Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on May 12, 1895, in Madanapalle, south India. From 1929 until his death in 1986 he traveled all over the world speaking spontaneously to large audiences. He engaged in dialogues with religious leaders, scientists, professors, authors, psychologists, and people from many different backgrounds deeply questioning their daily life. His talks and dialogues have been compiled and published in more than fifty books and translated into as many different languages. His books include The Ending of Time, Freedom from the Known, Commentaries on Living, Education and the Significance of Life, The Awakening of Intelligence, and The First and Last Freedom.

Krishnamurti suggested that in the mirror of relationship (to people, to things, to nature and ourselves) each of us can come to understand the content of our own consciousness, and discover that it is common to all humanity. Our violent, conflict-ridden world, he further suggested, cannot be transformed into a life of goodness, love and compassion by any political, social or economic strategies, but only through our own observation and fundamental change—a first-hand understanding not dependent on any guru, system or organized religion.

The rejection of all spiritual and psychological authority, including his own, is a fundamental theme of Krishnamurti's.

"We must be very clear on this matter from the very beginning. There is no belief demanded or asked, there are no followers, there are no cults, there is no persuasion of any kind, in any direction, and therefore only then we can meet on the same platform, on the same ground, at the same level. Then we can together observe the extraordinary phenomena of human existence."