Krishnamurti fell into the hands of a very fanatical group — theosophists. It was a new religion. Whenever a religion is new, it is very fanatical. By and by, it relaxes and compromises and becomes just a social phenomenon; then it is no more religion. Theosophy was just in its beginning, and Krishnamurti was only nine years old when he fell into the hands of those fanatics. They tried hard. They wouldn’t allow Krishnamurti to meet and mix with ordinary children — no — because they had a goal that he had to become the world Teacher, JAGADGURU. He had to become the coming-Buddha; he had to become the incarnation of Maitreya.
He was not allowed to move with any girl, because he might have fallen in love and the whole dream of the theosophists would have been shattered. He was constantly guarded. He was not allowed to move alone; somebody was always with him, watching him. And he was forced to follow very strict rules: three o’clock in the morning he had to get up and take a cold bath; and then he had to learn Sanskrit and he had to learn French and he had to learn English and he had to learn Latin and Greek — because a World Teacher should be well cultured, sophisticated. Just a nine-year-old child!
When he was twelve years old, they started forcing him to write a book. Now what can a twelve-year-old child write? In fact, the teacher, Leadbeater, he was writing in his name. Krishnamurti would write and Leadbeater would correct it and make it perfect. The book still exists. A beautiful book, but you cannot expect it of a boy just twelve years old. It is not from him. Even Krishnamurti cannot remember it. When he has been asked he has said, “I don’t remember when I wrote it — I don’t remember at all how it came into being.”
And they were talking nonsense — esoteric nonsense: “In his dreams he goes to the seventh heaven, and there God Himself is teaching him.” And just a twelve-year-old child — very vulnerable, soft, receptive; he would trust. And these people were world-famous; they had great names. And the movement was really big and worldwide; thousands and thousands of lodges were opened all over the world. Just a twelve-year-old boy had become a world-famous personality. Wherever he was going, thousands of people would gather just to see him.
If you look at those pictures, you feel pity for him, compassion. He was continuously in a cage. And it was natural, I think it would have happened to anybody — it had nothing to do with Krishnamurti. Anybody in his place, if he had any spirit left, would have renounced this whole nonsense, and would have come out of it. It was too much of a prison. He could not write letters to anybody because he might have made some relationship through the letters. A World Teacher needs to be completely unattached. He started feeling a little love for a woman who was old enough to be his mother, but even that was stopped. It was nothing to do with sexuality or anything; he just started feeling love from the woman. The woman was already a mother of three children — but the theosophists wouldn’t allow it. They stopped it.
He was completely in seclusion, never allowed to move into the outside world. He was not allowed to enter in any school, in any college, because there he would meet ordinary people and he would become ordinary. Special teachers were appointed; he was taught specially. And all around him, just a nine-year-old boy, all around him such big talk — of Masters, Master K.H. sending messages, letters falling from the roof. They were all managed! Theosophists were caught later on — they were all managed: the roof was specially made and a letter would drop suddenly, and it was for Krishnamurti — a message had come from the unknown.
Just think of a small boy…. No freedom allowed became a great urge to be free. One day — nobody was expecting it, that he would renounce it — the theosophists had gathered from all over the world for the first declaration in which Krishnamurti was expected to declare that he was the World Teacher and that God had entered into him.
Suddenly, without saying anything to anybody…. He could not sleep the whole night. He brooded over it: he has become a slave, and they are all do-gooders; they have made you a slave because they want to do good to you; and they love you and their love became nauseating; and their well-wishing became poisonous. The whole night he brooded: what is he to do? Whether he has to continue and become part of this nonsense, or get out of it?
And blessed he is that in the morning when they had gathered and they were waiting for God to descend in him and to declare that he is now no more Krishnamurti but Lord Maitreya — Buddha has entered in him — he suddenly declined and he said, “It is all nonsense. Nobody is descending in me. I am simply Krishnamurti and I am nobody’s Master. And I am not a Jagadguru, not a World Teacher. And I dissolve this nonsense and this organization and the whole thing that has been made around me.”
They were shocked! They could not believe it: “Has he gone mad, crazy?” They had put much hope in him, much money; it was a great investment, years of training. But it was going to be so. If he had been absolutely a dead man, then only would he have accepted it. He was alive. They could not kill his life, that aliveness exploded. If he had been a dull, mediocre mind, maybe he would have accepted — but he has an intelligence, a tremendous awareness. He got out of it. That whole movement and the whole organized thing functioned as a positive challenge.
