Star in the East: Krishnamurti--The Invention of a Messiah

by Roland Vernon

Book Overview

The story of Krishnamurti, one of the twentieth century's most influential and controversial spiritual figures, takes place in the crucible of sexual scandal, mysticism, and an extraordinary personal... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312238258
• ISBN13: 9780312238254
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Palgrave for St. Martin's Press
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

An Excellent History of Flawed Perfection

The author of this book makes his own biases clear in the way he characterizes the various people who make up this fascinating history. It is a virtue that he does so, for it makes easier the reader's attempt to evaluate the figures portrayed across the near-century of Krishnamurti's life. In Madame Blavatsky, Charles Leadbetter, Annie Besant, and others, there is no lack for colorful and dubious characters to enliven this tale. But it is not fiction. The Theosophical Society, an occult fraternity founded by Blavatsky, came to expect the discovery of a Messiah, a World Teacher. That someone proved to be a malnourished, seemingly vacant-minded young boy discovered during a visit to the beach near Madras. K (as he came to be referred to in later life) was removed to the Theosophy center in that area, where he was subsequently fed, educated, and groomed for his life as the Vehicle of the sacred. The story is one of the jostling for place and recognition in a spiritual hothouse of jealousies, competition for recognition, and the role of K as he matured from utterly pliant child to increasingly restive adult. His ultimate emergence as a very independent and iconoclastic "Messiah" proved to be either the undoing or the fulfillment of Theosophy's original hope--depending upon to whom one listens. The author ends this volume with the ultimate chapter's consideration of the significance of K, and various views of his life. To the author's credit, he once again makes his own perspective clear enough, while presenting a good range of varying viewpoints. The reader will be sufficiently equipped to consider more than just the author's "take" on this matter. Whatever K was, the reality is that we are left with ourselves. As he pointed out during the decades of his talks presented around the world, it is up to the individual to find the truth, relying upon no doctrine or authority. If nothing else were to emerge from his life's work, that message alone would seem worth taking to mind and heart.

Well Researched Book

There will be no definitive work regarding Jiddu Krishnamurti. After reading Pupil Jayakar's biography of Krishnamurti, and following my interest with Star in the East: Krishnamurti, I think both books compliment each other. Star in the East: Krishnamurti is well researched, and a delight to read. Regardless of your personal perspective, the story of Krishnamurti is relevent and important to understand. It bridges the Victorian and Edwardian societies of the turn of the century, with the idealism and hope for a better world, with a "new" approach to creating a universal brotherhood focused around a single world religion. The author points out that the world teacher project may have been created as a diversion away from leadbeater's alleged pedophilia misconduct. Krishnamurti is a role model and worth serious academic study. The star in the east does a fine job, and summarizes volumes of published material. "Pax Pax", in British schoolboy slang of circa 1910 meant truce. I think Krishnamurti came to terms with Leadbeater and the T.S. in the 1980s. Krishnamurti's biography is a fascinating story, unable to be told in a single book. Millions of words were printed about the T.S., yet none of it is useful or relevant. Krishnamurti's later works and the story of his life is relevant and important to the 21st century.

Outstanding ++

It is such a pleasure to review a book that is about as flawlessas any book I've read, that covers its topic so thoroughly, so completely, in such depth, and has so many insights. "Star in the East" is easily such a book. In the acknowledgements the author states that his family had tosuffer through "three long winters" of his research into the historyof Theososophy and the phenomenon called Krishnamurti (K). The reader reaps ample benefits of Mr. Vernon's total understanding of his subject. He really "groks" the material, to use Heinlein's term from "Stranger in a Strange Land." An author writing about K doesn't have any room to err or miss aspects of K's life. There have been many books written on the topic, for example, Mary Lutyens comprehensive and insightful biographies (I'd recommend the first two highly). And of course K himself wrote many books. Yet Mr. Vernon somehow succeeds, in less than 300 pages, in covering the entire topic of the background to K's discovery by the Theosophical Society, then his being thrust, albeit gradually, into the public as the "World Teacher," to his break from theosophy, and establishing himself, on his own terms, as a world teacher, and the author is almost always dead on in his discussions of the teachings themselves. Mr. Vernon starts the book with the very famous sighting of Kon a beach in Adyar, India, by the world-renown but controversialpsychic C.W. Leadbetter, and gives a great description of the latter's viewing of the advanced "soul" of the apparently outwardly "stupid" Brahmin boy, and Leadbetter's careful consideration that indeed hehas identified the "chosen one." Following is a fine historical overview of the Theosophical Society's (TS) beginnings (or perhaps resurrection) in 1875, by Blavatsky and Olcott. Next we read about Annie Besant and Leadbetter, Blavatsky's successors, who believe that theosophy has a destiny to bring to the world a Christ, a World Teacher. While the author becomes very critical of Besant later in the book, deservedly so it would seem, he very much honors her amazing courage and achievements (pp. 18-19, etc.) prior to her becoming a "priestess" for the "New Age." The rest of the book is totally consistent with the above -complete and insightful. Many very complicated topics are handledwith amazing balance. Three examples are 1) K's gradual decisionto break with his "Amma," Annie Besant, and how she, Leadbetter, andthe TS handle this "betrayal" - and yet after leaving the TS K might have become the exact "flowering" of theosophy its founders envisioned!; 2) K's relations with many people as a very flawed personality, vs. his amazing presence in his role as a teacher, andthe power of his simple, direct teachings; 3) the problem of using word symbols to convey teachings that are beyond words. On p. 260 (and elsewhere) with great skill he shows that while K's teachings are contradictory if followed to the letter, the solution is simply to accept them at whatever

