Being with UG
Response to Reports of Experiences
Teaching Process: UG's teaching process cannot be separated from his person. With that in view, in the following I report mostly how UG related to people around him as a way of demonstrating his teaching process.
It's not possible to make any generalizations about either UG or his teaching, as for each generalization one makes about UG there are bound to be many exceptions. At best one can paint on a broad canvas a mosaic of many concrete instances from one's own experience and dealings with UG. Others undoubtedly will readily come up with their own different experiences. I wouldn't even bother to mention here the many instances in which people experienced UG's healing of their pains or saving them from accidents or illnesses or other dangers, as they are not only countless, but they are entrenched more in the realm of the subjective.
To be around UG could be quite a challenge. UG always maintained that wanting permanent happiness without a moment of unhappiness is the source of our misery. In his own life, things constantly changed. If you spent a whole day around UG and went along with all the changes he went through or put you through, you would emerge at the end of the day totally exhausted and wiped out. You wonder how anyone could live through so much change in a day without ever looking back. I have not seen another person like UG who could do that. Being around UG and moving with him were in themselves a great learning experience.
UG was a teacher who constantly operated from a state of nonduality: his actions were not born out of calculation or premeditation; they were spontaneous. His dealings with people were directed constantly toward drawing them into the vortex of nonduality where there are no distinctions between bondage and liberation, or indeed, even between life and death. UG did not distinguish himself from others. He was not trying to achieve any results, nor was he trying to change anyone. Yet, his dealings had that effect on people, viz., they were constantly prodded to question their belief structures. His only aim seemed to be to dismantle the mental structures people had carefully and assiduously built within themselves, without attempting to replace them with any of his own. He would say, “You can walk, you don't need any crutches.”
UG was not aware of any distinctions: yet, he appeared to make all kinds of distinctions: he seemed to punish, praise, brag, exaggerate, play games with money, challenge, and so on. He even seemed to act through various conditionings and prejudices of his own.
After his “calamity,” the question did occur to UG how he should talk to people or relate to them: he decided, “I will tell it like it is; I will talk about the way I operate.” From then on that became his talking mode of teaching. Sometimes, he talked constantly about himself and his past experiences. He often spoke about himself and his natural state. He spoke of how it was being constantly in peace and how there were no problems there.
He used this approach until the very end of his life, although later on he mixed in details from his past, his encounters with J. Krishnamurti, and other talk about himself. This served the purpose of pulling the minds of his audience away from themselves. He would often talk for hours, to the extent that people would doze off intermittently, and their minds would be dazed after he finished. They were temporarily removed from their daily concerns, thoughts and worries. As a result, people might have been, at least for the time being, cleansed of their past.
UG talked about his main ideas concerning thought, self, conditioning, liberation, meditation, calamity and so forth. He would engage and answer people's questions. On some of those occasions, he sounded as if some ancient teacher was speaking in a strange voice across centuries of time, and you felt as if you had heard him in another lifetime as well as this.
UG taught during all his waking hours and perhaps when he retired too, as you never knew what happened when he went to bed. He used to say he lay awake in bed most of the time so as not to disturb others in the apartment or house. What things might have transpired in that bedroom! We used to joke about UG saying that he ruled the universe from his bedroom (while everyone else was asleep!).
UG left no holy cow unslaughtered. If he even as much as sensed someone being hung up about a tradition, a country, a religion, a nationality, a spiritual tradition or a teacher, idea or belief, he would pour his verbal abuse and sarcasm on that subject. Many people who gathered around him were former followers of J. Krishnamurti or Rajneesh. Most of his verbal attacks were on J. Krishnamurti and the next most frequent victim was Rajneesh. He added Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramakrishna, Jesus, Buddha, and others later on to his list.
In spite of all the vituperation he showered, UG never showed any malice. After everyone left, there were many times when I was alone with him. Never once did he mention the topic of abuse after everyone had left. In fact, there was once an occasion when he talked to me appreciating J. Krishnamurti.
After watching him over many years, I am convinced that his attacks were intended to unhook a person from his hang-ups and dislodge him (or her) from his fascination for a certain guru, or his or her uncritical repulsion to evil.
There were also times when he threw koan-like questions at people: he would ask you, “If someone asks you, ‘what does UG say?’ or ‘what is his teaching?’ what would you say?” Then, without waiting much longer, he would answer the question himself: “Any answer you give, any movement your thought makes in any direction, is a false answer.”
In later years, he resorted to reading a passage or two from one of his books or “the archives,” consisting of letters people had written to him and newspaper and magazine reviews, or what someone else had written about him (Mahesh Bhatt's, U.G. Krishnamurti: A Life, for instance). Or, he would ask to play a video or audio tape or CD. He did not play them just to entertain people, but as part of his teaching. This had the added benefit of giving him a bit of rest from his constant talking.
Astrology, Palmistry and Nadi: UG was notorious for his seeming interest in astrology, palmistry and nadi. If he noticed that someone could read palms or horoscopes, he would right away extend his arm to the person to read his palm or ask them to interpret his horoscope. His pet questions were always about money and travel. Many times, the readers would also talk about how long he would live or where he would die, and so on. A whole book of these readings has been put together.
When astrologers made predictions about UG, for instance, that he would face a certain danger on a certain day, he always brushed aside what they said and did whatever he wanted to do anyway. Those astrologers then claimed that the planets had no influence on him because he was a liberated man.
In my opinion, his interest or belief in these matters was perfunctory. He was more interested in the astrologer or palmist than his reading. I witnessed how he once involved an American astrologer in such a deep discussion about his horoscope that the astrologer not only noticed his own shortcomings but was at his wits end to respond to UG's technical remarks.
