Between the Serpent and the Rope
U.G. Krishnamurti
If J. Krishnamurti taught us to doubt and question all forms of authority and belief systems, U.G. Krishnamurti took us deeper into the waters of self-inquiry, into the very heart of the problem, to reveal how even our so-called inquiry, our questions and even our negations, are shaped by the answers we already have. Therefore, he showed us how and why our doubt, too, is only the other side of belief.
If J. Krishnamurti knocked off the past and future, and made us focus our attention on the burning present, UG knocked off the present as well, giving us a foretaste of the void. In some way, this profound contrast may remind us of Heraclitus's teaching, which was shown by his disciple to be inadequate, if not false. ‘You cannot step into the same stream twice,’ Heraclitus declared, in response to which his disciple is believed to have said, ‘Sir, you cannot step into the same stream even once.’
Everything UG said or did was the mirror image of what a traditional guru did, but in reverse. He offered no method, no way out, no hope; instead, he blocked every escape route to put us in a corner, to choke us to death. In other words, he used every possible method to stun us into silence, to come to terms with the absurdity of our futile search for non-existing gods and goals.
UG was many things to many people: spiritual rebel, sage in rage, modern Buddha, antidote to J. Krishnamurti, cosmic Naxalite, anarchist, story buster. Sometimes, as if to free us from our tortuous attempts to define him, he would burble, ‘UG means a Useless Guy’. One could not, with any certainty, say what exactly he was, but he was an enigma. It is but appropriate, therefore, that we end this narrative with the story of this great enigma.
…I returned home… tried to relax and carry on with my sadhana. But soon, the sense of disgust with the world rose up like monstrous waves in the sea, destroying the even rhythm I was trying to settle into. Suddenly, it seemed, I was living on the edge of a precipice.
All my readings in spirituality and even my sadhana began to seem senseless, a wasted effort, because it made one postpone what had to be done here and now – except eating tomorrow's meal today! – to some time in the future. This, in effect, meant that one was not serious, one actually didn't want to change. It was only a pleasure movement, a glorified self-deception. Or was it a kind of self-abuse?
But I wanted to change. I yearned to be on the other side of the shore, where there was no pain, no conflict, no tomorrow, but I did not know how to do this. How? The truth is that there is no ‘how’, for ‘how’ is only a trick of the mind to prorogue the death of the self, in order to remain in the apparently secured, pleasant world of the known.
…a friend and fellow JK-ite spoke about another Krishnamurti who, he said, was known as an antidote to J. Krishnamurti. I had thought J. Krishnamurti's teaching was the last frontier in spirituality; you could not go beyond—the first step was the last step and the last step was the precipice, beyond which lay the void. I grew terribly curious to know what possible criticism one may have against J. Krishnamurti. UG was staying in Bangalore at that time, and I accompanied my friend to see him.
It was a typical middle-class house. UG sat on a mat at one end of a small hall. There were about six or eight people squatting on the floor. Not the kind of setting you would expect from a globe-trotting teacher. Middle-aged, dressed in a white kurta and pajama, long hair parted in the middle, UG's eyes looked empty yet lucid, and his face radiated a glow I had never witnessed before. He nodded slightly, acknowledging our presence.
Strangely, details of that day's conversations fail me. I cannot remember the exact questions either my friend or I asked him, nor his answers, but only the effect he had on us. Something more than words seemed to have been exchanged on that fateful day. The effect was shattering, to say the least. Shattering in the sense that everything we threw at him, our questions, doubts, hopes and aspirations, were exploded, rendered empty.
I felt as if I had been stripped naked, and felt defenseless, without cover; and I was afraid. Suddenly, I didn't know where I was, who I was; yet, in all this confusion, anxiety, fear, and a profound sense of emptiness, I knew I was in the presence of a powerful force, something primordial, pure, untouched by the sorrows of the world.
At some point, he said something to the effect that our search for truth was like the case of a dog and its bone. The hungry dog chews on a lean, dry bone; doing so hurts his gums, and they bleed. But the poor dog does not realize that the blood he is savouring comes from his body and not the bone.
