Jiddu Krishnamurti often spoke of a state or a process that takes over when one’s brain is quiet enough or freed enough from the activity of thought.  David Bohm too commented on the nature of intelligence requiring that the mechanical movements of memory responding must be arrested sufficiently so that creative and intelligent perception can take place.

Jiddu Krishnamurti was reported to be an example of such an individual in whom the process of thought had fallen away.  In Krishnamurti’s particular case, it appears that a singificant childhood illness might have been what prevented the conditioning of thought to sink in like it does with virtually everyone.  Nonetheless, Krishnmaurti insisted that what he was speaking of was possible for anyone who is interested enough in it and that a freakish biological event was not what was called for to be freed of thought’s conditioning.

Reportedly, U.G. Krishnamurti said, in regards to Jiddu:

And then, towards the end, I insisted, “Come on, is there anything behind the abstractions you are throwing at me?” And that chappie said, “You have no way of knowing it for yourself”. Finish — that was the end of our relationship, you see — “If I have no way of knowing it, you have no way of communicating it. What the hell are we doing? I’ve wasted seven years. Goodbye, I don’t want to see you again”. Then I walked out.

Also, U.G. made the following statement:

“I thought that he might be the only one who had really freed himself from his background and had found what I was looking for. For a time I and my wife visited him in Madras. We had long serious talks, but got nowhere. I was left with the feeling that he had seen the sugar cube, but had never tasted the sugar cube.”

At the same time, U.G.’s teachings are eerily similar to Jiddu’s.  There are times when you cannot tell the two apart, but to be sure there are definitely differences.

Then there has always been the question regarding David Bohm and Jiddu Krishnamurt — did David Bohm ever suggest he had a direct experience of the things Jiddu was speaking of or did David Bohm come to similar understandings as a result of scientific and philosophic inquiries without the direct experience or insight?  F. David Peat’s biography of David Bohm speaks to this briefly:

Nichol [Lee Nichol] wondered if Bohm was capable of entering the same states of consciousness as Krishnamruti.  He once asked the physicist if in his discussions about Krishnamurti he was merely talking about a particular transformed state of consciousness, or if he had actually experienced it.  “It comes very often,” Bohm replied, “but it’s fragile.  It’s not solid or consistent in its feeling.” When pressed, Bohm said that being the object of other people’s attention was the strongest factor in bringing him out of that particular state consciousness — a state that was presumably close to that transformation referred to by Krishnamurti.

A few years earlier Bohm had told me something along the same lines.  In 1974, when he visited me in Ottawa, we spent many days talking together about Krishnamurti’s teaching.  At the same time I challenged him, in the amiable spirit of our discussion, that unless he too had experienced the state Krishanmruti described, then his discussion of transformation was hypothetical and empty.  To this Bohm replied, “Well, let’s say I have seen some of the things Krishnamruti talks about.  I have look at the reality and seen that it is an illusion”.

However, a bit later in the biography Peat remarks:

While Bohm indicated to both Nichol and myself that a transformation had taken place in his own consciousness, he told Moody that nothing radical had taken place.  Moody felt that while Bohm had profound verbal insights, he was not always able to perceive their truth directly.  Joe Zorskie once told Bohm that he himself felt separate from the rest of the universe and that weaving a web of words around the world was very different from directly perceiving its unity.  Bohm nervously admitted that he felt in the same boat.  On this score he appears to have presented himself in different ways to different people.

One must still find out for themselves the value and coherence of this whole issue of thought.  Other’s people’s experiences are of only a limited value, but a value nonetheless.  Still, it’s interesting to hear Bohm comment on this subject.  If anyone is aware of other places he directly commented on this subject please do contact us and make us aware of them.