When UG himself read someone's hand (which he did – he had learned palmistry in his youth from Julie, former secretary of the famous palmist Cheiro in Chicago), his readings were always vague and general, like, “Nothing comes easy for you, you have to work hard for things,” “You have a pot of money hiding somewhere,” or “Where are you hiding all that money?” “You will live a long, long life,” etc.
Sometimes I suspected that he might even have influenced the astrologer so that the readings would come out the way he wanted. But, of course, I can't prove any of that.
Care and Compassion: On occasion, a grieving person would come to him, having lost a dear one recently; or, upon hearing the news of the death of someone, UG himself would go and visit the grieving person or family. Typically, UG would not say many words to comfort the person, but would sit silently with him or her. Once, a woman came to visit UG for a week, having just lost her 11-year-old son, and sat in the room with him each day. To everyone's relief, within a week, she was comforted and healed and left for her home with a smile on her face.
I had just had a cancer operation. (I consulted with UG before and he advised me to go through with the operation.) After the surgery, I called him from the hospital room in Stanford to tell him how the operation went. When I returned home a couple of days later, UG and Mahesh took a plane from Palm Springs and came to see me in Seaside. UG made sure that no others visited us (as they normally would) at that time. When they came, I went into the living room and sat on a high stool talking to them. After a while, I felt exhausted, still suffering from the after-effects of surgery, and said, “You guys keep talking. I am a little tired. I will go and lie down in the bedroom.” And after I lay in the bed, UG came into the bedroom and sat by my bedside for a length of time and chatted with me. I was so touched!
Later, after he returned to Palm Springs, UG wanted me to go to Switzerland to his place and get a good rest there. He cashed his frequent flyer miles and a first-class ticket and got me a business class ticket and Wendy and Kiran tourist class tickets and told Wendy, “You drop this guy off in Gstaad, and then you can return to Seaside.” Of course, Wendy and Kiran stayed with me the whole time and we spent two months in Gstaad as UG's guests. I was kept busy translating Chandrasekhar's notebooks at that time – that's some kind of rest! But UG's care and compassion were boundless.
I had heard of an occasion when UG encountered a paraplegic in a parking lot as he was walking toward Bob and Paul's restaurant in Larkspur. The man was obviously suffering from cerebral palsy, I was told. Upon noticing UG, he apparently stretched out his arms towards him. For some mysterious reason, UG went toward him, held him by his arms, almost hugged him, and then quickly walked away. You never can tell with UG what transpires between him and those who come to see him.
Severing Connections: UG on occasion did interfere with people's lives and unsettled them in their beliefs or make suggestions about their specific problems of living. There were times when he even meddled with people's lives rather intimately, sometimes to their annoyance and reluctance, but ultimately many of them were grateful that he had. He actually tried to sever some relationships, which he must have thought were destructive or otherwise untenable. Sometimes he would advise people, depending on the person, either not to meditate (and take ecstasy instead!), or to teach meditation, or make more money, find a girl, do something useful with their lives, and so on. He was not, however, always successful in breaking up an unhealthy relationship or changing a person's life in a basic way. His or her problems remained in spite of his best efforts and despite his radical “ill-treatment” of that person. It's hard to assess his influence on people, as much of it is unspoken and intangible, or the effects would only manifest themselves years later. But many individuals were surely affected and benefited by his paternal care.
He gave advice to people on practical matters of money, work, relationships, and so on. Some thought he was not competent to give advice on money matters, but in my opinion, he was very astute in practical matters and those who didn't listen to his advice might have lost out.
UG insisted that people take advantage of and exploit their natural talents, whether they be beauty or intelligence or some other virtue, talent or advantage. He wanted people to succeed in this world, and he always chided people who were wasting away their time in “useless” pursuits, not doing what they could to utilize their talents. And he would be all praise for those who made a good buck in the day.
UG often remarked: “All problems result from wanting two things at the same time. If you just want one thing, you have no problem.” And he sometimes added: “There is nothing you can't get, if you just want one thing.”
Personal Problems: Most of the time, UG refused to give private audience to people, even if they begged him for it. In general, he would not even respond to requests for advice, but there were exceptions. Sometimes someone would ask a question or bring a problem and he would respond in such a way that the answer would be quite appropriate to the person's problem and would even contain a suggestion, generally to “accept” the problem or to do such and such or do nothing. Sometimes UG would analyze the problem in such a way that the analysis would expose hidden agendas of the person that were the source of the problem. At other times, UG would simply maintain a prolonged silence, which lasted as long as a whole hour. Then something got communicated and the person would leave in peace.
And if the person didn't mind speaking out about his or her personal problems in front of others, UG might discuss them. (Of late, he was wont to say, “You don't have a problem.”) I remember on one occasion, he discussed a couple's problem of the wife's mother staying in their house. (I was the only other person present in the meeting.) He summed up his discussion, “You don't want her to stay with you, do you?” He made the couple confront their own resistance to the person. Yet he didn't point any fingers. He was very calm and non-judgmental in his remarks. After they left, he asked me what I thought about the discussion. I said, “You made the problem very clear to them.” That's what he did. I was a witness to many such occasions.
UG was a master at laying bare hidden assumptions and motivations in people's psyches. No wonder people often shuddered to stand in front of him as they felt they were being stripped naked with his looks. They felt that UG's “truth serum” was at work.
