Krishnamurti and Crowley
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Hello, I've only recently been getting into Thelema and Crowley. Before that, though, I was absorbed into the teachings of Jiddu Krisnhamurti. I was wondering if what J Krishnamurti taught is agreeable with Thelema. I am inevitably in a position where I cannot tell given as to how my knowledge of Thelema is limited to only a couple of books.
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I would say that Thelema is definitely compatible with non-dual thought like Krishnamurti's. Thelema is itself a non-dual philosophy, compatible with Dzogchen, Zen, some forms of Daoism, Advaita, etc., etc. It kind of looks like it isn't, at first glance, because there's a lot of talk of striving and conquest and that sort of thing. But the idea is that you start where you are. At the moment, if you are unable to see the Universe as fundamentally not-two right now, then you must work through seeing it as dualistic. Take that point of view to its limits, see what shakes out (as it were). (Not saying I'm at that stage myself, just that this seems to be the general programme.)
There are many good non-dual "teachers" around these days. One of the greatest, Adyashanti, is notable for his ability to "meet" everyone where they are, to talk to them on their own level. Some people aren't ready for a naked non-dual message like Krishnamurti's.
There's a passage from Liber LXV ii that relates to this:-
**37. Behold! the Abyss of the Great Deep. Therein is a
mighty dolphin, lashing his sides with the force of the
waves.
38. There is also an harper of gold, playing infinite tunes.
39. Then the dolphin delighted therein, and put off his
body, and became a bird.
40. The harper also laid aside his harp, and played infinite
tunes upon the Pan-pipe.
41. Then the bird desired exceedingly this bliss, and
laying down its wings became a faun of the forest.
42. The harper also laid down his Pan-pipe, and with the
human voice sang his infinite tunes.
43. Then the faun was enraptured, and followed far; at
last the harper was silent, and the faun became Pan in the
midst of the primal forest of Eternity.
44. Thou canst not charm the dolphin with silence, O my
prophet!
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93,
Yes. One example:
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"
"Love is the law, love under will."“We need a tremendous amount of energy and we dissipate it through fear but when there is this energy which comes from throwing off every form of fear, that energy itself produces the radical inward revolution... So you are left with yourself, and that is the actual state for a man to be who is very serious about all this; and as you are no longer looking to anybody or anything for help, you are already free to discover. And when there is freedom, there is energy; and when there is freedom it can never do anything wrong… a mind that has no fear is capable of great love. And when there is love it can do what it will.”
-Jiddu Krishnamurti, Freedom from the KnownI find Krishnamurti to be boring and repetitive, though. His Freedom from the Known essentially stated everything he will ever say that is worthwhile in a succinct form (not that a similar occurence didnt come with Liber AL)
IAO131
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I listen to a lot of Krishnamurti and Adyashanti lectures and I read a lot of Crowley. They seem to have conflicting messages while describing the same process.
I've seen mention of Advaita in Crowley's works. Either AC or Regardie wrote "This is the greatest argument against Advaita - that there seems to be a cause." -
I am surprised no one else mentioned this but here are corlwey's own words on the man.
The Black School has always worked insidiously, by treachery. We need then not be surprised by finding that its most notable representative was the renegade follower of Blavatsky, Annie Besant, and that she was charged by her Black masters with the mission of persuading the world to accept for its Teacher a negroid Messiah (1). To make the humiliation more complete, a wretched creature was chosen who, to the most loathsome moral qualities, added the most fatuous imbecility. And then blew up! (from magick without tears)
Krishnamurti being the "negroid Messiah" he was referring to.
the page also has this foot note.
"This, then, is the present state of the war of the Three Schools. We cannot suppose that humanity is so entirely base as to accept Krishnamurti; yet that such a scheme could ever have been conceived is a symptom of the almost hopeless decadence of the White School.* The Black adepts boast openly that they have triumphed all along the line. Their formula has attained the destruction of all positive qualities. It is only one step to the stage when the annihilation of all life and thought will appear as a fatal necessity. The materialism and vital scepticism of the present time, its frenzied rush for pleasure in total disregard of any idea of building for the future, testifies to a condition of complete moral disorder, of abject spiritual anarchy."
and added this note later.
(* Note. This passage was written in 1924 e.v. The Master Therion arose and smote him. What seemed a menace is now hardly even a memory.)
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Is the K. of the 20's the same as the K. of the 80's?
Maybe I'm missing something but Krishnamurti's final lectures seem very similar to Thelema.
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Crowley was writing after K rejected his messiahship but before he began teaching. Rajneesh called him the only living enlightened master who could get angry. K hated Rajneesh. Rajneesh would encourage us (I never got to do this though) to go to K's lectures, get there early to be sure of front row seats, agree with K about everything, such as "you should not wear your teacher's picture round your neck, you should not call him Bhagwan" etc. Rajneesh's followers would applaud this and K would go ballistic. Ah, the way of contradiction!
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I love that final lecture where K. makes a guy get up and move cause he didn't like how he was staring.
'Black brothers' simply means they didn't complete the 'individuation' process, right?