Jiddu Krishnamurti, one of India’s foremost thinkers, has been considered a world teacher for his revolutionary ideas, unbound by any ideology or religion. Bringing other aspects of Krishnamurti’s life as an educator and above all, a human being, American author R.E. Mark Lee, trustee, Krishnamurti Foundation India and America, has published his memoir: Knocking at the Open Door: My Years with J. Krishnamurti (Hay House). “In this book, I weave together stories of my time spent with Krishnamurti. He lived and worked with ordinary people. He knew the trials, tribulations that ordinary people had,” said Mr. Lee, at a press conference in Bengaluru, recently.
Mark Lee served as the executive director of the Krishnamurti Foundation of America for 20 years and was director of Krishnamurti Publications for five years. He was also the owner-publisher of Edwin House Publishing, which specialised in memoirs of Krishnamurti’s associates.
Krishnamurti’s works have been widely accessed in other countries too. “In Russia, Krishnamurti was introduced to the intelligentsia by Joseph Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana. She had transcripts of her talks that grew into an underground activity. Now, in Russia, Krishnamurti’s books are widely available. His books are distributed from Mongolia to Tibet. The Chinese government doesn’t bother because Krishnamurti was apolitical and didn’t call for unrest.”
Mark Lee met Krishnamurti at Saanen, Switzerland in the early 1960s, and the association would turn out to be an abiding one. “I started reading his books when I was 15. It was 10 years later that I met him in person. He asked me if I would like to go to India. I agreed and came to Rishi Valley,” said Mark Lee, who was the founding director of Oak Grove School, Ojai, California. Krishnamurti gave Mark Lee a probationary period of six months. But Mark Lee fell in love with India and went onto stay for another eight years.
Krishnamurti’s ideas on education addressed educational issues that are largely ignored. “He was able to address issues that educational experts and other leading authorities in most countries avoid. They leave the inner life, psychology and spirituality of the child to the Church and other authorities and that is why the child is conditioned, not educated. The children grow up not thinking for themselves. Most schools pay lip service to critical thinking and value education. Schools normally teach children how to be clever and survive; all that is absent in the Krishnamurti schools.”
It took Mark Lee three years to write the book. “I had collected, over a 50-year period, incidents, stories, journals. I have dedicated the book to my first grand daughter, who is a total innocent. Like her, I hope that every child, while s/he grows up, stays awake, stays sensitive, alive to his environment and does not fall into the trap of cultures and ordinary schooling; then there’s hope for the future.”
As for the title, Knocking at the Open Door , Mark Lee said it comes from an incident. “Krishnamurti was giving a series of talks to teachers in California. And there was one woman who asked the same question. To that, he said, ‘doesn’t she realise the door is open, she just has to walk in!’ The world is open, but we just don’t want to walk in. It prevents us from living fully.”