The next day, I felt as if my head was missing. I couldn't think through anything. My mind was blank, and my body burned as if on fire. It was quite a long spell, and lasted for a few days before I was able to come back to my usual self. However, the world, life and living did not seem tangible and measurable any more. If J. Krishnamurti's teaching had been the master paradigm for me to analyse and assess all things religious and spiritual, UG's anti-teaching became my brahmastra to demolish all ideologies, narratives and paradigms; indeed, with one sweep, UG had shattered the whole universe into one big zero.
The next year, when UG was back in Bangalore, I went to see him every single day until he left Bangalore. I was drawn to him like moth to a flame, except that I did not burn to death. Instead, something started burning inside of me, and I was scared.
I interviewed UG and published two articles on him, as if that would enable me to get him out of my system. It didn't work. There was only one way I could avoid, or at least slow down the destruction: I stopped meeting him.
For twelve years, I resisted the temptation to meet him, and carried on with my life as a family man, teacher, writer and social activist. A lot changed during this period, both in me and in the world, but fundamentally, the world appeared to be what it had always been, and the ‘core’ of my being seemed the same. Of course, there certainly was a shift in the way I looked at and experienced the world. Nothing was permanent, everything was in flux and there was no anxiety to hold on to anything. The false gods and goals had disappeared.
•:•
One day in 2002, the news of UG's arrival in Bangalore reached me. All these years, I had avoided meeting him, but no more. I was not afraid of losing what I didn't have, or not being able to possess what was impermanent. There was no fear, and it was time to go and say hello to the sage in rage.
The house where UG was staying was now a different one from the place I had first met him. This also looked like a typical middle-class house, with potted plants laid along the compound wall, and just enough space for a car to be parked in the portico. But the portico of this house, unlike the one twelve years ago, was strewn with slippers and shoes.
In the brightly lit hall, about 30-35 people squatted on mats, while a few sat on chairs and sofas. On a long sofa pushed against the wall sat the figure in white, like a huge, distinctly unique pigeon among birds of varied hues. His hair, grey and flowing, had thinned since the last time I'd seen him. But the face looked not much older than what I had imagined, and certainly not the face of one who had lived for eighty-four years. The incredible charisma was still there, the same smiling lips and unblinking eyes, and that enchanting glow that radiated from the whole of his body. I made my pranams and squatted on the mat.
Chandrasekhar Babu, the host, introduced me. UG did not remember me. Soon, in response to a question, he started recalling his days in the US. Then there was another question. His replies were straightforward and candid, but his words became harsh and abusive when it came to gurus, J. Krishnamurti, Nobel Prize winners and Mother Teresa.
This was something different. In the past, his answers had been – as they were even now to a large extent – humorous, tongue in cheek, sardonic, acerbic, devastating yet revealing, but never rude and course. ‘It was Sri Ramakrishna who taught me, sir,’ he said, answering my question about his use of course words. Later, I gathered that Sri Ramakrishna's talks were generously sprinkled with so-called foul words. Now, yet again, the course words exploded like dynamite, and sent the crowd into giggles and guffaws. It all seemed weird and crazy.
I was particularly struck by the large number of young men and women around. They looked trim, fresh and relaxed. They smiled, laughed and shot their questions at UG with ease. The crowd I was familiar with earlier used to be hesitant and profoundly respectful. A few I knew from days past were present even now, some looking severe, others amused. There were also a handful of foreigners from Israel, US, Germany and other European countries, who all appeared rather circumspect and solemn.
I was amused. Who was this guy? Did I really know him? I had thought I knew him fairly well and had written two lengthy articles about him. He looked the same person, yet was different. His answers to certain questions were more or less the same as in the past, yet they sounded different as well. Gradually, I was to realize that every time I tried to put him in a frame, or put a label on him, I immediately witnessed things that broke these frames. He was like the wind, changing direction every now and then, now turning into a storm threatening to blow you out of the ground, now changing into a breeze, so tender and invigorating.
