Amanaska

“We are going to consider on what basis we may describe the lifetime work of the World Teacher, Sri J. Krishnamurti to represent a paradigm shift in the religious sphere and also, in the psychological sphere. But I would like to stress the religious sphere more. So, I would   like to begin with that. Now let’s begin with the Indian context. And the first example of a paradigm shift will be a Vedic paradigm undergoing a shift to the Tantric paradigm. But before we go into that, a word or two about the etymology and the meaning of the word paradigm. Now this is a new word for us. But we should take paradigm to mean a model, a certain outlook on life, a world view, a way we look at things and a set of principles, basic principles, which enable us to see life or to understand any given area of life, any field of study, in a particular way. Some basic principles. So that represents a paradigm.

“Now, this particular word paradigm gained currency when a very noteworthy book was published in the field of the history of sciences, and the book was called, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and the author was Thomas S. Kuhn. And it was published in 1962, and it was the result of a very diligent study of what processes, human processes of trial and error and hypotheses, conjectures, and reputations, happen in the process of refining scientific truth and arriving at scientific truth after trying out many possible hypotheses. That’s the basic tenor of that work.

“And once the book was published, many people, drew that word paradigm from the work of Thomas Kuhn and began to apply it to their own area of study, in an attempt to gain more attention, because the word paradigm had gained a new aura that it conveyed something like a monumental shift, something very gigantic, something very novel and something which attracts our attention. So, people began to use that word like that. But I was not aware, when I used the word that Krishnamurti’s work represents a paradigm shift, that people were using the word paradigm in this vein. That’s just a remark I am making in passing.

“And so, let’s go back to the Vedic outlook on life and contrast it with the Tantric outlook on life. Now for the Hindus, the Vedas represent the religious corpus. It is a source of religious authority. And the Hindus consider that very sacred and would not allow of any insinuation or any violation of that Vedic authority. That’s the general ethos, religious ethos. Now, time passed, centuries passed, millennia passed, then an independent line of inquiry developed in India, which did not look up to the Vedas as the sole authority. Because if you look up to the Vedas as a sole authority, then you must only speak in terms of Atman, which is a Vedic conception that there is an imminent Divine Soul in man, which is all pervasive, which is of the nature of Absolute Reality, which is of the nature of Awareness and which is of the nature of beatitude. And it encompasses the complete Universe and that Brahman, which is another Vedic conception, etymologically it means that which is immense, is the sum total of creation, the uncountable number of galaxies and so on, in more modern language, and that, the Atman and the Brahman, they were two sides of the same coin, that was the Vedic outlook on life. But then when the new line of inquiry developed, the Tantric inquiry into absolute reality, they did not take the authority of the Vedas, but they said let’s take Shakti or energy.

“The Sanskrit word Shakti represents all forms of energy which are active and dynamically moving. And let us take that to be primary and primordial rather than taking Shiva, which is a synonym for the Unmanifest, Unknowable, Absolute. Mm-Hmm. So, let’s not start with Shiva. Let’s start with Shakti, make Shakti primary, and make Shiva accessory. That’s a new line of thinking. It’s almost like a pole shift. Mm-Hmm. So, Shiva loses his primacy in the Tantric approach. Just as Shakti loses her primacy in the Shiva centric Vedic approach. So, with the coming of the Tantric outlook on life with the 64 Tantras, independent lines of inquiry, there was in the religious sphere and the religious atmosphere of India, this paradigm shift, that is one example of paradigm shift.