When a friend of UG's was is in dire need or crisis, often they reported that they either got a call from UG or he visited them at their place on some pretext. I myself remember the time when someone suggested that I eat a bagel to take care of the problem of hypoglycemia, which turned out to be a serious mistake, I almost fainted. Then my phone rang and there was Guha's voice on the phone telling me that UG wanted to know what my plans were for the following summer. Of course, this could have been a sheer coincidence. Or it was not! UG's ways were indeed mysterious. No one could fathom them.
Reflecting People: UG physically reflected people. I always felt that he could not only read my thoughts and feelings but he could feel what was going on in my body and even arrange a situation which would address that problem. Here is an example: once in Palm Springs, because of sitting on the floor in front of a computer for a number of hours, my back was in utter pain. I didn't say anything about it. But UG took us all out on a “window shopping spree.” After browsing a little in the Sharper Image store, he left me with one or two others, saying he would be back in about twenty minutes. Waiting, I sat in the massage chair for those twenty minutes and turned it on until UG returned, and most of my back pain was gone. Of course, it could also be a coincidence. But knowing UG for so long, it's hard to believe that it was merely that.
At other times, he so reflected people and their problems that he would actually worry for them at that moment. When we went with a couple of others for car-shopping in Seaside, California, he and I were sitting in the lobby of the car dealership while the others went into to the office to bargain for a car. UG kept watching a sales woman pacing back and forth in the lobby, and he started worrying about her: “What will happen to her? What will happen to her?” (Meaning how she was going to live that style of life.)
I noticed, on another occasion, while in Gstaad, Switzerland, he was pacing up and down the room worrying about a friend's credit card problems: “How is he going to pay for all that? The bank will be after him.” This went on and on for a whole hour that morning.
Once, UG and I were waiting for a friend in a restaurant in Berkeley. The man was a few minutes late. Meanwhile, UG started worrying about him, looking out the window repeatedly to see if he was coming yet. He did worry about people's welfare.
UG was known for his unexpected, almost “irrational” outbursts of anger. He never found his anger to be a problem, he always called it an expression of “energy.” His outbursts could be on some social or political issue, against a government or its policy, or against a politician, or against a person in the gathering. The outburst wasn't always intended for the person whom UG was addressing; many times it was directed obliquely at someone else in the group whom UG didn't want to address directly. There was a time when I actually felt that UG was dealing with me and my hurt while he was yelling at someone else. In a few minutes, I could feel my hurt simply erased!
Yet, although he was often in totally foreign places among foreign cultures and peoples, he would not criticize people's ways of living, he would always fend off others' criticisms by saying, “That's their way.”
Power: Few knew the role of power in human relationships as well as UG. He pointed out how relationships are mostly based on each person getting his or her way. Many times he himself was an absolute monarch, but only when he had a say or choice in the matter. He had the manner of a prince dealing with his subjects. That was so evident when he gave gifts to people – children or adults. Even then, he would sometimes yield to people's desires and pressures, and some other times he would be as friendly as anyone could possibly be. It all depended. Often he pointed out how if you don't care about what the other person (or authority) could give you or do to you, you could not only be fearless, but free to do precisely whatever you wanted to do. He always dictated his terms and encouraged friends to do the same.
One good reason why he stayed away from institutions, governments and people who held high offices was that he kept his freedom and didn't have to compromise with their rules and regulations. But there was another: institutions breed power and power-mongering. He did not allow any organization to be built around him just for that reason. No one then could claim exclusive rights over his teachings. He did not let himself be subjected to any scientific research on him, because he bemoaned the probable outcome of the results of that research being exploited by businesses and governments for money and power. The Internet served as a suitable medium for publishing books on him or collections of his dialogs, because there they were released free of copyright and other commercial strings. He never voted. His argument, if I remember right, was, “I don't have to choose between two evils.” In fact, he never paid taxes, as he didn't stay in any country long enough to establish residency. His passport was Indian, and of course, he had to have it to be able to travel.
UG's own energy was such that you could never take him or your relationship with him for granted. When he (or “It”) was dealing with you, he (“It”) knew nothing personal. And as I said before, there is no “person” there in UG. He could attack you viciously or even throw you out.
Debates: They could happen in the context of answering a question or responding to what someone said: there would be a heated conversation, usually ending with UG abusing the other person, pointing out the flaws or fallacies in his argument or attacking in some other fashion. But sometimes the other person would attack UG back in a personal fashion or the debate would end in a stalemate. And UG never shied away from “wrestling in the mud” with any interlocutor. UG would say, “You say that and I say this. Where do we go from there? You take it or leave it.” If someone asks, “Why you do talk?” UG would answer, “I talk because you are here, because you ask these ‘idiotic’ questions. I didn't ask you to come here. You can as well leave.” If the person says, “You have invited me to come,” UG might even answer, “The invitation is withdrawn, now you can leave.”
There was a time when UG was visiting at our house and someone phoned and asked if he could come. After he came the person talked to UG rather confrontationally for a few minutes. UG must have sensed something going on in the man's mind. He said abruptly, “Now you can leave.” My wife had just given the visitor a cup of coffee which he was sipping, and she said, “Please finish the coffee before you go.” UG said forcefully, “No, no, he can leave now.” The fellow was simply shaking in his pants, you could hear the rattle of the cup in the saucer. He put down the coffee cup and rushed out of the house.
