HUXLEY DRAWN TO KRISHNAMURTI

Beginning in 1939 and continuing until his death in 1963, novelist Aldous Huxley had an extensive association with the Vedanta Society of Southern California, founded and headed by Swami Prabhavananda. Together with writer/lecturer Gerald Heard, novelist Christopher Isherwood, and other followers he was initiated by the Swami and was taught meditation and spiritual practices.

In later years, though, Huxley was drawn to the teachings of J. Krishnamurti.  As Isherwood describes the situation, "Aldous and Prabhavananda were temperamentally far apart.  Prabhavananda was strongly devotional.  Aldous was much more akin to his friend Krishnamurti, who was then living in Ojai, a couple of hours' drive from Los Angeles.

Krishnamurti expounded a philosophy of discrimination between the real and the unreal; as a Hindu who had broken away from Hinduism, he was repelled by devotional religion and its rituals.  He also greatly disapproved of the guru-disciple relationship.  Krishnamurti," Huxley pointed out, "never meditated on 'objects,' such as lotuses, lights, gods, and goddesses, and even believed that doing so might lead to insanity."