Column: Remembering a spiritual revolutionary who still poses a challenge

Its organisers decided that he was a ‘world teacher’, and declared him head of ‘the Order of the Star in the East’.

In 1929, however, Krishnamurti rejected not only this honour but also the whole idea of a religious organisation.

He made this defiant statement: ‘Truth is a pathless land: man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique.’

From then on, he dedicated his life to opening people’s minds to the importance of their own capacity for awareness, for creative intelligence.

He declared that a true sense of the sacred does not come from thought, which is rooted in the past. When we think, we think just as we have always thought.

A true sense of the sacred can arise only in the present; and only in the present can we go beyond the self that we have developed through memory.

Spiritual awakening can only take place when we give our full attention to this very moment. Formal discipline, such as repetition of a prayer or mantra, is of no use.

Far from being a religious authority, Krishnamurti insisted that all he was doing was encouraging people to be free. He was against the whole idea of being a guru because he believed that everyone is capable of discovering the sacred dimension for themselves. To this end, he travelled widely, addressing huge crowds on the subject of spiritual liberation.

The environment was key to his teaching. As he explained, ‘thought has not created nature.’

If we have no relationship with nature – ‘the meadows, the groves, the rivers, all the marvellous earth, the trees and the beauty of the earth’ – then we shall have no meaningful relationship with one another. It is our collective home.

In this spirit, he was responsible for several conservation projects around the world, such as the purchase and care of forests in his native India.

Krishnamurti died in 1986. How do we assess him? There can be no doubt that he was an impressive figure, and that he was right to challenge the way that established religions can become restrictive and oppressive.

Of course, we might doubt whether he himself succeeded in avoiding the role of teacher.

But then, we all know that the best teachers are those who encourage their students to find the truth for themselves.