Jiddu Krishnamurti was a leading twentieth century mystic and teacher. From his early private and public appearances under the aegis of the international Theosophical Society (TS) to his breakaway in 1929, and under his own organization to the time of his death in 1986 he traveled the world lecturing, writing, and engaging in dialogues, teaching choiceless awareness as the necessary requisite for inner peace and the flowering of brotherly love. Thousands attended his talks or watched them on television in India, England, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United States.

His father was a government employee, living with his family near the estate of the TS in Adyar, a suburb of Chennai (formerly Madras) India. After he retired, being quite poor and with several children he applied for and accepted work at the TS, moving his family their ion 1909. Two sons, J. Krishnamurti, and the younger Nityananda, often walked along the Adyar River adjoining the TS compound. There they were noticed by the clairvoyant, Charles. W. Leadbeater, as having special spiritual qualities. So exceptional they were that he brought them to the attention of Annie Besant the President of the TS. Krishnamurti’s father agreed to Mrs. Besant adopting the two lads to give them better living conditions and education than they would otherwise have. Krishnamurti was then fourteen years old.

It was also determined that Krishna, as he was familiarly called, was to be the vehicle of the expected Coming of a new World-Teacher, much the same as Jesus was the vehicle of the Lord Christ. Leadbeater was principally responsible for the boys’ education with the assistance of several others as tutors. Since Leadbeater was able to consciously experience the astral plane life and could remember his out-of-body activities, he was in frequent contact with his own master and other members of the Occultly Brotherhood who were the inner founders of the TS. Under those circumstances he presented the young Krishnaji to the Master, and in 1910 Krishnamurti took his first Initiation.

A few years previous Leadbeater had been involved in a scandal alleging that he taught unnatural sex practices to young boys entrusted to his care. Although he was acquitted of any wrongdoing, when the boys’ father found that Krishna and Nitya would be under Leadbeater’s care, the father wanted to get his boys back.

It was then decided to send Krishna and Nitya to England where they would be introduced to English society and to begin inquiries about attending Oxford University. On this trip, beginning April 1911, they were accompanied by Mrs. Besant, George Arundale, a young Cambridge graduate, his friend, C. Jinarajadasa, also a Cambridge graduate, and several of the boys’ other tutors. George wrote to Leadbeater regularly giving him details of their activities. At one of the theosophical gatherings, Krishna met Lay Emily Lutyens and her children, possibly including three-year old Mary, who later wrote the extraordinary biographies of Krishnamurti.

Returning to Adyar, Mrs. Besant began to have more problems with Krishnamurti’s father, but he also wanted them to be educated in England. So, he agreed to her taking them again to England. In the meantime, Leadbeater was taking Krishnaji to the Master for instructions at night while the boy was asleep. The Master gave him simple teachings suitable for a young brain. Krishnaji then remembered them the next morning and wrote them down, checking with Leadbeater to verify it they were correct. These were compiled into a small book. At the Feet of the Master. Leadbeater announced that it was time for Krishna to take a second Initiation and that of C. Jinarajadasa (Raja, as he was called), and hopefully for the first Initiation of Nitya and George Arundale. It was impossible to remain in India, in view of Krishna’s father threatening legal action. So, the village of Taormina in Sicily was chosen, and great secrecy was kept as to the place and reason for the seclusion.

Leadbeater arrived there first, on March 26, 1912, arranging accommodation at Hotel Naumachia, Raja, Krishna, and Nitya arrived on the 27th, and George Arundale followed the next day. Mrs. Besant was due on April 15. The party had to the top floor and veranda of the hotel.

Mrs. Besant in those days also had some clairvoyant ability, although in later years she gave it up due to her other pressing work for India’s independence. In one of their afternoon walks to the nearby ruins of a Greek amphitheater and temple Mrs. Besant sat down and quoted a talk that Pythagoras once made about the state and its citizens.

George wrote regularly to his aunt, Miss Francesca Arundale. When George’s mother died in childbirth. George was placed in her care, and he took his mother’s name. Miss Arundale was currently head of a women’s college in Benares. The second Initiations of Krishnaji and Raja occurred on April 1 and were described in notes in George’s handwriting. After Mrs. Besant arrived, she wrote to Francesca Arundale of the event and saying now "we have our George and Nitya to help along for their great step". It is these letters of Arundale’s and a few from Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater that were held in the author’s archives, which now are being held with Professor Lloyd S. Williams in Germany that form the basis of this book. All are fluent writers, and astonishing events are described so that the reader feels as if he is on the scene himself.

May 30 was the date of George’s first Initiation. Afterward he wrote his mother about it, although he said. "I came back with but little, if any, recollection of the night’s proceedings . . . "but he enclosed a description of the ceremony written by Mrs. Besant with Leadbeater’s help. Nitya’s first Initiation took place on June 16. He was fourteen years old.

The object of the Taormina seclusion was accomplished, the initiations of the four young men. George left on June 30 for India; Krishnaji, Nitya, Raja, and Mrs. Besant at the end of July for England, and Leadbeater went for some time to friends in Italy.