Book Review: The Future of Humanity

The Future of Humanity: A Conversation by Jiddu Krishnamurti and David Bohm is a small book and a quick read. The book contains a transcript of two dialogues that took place between Krishnamurti and Bohm in June 1983. Bohm writes in the preface that these two dialogues took place three years after a series of thirteen similar dialogues.1

The starting point for the discussion was the question: What is the future of humanity? This question led in turn to the question whether mind is limited by the brain of mankind, with all the knowledge that it has accumulated over the ages.2 The book contains the essential spirit of the whole of Krishnamurti’s teachings, and throws further light on them.3

The book leaves me with mixed feelings. I can see how David Bohm continuously tries to understand what Krishnamurti is saying. Bohm repeatedly asks for clarity, and tries to summarize what Krishnamurti says. I really appreciate David Bohm’s search for intellectual clarity. He is able to pursue abstract thought to a far greater degree than most other people. Bohm also gives the impression of being a very gentle and kind person. Maybe too kind?

Because I can also see a Krishnamurti who I perceive as very assertive and rather evasive. Sometimes, when Bohm comes too close with his questions, Krishnamurti says he talks psychologically, or simply avoids answering Bohm’s question by answering another. I definitely lost confidence in Krishnamurti when he said that the activity of the brain really is like a computer.4 It’s a really poor metaphor! Just because someone gives the impression that he knows what he’s talking about it doesn’t mean that he does!

Notes:
1 Jiddu Krishnamurti and David Bohm, The Future of Humanity: A Conversation (Harper & Row, 1986), p. 1.
2 Ibid., p. 2.
3 Ibid., p. 4.
4 Ibid., p. 54.


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2 responses to “Book Review: The Future of Humanity”

  1. Simon Robinson Avatar

    Thanks for this review Jan. I really must read the Bohm’s biography as I think it is there where F. David Peat discusses the way Bohm left the relationship with Krishnamurti after not managing to truly engage with him.

    1. Jan Avatar
      Jan

      Thanks for you comment Simon. I got interested and took a closer look in F. David Peat’s book. Here is what Peat writes about the break between Bohm and Krishnamurti.

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