•:•
On the first floor of Chandrasekhar Babu's house, there were two large bedrooms, and one small 8 x 8 room with an attached 4 x 6 bathroom. UG slept in this small room (he always chose small rooms to rest wherever he stayed), but he hardly slept for four hours in the night, and was usually up by about 5 a.m. By 6 a.m., he was ready to take on the visitors who would start streaming in from the early hours, and they would remain till about 10 p.m.
UG's meal used to be a simple affair. He did not touch meat, and hardly ate vegetables or fruits. While in India, he lived on oats with cream, idlis or beaten rice with milk, and an occasional coffee with cream. His total intake of food was less than that of a normal five year old child. Yet he remained alert and agile throughout the day, exuding tremendous energy. Food was at the bottom of his needs, he would say.
During my very first meeting that day, the idea of writing a book on him to make sense of his ‘anti-teaching’ grew on me. The two articles I had written on him years ago now seemed superficial. I needed to revisit, go deeper, reconnect, and make as much sense of his life as of his teaching.
For the next three months, I engaged him in general conversations on issues concerning his life and experiences, as well as on that enigma called enlightenment. There were days when he would answer my questions even before I asked them. And then there were days when he would start speaking spontaneously on things that were of too great a significance to be put in the book.
In September of that same year, my twenty-one year old daughter, Shruti, died in a road accident. A budding artist and potential writer who lived like there was no tomorrow, Shruti was suddenly snatched away from us. Losing one's child is the greatest sorrow in life. Every other pain and suffering seems trivial compared to this great grief. By then, I had started writing the book, and the work saved me from sinking into pain. Writing kept me afloat and helped me come to grips with the void left by my daughter's death. During those nine months, the book took complete possession of me, and got itself written. It was an unexpected journey, but a cathartic one.
The next year, UG returned to Bangalore and I was there again. This time, I had no questions to ask. This was not because I had finished writing the book, but because I was suffering from a sort of battle fatigue. Strangely, that year, UG rarely engaged in ‘serious’ conversations. Suddenly, it seemed he was finished with his anti-teaching. I did a little probing into the possible reason for this change. Chandrasekhar and friends from abroad revealed that, in fact, in the last six years or so, UG had rarely conducted conversations of a serious nature. For the next four years, until the day he left Bangalore and never returned, this new trend of ‘superior amusement’ grew like some terrific downpour, drowning us in peals of laughter.
One day, UG suddenly said to me:
‘Becoming something other than what you are is the cause of your misery… You will remain a man of violence as long as you follow some idea of becoming… You can't divide these things into two. The process you adopt to reach what you call ‘being’ is also becoming a process, no matter what you call it. If you want to be yourself and not somebody else, that also is a becoming process. There is nothing to do about this. Anything you do to put yourself in that state of being is a becoming process. That is all that I am pointing out.’
That shut me up, not from laughing at his jokes or at his rib-tickling funny stories, but only from asking questions (but there were still some tough nuts, who never stopped asking questions).
On any given day, there used to be at least 40-50 people, young and old, present with UG; among them were the ‘regulars’, who showed up everyday, come rain or shine. It seemed some of them came more to be in his presence and listen to his voice – it did not matter what he said – while others came more in anticipation of a good dose of laughter, rather than to be instructed on the right way of living or the path to liberation. There was much grinning, giggling and roaring with laughter from morning till late evening.
We laughed at everything and everyone: heroes and lovers, thinkers and politicians, scientists and thieves, kings and sages, UG and ourselves! One day, Louis Brawley, a noted artist and writer from the US, lifted UG with ease, put him on his sturdy shoulders and began to dance within an imaginary circle. There was near pandemonium, what with everyone shedding their inhibitions, shouting, singing and dancing around the figure perched high on Louis's shoulders, his toothless mouth open in soundless laughter, a picture of unalloyed joy.
