The relationship between Jiddu Krishnamurti and Theosophy began in profound intimacy and ended in an equally profound rupture. As a young boy in India, he was “discovered” by the prominent Theosophist C. W. Leadbeater, who believed him to be the long-awaited “World Teacher” foretold in Theosophical circles. Annie Besant, then leader of the Theosophical Society, became his legal guardian, and he and his brother were brought into the inner circle of the movement. Within this environment he was educated, protected, and carefully prepared for a messianic role that Theosophists associated with figures such as the Maitreya Buddha. His early life was thus inseparable from Theosophical expectations and structures, which shaped both his public image and his initial spiritual context.

To support this anticipated mission, the Theosophical Society created the Order of the Star in the East, later known simply as the Order of the Star, with Krishnamurti at its center. Through this Order, he traveled and spoke under Theosophical auspices, and many devotees regarded him as the vehicle for a new spiritual age. Theosophy provided not only institutional backing but also a symbolic framework in which he was cast as a unique spiritual authority. Yet even during this period of close association, the seeds of later divergence were present, for the very notion of a designated spiritual savior stood in tension with the kind of freedom he would eventually articulate.

The decisive turning point came in 1929, when Krishnamurti dissolved the Order of the Star at a gathering in Ommen. In that act, he renounced the role of World Teacher that had been projected onto him and rejected the idea that any organization, guru, or hierarchy could lead humanity to truth. He returned the donations and property that had been given to support his supposed mission, thereby making his break not only symbolic but also practical and ethical. From that moment, he severed formal ties with the Theosophical Society and refused any sectarian or institutional affiliation, stepping out of the very structure that had elevated him.

In the decades that followed, his teachings moved into clear and deliberate opposition to core Theosophical assumptions. He consistently rejected notions of spiritual hierarchies, occult masters, esoteric initiations, and gradual spiritual evolution, regarding such systems as obstacles to direct perception. Instead, he emphasized immediate insight, individual freedom, and a “pathless” approach to truth that required no intermediary. While some themes—such as meditation and inner transformation—superficially overlapped with Theosophical concerns, he explicitly criticized belief systems and spiritual authority, including Theosophy itself. Thus, the relationship that began with adoption, grooming, and exaltation matured into a radical and enduring repudiation of the very framework that had first brought him to prominence.