Chapter 1

Section 1

✦

565

K7A8

1922

c.l

ROBARTS

<RISHNAMURTI

The Theosophical Press
, Wheaton, Illinois

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AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER

J. Krishnamurti

NOV 9 1999

^^5/rv OF 10^^

This book has been translated and published
in twenty-seven languages

Presented to the

LffiRARY of the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

by
WiUard G. Oxtoby

PREFACE

'TpHE privilege is given to me, as an elder, to
■*■ pen a word of introduction to this little book,
the first written by a younger Brother, young
in body verily, but not in Soul. The teachings
contained in it were given to him by his Master
in preparing him for Initiation, and were written
down by him from memory — slowly and labori-
ously, for his English last year was far less
fluent than it is now. The greater part is a re-
production of the Master's own words; that
which is not such a verbal reproduction is the
Master's thought clothed in His pupil's words.
Two omitted sentences were supplied by the
Master. In two other cases an omitted word has
been added. Beyond this, it is entirely Krishnaji's
own, his first gift to the world.

May it help others as the spoken teachings
helped him — such is the hope with which he gives
it. But the teaching can be fruitful only if it
is LIVED, as he has lived it, since it fell from
his Master's lips. If the example be followed
as weir as the precept, then for the reader, as
for the writer, shall the great Portal swing open,
and his feet be set on the Path.

Annie Besant

From the iinreal lead me to the Real.

From darkness lead me to Light.
From death lead me to Immortality.

FOREWORD

'T'HESE are not my words; they are the words
of the Master who taught me. Without Him
I could have done nothing, but through His help
I have set my feet upon the Path. You also
desire to enter the same Paih, so the words
which He spoke to me will help you also, if you
will obey them. It is not enough to say that
they are true and beautiful; a man who wishes
to succeed must do exactly what is said. To
look at food and say that it is good will not
satisfy a starving man; he must put forth his
hand and eat. So to hear the Master's words
is not enough; you must do what He says, at-
tending to every word, taking every hint. If a
hint is not taken, if a word is missed, it is lost
forever; for He does not speak twice.

TO THOSE WHO KNOCK

Four qualifications there are for this pathway:

Disa-imination

Desirelessness

Good Conduct

Love

What the Master has said to me on each of
these I shall try to tell you.

'TpHE FIRST of these Qualifications is Dis-
crimination ; and this is usually taken as the
discrimination between the real and the unreal
which leads men to enter the Path. It is this,
but it is also much more; and it is to be prac-
ticed, not only at the beginning of the Path, but
at every step of it every day until the end. You
enter the Path because you have learned that on
it alone can be foimd those things which are
worth gaining. Men who do not know, work to
gain wealth and power, but these are at most
for one life only, and therefore unreal. There
are greater things than these — things which are
real and lasting; when you have once seen these,
you desire those others no more.

In all the world there are only two kinds of
people — those who know, and those who do not
know; and this knowledge is the thing which
matters. What religion a man holds, to what
race he belongs — these things are not important;
the really important thing is this knowledge — the
knowledge of God's plan for men. For God has
a plan and that plan is evolution. When once
a man has seen that and really knows it, he can

AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER

not help working for it and making himself one
with it, because it is so glorious, so beautiful.
So, because he knows, he is on God's side, stand-
ing for good and resisting evil, working for evo-
lution and not for selfishness.

If he is on God's side he is one of us, and it
does not matter in the least whether he calls
himself a Hindu, or a Buddhist, a Qiristian or a
Muhammadan, whether he is an Indian or an
Englishman, a Chinaman or a Russian. Those
who are on His side know why they are here
and what they should do, and they are trying to
do it; all the others do not yet know what they
should do, and so they often act foolishly, and
try to invent ways for themselves which they
think will be pleasant for themselves, not under-
standing that all are one, and that therefore only
what the One wills can ever be really pleasant
for anyone. They are following the unreal in-
stead of the real. Until they learn to distinguish
between these tu'^o, they have not ranged them-
selves on God's side, and so this discrimination
is the first step.

But even when the choice is made, you must
still remember that of the real and the unreal
there are many varieties; and discrimination must
still be made betw'een the right and the wrong,
the important and the unimportant, the useful and
the useless, the true and the false, the unselfish
and the selfish.

AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER

Between the right and wrong it should not be
difficult to choose, for those who wish to follow
the Master have already decided to take the right
at all costs. But the body and the man are two,
and the man's will is not always what the body
wishes. When your body wishes something, stop
and think whether you really wish it. For
YOU are God, and you will only what God wills;
but you must dig deep down into yourself to find
the God within you, and listen to His voice,
which is YOUR voice. Do not mistake your
bodies for yourself — neither the physical body,
nor the astral, nor the mental. Each one of them
will pretend to be the Self, in order to gain
what it wants. But you must know them all, and
know yourself as their master.

When there is work that must be done, the
physical body wants to rest, to go out walking,
to eat and drink; and the man who does not
know says to himself: "I want to do these things,
and I must do them." But the man who knows
says: "This that wants is not I, and it must
wait awhile." Often when there is an opportun-
ity to help some one, the body feels: "How
much trouble it will be for me; let some one
else do it." But the man replies to his body:
"You shall not hinder me in doing good work."

The body is your animal — the horse upon
which you ride. Therefore you must treat it
well, and take good care of it; you must not

AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER

overwork it, you must feed it properly on pure
food and drink only, and keep it strictly clean
always, even from the minutest speck of dirt.
For without a perfectly clean and healthy body
you cannot do the arduous work of preparation,
you cannot bear its ceaseless strain. But it must
always be you who controls that body, not it that
controls you.

The astral body has its desires — dozens of
them; it wants you to be angry, to say sharp
words, to feel jealous, to be greedy for money,
to envy other people their possessions, to yield
yourself to depression. All these things it wants,
and many more, not because it wishes to harm
you, but because it likes violent vibrations, and
likes to change them constantly. But you
want none of these things, and therefore you
must discriminate between your wants and your
body's.

Your mental body wishes to think itself proud-
ly separate, to think much of itself and little of
others. Even when you have turned it away
from worldly things, it still tries to calculate for
self, to make you think of your own progress,
instead of thinking of the Master's work and of
helping others. When you meditate, it will try
to make you think of the many different things
which IT wants instead of the one thing which
YOU want. You are not this mind, but it is
yours to use; so here again discrimination is

AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER

necessary. You must watch unceasingly, or you
will fail.

Between right and wrong, Occultism knows no
compromise. At whatever apparent cost, that
which is right you must do, that which is wrong
you must not do, no matter what the ignorant
may think or say. You must study deeply the
hidden laws of Nature, and when you know them
arrange your life according to them, using al-
ways reason and common-sense.

You must discriminate between the important
and the unimportant. Firm as a rock where right
and wrong are concerned, yield always to others
in things which do not matter. For you must
be always gentle and kindly, reasonable and
accommodating, leaving to others the same full
liberty which you need for yourself.

Try to see what is worth doing: and remember
that you must not judge by the size of the thing.
A small thing which is directly useful in the Mas-
ter's work is far better worth doing than a large
thing which the world would call good. You must
distinguish not only the useful from the useless,
but the more useful from the less useful. To
feed the poor is a good and noble and useful
work; yet to feed their souls is nobler and more
useful than to feed their bodies. Any rich man
can feed the body, but only those who know can
feed the soul. If you know, it is your duty to
help others to know.

AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER

However wise you may be already, on this
Path you have much to learn; so much that here
also there must be discrimination, and you must
think carefully what is worth learning. All knowl-
edge is useful, and one day you will have all
knowledge; but while you have only part, take
care that it is the most useful part. God is
Wisdom as well as Love; and the more wisdom
you have the more you can manifest of Him.
Study then, but study first that which will most
help you to help others. Work patiently at your
studies, not that men may think you wise,
not even that you may have the happiness of
being wise, but because only the wise man can
be wisely helpful. However much you wish to
help, if you are ignorant you may do more harm
than good.

You must distinguish between truth and false-
hood; you must learn to be true all through, in
thought and word and deed.

