How I Met UG
I have always thought a photograph reveals the photographer more than it does the subject. In that sense, the following writing is rather autobiographical.
My association will with UG, which started in 1981, has been long. He visited my family and me at least once every year since then, till the beginning of 2006, after which time he stopped visiting the US. These essays not only tell about my acquaintance and association with UG, but also about how he affected me personally in my thought and in my life in general. It's hard to pinpoint and say definitely this is where UG's influence stops and my own thinking and life start.
The other influences in my life have been Gora, the follower of Gandhi, Chalam, the famous Telugu writer and J. Krishnamurti. Yet, there has been a certain ongoing enquiry in my mind ever since I was conscious, namely, “Who am I?” You can say it is that which gave me a core identity and drove my thinking. It is what made me interested in all these people in the first place. After all is said and done, if there is anything called the “I” remaining, it is that which makes me question everything and everyone I have been exposed to, including UG. In my investigations in these essays, I combine my skepticism with the critical and analytical skills I have acquired in my study of philosophy.
UG never minded my critical remarks in my essays on him. Once, after reading my Introduction to the book, No Way Out, he asked if I was rethinking my (critical) comments on him. I answered, “No, I am not taking any of it back.” Then I was relieved to hear him say, “That's the only way to write.” He did not want people to merely repeat what he said: “What hasn't helped you can't help others.” These essays, although they tell of my acquaintance and relationship with UG, do not merely rehash what UG says, nor or they merely an interpretation of UG's teachings. Even when I am open to someone's ideas, I always question and test them and add my own investigations to them. It is in that spirit that I hope the reader will look at the following essays.
When I was visiting UG in Corte Madera, California, in the beginning of 1995, I mentioned to him that it was possible to put up one of his books on the Internet. Mario Viggiano and Julie Thayer, friends of UG, were also present on the occasion. Mario immediately jumped on the idea and said, “Let's do it!” Thus the UG website was set up and UG's Mind is a Myth was put up. UG, who had by then read my article “Science and Spirituality,” insisted that it also be put up. Later, I had seen him handing a copy of this article to a visitor or two.
This collection consists of four articles about how I met UG and an account of some of my meetings with him. I have deliberately avoided giving biographical details about UG as they have been frequently mentioned in books like The Mystique of Enlightenment, Mind is a Myth, UG Krishnamurti, A Life by Mahesh Bhatt and The Other Side of Belief by Mukunda Rao. It also comprises a set of articles about UG's teachings as well as his teaching process. Although the essays except my memoirs might require careful reading, they should be fairly accessible to the general reader.
My aim here is to approach some issues without presupposing any religious or spiritual beliefs, taking a commonsense point of view and remaining always within the limits of the known. The essays should also demonstrate how I have translated, as best I can, what I have understood or learned from UG in my own life. Standing on such a ground of experience I have tried to chip away, as it were, bit by bit at some of the concepts in understanding oneself (despite UG's rejection of the very idea of understanding oneself). Of course, you can never know the unknown. But what has been considered mythical or mysterious before could, at least to a minor degree, be unraveled. In my opinion, that was indeed what UG was trying to achieve as well, as the title of the book The Mystique of Enlightenment indicates.
You may find it difficult to draw a clear line between what UG said and my own analysis and investigation. That's in the nature of things. I never separated myself from UG. Just like in life, I consider my work as an extension of his teachings. My central concern when I discuss moral issues is always to find out how I can relate to these subjects and what difference they would make in my life or my reader's life.
You will find some repetition of ideas in a few essays. Unfortunately, the nature of the subject matter is such that different topics require inclusion of the same ideas to discuss the various facets of a problem and make the discussion complete. Repetition is also used sometimes to reinforce an idea.
Narayana Moorty
Seaside, California
First Introduction: The first time I heard about UG was from Terry Agnew (later Terry Newland). I met Terry in Berkeley in around 1969 when I was living there. I saw an announcement in the UC Berkeley campus newspaper that there was going to be a J. Krishnamurti discussion group meeting in the Student Union Building on campus. I went there mainly out of curiosity (and perhaps also out of a need to belong to a Krishnamurti group). Terry was conducting what seemed like an organizational meeting. After the meeting we became friends.
It must have been some months later in the same year, Terry had taken a fancy to me and invited me to Sonoma State University for a talk in a philosophy professor's class. He also asked me to talk to a student group. Then I visited an elementary school where Terry was teaching at the time. He asked me to speak to the kids there and then showed me his yoga class. Before that time he had a falling out with the Krishnamurti people, particularly in Switzerland: Terry was kicked out of the Krishnamurti circles. Earlier, he had been specially invited to go to Switzerland to meet and spend time with Krishnamurti. At the same time, he was also listening to UG.
Later, Terry invited three of my friends and me to spend the night in his place in Sebastopol on our way to Carson City where we were also going to visit a friend who was teaching at the Indian Reservation school. Early in the morning, I got to watch Terry do yoga. He looked like the picture of health – sounds of breath coming out of his nostrils like steam from pipes and perfectly precise and graceful asanas, all done seemingly effortlessly with a robust and statuesque body.
