"Truth is a pathless land"

Justin

Imagine the leader of a religious organization telling his people to fold it up and go home. That's just what happened in 1929 when Jiddu Krishnamurti dissolved his Order of the Star. He was 34 years old, and was being groomed by Theosophists to be the new Messiah since childhood, but decided he would have none of it. The Order included about 60,000 at that time. Read his speech, given at a convention of followers, at http://bernie.cncfamily.com/k_pathless.htm .

ezekiel3

Original speech edited to my religious wet dream...

Welcome to the 2006 District Convention. We have a letter here from the Governing Body:

We are going to discuss this morning the dissolution of the Watchtower Society. Many will be delighted, and others will be rather sad. It is a question neither for rejoicing nor for sadness, because it is inevitable, as we will explain.

W e maintain that the Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is our point of view, and we adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organised; nor should any organisation be formed to lead or coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organise a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organise it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallised; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.

This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley.

So that is the first reason, from the Governing Body's point of view, why the Watchtower Society should be dissolved. In spite of this, you will probably form other religions, you will continue to belong to other organisations searching for Truth. We do not want you to belong to any organisation of a spiritual kind; please understand this.

If an organisation be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth. So that is another reason why we have decided, as the Governing Body of the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses, to dissolve it.

This is no magnificent deed, because we do not want followers, and we mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what we say or not. We want to do a certain thing in the world and we am going to do it with unwavering concentration. We are concerning ourselves with only one essential thing: to set man free. We desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies. Then you will naturally ask me why we will go the world over, continually speaking. We will tell you for what reason we do this; not because we desire a following, not because we desire a special group of special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions, may be! We do not want to encourage that absurdity.) We will have no disciples, no apostles, either on earth or in the realm of spirituality.

Nor is it the lure of money, nor the desire to live a comfortable life, which attracts us. I am speaking frankly because we want this settled once and for all. We do not want these childish discussions year after year.

A newspaper reporter, who interviewed the Governing Body, considered it a magnificent act to dissolve an organisation in which there were millions of members. To him it was a great act because he said: "What will you do afterwards, how will you live? You will have no following, people will no longer listen to you." If there are only five people who will listen, who will live, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it will be sufficient. Of what use is it to have thousands who do not understand, who are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but would rather translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves?

Because we am free, unconditioned, whole, not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal, we desire those, who seek to understand us, to be free, not to follow me, not to make out of the Governing Body a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears - from the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so we do this and not because we want any thing from anyone. You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another group can, by their extraordinary powers - a miracle - transport you to this realm of eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on that authority.

You have listened to us for over 120 years now, without any change taking place except in the few. Now analyse what we am saying, be critical, so that you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally.

For over 120 years you have been preparing for this event, for the Coming of the Jehovah's Kingdom with Christ as King. For over 120 years you have organised, you have looked for someone who would give a new delight to your hearts and minds, who would transform your whole life, who would give you a new understanding; for someone who would raise you to a new plane of life, who would give you new encouragement, who would set you free - and now look what is happening! Consider, reason with yourselves, and discover in what way that belief has made you different - not with the superficial difference of the wearing of a badge, which is trivial, absurd. In what manner has such a belief swept away all unessential things of life? That is the only way to judge: in what way are you freer, greater, more dangerous to every society which is based on the false and the unessential? In what way have the members Jehovah's Witnesses become different?

You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else.... when we say look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few. So why have an organisation?

No man from outside can make you free; nor can organised worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organisation, nor throwing yourselves into work, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an alter and worship it. But that is what you are doing when the Organisation becomes your chief concern. "How many members are there in it?" That is the first question we am asked by all newspaper reporters. "How many followers have you? By their number we shall judge whether what you say is true or false." We do not know how many there are. We am not concerned with that. If there were even one man who had been set free, that were enough.

Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the God's Kingdom. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of God.

You have been accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible?

But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without a beginning and without an end, will walk together with greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that true friendship - which you do not seem to know - there will be real co-operation on the part of each one. And this not because of authority, not because of salvation, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice.

So those are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration, we have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. We have not been persuaded to it by anyone - we are not persuaded in such things. We have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and we have now decided to disband Jehovah's Witness, as the Governing Body. You can form other organisations and expect someone else. With that we am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. Our only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free.

TooOpinionated

I love this, ezekial3!

If only, oh, if only!

Satanus

Alice bailey taught him well. If jesus really did come back, he would also dissolve all christian religions: catholic first, pentles, protestants, baptists, jws, mormons, muslims. He would overturn the tables once again. Billions of lost, lonely christians w no legs to stand on. Chaos would result. Martial law.

S

robhic

... If jesus really did come back, he would also dissolve all christian religions: catholic first, pentles, protestants, baptists, jws, mormons, muslims. ...

OK, so where is the down-side?