‘We should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh,’ declares Nietzsche's Zarathustra. ‘Comedy,’ says Lee Siegel, ‘challenges notions of meaning, strives to undermine all hermeneutics and epistemologies, and exposes the ambiguities inherent in any knowing and feeling. In the world of comedy, absurdity itself is the logos. The senselessness of the universe makes comic sense. Laughter expresses the comic understanding that nothing is ever really understood.’
It was cathartic, the laughter we indulged in those days, and it came as a great relief from the tyranny of gods, from the relentless pursuit of knowledge, wisdom and truth.
However, UG's essential thrust in his approach was always the same. He described the way we function in the ‘unnatural state’, how we are caught in a world of opposites, constantly struggling to become something other than what we are, and searching for non-existent gods. He talked about how we all think and function in a ‘thought sphere’, just as we all share the same atmosphere for breathing. He spoke about how and why we have no freedom of action unless and until the self comes to an end; and why the self, which is self-protective and fascist in nature, is not the instrument to help us to live in harmony with the life around us.
Further, preferring the term ‘natural state’ over and against‘enlightenment’, he described the natural state as a pure and simple physical and physiological state of being. It is the state of ‘primordial awareness without primitivism’, or the ‘undivided state of consciousness’, where all desires and fear, and the search for happiness and pleasure, God and truth, have come to an end. And he never tired of pointing out that ‘this is the way you, stripped of the machinations of thought, are also functioning.’
Like the Buddha who knocked off all narratives as a mere mental construct and a hindrance in the way of nirvana, UG, by exploding all our ideas and ideals, not only pulled the carpet from under our feet, but destroyed the very (apparently) secure but false ground on which we stood. He would not allow us to cling to any lie. The truth, howsoever hard, shattering and shocking, had to be brought to us.
The Buddha said, ‘The knowledge of many things cannot compare with the excellence of giving up the search. The sage is one who puts himself outside the range of objectivity. There are not different kinds of mind, and there is no doctrine which can be taught.’ Yet, he offered a teaching, taught his Dhamma, the Way to Nirvana, which was, supposedly, for the purpose of influencing people. ‘It was,’ he explained, ‘like using yellow leaves for gold to stop the crying child, and was decidedly not real.’
Ramana Maharshi also offered a teaching and encouraged self-inquiry, although he also often pointed out that the whole business of self-realization was a delusion. He spoke about self-realization only because people were under the delusion that the non-self is the self, and the unreal, the real, and that they had to be weaned off it by the other delusion called self-realization.
UG refused to offer a teaching, refused to offer ‘the other delusion or ‘yellow leaves’. Instead, he said:
‘There is no teaching here, just disjointed, disconnected sentences. What is there is only your interpretation, nothing else. What I am saying is something you are bringing out. The limitations, the frontiers are all gone here. It is all one. Whatever is happening there is happening in the whole of human consciousness. You don't have to do a thing. You don't have to start a foundation or a society. It is not for you to preserve the teaching for posterity.’
If, on the one hand, UG marked a creative continuity of the enlightenment traditions of the Buddha, the Upanishads and later sages of India, on the other hand, and more importantly, he marked a radical departure from the enlightenment traditions in the way he ‘de-psychologized’ and demystified the notion of enlightenment, and redefined it as the Natural State in physical and physiological terms. And his message was always simple and direct:
‘You come here and throw all these things at me. I am not actually giving you any answers. I am only trying to focus or spotlight the whole thing and say, “This is the way you look at these things; but look at them this way. Then you will be able to find out the solutions for yourself without anyone's help.” That is all. My interest is to point out to you that you can walk, and please throw away all those crutches. If you are really handicapped, I wouldn't advise you to do any such thing. But you are made to feel by other people that you are handicapped so that they could sell you those crutches. Throw them away and you can walk.’
After nearly forty-five days of schooling in laughter and nonsense, and knocked about by mind-boggling ‘revelations’, when UG left for Switzerland the night of 30 March 2006, it seemed to many of us that we wouldn't see him again. A profound silence hung in the air as he went up to his little room to change.