“And a second example is not far to seek, with the coming of the Buddha on the horizon, around 500 B.C., we witnessed another major paradigm shift from the Vedic paradigm or the Vedic tradition, with its emphasis on Atman and Brahman, to a completely new line of inquiry, which voided both Atman and Brahman, in a way which cannot entirely be refuted. The Buddha developed an altogether new line of inquiry and new vocabulary, which always comes with a new paradigm. And he voided the individual self of the human being, and he also voided and refuted the Divine Self (Atman), which is supposed to be the other side of the individual limited self in the human being. And he also voided Brahman, which directly or indirectly conveyed a sense of something immense and something tremendous and something enormously sacred. And the Buddha replaced that with a primordial Reality, which he called a Nothingness, some kind of a ground state, if you please. And so with the coming of the Buddha on the scene in the religious sphere of India, there was again a paradigm shift from the Vedic worldview to the Tantric world view, or a Shiva centric world view, to a Shakti centric worldview. And that will be the second example of a paradigm shift.

“And the third example is found in the history of Judaism, with the coming of the Master Jesus, when the Master Jesus, was not representative of a routine continuity of the Jewish tradition, but represented a revolution in many ways, in the direction of simplicity and in the direction of love being central to the whole thing. And therefore, we have had these kinds of paradigm shifts or massive change in outlook, in the religious sphere.

“And if we now move from the religious sphere and we come to medieval Europe between the 14th century and the 16th century, then we find here, in this time frame between the 14th century and the 16th century, we see the two revolutions have happened and one revolution is called the age of Renaissance. That means rebirth, rebirth of creativity, rebirth of the arts and rebirth of a completely new way of thinking. And another is the revolution of the age of Reformation. And let’s look at the age of Reformation first. Now, this was spearheaded by the reformist leaders Erasmus and then Calvin and Martin Luther, who did not support the authority of the Church. And who were not blind to the foibles of organized religion but began to pinpoint the errors in organized religion and exploitation of the masses, and that led to a massive paradigm shift in the position of Christianity at the end of the Middle Ages in Europe, in the timeframe mentioned. And it gave birth to a new paradigm shift called Protestantism, which is not the grandiose Roman Catholicism, with its very authoritarian paraphernalia and it’s celebration of opulence and celebration of authority. But Protestantism leaned in the direction of simplicity. It leaned in the direction of austerity, and it leaned in the direction of truth and service to the people. Hmm.

“So, that was another example of a paradigm shift in the religious sphere. And in the Renaissance again, you see that the belief and the authority by which the Church ruled the people of Europe, that belief and authority, was put aside because it led to enormous suffering in the lives of people. And instead, man began to inquire very freely through a new intellectual awakening. Therefore, it’s called the Age of Enlightenment. And he began to inquire into truth and began to inquire into the physical world, began to do experiments. And it also gave birth to a new technology, led to the Industrial Revolution in a subsequent century. So this again represented a paradigm shift where the authority was shifted from the Church, from Roman Catholic Christianity, to the new world view and the new way in which man was inquiring, which was by theorizing, by experimentation, by trial and error, and then finally arriving at the truth. And this goes by the very haloed name of apotheosis of science and technology. That means you venerate science and technology and elevate them to a status of God, almost. Mm-Hmm. So, that’s another example of a paradigm shift which has happened in medieval Europe.

“And let’s also look at two other examples of a paradigm shift that – that is, a massive change in outlook, which happened in the world of the sciences at the beginning of the 20th century and the two revolutions, in fact. And one was the revolution ushered in by the theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein’s Theory 1905, and 1915 which completely revolutionized the Newtonian conceptions of space and time; space and time were considered to be independent. But in the theory of Relativity, space and time are discovered to be inseparable variables which are kind of married together and they go together. And then a universal constancy of the speed of light. So, the entire framework of the way in which the physicist looks at the universe, that underwent a change because of the birth of the theory of Relativity.

“And a more signal paradigm shift, also happened in Newtonian physics with the dawning of the quantum theory, beginning with 1925 and going up to 1927 and spearheaded by a number of brilliant thinkers, Niels Bohr, Luis de Broglie, Max Planck, Max Born, then, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg. And then later, Richard Feynman and David Bohm. And also, Albert Einstein, was a part of it, but took a witnessing position because he was not happy with the quantum revolution with the paradigm shift.

