The actor Terence Stamp, who died in August 2025 aged 87, often spoke of the lasting impact meeting Krishnamurti had on his life. Introduced to Krishnamurti in the late 1960s, Stamp described the encounter as a turning point, leading him to explore meditation, yoga and a simpler way of living.
He regularly visited Brockwood Park during the 1970s, meeting with Krishnamurti and students. In interviews and writings, he often returned to Krishnamurti’s words, acknowledging their influence on his outlook and life beyond the film industry. He described Krishnamurti as ‘The first great enlightened man I’d ever met.’
In this feature, we share Stamp’s foreword to the book Can the Mind Be Quiet?, some memories of his visits to Brockwood, and his readings of Krishnamurti’s Commentaries on Living.
Excerpt from Terence Stamp’s Foreword to Krishnamurti’s Book Can the Mind Be Quiet?
I met Krishnamurti for the first time in Rome in 1968, while I was working on a movie with Federico Fellini, the Italian director. I spoke no Italian, so he had given me an interpreter. One day she said to me, ‘You have been invited to a lunch with Krishnamurti.’ I said, ‘Who is Krishnamurti?’ She replied, in a hushed voice, as if I should know, ‘Well… you know… he’s Krishnamurti.’ I then asked, ‘Okay, is he a film director?’ ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘he’s a sage.’
I was 27 and famous, but I am really just an East End spiv, and right then I was winging it. The only sage I knew of went in the stuffing that my mother made for our roast dinners. All the same, I was interested enough to go along to this lunch party.
When I arrived, there were a lot of people there, but I ended up at a table opposite Krishnamurti himself. We didn’t speak at all. But, because I was staring at him, he continually lowered his eyes out of politeness. I remember thinking that I had never met anybody like him. It was very unusual. Then after the lunch, he was answering questions from the press people there and his secretary, Alain Naudé, came over to me and said, ‘Would you like to go for a walk with Krishnamurti?’ I said yes.
So he and I went out for this long walk around the suburbs of Rome. And not having had the nerve to speak with him during lunch, I suddenly couldn’t stop chattering. At a certain point on the walk, we stopped, and he put his hand on my arm and said, ‘Look at that tree.’ And I looked – it was a tree. I looked at him. He smiled. I smiled. We carried on walking. I carried on talking. Ten minutes later he stopped me again and said, ‘Look at that cloud.’ And I looked – again, cloud. It wasn’t special, not lit from within or anything like that: it was a cloud, that’s all. We then carried on walking, and I carried on talking.
And that was my first meeting with Krishnaji. However, I was never the same after that meeting. Something shifted. He did something to me, which I understood years later: he used his presence to pause my thinking. And something inside started reaching back out towards me.
From then on, every time I saw that he was giving a talk, I would try to go, and likewise, he would always try to make sure that I was invited. I often wouldn’t get what was being said, but unbeknownst to me, I was being refined. In later conversations, it would often happen that we would start off talking about material things like shirts and shoes, and yet a shift would occur. His tone of voice would not necessarily change, but a shift became evident. I can only liken it to Cole Porter’s lyric, ‘How strange the change from major to minor.’ It took me maybe 15 years to understand sayings like, ‘When the eagle flies, it leaves no mark,’ and, ‘The observer is the observed.’
What he was saying, I might not have been sure, but something changed.
Terence Stamp at Brockwood
Stamp was considered approachable and down-to-earth during his visits to Brockwood Park School in the 1970s and 80s. He would engage in long, deep conversations and was playful with the students, enjoying table tennis and charades with them. Stamp was the uncle of one of the students and a good friend of the principal, Dorothy Simmons. He also attended the public meetings at Brockwood, and later, after Krishnamurti’s death, visited The Krishnamurti Centre several times.
Terence Stamp Reads Commentaries on Living
Terence Stamp on his readings of Commentaries on Living. ‘When I was approached to record this book, I was naturally intimidated. After all, Krishnamurti’s actual talks are available to listen to. A colleague at the time told me that on hearing it, he understood it differently from when he initially tried to read it.’ Although never released in audiobook format, the recordings featured in some early episodes of Urgency of Change – The Krishnamurti Podcast. You may listen to them below.