Krishnamurti often spoke of the false division between ‘me’ and ‘not me’. He said that in actuality we are all one etc. I have a friend who read Krishnamurti all the time and we used to have interesting conversations about Krishnamurti’s writings. He seemed ok at the time. However, he began to change gradually, and at one point he confessed to me that he has understood Krishnamurti completely, he said that everything looks different and vivid, that every moment is full of joy and bliss. He seemed to be extremely happy and full of energy.

I grew a bit worried about him, as he seemed to be a bit manic. When I next saw him, he really was in a manic state. He had moved away from his wife and children, spent all his money on expensive furniture and at the same time selling everything he had previously owned. I asked him why he did this and what was going on in his mind. He had this strange look when he told me that he had heard voices that told him that he had ‘the face of love’ and that the voices called him ‘his holiness’. He was convinced that he was going through the same ‘process’ that K had gone through. When I suggested that he might need some professional help, he became angry and said that nobody could understand him. He said ‘I’m going my way’ and continued to sell everything he owned. Daily he spent several hours just wondering around streets and told me that he had close contact with nature, that he could feel very deeply the beauty of the nature. He didn’t want to see his wife or children.

As time went on, he began to isolate and didn’t want to see anyone. Occasionally he let me visit him. He was still in a manic state and told me enthusiastically about an experience he’d had: he had felt a flowing feeling in his head, he had felt that his body was not separate from the world around him. He believed that at that moment he was one with the world, that there was no separation anymore between ‘me’ and ‘not-me’ He laughed when he told me that he had had to wrap a scarf around his head tightly so that he could still feel that his head ‘belonged to him’. Also he told me that he’d had an experience where he felt that something was pulled from his head, he thought that it was his spirit being pulled away. He told me that he had panicked but then the voices had told him ‘calm down my dear child, you are not going to die, it is not always easy to be new’. This experience convinced him that he was ‘chosen one’ and that he was a living example of ‘living the teachings’.

His life quickly deteriorated. He quit his job, stopped caring about personal hygiene and only occasionally let me or his family see him. He showed me his writings, which were incomprehensible – he explained that he had found connections between almost everything in the world and he tried to express this in his writing. When anyone tried to suggest that he see a doctor, he began to had these fits of rage, he kept repeating that no-one would understand him, that he was well, he had never felt better in his life and that he would never under any circumstance accept to have medication.

This episode lasted about nine months. For the last few months I didn’t see him. Then he phoned me and spoke in a whispery voice and told me that he couldn’t understand what had went on. I went to see him. He had returned to his family and was a shadow of his former self. He told me couldn’t remember everything about the past months, but he remembered that he had felt extremely powerful. He told me that he had heard sounds louder than normally, also that the colours had looked brighter than usual and he had been much quicker than usual in anything he did. Now he was desperate and depressed and said that he felt totally empty. Nowadays he takes medication for depression and panic attacks and mainly stays at home.

So: could reading Krishnamurti be a threat to your sanity?