Early Life
Krishnamurti was born on July 9, 1918 in Machilipatnam, a town in coastal Andhra Pradesh, India, and raised in the nearby town of Gudivada. His mother died seven days after he was born, and he was brought up by his maternal grandfather, a wealthy Brahmin lawyer, who was also involved in the Theosophical Society. Krishnamurti also became a member of the Theosophical Society during his teenage years and mentions having "inherited" his association with the Theosophical Society from his grandfather.
During the same period of his life, Krishnamurti reportedly practiced all kinds of austerities and apparently sought moksha or spiritual enlightenment. To that end, between the ages of 14 and 21, he undertook all kinds of spiritual exercise, determined to find out whether moksha was possible. Wanting to achieve that state, he had also resolved to prove that if there were people who have thus "realized" themselves, they could not be hypocritical. As part of this endeavor, he searched for a person who was an embodiment of such "realization".
He spent seven summers in the Himalayas with Swami Sivananda studying yoga and practicing meditation. During his 20s, Krishnamurti began attending the University of Madras, studying psychology, philosophy, mysticism, and the sciences, but never completed a degree, having determined that the answers of the West – to what he considered were essential questions – were no better than those of the East.
Read more about this topic: U. G. Krishnamurti
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