# 2012-08-31 - Bryant at Krishnamurti's Former Home in Ojai > [!note] Photo Journey No. 4 > Published October 25, 2026, in [[photo journey/welcome|Photo Journey]].  *Bryant at the former home of the philosopher J. Krishnamurti, now the Krishnamurti Retreat, on McAndrew Road in Ojai, California, around midday on a Friday at the end of August 2012. In a gray T-shirt and a steel watch, he rests an arm along the back of an upholstered chair and gazes out a sunlit corner window toward the green of the valley.* ## Reflections Jiddu Krishnamurti is often remembered as a gentle, soft-spoken sage, and the memory leaves out the most important thing about him: he was a rebel, and one of the most radical thinkers of his century. I was lucky enough to spend some time in his former home on McAndrew Road in Ojai, where he lived from 1922 to 1986 and where visitors from around the world came to sit with his searching questions about the fundamentals of a life. His central claim was a declaration of independence for the human mind; truth, he said, is a pathless land, and no organization, creed, dogma, priest or ritual can carry anyone there. A teaching like that offers its students no membership card and no map, only the harder labor of watching their own minds in the mirror of relationship. {{A truth that no institution can deliver must be found by each person alone, and the finding makes every honest seeker something of a rebel.}} Some houses keep the residue of the minds that lived in them, and I knew the moment I walked through those doors that a fellow tortured mind had lived in this one. He had spent his life prying at the bars that fear, habit and inherited belief build around a person, and they were the same bars I have pried at myself. The stillness people travel to Ojai to find was earned by someone who never stopped pulling at the iron. Those bars taught me what the brochures about serenity leave out: there{There{ is nothing peaceful about peace; the stillness of the wise is what remains after a lifetime of prying at the bars of the mind.}} > [!quote]- Original dictation > I was lucky enough to spend some time in the former home of the philosopher J. Krishnamurti. I don't think people realize what a rebel Krishnamurti was, what a radical thinker. I knew, walking in those doors, that a fellow tortured mind had been prying at the bars, the same bars I've pried at, and found out that there's nothing peaceful about peace. ## In Krishnamurti's Words > “Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection.” [[reminders/Self-Knowledge/Truth Is a Pathless Land by Jiddu Krishnamurti|∴]] > **— Jiddu Krishnamurti**, *The Core of the Teachings, written in 1980 at the request of his biographer Mary Lutyens* > “I think it is essential sometimes to go to retreat, to stop everything that you have been doing, to stop your beliefs and experiences completely, and look at them anew, not keep on repeating like machines whether you believe or do not believe. You would then let in fresh air into your minds.” [[reminders/Renewal/A Retreat Lets Fresh Air Into the Mind by Jiddu Krishnamurti|∴]] > **— Jiddu Krishnamurti**, *Madras, first public talk, January 5, 1952* > “This place [of retreat] must be of great beauty, with trees, birds and quietness, for beauty is truth, and truth is goodness and love.” [[reminders/Design/Beauty Is Truth, and Truth Is Goodness and Love by Jiddu Krishnamurti|∴]] > **— Jiddu Krishnamurti**, *as quoted by the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust for the Krishnamurti Centre, Brockwood Park* ## Related ### Livestreams - [[livestreams/Making Peace With Peace After a Life of Struggle - Livestream|Making Peace With Peace After a Life of Struggle]] *(Sep 3, 2018)*: why peace comes hard to someone who has lived by struggle. - [[livestreams/Reclaiming Your Life From Fear, Dependency, and Borrowed Authority - Livestream|Reclaiming Your Life From Fear, Dependency, and Borrowed Authority]] *(Jan 10, 2018)* - [[livestreams/Cultural Conditioning and the Discipline of Deliberate Withdrawal - Livestream|Cultural Conditioning and the Discipline of Deliberate Withdrawal]] *(Jun 2, 2018)*: stepping back from conditioning, the work Krishnamurti called retreat. - [[livestreams/Reclaiming Identity From Institutional Conditioning, Part 1 - Livestream|Reclaiming Identity From Institutional Conditioning, Part 1]] *(Apr 11, 2016)* ### Writing and Reminders - [[books/Simple Reminders Book (2014-2018)|Simple Reminders]]: the section "You are the student and teacher," where a mind that needs to know is called a tortured mind, beside Krishnamurti's words on the self as both teacher and pupil. - [[journal/2023-06-12 - Silence and Non-Observation|Silence and Non-Observation]]: the time at Krishnamurti's home, remembered a decade later. - [[reminders/Renewal/Learn to Make Peace With Peace by Bryant McGill|Learn to Make Peace With Peace]] - [[reminders/Freedom/Cherished Values Can Hide Constraints by Bryant McGill|Cherished Values Can Hide Constraints]] - [[reminders/Self-Knowledge/Reclaiming Yourself Requires Defiance by Bryant McGill|Reclaiming Yourself Requires Defiance]] ### Wiki - [[wiki/Ojai|Ojai]] · [[wiki/Krishnamurti Retreat|Krishnamurti Retreat]] · [[wiki/Jiddu Krishnamurti|Jiddu Krishnamurti]] · [[wiki/Observation|Observation]] · [[wiki/Silence|Silence]] ### Photo Journey - [[photo journey/2012-08-08 - Bryant Sailing Off Santa Barbara Near Montecito|Bryant Sailing Off Santa Barbara Near Montecito]] *(Aug 8, 2012)*: three weeks earlier, sailing off Santa Barbara near Montecito. - [[photo journey/2022-03-23 - The Law of Success Bryant Carried for a Decade|The Law of Success Bryant Carried for a Decade]] *(Mar 23, 2022)* ## Location <iframe width="100%" height="300" style="border:1px solid #ccc; border-radius:8px" loading="lazy" src="https://www.openstreetmap.org/export/embed.html?bbox=-119.1892%2C34.4555%2C-119.1772%2C34.4635&layer=mapnik&marker=34.4594829%2C-119.1831819"></iframe> [Open in OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=34.4594829&mlon=-119.1831819#map=16/34.4594829/-119.1831819) · [Open in Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps?q=34.4594829,-119.1831819)