“Now, I’d like to explain a little bit what this paradigm shift is all about. In the Newtonian conception of the universe it was understood that one can form mental pictures in space and time, of particles occupying very specific positions in space-time and having very specific, specifiable momentum and velocity and then moving from one point in space and time to another point in space and time, one can conceive of the whole thing mentally, have those pictures in the mind without introducing any contradictions in the laws of physics, then translate the concepts into mathematical equations and work out the trajectories of particles, all that was Newtonian physics.

“And then came the revolution of quantum mechanics and quantum theory, which did not pertain to the domain of cricket balls and tennis balls and small stone objects and rockets, but which pertained to the movement of electrons in very small, infinitesimally small regions of space, of the order of 10, to the power of minus  8, cms,  in the microscopic world, really micro microscopic world, and there, it was found that the observer, his position, his role in creating the observed phenomena could not be separated from what he observes. Now this was a completely new thing, a very shocking thing, because in the Newtonian physics, the observer had no role in shaping what he observed. He was not a significant contributor to observable phenomena, and the shape the observable phenomena took, the form observable phenomena took because somebody was observing them. But in the quantum theory, because there is a human observer observing the microscopic movement of electrons, that very observation completely colors what one is observing and therefore the inseparability of the observer and the observed became a very important ingredient in the quantum paradigm. So that was a totally new thing.

“And another new thing was that you cannot form mental pictures of what is going on in microscopic worlds, without introducing contradictions. So, they said, you cannot form mental pictures at all, you must only work with equations, mathematical equations, which were abstract, and the observer cannot be separated from the observed.

“And then thirdly, more shockingly, something which was considered to be a mere particle, a point particle in Newtonian physics, that turned out to be a point particle sometimes and a wave sometimes and as a wave and a particle are completely contradictory to each other. So, one did not know how to figure out the meaning of something which are considered to be building blocks of matter namely, these elementary particles, which sometime, gives the impression that they are separate, miniscule building blocks of matter this material universe and at some other time under some of the conditions they can convey to you, a feeling that there are waves spread throughout the cosmos. So, this contradiction and we were told that we had to digest this contradiction and the wave particle duality has come to stay in the quantum theory. And that represents a radical paradigm shift from the more simplistic picture of point particles in Newtonian physics. So, these are examples of paradigm shifts which have happened in the sciences.

“And now I come to Krishnamurti’s – the whole corpus of his teachings spanning seven decades. And on what grounds, we may consider Krishnamurti’s lifetime work, to represent a paradigm shift?

“So, I will put my finger on five important aspects of the teachings where there is a radical departure from religious tradition. Now, in religious tradition, in almost all the religions, it was widely held that religious authority and spiritual authority are indispensable for initiation and progress in one’s religious and one’s spiritual life. You cannot remove that essential seed of religious authority and spiritual authority and then claim to move towards Divinity. Now that was the premise, and that was the old religious worldview.

“And then, now, you come to Krishnamurti, who says quite the opposite and Krishnamurti says religious authority in any form is very dangerous, because it denies freedom of inquiry, and it puts you in a state of servitude and bondage, and crippling your intellect and crippling the potential to flower as a human being to infinite depths and infinite heights. So that is Krishnamurti’s take on the whole question of authority, and that authority prevents individual discovery, prevents the individual discovering ultimate reality himself without recourse to religious authority, that is one thing, authority.

“Then second, let us look at what the position truth occupies in traditional religion and the position truth occupies in the Krishnamurtian world. Now, in the religious tradition, they said, truth is in holy books, truth is in the scriptures, truth is in the words of the prophets, truth is in the words of the Masters. So, all you have to do in order to discover the truth is go to the holy books and go to the Masters and go to the prophets and study those sacred books, all those lectures or whatever it is, and thereby, you will be able to discover truth. That was the old world view the old religious world view.

