Q. I read that J. Krishnamurti said truth is a pathless land but what about what Krishna, Jesus, and so many spiritual teachers say? If truth is a pathless land how do their teachings work?
A. If I am traveling from Washington, DC to San Francisco, CA, there is a particular path I can take. The path is possible because I am in a specific place and going to another specific place.
Imagine the impossibility of a person going from Washington, DC to everywhere. Can you input this destination into google maps? Or how about from Washington, DC to nowhere? Of course we cannot get directions to everywhere and nowhere because the former is not a specific place and and the latter is apparently not a place at all.
Truth is similar. Truth, in this case, is akin to the Second Mind. The Second Mind cannot be found as a thing under a tree, or on the other side of the globe, or in another galaxy. It is the potential nature of the world(s). The "path" to the Second Mind is simply the re-cognizing of the nature of the First Mind as unbounded consciousness. This is not a specific path unique to any particular activity of the First Mind. The "path" could be music, art, math, science, carpentry, dreaming, reading, playing video games, being utterly bored, or anything else that intentionally or unintentionally leads our awareness into itself. This pooling of awareness can be called meditation, which is why "spiritual" teachers suggest meditation.
J. Krishnamurti is pointing to the fact that everywhere is accessible from anywhere, and therefore there is no single path one must follow. Krishna offers the same in the Bhagavad Gita–many broad ways (knowledge, devotion, action, etc) to pooling awareness. In an especially tumultuous time like the one Jesus was born into, a teacher might ask everyone to focus their attention on him/her as a gateway to focus awareness (which can be effective, disastrous, or both), not because there is no other way, but simply because minds are very restless and need an easy, recognizable, effective target to focus on.
Finally, circumstances also have to be just so for things to happen, just as circumstances have to be just so for a flower to bloom. In this sense also, truth is a pathless land. The pooling of awareness within awareness cannot be entirely willed. Bringing the body and mind into alignment and intentionally pooling awareness can facilitate the process, and the gate opens when all is just so.
Truth is a pathless land, all paths lead to truth, and truth–as potentiality–is always the case.
Love,
Anoop