The Trail to Enlightenment - Life and Teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti (Set of 3 Volumes)

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The Hidden Side of Lift is the history and theory of Theosophy explained succinctly; it reveals a new dimension to reality.

It is about the spiritual side of life and the supernatural or occultism. There are many who do not understand the reality of such things. There are also the believers who believe without knowing why. This book is for all.

Many people have wondered what enlightenment is. Indeed, is there such a thing? Yes, explains the book. And until that day arrives, you suffer. Your journey cannot end until the ultimate glory is attained. There is no escape from this natural path of human refinement; even if you do not wish to become enlightened, or do not recognise that such a state exists. This is the true nature of human evolution.

Occult knowledge is a seldom visited land. It is the first of three lands we must visit along our trail to enlightenment.

An electrical engineer by profession, Shuvendu Patnaik has been a member of the local committee in Cuttack for the Krishnamurti Foundation India for many years. He has journeyed from superstitions and childhood beliefs to ancient wisdom to learn about occult theories from Theosophy, and then out of it, into the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Passionately devoted to the spiritual side of life, he has met and lived with illuminated people to learn about their experience.

The Hidden Side of Life is the first book of the trilogy, The Trail to Enlightenment. It describes Krishnarnurti's birth and childhood and then enters into a subject that greatly influenced his early life - Theosophy. How the Theosophical Society was formed, its occult purpose and theories are explained. The lost history of the world and how evolution has occurred, as learnt from Theosophy, is also narrated. This is like a foundation for the other two books. This is the first of the three lands that await discovery along the trail.

The Great Coming is the second book of the trilogy, The Trail to Enlightenment. It covers the early years of Jiddu Krishnamurti, how he was discovered and groomed, and how he walked away from his spiritual mentors to become an independent teacher. The book also offers a birds eye view of his teachings, compiled by the author under topics of interest. If you want to gain a complete and comprehensive insight into Krishnamurti in a single book, this is perhaps the book for you. This is the second of the three lands that await discovery along the trail.

The Key to Super Consciousness is the third book of the trilogy, The Trail to Enlightenment. Drawing from the wisdom of the second book and building on the background of knowledge revealed in the first, this final book of the trilogy is intensely thought provoking. It ventures into the elusive alley of super consciousness and delves into who Krishnamurti was and his hidden role for humanity. Described as the third land along the trail, this book examines the mysteries in his life. The epilogue brings us to a surprising conclusion.

At its pinnacle, is deep spirituality an alternative to science? Does either of the two hold the key to the nature of the cosmos and the pattern of human existence on our planet and beyond ?

To my mind, the answer to both the above questions is in the negative. However, perhaps it is the unique synthesis of these two elements, which constitutes the ever-burning candle at the top of the hill that manifests the Ultimate Reality. In that candlelight, myriads of paths are visible to those climbers who seek to reach the top. But, even to the steadiest and the strongest of them, the goal proves elusive. They may reach very near the top but never the top itself. Perhaps, it is in the nature of the top to make itself unattainable. "It is", as J. Krishnamurti put it in one of his discourses, "moving all the time and dynamism is ingrained in it".

From time immemorial, from the ages of Upanishad, Buddha and Mahavira, from the times of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Ramana Maharishi, Aurobindo Ghosh and the like, India has produced a galaxy of saints, sages and philosophers, with powerful and profound minds, who have taken one or more of the paths referred to above to climb to the top. Though different in many respects, Jiddu Krishnamurti's appearance on the scene in the early twentieth century was essentially in line with this hoary tradition of India.

He was propelled by the inner strength of his mind to fathom the Ultimate Reality in its larger and deeper dimensions. As a solitary pilgrim, the journey that he undertook on diverse paths, including those of occult sciences and super-consciousness, and the lived experience and thought-processes that he underwent during its course, find simple, yet scintillating, expression in Shuvendu Patnaik's magnum opus, The Trail to Enlightenment. This penetrating and painstaking study is in three volumes.

In Volume I, titled The Hidden Side of Life, the author has shed copious light even on the darkest corners of what is usually labelled as· 'pre-creation void' but the secret knowledge of which is known only to 'the initiated' and 'the aroused'.

Volume II, titled The Great Coming, is replete with the gems of Krishnamurti's thoughts that lay bare the multi- pronged roots of the multi-faceted crises of contemporary civilisation. To meet these crises, mired as they are in greed, violence and hatred, man must set himself "free, absolutely free, unconditionally free" of all current dogmas of religions and ideologies, and engage himself perpetually with a new endeavor to search for, "beauty, truth and loveliness of living", through "self-inquiry and self- knowledge" .

The Third Volume, titled The Kry to Super Consciousness, unfolds the 'Consciousness model' and its hidden spiritual role in evolving a happier and more harmonious pattern of living. The planks and contours for building up this pattern are also delineated.

Nevertheless, the Ultimate Question about the Ultimate Reality remains. Is the top reachable, realisable? Or does humanity have to find contentment by observing that the candle at the top has become more luminous after Krishnamurti's Great Venture into "What Was, Is, and Could Be"?

In scale, sincerity and scholarship, the three volumes together make an invaluable contribution to the study of philosophic literature on J. Krishnamurti.