“Now, comes Krishnamurti. And Krishnamurti says something very different. Krishnamurti is asking why should you go to the scriptures, why should you depend on the testimony of the Masters, of the prophets. Why can’t you look within yourself, because the truth is lurking there, under the cacophony of thought and waiting for you to discover and come upon that truth. It’s obviously very simple to turn inward and go to the source which is in yourself rather than depend on, what ostensibly is secondhand versions of the truth, which are external to you, which are not intrinsic to you, which are outside you. Here again, you see that pole shift from dependence on truth in the outside world and turning inward and discovering the truth within yourself.

“And the third arena, where Krishnamurti significantly differs creating the paradigm shift is, that religions hold that you can take a long time and you’ve got to struggle and you’ve got to free yourself from sin and freedom is at the end. Our freedom is at the end of life and not at the beginning.

“And then you come to Krishnamurti and Krishnamurti says freedom is in the beginning and you will get that freedom, the moment you throw away the yoke of authority, then you will find that a new intelligence begins to shine in you and begins to beam out through you. And that intelligence, which you never knew it existed, it was always lurking there, but it was concealed. It was suffocated because you believed that freedom is at the end and freedom is not in the very beginning. Therefore, Krishnamurti is again opening a new door. He’s asking us not to look outside, but asking us to look inside. And that is the third manner in which the paradigm shift happens.

“And the fourth is – religious tradition is asking us to cultivate virtue and to cultivate nobility and to practice austerity, and to practice courtesy, and to practice truth. And from Krishnamurti’s point of view, virtue is not something to be practiced by the self-seeking self, because if you’re going to practice virtue, then you probably are going to look for some rewards because you’re practicing virtue and it’s anyhow going to be phony. It’s going to be phony virtue, because it is practiced in a very mechanical way and without you knowing what virtue really is. Because that virtue comes into existence with the complete cessation of the activities of the self, then you’re virtuous and you cannot become virtuous, you can be virtuous when you are silent. And probably you have been fortunate enough to bring the cacophony of the self to an end then that virtue thing happens for you. So that’s Krishnamurti’s approach to the whole question of virtue. And Krishnamurti says that that virtue, the ground of virtue, you can’t tread the ground of virtue without taking recourse to self-Knowing. So self-Knowing is the door, is the portal which will open you into the vast field of virtue.

“And another arena where the paradigm shift happens, traditional religion is asking us to look to religious institutions, to look to Masters, and deities and Gods and take refuge there, because we have a huge amount of suffering. We have a huge amount of suffering and we want to be free of that suffering. So, the traditional religions they say take solace from the scriptures, take the solace from the Gods, from the deities, from the words of the Masters, from the words of the prophets.

“And then Krishnamurti is saying, quite the contrary. Krishnamurti is saying that you don’t have to go to these external sources in order to unburden yourselves. And once you come into self-Knowing and you’ll discover that the self is evil, and that the self is the architect of suffering, then directly, you start addressing the question of how suffering arises and how suffering is sustained and how suffering can cease. And therefore, when you embark on the truly authentic inner pilgrimage or inner journey after turning inward, then you have a completely new approach to the ending of suffering and a completely new approach to freedom and to virtue and to the discovery of the Divine and Krishnamurti doesn’t even give us a sop and the promise that the Divine exists for sure. He’s asking us to discover whether that is true or not.

“So, on account of these five things that I mentioned authority, truth, freedom, virtue and looking outward versus looking inward, there is an obvious massive paradigm shift with the coming of Krishnamurti. And therefore, when we first come to Krishnamurti and we dabble in the shallow waters, we may not know that this is so huge and so massive a change. It’ll probably take us some time before we discover the enormity of the massive shift. And it is for each one to discover the massive shift.

“Not that the massive shift is important. I’m not saying that – because Krishnamurti is not important. Who is important? In the heart, what is going on there? Each one of us, each one of us have to look at the teaching, understand the teaching apply it there so that we become a light unto ourselves. And that’s the whole tenor of Krishnamurti. Thank you very much”.

– Sankara Bhagavadpada