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THE
MAN WHO WOULD NOT BE GURU
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his volatile reactions to the concept of spirituality, U.G. Krishnamurti
attacks the entire foundation of human thought. Yet, he has left a deep
impact on many lives. The following are extracts from conversations UG
has had with people who sought him out
They don't know if he is a teacher. They don't know if he is a friend. They sometimes even wonder if he comes close to being an enemy. And yet, people flock to him wherever he goes. Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti defies all ideas of God, enlightenment, soul, religion, mind and even politics. Yet, he is counted among the leading contemporary gurus and thinkers of India. Although he vehemently denies having anything worthwhile to say, and scarcely offers hope, his candid statements seem to show many the mirror. He has therefore been referred to as 'the anti guru', the 'un-guru', the 'seer with no solutions', 'the thinker who shuns thought' and even 'the anti-Krishnamurti' (referring to J. Krishnamurti, UG's better known contemporary). "Everything he does is the mirror-image of what a guru does-in reverse. He turns everything upside down. That is part of the attraction for people," says Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson in The Courage to Stay Alone (Smriti Books). Sometimes referred to as a 'spiritual terrorist', UG gives no lectures, believes in no methods and does not have a fixed address. He gave up everything in life to embark on a lone quest to seek out the answer to his question: "Is there actually anything like freedom, enlightenment or liberation behind all the abstractions that religions have thrown at us?" He did not get an answer. But at one point something happened, which he calls a 'calamity', after which all seeking dropped.  UG:
People throw questions at me like they would stones at dogs. Like the
dog, my response is also to bark. I am merely barking, which you translate
into meaningful language.Listener: I am sorry, I can't believe you. UG: You take my word for this. I won't mind even if you don't. The thought of being different from all of you never enters my mind. You and I (living organisms) are functioning in exactly the same way. Similarly, the eyes of the seer (I am not using the term in the spiritual or metaphysical sense) can see things in exactly the same way, unless there is a problem like cataract in the eyes. They see nothing. So, I sit here, look at the top of the mountain and the sky behind. It is far for the physical eye and it cannot see the space there. We are bound by frames. The listening mechanism operates in frames. When you are on the phone, you are listening to someone on the other end. Thus, when I talk, you can't listen. Everybody is preoccupied. Sight, too, operates in different frames. When you describe something as beautiful, your sight has already framed it. For you, it is only in a frame. The only person who says it is beautiful is UG. For me, everything is beautiful. Q: How do we concentrate? UG: You should sit here and try to focus. Detachment is the nature of man. There is no such thing as concentration at all. It is merely like holding your breath a little longer so you can prove to yourself that you can do it. But if you continue doing it for long, you will choke to death. So don't do it because you can't do it. If something has happened with me, it is because of luck. I don't know what happened or when it happened. You are talking of a happening. Has anything happened at all? I really don't know. Questions like "You went there, you came, you followed this teacher, you listened to J. Krishnamurti for so many years" come up repeatedly. But I walk out of them; you are still there. I also know why you are here. You are walking after something. Given the situation, you will walk somewhere else. What brought you here will definitely take you somewhere else. If you find a more persuasive speaker tomorrow, you will fall for it. I will only be happy for you. Thus when you ask what happened to me, it springs another question in my mind: "Has anything happened?" I don't have any answer to that because the question just disappears. Q: Are you dormant dead? UG: Yes, I am. Then I cannot say whether I am alive or dead. I am alive because people who claim they know how a living organism functions have told me. I am applying the same knowledge to tell you that I am alive. But once this description ends, what is left behind can never be experienced by me, or by anybody. So, how can I ever say that I am alive or dead? The body which can never experience the living thing that you are talking about, cannot experience death either. Death can never be experienced. So all these seminars, retreats and people making a living by teaching near death experiences are hogwash. Mahesh Bhatt: I was present all through the event (UG's meeting with a grief- stricken father whose son had died). He (UG) behaved like an ideal father, an ideal nurse and an ideal lawyer-an ideal figure in the situation and yet, he only chooses to illustrate rather than dominate the event, talking about how unconcerned he remained when his own son had died. It was his human side, and I asked him the reason for suppressing this facet of his personality. On the death of his son, he uttered: "Why not mine? Why should I want somebody else's son to die of cancer?" The man whose son had died came crying to him, saying that God was unfair. UG: It was during this time when I said, why not my own son? I immediately ordered my son's dead body to be removed and burnt. Since I was a father, I also had to sign a lot of papers. I told the girl (the mother of the deceased boy) to pick up another boy and forget about the bastard (term used to refer to her son). The only way to forget was not to cry over the past. Q: Are we intelligent? UG: The extraordinary intelligence that the body is born with is unparalleled. Anything that we acquire through our lives is no match for this. The thoughts about yourself being more intelligent, aware of the needs of your body, presuming that it should be taken care of, is absolute rubbish. Whatever you think is good for your body is the cause of your disease. It is rejecting everything and that is the cause for all suffering. It doesn't want to accept anything, whether it is from the doctor, psychologist, physiologist or scientist-much less the spiritual man. Q: Why is the body unable to handle problems? UG: If it cannot handle problems, how did it survive millions of years of evolution? It does not concern itself with your psychological or spiritual problems, but it can deal with the problem of survival, that being the only thing it is interested in. Every cell in our body is selfish to the core but at the same time it has to coexist because its existence depends upon the survival of the cell next to it. It is not universal brotherhood but it lives from moment to moment. This is the only harmony. It is you who have created disharmony in this world by isolating yourself. |
UG: To accumulate money and to block the flow of food and other resources because you are greedy, is what the holy man taught me. What else can I do? How else can I survive in this world? I am a conman telling everybody that God is on my side. Why should he be on my side? If there is a God and it is all principles as you proclaim on the podium every Sunday, He should be on the side of a thiefand a conman. What is the banking system for? Money is not only for buying food. There is so much there (referring to a tree outside) that I don't require money. The tree either belongs to the person who owns this property or to the state. I can satisfy my hunger by eating that fruit. Why are you denying me that? Why do I have to work? Mahesh Bhatt: But I love working. UG: Your love for work is fine but let me have the fruits for myself. MB: Why are we afraid of you? UG: The fear that you are talking about does not exist independently. It is always related to something. There is only the fear of losing what you have and fear of not getting what you want. It is the most natural thing if I get attracted to a beautiful girl. But what I think about is what she would do. The most important point here is that I am attracted to her. Being a religious man, I keep thinking what if she slaps me. In reality, she will probably say: "Come on buddy, let's have some fun. How much money do you have?" MB: But you are sticking to a frame. UG: Fear does not exist unless you name it. But it is always related to something you are afraid you want and will not get or of losing what you have. In fact, you don't want to be free. Q: Why is it that we always feel that you are wriggling away from something? UG: That is because you do not want to face the situation. Q: Why do people want to hang on to the fear (of death)? UG: The fear of death is what is protecting you, the reason you go to a psychiatrist who analyses those fears. Q: You pointed out earlier that the most fundamental thing in this universe is the light force. When some selves come into existence and need the help of other selves, is not there at some stage, the fear of extinction? UG: The fear of extinction remains with one who is not ready to die. The death of a self is the beginning of life. There is no such thing as death for a living organism. Recycling of the body is all that the nature is interested in. |
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Q:
We base the superstructure on what we call the day-to-day living, which
is not the fundamental thing at all. Is it not some sort of a side-show?
Q:
Then why do we come here?
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