The Last Talks

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When Krishnamurti came to India in November 1985, he was in his ninety-first year. He had returned, in the words of a friend, to 'say goodbye'. Despite his terminal illness, he visited the Rajghat School in Varanasi, the Rishi Valley School in Andhra Pradesh, and Vasanta Vihar in Madras to give public talks and participate in the discussions with all the vigour and passionate concern of the previous sixty years of his working life. In his last talk, at Vasanta Vihar, he inquired into the origin of life and said: 'Creation is something that is most holy, that's the most sacred thing in life, and if you have made a mess of your life, change it. Change it today, not tomorrow.'

It was Krishnamurti's last journey to India. He had already stated at Saanen, Switzerland, that there would not be any more talks there; and he had written to a friend:

We have had the most marvellous four days of weather, sunny every day and the valley is telling us goodbye.

During the last talk at Saanen he retold the story of Nachiketa, the boy who was sent to the house of Death for asking too many questions. It was an ancient Indian tale, from the Kathopanishad, but Krishnamurti's version was different- more romantic, set in an ideal time when men kept their word and periodically gave away what they had accumulated. These details are not in the original, which does not have a romantic tone.

Krishnamurti's Nachiketa is full of impossible questions; he is naive, but sufficiently astute to reject the temptations Death offers with a simple observation, 'You will be at the end of it. You will always be at the end of everything'.

Except that he was nearly 91, Krishnamurti was not very different from the Nachiketa he described. He had Nachiketa's gift for turning every occasion into a question, even a boon; he had Nachiketa's easy way with death; and he had Nachiketa's innocent generosity.

In the morning when beggars come to the house, it is our custom to send out to them a cup or bowl of unboiled rice, and we distribute it to the hands outheld in turn, until the cup is empty. My wife would send Krishna out to give alms, and the little fellow would come back for more, saying he had poured it all into one man's bag. Then his mother would go with him and teach him how to give to each.

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