In thought first; and that is not easy, for
there are in the world many untrue thoughts,
many foolish superstitions, and no one who is
enslaved by them can make progress. Therefore
you must not hold a thought just because many
other people hold it nor because it has been be-
lieved for centuries, nor because it is written in
some book which men think sacred; you must
think of the matter for yourself, and judge for
yourself whether it is reasonable. Remember

AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER

that though a thousand men agree upon a sub-
ject, if they know nothing about that subject
their opinion is of no value. He who would
walk upon the Path must learn to think for him-
self, for superstition is one of the greatest evils
in the world, one of the fetters from which you
must utterly free yourself.

Your thought about others must be true; you
must not think of them what you do not know.
Do not suppose that they are always thinking of
you. If a man does something which you think
will harm you, or says something which you
think applies to you, do not think at once: "He
meant to injure me." Most probably he never
thought of ytju at all, for each soul has its own
troubles and its thoughts turn chiefly around it-
self. If a man speak angrily to you, do not
think: "He hates me, he wishes to wound me."
Probably some one or something else has made
him angry, and because he happens to meet you
he turns his anger upon you. He is acting fool-
ishly, for all anger is foolish, but you must not
therefore think untruly of him.

When you become a pupil of the Master, you
may always try the truth of your thought by
laying it beside His. For the pupil is one with
his Master, and he needs only to put back his
thought into the Master's thought to see at once
whether it agrees. If it does not, it is wrong,
and he changes it instantly, for the Master's

AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER

thought is perfect, because He knows all. Those
who are not yet accepted by Him cannot do
quite this; but they may greatly help themselves
by stopping often to think: "What would the
Master think about this? What would the Mas-
ter say or do under these circumstances?" For
you must never do or say or think what you
cannot imagine the Master as doing or saying
or thinking.

You must be true in speech, too — accurate and
without exaggeration. Never attribute motives
to another; only his Master knows his thoughts,
and he may be acting from reasons which have
never entered your mind. If you hear a story
against any one, do not repeat it; it may not be
true, and even if it is, it is kinder to say nothing.
Think well before speaking, lest you should fall
into inaccuracy.

Be true in action; never pretend to be other
than you are, for all pretence is a hindrance to
the pure light of truth, which should shine
through you as sunlight shines through clear
glass.

You must discriminate between the selfish and
the unselfish. For selfishness has many forms,
and when you think you have finally killed it in
one of them, it arises in another as strongly as
ever. But by degrees you will become so full of
thought for the helping of others that there will

AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER

be no room, no time, for any thought about
yourself.

You must discriminate in yet another way.
Learn to distinguish the God in everyone and
everything, no matter how evil he or it may ap-
pear on the surface. You can help your brother
through that which you have in common with
him, and that is the Divine Life; learn how to
arouse that in him, learn how to appeal to that
in him; so shall you save your brother from
wrong.

'T'HERE are many for whom the Qualification
'*■ of Desirelessness is a difficult one, for they
feel that they ARE their desires — that if their
distinctive desires, their likings and dislikings,
are taken away from them, there will be no self
left. But these are only they who have not seen
the Master; in the light of His holy Presence
all desire dies, but the desire to be like Him.
Yet before you have the happiness of meeting
Him face to face, you may attain desirelessness
if you will. Discrimination has already shown you
that the things which most men desire, such as
wealth and power, are not worth having; when
this is really felt, not merely said, all desire for
them ceases.

At the feet of the master

Thus far all is simple; it needs only that you
should understand. But there are some who for-
sake the pursuit of earthly aims only in order
to gain heaven, or to attain personal liberation
from rebirth; into this error you must not fall.
If you have forgotten self altogether, you cannot
be thinking when that self should be set free, or
what kind of heaven it shall have. Remember
that ALL selfish desire binds, however high may
be its object, and until you have got rid of it
you are not wholly free to devote yourself to
the work of the Master.

When all desires for self are gone, there may
still be a desire to see the result of your work.
If you help anybody, you want to see how
much you have helped him; perhaps even you
want him to see it too, and to be grateful. But
this is still desire, and also want of trust. When
you pour out your strength to help, there must
be a result, whether you can see it or not; if
you know the Law you know this must be so.
So you must do right for the sake of the right,
not in the hope of reward; you must work for the
sake of the work, not in the hope of seeing the
result; you must give yourself to the service of
the world because you love it, and cannot help
giving yourself to it.

Have no desire for psychic powers ; they will
come when the Master knows that it is best for
you to have them. To force them too soon often

AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER