The Awakening of Intelligence was published by Harper & Row in 1973, and at nearly 550 pages it is the most comprehensive single-volume presentation of Krishnamurti’s thought. The book collects public talks, small-group discussions, and one-on-one dialogues from 1967 to 1972, organized thematically rather than chronologically.
The dialogues with David Bohm are of particular significance. Bohm, a theoretical physicist who worked with Einstein and made major contributions to quantum mechanics, found in Krishnamurti’s observations about thought and consciousness something that resonated with his own scientific insights about the implicate order of reality. Their conversations — which continued for decades — represent one of the most remarkable meetings of Eastern philosophical insight and Western scientific rigor in the twentieth century. They do not talk past each other; they meet genuinely, and their mutual exploration of consciousness, thought, and the nature of reality achieves a depth that neither could have reached alone.
The conversations with Swami Venkatesananda are equally illuminating: a traditional Vedantic teacher encountering Krishnamurti’s rejection of all tradition, including Vedanta. Venkatesananda is intelligent, generous, and genuinely curious, and his questions push Krishnamurti to articulate precisely what he means by freedom from the known, by the ending of thought, by the nature of meditation.
The public talks collected here address Krishnamurti’s central themes — fear, pleasure, sorrow, death, love, meditation — but with a depth and precision that reflects the maturity of his later period.
Collecting The Awakening of Intelligence
First edition (Harper & Row, New York, 1973): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $30–$80
- Without jacket: $10–$20
- UK first (Gollancz): $25–$60