Geetha Balakrishna

I met Geetha Balakrishna in Muscat, Oman in the Arabian Gulf. It was still early in my journey with Portraits in Faith. I was delighted to hear about her growing up with a mix of religions: Hinduism in her home, Catholicism in a convent school, and a mother who exposed her to the writings of J. Krishnamurti. Geetha admitted she did not understand J. Krishnamurti until she read a book by Eckhart Tolle, decades later.

Geetha’s insistence that the Higher Power she sought was inside of her intrigued me. I had only heard of J. Krishnamurti; had never studied him, and had only nominally been exposed to Eckart Tolle after he was made popular by Oprah. I am grateful to Geetha for inspiring this exploration of what Krishnamurti and Tolle had to say about God and why it must be found inside—not outside—of myself. 

Jidda Kirshnamurti was born in 1895 in southern India. He lived until 1986 and had been groomed to be a world leader in the late 19th century Theosophical tradition. He, however, rejected that tradition and established his own school of thought even though one of his core teachings was to not to hold anyone in authority, including himself! Krishnamurti’s essential philosophy was that people must diminish their attachment to the “I” or the “me,” because it is the ego representation of the self. He asserted that the self is isolating and the ego-self cannot be in true relationships with others. 

I loved the way Krishnamurti described how true spiritual love with others is the God force that heals the self, the “I” of false identity. He wrote:

Krishnamurti did not believe in God, and his philosophies were non-theistic. But he believed that it was in relationship to others and diminishment of the self that we could tap into God energy. He even pushed back on the idea of loving God: “That’s very easy to love God because it’s an abstraction and has not much meaning. But if you love, that very love is God; that very love is sacred. You won’t go outside to look for God.”2

Krishnamurti’s concepts are so very powerful for me. In my own despair, I searched outside of myself for a HIgher Power that could restore me to sanity. Geetha taught me a valuable lesson that Higher Power is the same and cannot be separate from the spirit inside of me…and I can access that Power by loving others and diminishing my ego identity and the concerns of my capital S ‘Self.’

So then naturally I was intrigued to explore the modern spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle and how his teachings made what Krishnamurti said more accessible. Tolle was born Ulrich Leonard Tolle in 1948. He changed his name to Eckhart after a profound spiritual experience (the name change was perhaps to honor the German philosopher Meister Eckhart). At 29, Tolle was experiencing long-term depression, but a profound inner transformation and inner peace came upon him one night in 1977. He wrote his first best seller, The Power of Now, about the philosophies that became apparent to him through that spiritual experience. Oprah Winfrey chose his books for her now famous book club. She has interviewed him many times on her shows.

Tolle lays out the very same concepts Geetha spoke of to me. His premise is that “our true selves are the formless Consciousness, which is Being, which is God. We are all One, and we are all God.”3 

Tolle then addressed the cause of most personal suffering:

So, I have to actually see that my identification with the “I” (my thoughts) keeps me in the dark. It’s taken me many years to see that I am not my thoughts. This helps me identify with the Divine essence, not my personality. And this concept helps me better understand how my thoughts create the concept of “the other” for I use my thoughts and the “I” to judge and keep other people separate and away from me. Tolle says:

How funny that Tolle says we must get beyond our minds if we are going to grow and be at peace with ourselves and other people. And, here, I thought my mind was my greatest asset. I love these three final quotes from Tolle that remind me to get out of my mind and my thoughts:

Maybe that is the starting point—recognizing programmed dysfunction—to see God and “other” people as external. Thank you, Geetha Balakrishna, for taking me on this journey into the thoughts of Jiddu Krishnamurti and Eckhart Tolle. The three of you have expanded my ways of thinking, and not thinking, and ideally loving.