Rosalind Rajagopal

Rosalind Edith Rajagopal, (1903-1996) was a long time director of the Happy Valley School in Ojai, California, United States, which she founded with Jiddu Krishnamurti (also known as 'K'), Guido Ferrando and Aldous Huxley in 1946.

Through her family's involvement in the Theosophical Society she became acquainted with Krishnamurti and his ailing brother Nityananda Jiddu in 1922, when she was selected to be a companion and nurse to the latter, who died of tuberculosis in 1925. Rosalind developed close ties to the brothers and sometime after her marriage in 1927 to their associate, D. Rajagopal, she and the philosopher Krishnamurti began a long term romantic relationship. This relationship became a source of controversy when it was revealed in a 1991 book (Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti) written by her daughter Radha Rajagopal Sloss.

She was born Rosalind Edith Williams on June 20, 1903 in Buffalo, New York to John Williams and Sophia Waldow. She was the youngest of four daughters. During the year 1918, Sophia Williams left her husband and moved to Hollywood with her daughters. It was through Roasalind's sister Erma that she met the Theosophist Mary Gray who then enlisted her in 1922 to help with the newly arrived from India Jiddu brothers, who were staying at Gray's estate in Ojai, California. Jiddu Krishnamurti, then twenty-seven years old, was being groomed by the quasi-mystical society to become the 'World Teacher,' a sort of new Christ. Rosalind's close relationship to the brothers lead to her being a witness, along with Nityananda to what has been called K's enlightenment experience in Ojai in 1922.

Because of her special relationship to the Jiddu brothers, Rosalind moved with them through rarefied Theosophical circles, making the acquaintances of Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater and authors Emily and Mary Lutyens. She accompanied the brothers to India and Australia in 1925. It was in Sydney that Nityananda's tuberculosis grew worse, hastening the trio's return to the climate of Ojai in July. According to her daughter, Radha Sloss, Rosalind and Nityananda were in love when he died in November of 1925, leaving Rosalind permanently affected by his loss.

In 1927, purportedly at the urging of Annie Besant, Rosalind married Desikacharya Rajagopal (Raja), 28, of India, while in London. The marriage was not a happy one and produced one daughter, Radha, born in 1931. Raja, K's friend and editor, and Rosalind had been charged with looking after K's interests by Mrs. Besant. The three lived in close proximity in Ojai during the late 1920s through the 1960s, and the Rajagopals were closely involved with K when he broke with the Theosophical society and began his independent speaking career in 1929. According to Radha Rajagopal Sloss, the long affair between K and Rosalind began in 1932 and endured for about twenty-five years. Krishnamurti and Rosalind became close friends with Aldous Huxley and his wife Maria, with frequent visits and corespondence. Reportedly, Huxley modeled the character of Virginia in his 1939 novel, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan after Rosalind. She was present at Huxley's deathbed on November 22, 1963.

Rosalind became the director of the Happy Valley School after its inception in 1946, and eventually became president of the Happy Valley foundation. Krishnamurti disassociated himself from the school in the early 1960s as he became estranged from Rosalind and D. Rajagopal. Their complete break eventually led to acrimony and lawsuits between the older Krishnamurti organization, KWINC, of which D. Rajagopal was the director, and the newer Krishnamurti Foundation Trust. The three never made up their differences. Rosalind died in 1996 having shared a house in Ojai for many years with the artist Beatrice Wood and serving on the Happy Valley board of directors until 1988.

References

• Lutyens, Mary;, Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals (Krishnamurti Foundation of America, 1996).
• Sloss, Radha Rajagopal; Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti (Addison Wesley, 1991).
• Sloss, Radha Rajagopal; The Story of Happy Valley (Happy Valley Foundation, Ojai, 1998).