Is there really a trail to enlightenment as the title suggests? Has Krishnamurti ever talked about enlightenment? Did he indicate a new approach to it? Did he talk about it? Many suc~ questions may follow.

The author feels Krishnamurti probably has left behind a hidden trail to the mountain top - to enlightenment - which has been waiting to be discovered. He sensed it in the teachings, but the mountain top has eluded the author. The author has however known someone who has followed the trail very far, perhaps to its destiny. How high did this person climb up the spiritual ladder? Did he reach the mountaintop? This is not known. Enlightened men and women rarely speak about themselves. But this man probably discovered the hidden science, the metaphysics which describe the mountaintop.

He has explained it to me, telling me how close by the mountain top has been all along and yet we do not realise it. It is surely difficult to arrive there, in spite of its closeness. The mountain top is just across a gorge and can be seen in your mind's eye. A mighty leap can take you across. A simple step can perhaps enable this mighty leap, if you know 'how' to step ahead.

One must first learn about the gorge to find it. Probably then the knowledge about its metaphysics may make the 'how' easy to ascertain. A different way of life needs to be lived to leap across the gorge - the 'how'. If this way of life is realised, the leap will happen on its own, without any intervention or effort required.

This different, new way of life is what we can learn from Krishnamurti. The science behind the leap is just a bit of academic knowledge and therefore irrelevant. It is the way of living that takes us to the mountaintop and not knowledge or the theory. Knowledge however can explain why the mountaintop has eluded yogis and aspirants for many lives in spite of their determined effort, and they can know what is preventing them. This bit of knowledge has remained a hidden, missing-link in traditional spiritual knowledge, and this man I speak of 'chanced' upon it. The missing-link also explains why a new way of life talked by Krishnamurti, must take us to the mountain top.

What is this new way of life? This may be a question of interest for many readers. Is it difficult? Is there a way to overcome the difficulty?

It is not easy, warns the author, but surely not insurmountable. It does not impose upon us in any way. It does not need us to change the way we have otherwise lived our lives. We don't need to become pious, become a vegetarian, become spiritual, sit down in penance and meditation, visit temples and churches, worship God, or even change our-belief. Nothing of that kind is needed. There is no imposition at all, no dogmas, and no rules. Does it sound too good to be true?

The Trail to Enlightenment answers all these questions and does so through a distillation of the life story and teachings of the twentieth century philosopher and spiritual teacher, Jiddu Krishnamurti. Revealed over three parts, The Trail to Enlightenment explores the beliefs, theories and science of spirituality that leads to enlightenment, and re-examines them in the light of Krishnamurti. The set of three books taken together is a major work on Krishnamurti that covers his life as well as his teachings against a rich background of simply explained occult science and spiritual philosophy. Giving Krishnamurti's life story and its didacticism the centre-stage, the author takes readers to three different lands through an intellectually gripping and extraordinarily informative journey into the occult.

Part 1: The Hidden Side of Life covers the birth and childhood of Krishnamurti. It explains the subject of Theosophy that surrounded his early life. The lost history of the world and how. evolution has occurred is also narrated here. This is like a. foundation book for the others, and the first of the three lands waiting to be discovered.

Part 2: The Great Coming picks up the threads from Part 1 and covers the story of the boyhood of Krishnamurti until he became an independent teacher of undefined greatness. There are extracts from his teachings to serve as a primer for those who wish to know more about the teachings. This is a book to learn many things that need to be known about the early life of Krishnamurti, including mysterious happenings, and his teachings. In this book we also learn about a new way of life worth living. This is the second of the three lands waiting to be discovered, a marvellous land indeed.

Part 3: The Key to Super Consciousness concludes the saga of Krishnamurti, taking us to the third land that awaits discovery. This land is like a bright and lustrous valley that lies in the shade of the mountains of the first two lands. Here one meets the metaphysics of super consciousness, the science of the gorge. It is from here that the trail begins.

One also discovers a synthesis of the theosophical ideas of the first land with the glorious teachings of the second land, as the shadows cast by the two mountains blend with each other. 'Who was Krishnamurti?' has been asked again and again and the answer has remained a mystery in occult circles for many years. Some people believe he was the second incarnation of Christ. Was it really so? The mystery has been thorougWy explored in this book and arrives at a startling discovery. This book is the grand finale of the three-part saga, ending with the death of Krishnamurti.

The Trail to Enlightenment is therefore a set of three inseparable books for Krishnamurti lovers, Theosophists, philosophers and those who love spiritual science. It is not a biography of Krishnamurti, though its biographical content may at times make it feel like one. While each book can be read independently, the three taken together and read in a sequence deliver one of the routes to the mountaintop. Wait until you have completed the Epilogue of the third book, the author suggests. Until then neither accept nor reject what has been written. This is the author's appeal to all readers.

How the author came upon these insights and what compelled him to write the three books is, set another story. Part 1: The Hidden Side of Life begins with a prologue that narrates this story, describing the life mission of someone who worked selflessly and anonymously for Krishnamurti. It was this man who came upon the startling insights shared here and it was he, who inspired and influenced the author to write these books. Though he did not live to see them published, it is he who truly deserves to be called the author of these books.

With this introduction, let us now begin our journey to the mountaintop.

**Contents and Sample Pages**