Within minutes, now changed into trousers and a shirt and looking oddly different, he came down. Friends hurriedly circled him to shake hands and thank him; some even tried to touch his feet and seek his blessings. As he got into the car and waved at us, the thought rose yet again like a restless bubble from the depths of water: What if he never returns? What if he dies…?
Almost exactly a year later, the time when he usually visited Bangalore, UG had a fall and injured himself while washing his clothes in the bathroom of his chalet in Gstaad. This was the second such occurrence in two years. He suffered no fractures, but, given his age, it was a serious injury. He did not want such an injury to occur again, which would make him further dependent on friends for his daily maintenance. He also refused any and all medical help and intervention. Though his leg healed somewhat, he never regained his strength.
Years ago he had said: ‘It is only when I stop travelling that I will drop dead.’ Now, as his health rapidly began to deteriorate, he decided it was ‘time to go’ and let his body take its natural course. He was confined to bed. His consumption of food and water became infrequent, and then ceased altogether. He was eighty-eight years old.
His last days were spent in a cottage built for him by a friend, Lucia, at Vallecrosia, in Italy. Many of UG's friends, who had no clue about his second fall and deteriorating health, were shocked on receiving the news that he could be leaving soon. A few friends from India and other parts of the world went to see him one last time. I called a friend who was already there and told him to ask UG if there was any parting message for us, any last word, and immediately felt silly for asking such a dumb question when I knew his whole life was a message.
A week later, I called and spoke to UG. I said that I wanted to come and see him. He said, ‘Not here, not now.’ So I didn't, and had to be content with watching video clips of his last days. These moving pictures were taken by friends using their smartphones. Each clip was a few minutes long, and together, the pieces make for an extraordinary documentary. We see here the same UG, witty, explosive and cathartic, burning bright with the unmistakable fire but looking frail, almost bony. He is sitting or lying down on a big, white sofa with dark red window curtains behind. The durbar is on, with missiles flying around, exploding all grand narratives and pushing the little crowd of men and women down to the wire. People laugh, some nervously, some heartily. Then he is quiet, he goes to sleep. A few minutes later he is up again, and carries on the play. He reprimands, a scolding that is no reprimand but a living message that burns into your being:
‘Your whole way of living is the cause of human misery! This body can take care of itself. It just goes gracefully and you dump it in a cave somewhere!’
•:•
‘You can't fit me into any religious frame. I don't need to fool people and thrive on their gullibility and credulity. I'm telling you, you will lose everything! You are not going to get anything from anybody. There is no need for me to say you're not going to get what you want from anyone else either. That you will find out for yourself.’
•:•
‘This is a functional being and you are all ideational beings!’
•:•
‘You and I are in the same place. You are running away from the place and asking others where this place is. Your feet are so tired from running, running all the time!’
Eight days before departure, UG decides to draw the curtain and close the shop. He thanks his friends and advises them to return to their places. Only his long-time friends, Mahesh Bhatt, Larry Morris and Dr. Susan Nettleton stay back to guard his body, and do whatever is necessary when the end comes.
It seems UG wanted Mahesh to be there to ensure that there was no ‘traditional’ or ‘religious nonsense’ with regard to the disposal of his body after his death. Another likely reason could be that, years ago, Mahesh had expressed his wish to be by his side when the end came and so it came to pass.
In his book Goner: The Final Travels of U.G. Krishnamurti, Louis Brawley writes:
‘Once we were all outside, I had the feeling we should all go away so he could die in peace. It was as if everyone had the same idea at the same time. Just as we were talking about it, Mahesh came out and made the final announcement. UG ordered him to tell us that we should all leave and go back where we came from so that he could die. There was a brief pause, and then everyone moved. He'd trained us well, when he said it was time to go, people went.’
The death watch begins, the three friends take turns to sit close to UG in case he needs help. The body lies on the couch, there is only the loud sound of his breathing. The body is still. He is not in a coma, he is not dead; he appears to be in samadhi.