I saw many contexts in which UG got involved in verbal wrangling with people: the argument would go on at length, UG working hard at breaking down the defense structures of the person he was dealing with, and he would not quit until the point of capitulation, like in arm wrestling. He would yell at the top of his lungs (once, in the middle of it he turned to me with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his lips, as if it was all a big joke), pouring insults and abuse on his victim. At times, UG himself had to pay a heavy price for a confrontation, there was a physical drain from which he would not recover for a few days (a guy who routinely hardly slept for more than forty-five minutes at a stretch would not get up from bed until late the next morning). Unfortunately, you couldn't tell what was really at the bottom of such encounters.
There were times when people would be at loggerheads with UG in argument, they would get furious and leave the scene. One of those persons, a Sufi teacher, called me back the next day wondering what had happened. He came once again later to be clobbered again. His Sufi philosophy was under attack. He never returned after the second time. When I saw him later in the supermarket, he remarked that UG seemed to represent some dark, evil force!
If UG was cornered into a contradiction of some sort, he would become helpless. He would say something like, “What do you want me to do?” or “What do you want me to say?”
On the other hand, his genius would manifest itself on some rare occasions. For instance, I noticed his discussion with a biologist once in Chennai. For a minute or two, I could follow their discussion. But then the exchange between them went so fast that I completely lost track of the discussion and the biologist himself was dumfounded. He probably never expected such a challenge from a non-scientist. I don't know if he ever returned.
There were, however, times when his professional audience, in this instance, scientists and professors from Oxford gathering in Australia, weren't all that impressed. In this video I was watching, I noticed one of them saying repeatedly, “It's absurd....” The man was obviously annoyed by UG's assertions such as “There is no such thing as matter....”
Money: When people are told about UG, a frequent question they ask is, “How does he get his money?” Some complained about UG's money-hustling deals, but few doubted his integrity in money matters. There was a time once, in the early years of his coming to California, the friend who was taking care of UG's housing needs, asked me to contribute some money toward paying extra rent to pay for the few days before UG arrived so he didn't have to forfeit the place. He made me promise not to reveal the matter to UG, as UG would never approve of people raising money for him. I agreed and never told UG until recently, years after my friend's death. UG's integrity in money matters, in my opinion, was impeccable.
Nevertheless, he always pointed out to people that money and food were their deepest attachments. He knew that people treated money as an end in itself and amassed it disproportionately. As for himself, money was as a mere instrument, although he constantly claimed that “money is at the top of my list and food at the bottom….”
In later years, he changed his ways. Although he never directly asked people for money, his dealings with them bordered on hustling. (He did this only to a few people; you could feel that he was teasing them and also testing their attachment to money.) I know the reason: in the early years, he collected and saved people's money for them in a Swiss bank account and the money was later returned to them intact. On the other hand, the money people gave him as gift whether on his birthdays or on other occasions, and the money he “hustled,” went to funding children's education or as gifts to the needy or to friends and relatives, but little of it went toward his own expenses. He himself lived rather frugally, in spite of the fact that he traveled in luxury class, paid for by his friends. People gave him expensive clothing, which he would in turn give away, replacing it with newer pieces of clothing given by others. Sometimes the clothing was passed on unused.
When he was young, he sold off the property he had inherited from his grandfather for a discount to the farmers who leased the land and cultivated it. Ever since then, he never owned property except once for a few months by mistake.
Nothing Personal: UG would constantly test people. No one could take him for granted. Sometimes he would extol what a person did for a living, but the next moment he would be critical of the same person. He might be the chummiest person at the moment, but at the next turn he might attack viciously. He didn't spare anyone. In that sense, he had no personal relationships. He was loyal to many of his friends, but not all. Some broke away and never saw him again, and some just veered off and remained distant to him without openly breaking up with him.
It must be mentioned here that UG had a way of making everyone around him feel special. That's a unique experience people had when they tried to relate to UG.
In later years, he didn't always make it easy for people to see him. When they called, he would put them off giving some excuse or other, or ask them to call later and so on. But there weren't many who were serious and persistent that did not succeed in seeing him. UG was making sure that they were earnest.
On more than one occasion, he would draw a person into a discussion by asking for his response. He did this with me several times. It surely was something he used to communicate with the audience (he wanted my “moral support” he sometimes said), but also as a way of teaching me by drawing me out, as I didn't always readily come forth with my views.
To my mind, UG had not only a sharp intellect, but astounding artistic creativity. I didn't realize this until I saw him giving his suggestions about the biography Mahesh Bhatt was writing in Carmel, California, near where I live. At a critical point in writing the biography, there was a discussion about how to proceed. UG was going on so fast with his ideas, I completely lost him after a while. Mahesh Bhatt, after hearing his suggestions, protested, “UG, I can't write like that!” The gist of UG's idea was to show how he, after his “calamity,” had no life of his own and that he only lived in the lives of the people around him. That perspective would have been impossible to convey in a book.
One thing I can say for certain: I have never seen another human being who could metamorphose so suddenly and completely that you felt as if you were seeing a totally different person before you. No matter how strange or difficult the situation was, or what had happened in the past, if the situation demanded it, UG would throw in all his resources into resolving it. I remember an occasion when he planned to spend the night in Seaside in a motel and even paid for the room. But something changed all that; a Polish fellow was driving to Los Angeles in his old beat-up car, and UG suddenly changed all his plans and drove away with him to Los Angeles. He had to forgo his room payment, as it was too late to cancel the reservation. Forfeiting the money meant nothing to him.
Getting Physical: In his last years, UG started getting physically demonstrative. Before then, I thought he was physically shy: I knew many men, including myself, from my culture as being shy in that way. I had noticed the very first time I met UG in my house that he had shied away when I tried to put my arm around his shoulder. The most he would ever do was to pat on someone's shoulder or shake or touch someone's hand (his touch was actually one of his means of communication). He would joke with his friends when they were parting, asking them, “You want some energy transmission?” and shake their hand.
