FALLEN PROPHET

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 693, 20 November 1933, Page 3

FALLEN PROPHET

INDIAN MESSIAH • KRISHNAMURTI NOW DEPENDANT ON CHARITY. TEMPLE IN C0MEDY HOUSE. Austrialia soon will see again the world's loneliest young man. His name is Rrishnamurti. * Thousands once venerated his name. The treasuras and pbasures of this world were his for the asking. At Balmoral Beach, Sydney, his j • follo\Vers erectsd a huge temple of | stone from which he wi2S to preach 1 the Great M'essage that was to save j mankind. To-day, beneath the fluted pillars that were to hear the voice of prophecy, an ingenue now shrills the | latest song Ijit. For the temple is a vaudeville house, and the New MesI siah is coming back to Sydney a bsggar, living on th'e charity of friends ! j — land frank enough to> admit it. j; The focal point of the eventuful history of the Theosophist Church has shifted through the years from India, to Java, to Sydney, to H'olknd, ko England, and back to Sydney again. Through this history has moved the bizarre figures of "Bishop" Leadbeater, and of Khrishnamurti, the disciple who was trained to become the Master — and who jibbed at the psychological moment. One of Thirteen. A sub-magistrate in the Madras Presidency had 13 sons. Eleven died from starvation. The survivors, Krishnamurti and another, were at Madanapoli High School, in south'ern India, when they were discovered by the founder of Theosophy, Mrs. Annie Besant, and hy "Bishop" Leadbeater. Mrs. Besant constituted herself the boys' guardian, and placed them under the charge and tuition in the Theosophical religion of the "Bishop." Soon they were overwhelmed by a wave of scandal. There was an official inquiry into Leanheater's conduct, and he was warned hy the authorities to leave Madras, At the same time, Mrs. Besant had' worries of her own to face. Of striking presence, she possessed a miagnetic voice, and the natives, superstitious and eager to accept any new mystic belief, flocked to her standard. Mrs. Besant was capitalising the Indian tendency to hero worship, and so great was becoming her influence that the Government of India, alarmed, threatened to deport her unless her proselytising ceased. A Hypnotist. The "power behind the throni" was j the "Bishop" Leadbeater, whom Sydney was later to know. j He left the United Kingdom with the shadow of scandal hanging heavily over him. India became too ho't to hold him. He sailed for Sydney. None who has met this extraordinary man will ever forget him. He has a long, bearded face, ,and extraordinary eyes. "The Hrst time he looked at me," said a former follower of his yesterday, "I had the extraordinary ssnsation of seeing fiowers suddenly grow out of the walls of the room!" The "Bishop" and his entourage, panoplied in robes of scarlet and

purple and blue, swep't upon Sydney iand settled in the huge house at Cilfton Gardens, which is still occupied by members of the faith. The house was formerly known as "Bakewell's Folly." Now it is "The Manor." There a Theosophist community of the Ofder of the Star-in the East was formed. The bearded "Bishop," like a patriarch of old, paraded the grounds in the sunshine, with half a d'ozen pale boys bearing the train of h'is gorgeous purple rohe. For Leadbeater was rarely seen in public without his boy bodyguard. The youths wors the purple ties and socks' which were the distinguished marks of the order. Into this setting arrived" Krishnamurti and his brother. The stricken boy s'tayed for a time in a house at Neutral Bay, and then was rushed to the beautiful Leura home of a supporter of the order. Here "Bishop" Leadbeater land, a number of his followers established themselves, worshipping at a cardboard altar set up oi. the verandah. But the Blue Mountains air failed to check the disease that was killing the boy, and he and Krishnamurti left Sydney for Canada, accomp'anied by a doctor who had come from America to endeavour to save the life of the brother of the "New Messiah." At Viancouver, however, a "seasick passenger" was landed. He died shortly afterwards, and Krishnamurti faced the world alone. £100 a Slab. In Sydney the theosophical community, which had within its ranksmianV Dutch' men and women, was making tremendous preparations for the delivering of the Krishnamurt.o message that was to change the course of humanity. Facing hetween Sydney Heads out to the wide Tasman, the Amphitheatre was cons'tructed of white stone and concrete. 'Seats-^cold. stone slabs — were allotted according to the amoupt suhscri'bed. Front stalls, complete with brass plate announcing owner's name, were £100 each'. Towards the building of this amphitheatre, towards providing Leadbeater with sedan cars, 'towards a score of other theosophist activities ,a New South Wlales squatter supplied thousiands of pounds. Rumours reached him which he could hhardly believe. He set sail for Holland, where Krishnamurti had just turned down the offer of a castle and 500 acres of land to live quietly with friends, awaiting a great Theosophist Congress ja.t Eerde Castle. "Yes," Krishnamurti told the grazier. "The stories of the 'Bishop' true. That had been his own reason for renouneing the Messiahship." The squatter was stricken by the blinding light of the "New Messiah's" revelation. He left theosophy — but he left the greater part of his fortune in it. Dead and Buried. Then Leadbeater departed for India, among his party being Dr. Mary Rocke, or ginator of the Balmoral Amphitheatre idea. She travelled second class — -the "Bishop" travelled first. As the liner steamed across the Indian Ocean the "Bishop" casually remarked that he had not noticed Dr. Rocke for two or three days. The faithful said they would inquire. 'They did. Dr. Rocke had been killed in a fall down a companionway and had been buried iat sea the previous day. Leadbeater's successor in Sydney is Bishop Arupdale, ap Englishman with a Hindu wife, and while he leads the Theosophical Church in Australia, a breakaway body, the Independent Theosophical Society also exists. Krishnamurti is now at the Surrey (England) home of Lady Emily Lutyens, wife of the world-famous architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens. She and her two daughters were in Sydney some years ago, the girls attending the "Garden School" conducted by the Theosophical Society in the Mosman home formerly occupied by the late Mr. J. W. A'bigail, the police court advocate. One of them, Mary, later married Mr. Anthony Sewell, and has pust published her first novel, "Fortheoming Marriages." From the quiet Godalming home Krishnamurti will shortly leiave for Australia. He is expec'ted in Sydney about February. No Hpmes, no Mcney. "I am just living," he says. "I am no longer connected with any organisation. I am as free as the lair. "I have no home, no property, no money in the bank. "If I had wished for it, I could have been an exceedingly rich man to-day, with a beautiful temple in which' to live. "Arid,'" sia.ys Krishnamurti, "I was once offered £2000 a week in Hollywood. ' "Now I live' only for immortality. I try 'to teach those with whom I come in contact the true key to happiness, the intellectual life. "I neither refute nor claim the sugges'tion that I am a Messiah. I left the organisiation because people were aciually worshipping my picture. That was wrong. And there were other reasons — '"Madame Besant, she was a wonderful woman," sorrowfully said the ' siim little Indian, "but . she is dead^ "For me remains only the charity of friends.