Studying the still body, Mahesh Bhatt is reminded of UG's words:
‘All that is here is a breathing, pulsating body, a feeling of weightless form. When the breathing stops, that is when you will say death has occurred. Thereafter, what to do with this form will be your problem. There is no fear, no interest in me to stop death or keep this body going… Life has no destination. No full stop…’
Several strange and mysterious things happened during these eight days, some of which Mahesh has recorded in his deeply moving narrative, A Taste of Life: The Last Days of U.G. Krishnamurti.
In the early hours of the eighth day, Susan screams, ‘Oh my god, Mahesh, look, ants!’ Thousands of black ants have marched along the white carpet, up the white sofa and onto UG's stone-like face, darkening a portion of the left side of his face completely. But UG is not dead, he is still breathing; it's an extremely delicate situation. Susan uses insect repellent spray to get the ants off UG.
Even before this death watch had begun, Louis says in his book that one night, he saw ‘tiny ants streaming into the room, up the couch, along the floorboards’, and he had killed some of them. UG had scolded him saying that the ants had as much right to be there as others did.
Recalling a conversation he had with UG before the death watch began, Mahesh writes:
‘As silence descends, I look into his eyes and ask him, “So, what is the secret, UG?” Unlike sages who all through the history of humankind have sprouted priceless wisdom to their devotees in their parting moments, which with time became the bedrock on which lofty religious institutions and religious movements were built, my old man stares back at me and very simply says, “There is no secret. I'm just waiting to say goodbye to you.”
‘“This is not how a sage dies UG,” I say.
‘“This is the way to die,” he says looking into my eyes. The message is loud and clear.
‘Is this the last scene? Have I come here to Italy, the epicenter of Christian thought, which has propagated the idea of resurrection that has been the balm of mankind and the fuel of all storytelling for centuries, to see that idea die? Is this the dance of Shiva?’
•:•
In the afternoon of the same day – 22 March 2007, at 2:33 p.m., all three friends feel that UG will not go while they are still in the room. They decide to go out for a while, and give UG a chance to slip away when no one is watching. They go out, wander the quiet streets of Vallecrosia, and then step into a coffee bar to have a cappuccino. But they cannot relax and enjoy the coffee, for they find it impossible to stay away from UG. They rush back, and find UG at rest, not breathing.
UG passed away quietly, like a leaf turning yellow and falling off a tree. He did not leave any specific instructions on how to dispose of his dead body. It did not matter to him how his body was disposed. ‘You can throw it on the garbage heap, as far as I am concerned,’ he would often say. Responding to questions on death, he had said, ‘Life and death cannot be separated. When what you call clinical death takes place, the body breaks itself down into its constituent elements and that provides the basis for the continuity of life. In that sense the body is immortal.’
It may come as a surprise to many – even shock some of his admirers and friends who have not heard of this situation before – to know that, since there was a long queue for the crematorium, UG's body lay in the mortuary for a week before it was cremated. There wasn't much anyone could have done in such a situation, except perhaps pulling some political or bureaucratic strings to get the body cremated immediately, but that would have been unfair to the families who had been waiting their turn for the cremation of a loved one. There's no doubt UG would have appreciated this matter-of-fact approach to deal with his body. When there is no death to the body, how does it matter when and how the body is disposed?
After the cremation, Lucia, in whose house he had breathed his last, went into the Mediterranean Sea in a sailboat, and immersed UG's ashes. There were no prayers, no rituals or funeral rites.
Here was a Buddha who refused to be God, whose mere nod would have brought thousands of his friends and admirers from all over the world to his deathbed. And, who knows, once he stopped talking and slipped into a deep sleep, in their overenthusiasm and devotion to him, these very same admirers may have set up a memorial or an organization to preserve his remains and ‘teachings’ for posterity.
Evidently, he didn't want any of it. That could be the reason why he went out of India to die, and let a tough, hard-nosed man like Mahesh Bhatt deal with the disposal of his body.