A paradox explained.

I believe that this book could not have come about except for the history of other writings on Krishnamurti. The Lutyens books were written by a friend and follower and acknowledged to be so, it is therefore understandable that they were not unbiased. The Sloss book was in some senses a reaction to all the other stuff written on Krishnamurti and perhaps felt to be an overdue exposé of many facts conveniently hidden from the general public. It was because of the existence of the Sloss book that Vernon could get such open access to the people who knew Krishnamurti. People no longer had anything to hide and everything to gain by being as open as possible. Also an unbiased book is the only book that Vernon could write because the market for the other two extremes was already full.Vernon draws clues from the huge amount of material and presents the main arguments for all the significant events in Krishnamurti's life. But where this book excels is in differentiating the two sides of Krishnamurti, the private person and the teacher. This is Vernon's point as far as I can see, there are two sides (well at least two), but many people did not realise this while Krishnamurti was living and teaching. The cause of this incomplete view according to Vernon appears to be largely due to Krishnamurti's control of his public image. It seems inevitable that the effect of the revelations would be in proportion to the original investment in the image of someone so special. Therefore we have the irony, Krishnamurti would not have been be so popular without the image but in the end the image did huge damage to all the previous work.I also enjoyed Vernon's insights into all the other characters in the story, for example Leadbeater "slipped like an eel beneath the waters of Theosophy".Overall I believe that Vernons sympathies fall in the Krishnamurti camp, a respect for the teachings and a respect for the man. I would hope that Krishnamurti would find this is a worthy biography and also find it an open intelligent look at the facts which seemed to be Krishnamurti's message throughout his life.

A Truly Balanced Critical Assessment

True believers in K-talk are not going to like this book, but as someone who is an alumnus of years of going to Krishnamurti talks and living the life as best I could, and can, I am truly glad that someone has done a good critical assessment of Krishnamurti, who he is, where he came from, and how he fits into the world. This is not a hagiography any more than Krishnamurti is a saint. I was fascinated with the detail and the research and the amplifications the author presented. I found myself checkings the references and notes constantly because Mr.Vernon seems to have read everything on K.--and I am envious of his indulging himself so much in the material. He is obviously a closet devotee, who has kept his own center of balance, and maintained his own independent critical mind and a soulful interest in Krishnamurti as a teacher of our times. Vernon revivified my interest in Krishnamurti's thought, simply because Krishnamurti is so compelling, so simple,and so straighforward, yet so complex and paradoxical. Vernon presents the philosophy by presenting Krishnamurti himself. We learn of the man, what he has to say, how it developed, and the context in which it is said. This book stimulated me to turn again to the path or yoga of knowledge which Krishnamurti followed even while he denied he was following any path at all. In some sense Krishnamurti even denied that he had anything to teach. Vernon helps us make sense of this so that we can actually discuss Krishnamurti in a western philosophy class and not have to consign Krisnamurti to "The wisdom of the East" or "mystical philosophy" dustbin. Krishnamurti is relevent, and necessary not only for modern psychology but also for the philosophy of mind as taught in our contemporary universities. Krishnamurti has great psychological technique which ought to be the envey of any depth psychologist. The paradox is that we must live our own lives even while we are studying life itself as K. demonstrated, and Vernon grasps. Krishnamurti's genius was that he could do this in his teachings,and it worked for him, but now we each have to live a life of our own, and K. cannot tell us how to do this. Vernon has provided the context of the life which produced this teaching and he does it convincingly and with scholarship. The whole picture of the man and his philosophy is much greater than the parts. For those of us who struggle with authority, there is no greater authority than Krishnamurti, and even he must be overthrown to attain the liberation that he so throughly castigates as "mere thought". With Vernon's insightful study we can put Krishnamurti on the shelf where he belongs--with Socrates,Plato, Nietzsche, perhaps Descartes,and maybe even St. Augustine. If there ever was a romantic and spiritual idealist, it was Krishnamurti. We need to free ourselves from him, even while we immerse ourselves in him. Vernon's book frees us from the ideal state he promulgated and proposed. We are human, and Vernon has written