Krishnamurti remembered 25 years after his death - INTERVIEW WITH FRIEDRICH GROHE BY TESS LAROSSE.- June 2011 - reprinted with permission
Tess Larosse What was it that first attracted you to what this man had to say?
Friedrich
Grohe A friend gave me a book by Krishnamurti. In the book K said
something like, If you don’t like the existing schools, why don’t you
start your own? So I went to his talks, and was amazed. One of the
things that most struck me was when he said, “Love has no cause.”
TL
Do you think coming from a German industrial family, and a firm such as
Grohe, you needed something more ‘philosophical’ to connect to?
FG
I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole life in business, though it is
fun to run a successful business. It made no sense to me to accumulate
more and more money. What for? And I was interested to support a new
kind of education.
TL K traveled the world. Do you know how he first discovered Saanenland?
FG
Friends invited him. His fi rst meetings were held in the Landhaus in
Saanen in 1961. During this time he stayed at Chalet Tannegg in Gstaad,
rented by the friends who’d invited him. The chalet was taken down a
few years ago. When the Landhaus proved too small for the growing
numbers who came to hear him, first a tent and later a big marquis was
put up on land that is now the football pitch in Saanen. Aldous Huxley,
the English writer and a close friend of K, attended the first
meetings. Yehudi Menuhin attended a couple of years later, which I’ve
heard was his introduction to Saanen.
TL What did K particularly enjoy doing here?
FG
Besides meeting the many people who came to see him, not only in the
tent but also in smaller groups and individually, he loved walking in
the mountains. Here is an excerpt from one of his many books
(Krishnamurti’s Notebook), where he describes the area around Saanen
and Gstaad: “Crossing the little wooden bridge and looking up the
stream, there was the mountain, surprisingly delicate, aloof, with
inviting strength; its snow was glistening in the evening sun. It was
beautiful, caught between the trees on either side of the stream and
the fast-running
waters. It was startlingly immense, soaring
into the sky, suspended in the air. It wasn’t only the mountain that
was beautiful but the evening light, the hills, the meadows, the trees
and the stream. Suddenly the whole land with its shadows and peace
became intense, so alive and absorbing. It pushed its way through the
brain as a fl ame burning away the insensitivity of thought.”
TL His talks here in Saanen were internationally famous. What kind of people attended them?
FG
All kinds, from all walks of life. Some stayed in posh hotels, others
camped along the river. A few were hippies, and in the ’70s a certain
guru sent his followers, who dressed in orange robes. No doubt this
gave the wrong impression to many local people. K actively spoke out
against gurus and their followers, accepting no such following himself.
TL
One of the six schools that Krishnamurti founded is in the beautiful
English countryside – Brockwood Park School in Hampshire. What was his
intention for the school?
FG The seed of Brockwood Park was sown
in Saanen when several educators approached Krishnamurti about starting
a school in Europe. In addition to academic excellence, the intention
is to bring about a quality of total integrity as human beings, so that
there is a sense of harmony in oneself, in relationship and therefore
potentially in the world at large.
TL With all the craziness going on internationally at the moment, do you think the world is missing someone like Krishnamurti?
FG
Human beings with the quality of perception, understanding and
compassion that K had are rare and of course always very much needed.
That’s why, in my opinion, his insights are deeply relevant. They are
in no way sectarian or confined to any political, economic, social or
religious ideology. Instead, they address world problems and the human
condition as a whole. “The crisis is not economic, war, the bomb, the
politicians, the scientists, but the crisis is within us, the crisis is
within our consciousness. Until we understand very profoundly the
nature of that consciousness, and question, delve deeply into it and
find out for ourselves whether there can be total mutation in that
consciousness, the world will go on creating more misery, more
confusion, more horror. So our responsibility is not some kind of
altruistic action, political or economic, but to comprehend the nature
of our being – why we human beings, who have lived on this beautiful
lovely earth, have become like this.”
TL But he was respected by some politicians and scientists?
FG
Yes, certainly. He was deeply concerned with the state of the world.
Although he spoke against nationalism and every kind of political
faction as among the causes of division and confl ict, some world
leaders, like Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi, had personal
meetings with him, and he received a State reception in Sri Lanka. He
was awarded a peace medal by the Pacem in Terris Society at the United
Nations. He was also concerned with the potential effects of science on
the future of humanity. He had many fi lmed dialogues with scientists
and psychologists to go into the implications of what he was talking
about. One such scientist was the leading theoretical physicist and
philosopher David Bohm. He even conducted a seminar on creativity at
the physics laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA. The thing is
that K had a global outlook and statesmen and scientists who shared
that outlook were naturally drawn to him and his teachings. TL K was
viewed by many as a religious teacher. How do you think the Church
viewed him?
FG He emphasized the meaning and depth of religion
beyond the confines of any dogma or organized system of belief, and
therefore those who could see beyond or were not bound by tradition
took an interest in his work. For example, there are filmed dialogues
between Krishnamurti and the Jesuit priest Eugene Schallert, as well as
with Buddhist monks and Hindu pundits. The Dalai Lama met with K and
thought very highly of him. K viewed his teachings as a mirror in which
we might see ourselves reflected as we actually are, both in our
particularity and in our universal humanity.
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