Jiddu Krishnamurti, the religious philosopher and teacher, was born at Madanapalle in
Andhra Pradesh, on 11th May of 1895. He was the eighth child in a middle-class Brahmin family.
Annie Besant, president of the Theosophical Society, adopted him when he was aged 13. She was convinced that she had found the new World Leader, a spiritual savior equivalent to Buddha or Jesus. By the 1920's Krishnamurti was attracting worldwide attention. But in 1929, Krishnamurti experienced a mysterious spiritual awakening and abandoned Theosophical Society. He set out on a teaching mission of his own, saying that religions, with their prescribed teachings and worship services, retarded self-awareness.
From then onwards Krishnamurti traveled all over the world giving public talks and private interviews to millions of people of all ages and backgrounds. He established the Krishnamurti Foundation at Ojai in 1969. People supported him and the nonprofit foundations he set up in Ojai, England and India. The foundation today has schools in India and several other countries.
His talks, dialogues, journals and letters have been preserved in over seventy books and in hundreds of audio and video recordings.
He died on February 17, 1986 in Ojai, California, at the age of ninety.
