A question I have been asked often is why, in my recent book Echoes of Eternity: A Journey Through Indian Thought from the Rigveda to the Present, which is a compendium of the remarkable wisdom of our land over the last eight thousand years, I chose to include only J. Krishnamurti and Osho among India’s modern philosophers.
Pavan K Varma’s recent book Echoes of Eternity: A Journey Through Indian Thought from the Rigveda to the Present (Instagram/midlandbookshopsouthex)
The question is valid, and others could have made different choices. However, my yardstick was to select those—and it was impossible to include all—who I felt made an original contribution to Indian philosophy. Krishnamurti and Osho, to my mind, made the mark.
J. Krishnamurti (1895–1986) was born into a Telugu Brahmin family. His father worked for the Theosophical Society, and when the family moved to the Society’s headquarters at Adyar, the young Krishnamurti was “discovered” by Charles Webster Leadbeater, who believed he would become a future World Teacher.
Under the guidance of Annie Besant, Krishnamurti was educated and groomed to lead a global spiritual movement. In 1929, however, he dramatically dissolved the organization established around him, the Order of the Star, declaring that “Truth is a pathless land.” This act remains one of the most remarkable rejections of spiritual authority in modern history.
Krishnamurti believed that each individual must carry out his or her own search for truth without being dictated to or conditioned by what others believed or wanted them to believe. In this search, the key was the quality of courageous honesty and the absence of fear. One aspect he stressed was observing one’s own thoughts silently, without judgment, and in complete awareness. The process itself would lead to the mind becoming still, and in that stillness lay the path to truth.
Such a path could perhaps be lonely, but it was preferable, for him, to organised religion. One of his favourite jokes was: A man finds Truth on the roadside and puts it in his pocket. His friend asks, “What are you going to do with it?” The answer: “Let’s organise it.” Krishnamurti used this joke repeatedly because it summarized his lifelong criticism of religions, ideologies, and gurus.
Born Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain, Osho (1931–1990) grew up in central India and was known from childhood for his rebellious temperament. He studied philosophy and later became a professor before emerging as a public speaker and spiritual teacher in the 1960s.
Unlike Krishnamurti, Osho openly embraced controversy. He challenged traditional morality, criticized political and religious establishments, and spoke extensively about sexuality, arguing that spiritual growth should not be based on repression. This earned him both devoted followers and fierce opponents.
The most dramatic chapter of his life unfolded in the United States, where his followers established the commune of Rajneeshpuram in Oregon. The experiment ended amid legal disputes, immigration charges, and criminal activities committed by some close associates. Osho denied direct involvement in those crimes and blamed members of his inner circle. He eventually returned to India, where he spent his final years in Pune.
His lifestyle attracted enormous attention because he possessed dozens of luxury Rolls-Royce cars, leading critics to accuse him of hypocrisy. Osho replied that he was demonstrating that spirituality and material abundance need not be opposed.
Osho was a gifted orator and often laced his speeches with jokes. One of these went as follows: Nasruddin’s son comes home carrying a chicken. “Where did you get it?” asks Nasruddin. “I stole it,” says the boy. Nasruddin proudly turns to his neighbour and says: “This is my boy. He may steal, but he won’t lie!” The joke exposes our strange and varying morality: we often admire honesty while ignoring a much larger wrongdoing.
Osho frequently said that life itself is a joke and that man’s seriousness is the real problem. He once remarked that while the Buddha’s last message was “Be a light unto yourself,” his own might be: “Be a joke unto yourself.” The point was not frivolity but freedom from ego. People who can laugh at themselves are less trapped by self-importance.
Osho and J. Krishnamurti could hardly have been more different in temperament. Osho loved stories, jokes, paradoxes, and laughter. Krishnamurti was sparer and more austere, though he too had a subtle sense of humour. Krishnamurti sought freedom through the complete negation of psychological dependence. Osho sought freedom through a fuller experience of life and consciousness. One resembled a philosopher of radical awareness; the other a mystic of celebration and transformation. Krishnamurti was reserved, elegant, disciplined, and deeply suspicious of followers, organizations, and spiritual authority. Osho was flamboyant, provocative, charismatic, and comfortable building a large movement around himself.
Yet both left a lasting mark on modern spirituality because each, in his own way, challenged humanity to think independently and to seek direct experience rather than second-hand belief.
(Pavan K Varma is an author, diplomat, and former member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). The views expressed are personal)