But all that suddenly changed a few years ago when I noticed that he had gotten quite physical with Louis. He would get physical to the point of hitting him and beating or pouring stuff on him (making him eat and drink all kinds of weird concoctions – handfuls of sugar or chocolate, for example). He would not only beat him himself, but would ask people like Nataraj to hit Louis on his (bald) head with a split stick (which wouldn't really hurt as much as an unsplit stick). Nataraj would obey and beat Louis on his head with the stick, keeping the beat while singing a song. Or UG would ask a child, a son of one of the visitors, to beat up Louis. And the kid would do that, rather viciously, to the point that I would protest, saying “Stop it UG!” or I would leave the scene – I just didn't want to sit there and watch. UG would remark to everyone: “Narayana Moorty can't take it anymore, he is leaving.” Louis had to admonish the father for not intervening. You could notice the uneasiness in those who were watching. You would wonder what UG was trying to teach in such situations.
But this procedure was not limited to Louis. I saw UG prompting a kid to beat up his own grandfather. First, I thought it was just all part of UG's teaching through entertainment; now I am sure it was more than that. I didn't realize that until the same child hit me very hard with a key ring while I approached his mother, who was holding him, to say goodbye. I then saw that UG was dealing with the aggression in the kids by giving free expression to it and releasing it (of course, under his supervision).
Taking Breaks: After all his talking during the day and after everyone had left, UG would collapse in a sofa and instantly fall asleep. He worked hard like this day in and day out for so many years. There were times when he took breaks from this routine, then he would not have any meetings (“No shop today,” he would say), but would go on car trips to different places, sometimes visiting people, or just going around stores in downtowns or riding in cars for long distances without any specific destination.
Sometimes his car trips became his method of teaching: There were times when he would subject the driver to highly risky situations. His driving “tests” thus became famous. He would expose people's fears and confusions to themselves. Except for a couple times, people never got involved in accidents. Even when they were, they were never injured or killed. I know at least a couple of people who felt grateful to him for saving them from serious accidents just by being in their car.
While driving, the driver would be asking UG for directions or other instructions as he didn't have a prior knowledge of where precisely UG wanted to go. UG would say, for instance, “Turn right,” and just as the driver was about to make a right turn, UG would say, “I think you should go left here,” as if he wasn't sure himself which way to go. Then the driver would make preparations to turn left. But by then UG had already changed his mind and he would say, “I think it's the next exit.” This changing of directions would go on endlessly to the point that the driver would begin literally to freak out. No wonder the seat next to the driver in which UG usually sat was sarcastically called by some the “death seat.”
Of course, sometimes the driver would get lost and stop and reach out for a map in his glove compartment. But UG would have none of that: “You don't need any maps, you use your eyes;” “Don't think, just watch;” “Don't use your head, use your eyes” – were his normal admonitions. If the driver complained and said, “We lost our way,” UG would reprimand, “You are never lost, you are always somewhere, keep driving.”
The more the driver would fret, the more pressure UG would put on him or her, to the point that at the end of the trip, UG's “blessings” would always be waiting for them: “You can be sure that he makes mistakes. He doesn't use his head. He's a dunderhead. He took the wrong turn,” and so on.
It's not clear what anyone would learn from all this haranguing, but I think UG's main concern was not so much to get anyone to the right place, or to just plain abuse anyone, but to expose us to our own reaction mechanisms and push us to deal with them. And of course, the point may also be to make the person lose his bearings (in all respects)! I don't know if he ever succeeded.
One more thing should be mentioned here, to be fair to UG: with those whose driving he wasn't “testing,” UG normally never interrupted a person's driving with his criticisms or compliments until after the trip was completed. Then he would come out with his comments. His “driving tests,” on the other hand, were a different matter!
One time, just as UG's birthday was approaching, as was his wont, he unplugged the telephone to avoid being inundated with phone calls and took a bunch of people in three cars to travel, practically day and night, moving from one country to another, through France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. People were huddled together in the cars, sometimes being hard-pressed even to get to the bathroom or get a decent meal or sleep. This went on for three days, and then they finally returned to Gstaad after the harrowing journey. Some birthday party! Only UG knew what was behind this trip, or what, if anything, it accomplished. Of course, no one dared to question UG or complain.
There were occasions when UG would take a set of people with him looking for a place for a lengthy stay (a couple of days to a whole month). He would investigate different places, collect people's opinions and their conveniences, and finally find a perfect place to the satisfaction of everyone. UG was never afraid of the unknown. Although people were a bit tense about where they were going or what they were getting into, they had implicit trust in him, which always paid off.
When UG went out, most of the times he ate with many others. He would always ask, “Who's going to pay?” Someone or other would volunteer. I did notice however, of late, when he sensed that this became a burden to people, he would allow them to go “Dutch.” His own meals in a restaurant were extremely simple, limited to a piece of bread (with butter) and soup or rosti, or some such ridiculously simple and small meal. He always had hot water after every meal to wash down the food.
Going Along: UG never directly opposed people's fixations or tried to change people's ways. Instead, he played them up. For instance, the oblique way he dealt with people's attachment to money was to make them more money-minded, to encourage them to make more money, and to “talk-up” money practically all the time. (Notice how his Money Maxims, which he dictated in about 45 minutes, has become so popular among UG circles.) At the same time, he made people shed money freely, including giving it to him, which he in turn gave away to children. His dealings with people's attachments remind us of the traditional Tantric ways of dealing with energies by going along with them consciously, instead of opposing them.
