Many years ago, I was living in Jerusalem, studying Jewish Philosophy at the Hebrew University, doing exceptionally well at those studies, being granted a full scholarship and living allowance. I would be called a religious or observant Jew by non religious Jews, and a non religious Jew by religious Jews. My commitment to both ideas of Zionism and Judaism was ardent, strong and lasting.
But nevertheless, I was able to read Krishnamurti and understand what I read, and the power and clarity in the words were unmistakable. Within a few months I was no longer religious, nor did I identify with Judaism or Zionism. That sort of change was rather shocking to my family, my friends, and my Professors. Within six months I had left the University, leaving behind the security, the scholarship, and two years of study which under that system was not transferable. I went to live in a small house in the woods where I started my first garden and got a job doing medical research and working in the forest.
Later that year an opportunity arose which marked the most shocking change of all, a friend offered me the chance of living in a Palestinian village. Even then there was a great deal of hostility and resentment towards Israel and anything Jewish. Sympathizers were routinely executed by Fatah terrorists. But here was this chance of doing the impossible for anyone with my background and conditioning. It was a test of everything that Krishnamurti was talking about.
But my motivation for moving was not to test Krishnamurti's teaching. It was the incredible beauty of that location. It was a small house, only two large rooms with a tiny bathroom. It sat high up on the mountain and there was no transportation, no car and no bus. All groceries would have to be carried on one's back. And in that, this was on the edge of the desert and water was scarce, it would only be delivered once a week, and later that became once in two weeks, filling a small tank.
The house sat in the midst of an olive grove, where sheep often grazed with a shepherd that would make loud guttural noises to direct them. There was just above the olive grove an old monastery and its great wall protected the grove and the house from winds. There was such stillness in that spot. It was an island of beauty in the midst of all that primitive hardness and brutality.
In the twilight of the dawn you could see the golden light of the dawn on the Jordanian desert coming from behind a high range of mountains. Those mountains were far off in the distance but they were high enough so that when the sun finally made its way over the peaks, it came into the house and garden horizontally ! ! ! The shadows of small objects would be elongated to many times their height. I would spend many mornings perched on the roof of that flat roofed cement house, listening and watching the dawn make its way into the valley. Those were some of the most beautiful mornings in my life.
Despite the dangers, I intermingled freely with the people of the village and was well liked. When asked what I was, meaning my national and religious identity I would patiently reply in Krishnamurti's fashion, that I had no such identification, and appearing to them to be an American, these crazy ideas were received with a smile and a laugh.
In those days these villages were not safe from thieves that entered the house at night, and so every window had metal shutters and bars, these bars had become over the years an art form. And there was a thick metal door with a metal latch and bar. It was normal to lock up at night, but I took this to be the action of fear and therefore I would leave the doors unlocked every night.
My friend who shared the house with me was gone for several months, and I was there many times alone, and sometimes with my girl friend who was an Israeli. One night immediately after taking a shower and walking about completely naked, I could hear the dogs barking and a man quickly approaching the house. All I could do in the few seconds until he got to the door was reach for a towel and wrap myself in it, and open the bedroom door to the entrance hallway. I could see the door fling open and a big man enter shouting at the top of his voice and blood smeared across his face.
My mind said he is here to kill you, and I reached for a hammer near the front door, picked it up with one hand and held the towel with the other, but I did not raise the hammer. He was still screaming, his eyes were enraged, I could not make out what he was saying, my Arabic was far too rudimentary, but it was clear how angry he was. It was also evident that in entering the house in the middle of the night, he had broken all the codes of that culture.
My mind began to assess the situation, I had to kill him, and I would only get one chance to strike, If I missed it would be my misfortune. And I was looking already for the opportunity to arise. And then he glanced to his side and I knew that this was it, and I raised the hammer, and then something happened that is still inexplicable. For I saw that it was my fear, my mind that was creating the danger, and I put down the hammer and began to speak gently and warmly to the man. This seemed to calm him. He could speak slower now and not yell. I made out that he had tripped outside because of the dogs, and he blamed me for not having them tied up (which was customary for dogs, in addition to it being customary in the villages where they were under fed and beaten).
I apologized and explained that they would never harm him, and invited him for some coffee. It was now clear to me how inebriated he was. He sat down and I quickly got dressed. And after he drank his cup, we spoke a while and I offered to walk him to his house. On the way in the darkness he lunged at me to hug me and it was a clear sexual act. There was no fear. He was much stronger than I, but unbalanced, and I pulled away and ran back, and he did not attempt to follow. That gentle peace was there in the house and olive grove more intensely than ever.
That was the closest I ever came in my life to killing someone. If I had followed my instincts and my intellect I should have taken the chance of killing him, but there was this other thing that appeared in those critical seconds, and it immediately brought with it a gentle peace that had no fear. I continued to live in that village for another year, and he never came to see me again.
I went back to the village two years ago, after a ten years absence. The villagers were happy to see me. It is strange that of all the places that I have lived, the people there seemed to appreciate those that lived with them the most. American culture, except for the young, seems so indifferent. Sadly, the beauty of that spot is no longer. There has been a great deal building going on in these once primitive villages. New money from wealth Palestinians has poured in. They seek progress and urban development, unaware of the beauty of that life that was destroyed in the process.
I met the writer Salomon Rushdie recently and told him some of these experiences, and he was deeply moved. He said that I should never tell such stories to a writer for they will steal them. He especially liked the imagery of the vanishing clouds: In that the village was at the edge of the desert, it was on the border of two climates, clouds would come from the west and disappear directly overhead as it met with the dry air.
And that beautiful primitive life that I once experienced is something like those clouds.
Mark
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