Prophet of anti-wisdom
Indian Express, miscellany, November 29, 1980
By R. SubramanyamHe was born in India 62 years ago. The world has become his home. His thought currents are uncommon yet all-embracing. His speech has an intensity, depth and energy of a rare kind. He talks in clear and simple English displaying vast knowledge on a variety of subjects, not necessarily spiritual, but any topic from disease to divinity.
The man is U.G. Krishnamurti, who prefers to call himself U.G., an enlightened man who pooh-poohs self-realisation, illumination, god-realization, etc. But people, who are interested in such phenomena and have known him closely, consider him the perfect example of an enlightened man.
U.G. does not address public meetings although he is an accomplished speaker but informally meets and talks to those who come to see him. Nobody is asked to come and nobody is asked to go. The room where he meets people limits the number. He has no organization nor does he want one because he says that what he is saying can never be propagated. He considers propaganda, spiritual or otherwise, is evil.
Yet, there is no dearth of people in India and abroad who flock to meet him everyday. Such gatherings present a kaleidoscopic spectacle of all types of people – pragmatists and zealots of modernism, conformists and traditionalists, bhagavatars to nuclear scientists and Ghandians to Naxalites – all sitting around U.G. listening to him.
Such informal discussions have been recorded, transcribed and circulated by people who are interested in them. When asked for permission to publish them he answers, ‘my teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship without my consent or permission of anybody.’
What does he say? Great teachers, sages, saints and saviours of mankind have tried to free man from ignorance and enlighten him whereas this enigmatic individual comes along and tries to free us all from ‘the wisdom of the ages.’ He says that the two broad capacities that man has developed through the centuries, viz., the ability to control events in the environment and the ability to look ahead and prepare himself for all and every conceivable situation in life are the very things that are the causes of man's sorrow.
He emphasises that man has no freedom of action – he does not mean the fatalistic philosophy of India – that all religions, psychological or consciousness-altering systems, will make man unhappy, more neurotic than ever before and at best they simply make man unhappy in a new and richer way. Because man's problems are neurological, they cannot be solved on psychological, religious or ethical levels. All such systems and techniques are exercises in futility.
He says that if man is freed from the burden of culture, be it oriental or occidental, man comes into his own natural state. The natural state he is talking about is the physical condition of man's being, the functioning of the living organism with an extraordinary intelligence of its own. He explains that this natural state has nothing to do with religiosity. It is simply a physical and physiological one. It is not a spiritual or religious condition. It has no mystical overtones nor any social content either. This natural state has nothing to do with the experience coming out of the use of chemical drugs, like LSD. Those are the experiences and ‘trips’ in the wrong direction. This is not an experience at all, he says.
When asked, how can one get into this ‘state’ he says, ‘that is not the way . . . and there is no other way . . . . And any attempt on your part to put yourself in your natural state is actually taking you away from that . . . .’
U.G. was born on July 9, 1918 in Masulipatnam in Andhra Pradesh and was brought up by his maternal grandparents because his mother died seven days after he was born. His grandfather was a rich lawyer and an active member of the Theosophical Society. U.G. describes his household as having been steeped in philosophy, religion, karma, reincarnation, Brahman, reality, maya and what have you, talked over at every meal. As a boy U.G. met many theosophical leaders and also leaders of several religious movements. This background naturally created a taste for an ascetic way of life and throughout his boyhood he dreamed of living as a monk. Even when he was 14, he was drawn to holy men of those days.
He was specially attracted to Swami Sivananda Saraswati and visited him for almost seven years. It was during that time that he practised all the spiritual exercises and yogasanas and was disillusioned by the self-torturing religious systems and techniques of ascetic life.
When he was 21 U.G. had already been suffocated by the dust of all the holy men. Nevertheless, at the suggestion of a persuasive friend, he visited Ramana Maharshi in his Ashram. He spent only two hours there. But, his outlook was changed forever. He felt that nobody could help him and he had to go on an ‘uncharted sea without compass, without a boat; not even a raft to take him.’ He wanted to find out for himself and by himself what was the state of Ramana Maharshi and others like him. He also rejected the concept by which we accept certain beliefs and try to live up to them in our daily life with the hope that by due steps, we become spiritual. And yet his interest in matters spiritual remained and he continued to study philosophy and psychology at the University of Madras but left it without taking a degree.
When his grandfather died leaving him a considerable fortune, he drifted, as he describes it, into the activities of the Theosophical Society as a lecturer mainly because, as he puts it, he had nothing else to do. Eventually he rejected the Theosophical Society as well.
In the late 1940s toward the end of his time in the Theosophical Society, U.G. came under the influence of J. Krishnamurti to whose lectures he regularly went for seven years. He threw off this influence also. Nowadays he dismisses him and dismisses all spiritual teachers. He considers the entire teachings of J. Krishnamurti as a shoddy piece of spiritual goods which is ‘outmoded, outdated archaic hogwash.’
He then left India and lived in foreign lands but his inner struggle continued. He escaped into what he calls ‘constant and fruitless travelling’ across the continents and around the globe. By the time he was 42, he had exhausted all his rich inheritance. His marriage broke up and his inner crisis landed him in the streets of London in utter bankruptcy and at the brink of inevitable insanity. It was a strange state. His biographers were later to call it as the ‘dark night of the soul’ to describe those years. In his view there was no heroic struggle, temptation and worldliness, no soul-wrestling urges, no poetic climaxes but just simply a withering away of all that he had ever aspired for and hankered after in his life.
It was towards the end of his down and out years that a chance meeting with Madame Valentine de Kerven, a Swiss woman, who was then working at the Indian consulate, Geneva, turned his life around. She made a home for him ever since in the Alpine village of Saanen, a place he loved most.
Although he had come to a definite and positive conclusion that all the great teachers deluded themselves and deluded others, the basic question whether there is any such state that those claimants talked about persisted and found no answer. Even now he says he hasn't found an answer, and that none will ever find the answer to that question.
It was while he was sitting under a wild chestnut tree overlooking the beautiful valley that the question just disappeared and there were no more questions after that. This ending of all questions blasted every cell, every nerve, every gland in his body and followed on seven consecutive days by seven different things happening to him which carried him through the state of death on to his natural state, the nature of which he has been describing ever since. He says that this natural state is acausal. It just happens. It is not a thing to be achieved or attained. It is a life of the senses functioning naturally without thought thrusting itself into the affairs of the senses.
When asked what use is this natural state, U.G. pauses for a short while and says ‘none whatsoever.’
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Indian Express, miscellany, Saturday December 13, 1980
The real U.G.
I read with great interest the recent article on U. G. Krishnamurthy whom I have known for quite some time (Misc. Nov. 29). The author deserves all out appreciation for his keen sense of understanding of the “quintessential UG” and for his style of expression.
But in my opinion, to call UG a “Prophet of anti-wisdom” is rather misrepresenting if not actually misleading. I am reminded of Emerson's famous lines: “If you want your neighbour to believe in God, first show what your belief in God can make you like.” That is exactly the position of UG when he comes down vehemently on those who brag about their rich heritage of ancient wisdom throwing empty phrases at him. UG only points out that the wisdom we are so proud of should first operate in our lives which are unfortunately shallow.
UG is heard oftentimes asking “How do you explain the poverty, squalor and untouchability in this country which preaches and talks endlessly about the oneness of life and unity of life?” One has to hang his head in shame!
The unbiased and unprejudiced approach to UG reveals no contradictions in his talks. On the contrary we are simply thrilled to find countless confirmations of the statements made by the upanishadic seers in a very natural but refreshingly new and stunning way when we listen to UG.
K. Chandrasekhar Babu
Bangalore