I remember an occasion when he once arranged for a drinking session between me and Mahesh Bhatt (Mahesh was drinking at that time) in his hotel room; he never criticized either of us for it. After a couple of drinks, of course, we all went downstairs to the restaurant for a meal. On the way to the restaurant, in the hotel corridor, I noticed UG staggering a little. I couldn't help joking: “UG, this is not fair. We do all the work and you get the effect!”
Mahesh later quit both his drinking and smoking when he was aghast at how his little baby daughter was repelled by the strong smell of smoke and drink when he drew close to her. He never touched either habit again. UG always praised Mahesh for that. “If you quit a habit, it should be like that – at once, not promising or practicing to quit little by little,” he would say.
Before something happened, UG might sometimes plan for this or that, or ask someone to come or not to come, and so on, but when things actually unfolded, whether by design or by accident, he always accepted the outcome. I never saw an exception to it.
Once, I was traveling with UG and others in a car driven by Major Dakshinamurti, and on the way to Mysore, the car had a flat tire and stopped. UG's reaction was merely to ask, “What do we do next?” Of course, the Major changed the tire and we continued on our journey.
In Carmel, when Mahesh's biography of UG was being put together, there was a couple who visited him for at least a couple of weeks. They had a garbage dump-like truck that they parked in the driveway. At night they crawled into a barrel-shaped black-painted shell on the back of the truck to sleep. The man was some kind of a guru, but also technically savvy (a drop-out graduate student in computer science). They were on the run from the law, I don't know for what reason. The man and his mate (who was a young woman who seemed to be under his influence and a disciple of his, and was mortally afraid of him), had not had a bath in at least a month or two! They stank. Sarcastically, I was referring to the couple (in their absence, of course) as “Mr. and Mrs. Stink!” The sofa on which the man sat acquired some of his odor and the living room was filled with the smell. But UG wouldn't say a word about the smell. He let the couple be (they even used his kitchen to prepare food) as long as they were there. When they finally left, he went into his room, brought out a couple of incense sticks, lit them and put them up at the fireplace. That's UG!
The UG Treatment: This is a common experience to many. First, UG would be very enthusiastic about a certain person and extol him or her to the skies. But then things would start to cool down and UG would gradually start pointing out problems in the person's behavior. Then, if that person came too close to him and did some “unwanted” things, like making repeated mistakes in what he was asked to do, or did something contrary to his specific instructions, or was dishonest in some way, he would take the person to task. A huge harangue might ensue. It could go on for hours. There was a time when he even ordered a pickup truck to haul a person's belongings out of his apartment to be delivered to her apartment at her own expense. In another instance, he even pushed a person out of a moving car for her alleged misbehavior. There is no doubt that UG was giving the harsh treatment to drive home the person's problems and weaknesses to himself or herself.
But then, at the next moment, the person would be treated normally until there was another occasion for a flare-up. You would never get the feeling that UG had ill-treated that person earlier. Of course, the person would be mortally afraid that UG was keeping a watchful eye on her, and that would lead to more mistakes and more harangues. It could become an endless saga. Sometimes people around him felt that this treatment went beyond limits. Who knows what the final outcome had been or would be?
I know UG verbally belittled, abused and condemned more than one person for their superficiality, dishonesty and inability to exploit their own talents. He would continue to taunt them each time he saw them. And at times he would throw them out. But these same people would swear by how touched they were by UG's love and affection. Perhaps this was part of the UG “training process.”
But if you didn't come close to UG by being friendly with him or trying to do him favors, if you were just a visitor or remained distant otherwise, he would not touch you. Of course, visitors could provoke his ire when they challenged his actions or ideas; or a hot exchange might result when he had to attack their ideas. It all depends.
I also know that if he sensed that you were feeling hurt for some reason or other, he would make sure that you felt better (without your even knowing it) before you left. I am remembering one occasion in Vallecrosia during my last visit with him, when a young woman was leaving. UG sensed she was hurt. Her feelings were indeed hurt as some people there had been critical of her ways. As she was leaving she said something to the effect, “I won't be a bother to anyone anymore.” UG said goodbye to her saying, “Everyone liked you.”He did praise people, not directly, but only by saying that everyone had liked what she wrote or did or said.
Pleasure-seeking: Although UG seemed to enjoy himself when he was going places or having conversations or playing with children or being outdoors, in all my acquaintance with him, I never saw him being a pleasure seeker. He didn't crave for any foods or experiences or anything. If someone performed music in front of him, he practically paid a deaf ear, you could detect absolutely no reaction in his face. If he seemed to like a certain food and you offered it to him again, he would say, no, and comment, “Just because I liked something doesn't mean I want it again.” He used to say that he wouldn't know what something tasted like the moment it went down the gullet from his tongue.
He was always proud to show off his refrigerator to people. Unless someone else was also using it, it was always bare, with little else than a can of frozen pineapple juice, a container of heavy cream and perhaps a bowl of leftover oatmeal. He would always quote someone who said, “People don't need even a sixth of what they normally eat.” When he was alone, he said, he would eat the same small meal (like oatmeal, cream and pineapple juice) four times a day.
As I said before, UG attacked people's attachments to money and food. When he went to someone's place for lunch, he frequently admonished, “I don't like the stink and stench of an ashram.” Yet, when there were several people around who hadn't had lunch or dinner, he would ask whether there was enough food for all of them and make sure there was, even if it meant that someone had to cook.
