It was 18th February 1986, I was traveling in Germany by Mitfahr-Cenralle car-pool. The driver of the car switched on the car radio and we started listening to the news in English. The last news item happened to be on J. Krishnamurti. The news broadcaster announced: Jiddu Krishnamurti, the religious philosopher and teacher, died of cancer yesterday at his residence at the Krishnamurti Foundation in Ojai, Calif. He was 90 years old.
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The German driver who did not know who Krishnamurti was, asked me: Do you know who this person was. I said: Yes. And I told him: Krishnamurti was an enlightened mystic, an awakened one, just like Gautama the Buddha–who did not look like a traditional saint. He was a modern Buddha.
To continue the conversation, this German driver asked me: Do you also know Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh?
During that time, Osho was known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and was always big news in German media because of all the controversies what the whole world watched recently on Netflix’s docu-series Wild Wild Country. I told the driver: Yes I know Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. He is the modern Buddha and an Everest of consciousness. Our century is really fortunate and blessed to have these two Buddhas, just like 25 centuries ago there were Gautama the Buddha and Mahavira who were raising the consciousness of humanity by their very presence.
He became more and more curious and asked me more questions about the teachings of J. Krishnamurti and Osho. Our conversation on this topic continued for the duration of our whole journey. After this journey, I tried to look for the news and articles about Krishnamurti’s death in the English newspapers from Britain, USA and India…and could not find any news. I wondered that an enlightened person of Krishnamurti’s greatness dies and the world media is not bothered to report about it, there is so much insensitivity prevails in the mainstream media.
Next week, Osho. in an answer to a question, expressed the same feelings in one of his discourses. Someone asked Osho: J. Krishnamurti died last Monday, In Ojai, California. In the past you have spoken of him as another enlightened being. Would you please comment on his death?
Osho replied: I was more shocked by the news than by death. A man like J. Krishnamurti dies, and the papers don’t have space to devote to that man who for ninety years continuously has been helping humanity to be more intelligent, to be more mature. Nobody has worked so hard and so long. Just a small news article, unnoticeable—and if a politician sneezes it makes headlines.
in another discourse, Osho says: The death of an enlightened being like J. Krishnamurti is nothing to be sad about, it is something to be celebrated with songs and dances. It is a moment of rejoicing. His death is not a death. He knows his immortality. His death is only the death of the body. But J. Krishnamurti will go on living in the universal consciousness, forever and forever.
Osho answered another question: What is your connection with Krishnamurti?
It is a real mystery. I have loved him since I have known him, and he has been very loving towards me. But we have never met; hence the relationship, the connection is something beyond words. We have not seen each other ever, but yet…perhaps we have been the two persons closest to each other in the whole world. We had a tremendous communion that needs no language, that need not be of physical presence….
You are asking me about my connection with him. It was the deepest possible connection—which needs no physical contact, which needs no linguistic communication. Not only that, once in a while I used to criticise him, he used to criticise me, and we enjoyed each other’s criticism—knowing perfectly well that the other does not mean it. Now that he is dead, I will miss him because I will not be able to criticise him; it won’t be right. It was such a joy to criticise him. He was the most intelligent man of this century, but he was not understood by people.
He has died, and it seems the world goes on its way without even looking back for a single moment that the most intelligent man is no longer there. It will be difficult to find that sharpness and that intelligence again in centuries. But people are such sleepwalkers, they have not taken much note. In newspapers, just in small corners where nobody reads, his death is declared. And it seems that a ninety-year-old man who has been continuously speaking for almost seventy years, moving around the world, trying to help people to get unconditioned, trying to help people to become free—nobody seems even to pay a tribute to the man who has worked the hardest in the whole of history for man’s freedom, for man’s dignity.
I don’t feel sorry for his death. His death is beautiful; he has attained all that life is capable to give. But I certainly feel sorry for the whole world. It goes on missing its greatest flights of consciousnesses, its highest peaks, its brightest stars. It is too much concerned with trivia.
