The Buddha - Vipassana - J.Krishnamurti

Question for Shri S. N. Goenka about his meeting with J Krishnamurti (K)
Location: Pune, India.
Date: 17 October 2000.
Occasion: public Q/A session after a public talk by Shri S N Goenka on Vipassana meditation.

Q. Krishnamurty did not believe in a technique or gurus. I believe you met him, did you discuss this?

Answer by S. N. Goenka:

Certainly, I met him. He was a very saintly person, and I very much understood why he is against technique and why he is against gurus. Because he observed the situation all over the country where gurus just exploit the people saying “Look I am your guru and you are my disciple, you are so weak, how can you liberate yourself ? Just surrender to me and I will liberate you. I will liberate you.”

This is exploitation by gurus, this is against Dhamma and when you talk of technique that means you have got one object and you are just working with one object. It does not take you to the final goal.

Things are changing from moment to moment you are observing, you are observing. (This is Vipassana, this is not a technique, Vipassana is not a technique, it is a process of observation.)

So I discussed with him “Well in age you are an elderly person and in experience also you are an elderly person.” It was 30 years ago when we met. “You are elderly so let me know if I am making any mistake. I am teaching Vipassana because I got benefit from it and I want to share my benefit with others. That is the only reason. If I am making any mistake please tell me”. then he (K) asked me “First day what you teach?”. (I replied and he said)

”Oh! This is not a technique”…second day… (K said) ”This is not a technique”.
….all the ten days I explained (and K said) “This is not a technique, you are observing the truth. The truth from moment to moment. Perfectly all right !”.

And guru? (I said) “I never say that I will liberate you, you have to work out your own liberation. A guru can only show the path then only sadguru. Otherwise if he tries to exploit then he is not a guru, he is harmful to the country.” He said, “no this is not gurudom.” He accepted both.