When he went shopping for food, UG never bought anything more than what was needed for that day. He also discouraged, sometimes rather strenuously, others from buying excessive amounts of food and hoarding it “for the morrow.” There was an occasion in Palm Springs when he ordered all the excess foods in the kitchen be collected and thrown in the garbage!
The Shepherd: I was visiting UG in Switzerland with my family. That morning I was still in bed. UG walked upstairs where we were staying and walked into our room. I sat up and greeted him. At that time or later, I remarked, “UG is checking his wares!” UG was constantly checking to see if everyone around him was okay.
Champion of Children: I remember an occasion when Chandrasekhar's family had just returned from a wedding, and their two children conked out in the living room, having been deprived of sleep the night before. UG stood guard at the entrance that whole afternoon and prevented anyone from entering the room lest they would disturb the kids' sleep.
He not only played with children wherever he went, he would give them money from his pocket and encourage their talents. Some children had great affinity for him. Yet, he would not hesitate to expose them to foul language, violence, sex or pornography in films. His reasoning is that they would have to deal with all that in later life anyway. Why protect them? Once, I did take him to task when he was encouraging a child to rebel against her teacher. I said, “What's the girl going to do when she gets out of school without education, if she is thrown out of school?” I think UG got my point.
Indeed, a similar point was driven home by a Korean monk who was in one of UG's meetings at my home. UG was attacking educating children in religion. And the monk asked, how are the children going to grow up without any guidance or education? I think UG saw his point and conceded.
With people giving him money, particularly for his birthdays, he accumulated enough to give it away to kids. He decided to give it to girls of Indian origin studying abroad, as compensation, he said, for all the persecution which Indian women were subjected to by men for centuries.
Guha and I discouraged UG. One fine morning, Guha and I stormed into UG's room in Palm Spring. I told him that what he was doing was not any different from J. Krishnamurti establishing foundations and schools. Guha and I told him that the girls would already be rich enough to be able to come to the US anyway, and that they wouldn't, in that case, be needing his help.
Moreover, his intention of establishing a scholarship fund anonymously would not succeed, as legally his name would be there, albeit under the surface: anyone who dug deep enough could discover it. UG immediately tore up the papers of his correspondence with lawyers at Stanford and called Chandrasekhar in India right away and asked him to cancel the plans relating to setting up the fund.
He ultimately did give the money away to girls of Indian origin for their education and arranged to give much of what remained at the end of his life to deserving girls who were yet to be discovered.
Response to Reports of Experiences: Different people at different times related their personal experiences to UG. There were times he not only agreed with the person, but he even elaborated or commented on what they said. Some other times, he pooh-poohed them. I can mention a couple of my own experiences here:
1) I caught myself falling asleep once. Later, in the car, I said to UG, “Nothing seems so important, even what UG says doesn't seem to have any value.” He replied, “No, what UG says has no value.”
2) During a conversation I said, “...all this is shit. And I don't know when all this will end,” or something to that effect. I remember UG shooting back with a resounding reply, “If that is not there (meaning if you don't compare this with something else), this is not shit.”
3) Another time, I remember my bragging to UG, “I have seen...” UG cut me short while everyone listened, “You haven't seen it....” I grumbled something in reply, but I dared not challenge the authority with which he had responded.
4) One of the first things I learned from UG is to not attach any importance to experiences (no matter of what kind). Since then my oft-used motto has been, “experiences are a dime a dozen.”
5) One morning in Hemet, I was sitting alone in silence after getting up early in the morning. Noticing that I was sitting idle doing nothing, he commented teasingly, “Meditating?” I asked whether he was objecting to my meditating because it was “pleasure seeking.” He answered, yes.
6) On a rare occasion, I was asking UG a question about what he meant by “knowledge.” He turned to me and looked at me in a certain way. I will never forget it. I could hear his voice changing and his compassion flowed from him to me, as if it were some sort of fluid. It was almost physical. His answer was, knowledge was “whatever you have learned in the past as to what gives you pleasure or pain.” But his compassion was worth a million answers. I know many people were bound to UG through such a flow of compassion. It was brief conversations like these that really drove some points home to me.
Mountains of Energy: Some of the conversations which friends had with UG were so memorable that they made permanent imprints in their minds. These occasions were not only noteworthy for their absolutely profound discussions of various topics, but also for the mountains of energy that would be generated during these discussions. The atmosphere would simply be electrified, as if there was a great celebration unfolding! Unfortunately, many of these discussions were not recorded, as placing a recording device in their midst would have simply ruined the process. In fact, although the moments are unforgettable in their intensity, most of us have hard time even recalling the details of those conversations.
Meaning of Life: UG often asserted that there is no meaning to life. Yet, when people were around him, he would assign various tasks to them just to prevent them from mentally chewing on themselves. Many women became familiar with his “sweatshops.” Each time one of these women came to see him, he would give her some kind of sewing job, to fix a button on a shirt, to cut off a collar on a sweater and sew the edges, and such. If there wasn't a job ready, he would create one. He would act as if he was ripping a tag off a sweater, shirt or pants, and there would be a tear in the clothing (I wonder if it wasn't done purposely). He would then complain that he had torn the garment and ask the woman to mend it. He would of course get his royal haircuts from some of these women (although at other times he would go to a barber). He would also assign various chores to men. With people who were knowledgeable in other areas like computers, he would ask them to do some chore or other on the computers. I remember his asking Kiran in Gstaad to transfer all the addresses and phone numbers in his address book to an organizer.
In Palm Springs he once led a whole expedition of two or three cars going in a caravan to hunt for rubber sandals for me with bumps on them. We had looked for them earlier but hadn't found a single pair to my satisfaction. I had protested to UG that it wasn't really so important to find those sandals. But he would have none of that. He said that it would give everyone something to do!
His shopping (and “malling”) trips were similar. He would go with a bunch of people into different stores, particularly clothing stores, and browse as if he was looking for something specific. Meanwhile, he was watching everyone's movements (and thoughts, too, I would imagine). The shopping trips were never for the entertainment of the people. They were part of his teaching – except no one really knew what they learned out of them. Indeed, UG's teaching was mysterious.
When he seemed to be interested in some piece of clothing, be it a silk shirt, a cashmere sweater, or an inexpensive pair of pants, there was always someone to buy it for him, although at times, he refused the offer. When he accepted, it was more for the sake of the gift-giver than for himself. In fact, much the same can be said about all the money gifts he accepted from people, particularly for his birthdays.
Las Vegas: UG made several “caravan” trips to Las Vegas from Palm Springs with a dozen or more people parceled out 4 or 5 to a car. They would all rent hotel rooms and stay overnight. UG would let everyone else (except the children) play at the machines, but would never gamble himself.
Once he was short of $25 for his room rent, I heard. Mario and someone else were at his door knocking. He opened the door, gave Mario a quarter and pointed to a slot machine at the end of one of rows and told him to put it in the machine. Mario did and got exactly $25 out of the machine and gave it to UG. When Mario handed the money to UG, UG quickly snatched the money and shut the door.
When someone lost money in gambling, that was his own loss. But when he or she won, all that money would go to UG. And of course, UG would give it all away to the children in the group.
The Supernatural: All sorts of supernatural powers have been attributed to UG. It's part of the nature of the subject matter that it doesn't lend itself to any objective assessment. UG has been credited with telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, precognition, psychokinesis, miracle healing, and the seeing of ghosts and departed spirits. I personally had several experiences when I felt that he knew not only my thoughts, but the current state of my body. When I was once talking to Julie I felt he was listening in from his place in a hotel. I then joked aloud to Julie, “UG, it's rude to eavesdrop on people's conversations!”
He seemed to be able to forestall coming dangers and prevent them from happening. And more often than not, people claimed that their lives were saved either from a serious illness or from an accident either by UG being next to them on the scene or by their thinking of (or praying to) him. Unfortunately, there is no way to objectively verify any of this, for we simply lack the tools. I just mention these to complete the picture.
UG sometimes joked around, asking someone who was saying goodbye, “You want some energy transmission?” and then would shake his hand. There were times, when he would say, “I have powers, you know.” At other times, he would say, “How would I know?” or “There are no powers.” But I do know that he had his ways of taking care of people through his physical touch. He would, for instance, have Nataraj sit next to him and shake his hand frequently. Nataraj credits him with not only knowing what was going on inside him, but with “saving my life.” I have heard others who said similar things about UG. I know at least one instance in my own case, and I saw it several times with others, when I was in a certain state of mind and shook his hand. He withdrew it quickly saying, “Ouch,” or something to that effect. He truly was aware of what was going in another person's body.
Sadly, however, I must report of at least one instance in which a friend of mine who was severely ill hoped for a miracle from UG and it never came. Eventually he died. In fact, UG told him more than once to go to a hospital, see a doctor and get himself tested. It was just in such contexts UG would say, “There are no miracles, go to a doctor!” In fact, as another example, one could cite his own son's death from lung cancer in Bombay while he was there. Sometimes he would say that one should “give a helping hand” by taking medicine.
Of course, he never followed his own advice, he always believed that pain is a healer and given a chance the body has the power to heal itself. (He would, however, add the caveat, “If the body cannot heal itself, it will go gracefully.”) In his later years, he never visited a doctor or went to a hospital. But he wouldn't advice others to do the same, he said.
Conclusion: UG always attacked conventional morality, religion and politics. He said that our legal, political and moral systems are all corrupt. He did not believe in any moral rules, but he said that one who is not moral can never be immoral, will never do anything to hurt others. He said, although he criticized laws, he would not himself break the law.
UG had always warned us not to be fooled by appearances, yet we don't and can't know what the reality of UG is. We can't but feel that we are somehow affected by having been around him. I have seen people who would even kill themselves for him. He touched them, in their minds, as no one else in their lives had touched them.
UG would sometimes make what seemed like scientific statements, and say, “One day scientists will confirm it (viz., that consciousness is everywhere, for instance).” But immediately he would add disclaimers like, “I am not a scientist.”
For UG, freedom of the will is a myth. “You can never be free from conditioning,” he said, “Conditioning is intelligence.” Nonetheless, UG encouraged people to make money or to be successful at this or that.
UG would tell all these gloom and doom stories, and yet he said that things couldn't be any different from what they are because of the way we are and we live. So there is nothing one can do. One might ask, “Then should we or should we not do such and such? Should we or should we not meditate?” Neither conclusion follows. You cannot derive any “directive” from what he says.
UG would use anything and everything in front of him as a tool for his teaching process and then simply discard it and walk away. He didn't have a specific means or method of teaching. He said once, long ago, “I could as well be reading out the numbers from a telephone book, it would have the same effect.”
And you can't grasp his teaching in your hand and say “this is what I have gotten from UG.” You don't know what you have gotten.
UG himself said repeatedly that people who listened to him over the years would not find any such thing as enlightenment, for, according to him, there is no such thing, but they will find their burdens (he meant the mental “baggage” we carry from our past) becoming lighter. And I know many a friend who listened to UG who would attest to that.
JSRL Narayana Moorty, Being Yourself, 2014