Today, however, the manner of his dying and the cremation of his body have become something like a moving multi-layered story that will haunt many for years to come. There is a lesson to be learnt here, but that would depend upon what each one of us can take from it.
Years ago, UG said:
‘When you come into this state, it means you have touched life for the first time and at a point where nobody else has touched before. All those who are behind you must be brushed aside like dust. You can't stop that, nobody can stop that from happening. And if you are stupid enough, you can create another foundation, another structure, but that is bound to be destroyed. So you cannot preserve this because there is nothing to preserve. If you do you'll be only dealing with a corpse, not a living thing. So the Buddha, Jesus, the whole lot can go down the drain. There may be a few now, like Ramana. But who are we? We will be wiped out by you when you touch life at a point never touched before. That is a fact. This is freedom.
‘If the continuity is not there, you are affecting the whole field of consciousness. The limitations, the frontiers are all gone inside. You are one. Whatever is happening there is happening in the whole of human consciousness. You don't have to do a thing. You don't have to start a foundation or a society. It is not for you to preserve the teaching for posterity.’
•:•
UG's birth and death anniversaries are celebrated each year at Chandrasekhar Babu's house in Bangalore. On those days, friends of UG gather there, chat about this and that, recall some event from UG's days in Bangalore, watch a video or two, partake of a good meal and return to their lives.
Years ago, one day, while sitting in a coffee shop, Mahesh had asked UG, ‘Is there nothing that you want from me?’ UG had said, ‘Only one thing. After I am dead and gone, there should be no trace of me inside of you and outside of you. I can certainly do a lot to see that no establishment or institution of any kind mushrooms around me whilst I am alive. But how can I stop all you guys from enshrining me in your brains?’
UG had spoken to this effect with others as well, on several occasions. As a result, to date, there is no organization and no foundation in his name. Even the published works of the conversations he had with friends carry no copyright. He has said in unequivocal terms:
‘I have no teaching. There is nothing to preserve. Teaching implies something that can be used to bring about change. There is no teaching here, just disjointed, disconnected sentences. What is there is only your interpretation, nothing else. For this reason, there is not now, nor will there ever be, any kind of copyright for whatever I am saying. I have no claims..’
There are no UG followers. You may ask any UG friend or admirer, and he is most likely to laugh at your question and reply, ‘It's impossible. No one can lay claim to be a follower of UG. It's simply impossible. To follow him is like following the wind, like going in search of the horizon!’
So, during one of these anniversary affairs, Chandrasekhar Babu was asked, ‘What do you mean by these celebrations? How can you do this when you know UG never would have approved of such a thing?’ Chandrasekhar Babu laughed, and gave no answer. The next day, he emailed his friends the following old Chinese story of unknown origin:
‘A monk in China was observing the birthday of his guru with great celebration. People asked him whose birthday he was celebrating, as he always said that he had no guru and that there was no need for a guru. Then what was all this about? He begged them not to question him, but they kept on insisting. “Today is the day of the guru – have you a guru?”
‘The monk said, “Don't put me in difficulty. It is good that I keep quiet.”
‘But the more he kept quiet the more the people insisted, “What is the matter? What is it that you are celebrating? This is the Master's Day celebration. Do you have a master?”
‘The monk said, “If you go on insisting then I have to say something about it. Today I remember the man who refused to be my guru, because if he had accepted me as a disciple I would have gone astray. When he refused me I was very angry with him, but today I want to bow down to him in great gratitude. Had he wished he could have been my guru, because it was I who begged him to accept me, but he did not agree.”
‘So the people asked, “Then what do you thank him for when he refused you?”
‘The monk said, “It is enough to say that by not becoming my guru this man did for me what no guru could do. If he had been my guru there would have been some give and take on both sides. I would have touched his feet, offered my veneration and respects, and the matter would have been concluded. But this man did not ask for respect and he did not become my guru. Therefore my obligation to him is double. This has been absolutely one-sided: he gave and I could not even thank him, because he left no place even for that.”’
Mukunda Rao
10 January 2012
Bangalore
