dramatic pauses for effect.
The talks dance around conditioning of the mind, consider the problem of concentration versus attention, and self improvement without ever actually settling on anything that would offer a useful suggestion as to what to do about it.
These lectures may have faired better when delivered in person, but the endless regurgitation of vague and empty themes without resolution doesn’t make for particularly stimulating reading.
While As One Is may prove useful as an historic record of these talks, it appears more an odd relic of a time happily gone by.
Syndicated from SpiralNature.com:
http://www.spiralnature.com/reviews/book/krishnamurtij.html#aoi1
Posts Related to Reviews
- Review: Sacred Land, by Clea Danaan
- Review: Kaostar!, by Francis Breakspear
- Review: Our Gods Wear Spandex, by Christopher Knowles
- Review: As One Is, by Jiddu Krishnamurti
- Review: The Four Powers, by Nicholas Graham
- Review: The Satanic Scriptures, by Peter H. Gilmore
- Review: Green Hermeticism, by Peter Lamborn Wilson, et al.
- Review: The Thoth Companion, by Michael Osiris Snuffin
- Review: Magick on the Edge, edited by Taylor Ellwood
- Review: The Place of Enchantment, by Alex Owen
- Review: A Field Guide to Otherkin, by Lupa
- Review: Aleister Crowley and the 20th Century Synthesis of Magick, by Dave Evans
- Review: Fallen Nation, by James Curcio
- Review: Tarot for the New Aeon, by P.C. Tarantino
- Review: Practicing Conscious Living and Dying, by Annamaria Hemingway
- Review: Women of Power, by Jaq D. Hawkins
- Review: A Science for the Soul, by Corinna Treitel
- Review: John Dee’s Occultism, by Gyorgy E. Szonyi
- Review: On Being a Pagan, by Alain de Benoist
- Review: Enochian Vision Magick, by Lon Milo DuQuette
Topics: Books, Esoterica, Media, Philosophica, Reviews | RSS Feed | Trackback URI
« Review: Our Gods Wear Spandex, by Christopher Knowles | Main | News: Motion 666 calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England »