That morning Terry gave us a breakfast of Mueslix cereal. He also showed me a picture of UG and described him as an enlightened man. As I mentioned above, Terry had heard him speak in Switzerland. He told me later how UG had taken him out for a coffee and talked to him about himself.
UG had invited him, Terry said, to spend three months in Bangalore, India with him and write his biography. Terry described how UG's physical features had changed because of the transformation he had undergone: ashes falling out of his forehead, arms turning backward, glands swelling, eyes not blinking, and so on. Till his final days, on special occasions, especially on full moon days, UG would show the swollen glands to those around him.
Terry was obviously quite touched by the attention UG showered on him. Apparently, UG would get up early in the morning before Terry and fix hot water for his bath. I know that treatment, there were times when I slept in UG's living rooms. He would come early in the morning at 6 or 7, stand by my side and say in a soft and gentle voice, “It's 7 o'clock, you want to get up now?” The biography he was supposed to write, for which purpose he took a typewriter with him, never came to pass.
Second Introduction: The next occasion I heard about UG was when I was in Hawaii with Terry around 1971. My then-partner Linda and I had just gotten married and gone on a trip to Hawaii in response to an invitation from Terry to spend a month with him and learn yoga. Soon after we arrived at his cabin in Molokai, there was an accident. While Terry was lighting a stove to make dinner for us, the lighter fluid caught fire, the fire quickly spread through the whole cabin, and the cabin was burnt down to ashes. We escaped with a few belongings but lost our air tickets in the fire. We spent the night at Terry's friends' house and the next day moved to another friend's rather large house miles away. There, Linda and I stayed for a week and learned some yoga from Terry anyway. We went to the main island of Oahu after that, got replacement tickets and headed back to the mainland.
A day or two after the cabin had burned down, I went with Linda and Terry to a lady friend's place. It was a lone house amid fields and pineapple plantations. There Terry played a tape of UG speaking. Again, I had no reaction. I remember UG's voice on the tape being somewhat screechy.
Third Introduction: I went to India with Linda and our daughter Shyamala in the summer of 1975. We spent a few days in Madras and then went to Tiruvannamalai, visiting my old friend Chalam, the famous Telugu writer. Just as I entered Chalam's front yard, across the street from the Ramanashram, and was approaching the house, I heard an audio cassette of UG being played. I distinctly remember him saying on the tape something about the space between two thoughts. At that time, I was suffering from a bout of the flu. I went upstairs after a few minutes, as the tape didn't make much of an impression on me. Some kind of Vedanta, I thought. I also noticed for the first time a picture of UG on a wall in Chalam's house. Sowris, Chalam's daughter, who was a mystic, told me that UG was her distant cousin. I later learned from Chandrasekhar that a few years before this visit he had told Chalam and his family about UG and showed them a picture of him. Sowris had recognized him as the person to whom she could have been married when she was young except that UG wasn't interested. Chalam and his family subsequently met UG through Chandrasekhar.
Chalam, Sowris and her “gang” used to visit UG in Bangalore. Apparently, after the initial visits, UG, in his usual fashion, started tightening the screws on Sowris, bluntly telling her that if she wanted to see him, she should come without her entourage. He also forbade her to sing in his presence as singing was one of her “hang-ups.” Later, when Chalam was confined to a wheelchair, UG said, “Why should that old man come here all the way? I will go and visit him myself,” and he did make a trip to Tirvannamalai.
My First Meeting with UG: Then, some years later, sometime in 1981, I got a letter from Nartaki, the woman who lived with Chalam's family for much of her life. Having been widowed, she took shelter at Chalam's place and became part of the family. She wrote that UG was coming to the US and suggested that I should go and visit him. She gave me a phone number to call. I, of course, promptly ignored her suggestion.
At about the same time (I think it was around September 1981), Terry called from Mill Valley saying that UG was in town. UG was asking, “Where is this Dr. Narayana Moorty?” Apparently, Nartaki had given UG my phone number and address, both of which he had promptly lost. He could, however, remember my name. Nartaki later told me that she had said to him, “You go and see everyone everywhere. Why don't you go see this man when you go to the US?” Terry asked me if I would like to come and visit UG in Mill Valley. I replied that I was too old to go see “teachers” (I was already burned out on J. Krishnamurti), and that if he was passing through Seaside he would be welcome. So, I didn't go then.
About a month or so later, one morning I got a call from Ramesh Ganerwala, an engineer who worked for the California Energy Commission. He was driving UG and Valentine from San Luis Obispo after visiting James Brodsky or some other person. He said that he was with UG and Valentine nearby in Carmel and that UG wanted to know if they could come and visit. I said they would be most welcome and that they could have lunch at my place as well.
I had a large quantity of upma made for my in-laws who had just visited me that morning. After breakfast, they had all gone out with my present wife, Wendy. I was home alone. The time was around noon. Ramesh drove UG and Valentine in his small old beat up BMW. I watched through the living room window as UG got out of the car and walked on the pavement toward my house. With his arms hanging loose, he had the gait of a zombie. His face was devoid of expression and he looked like a man on death row. Later, in spite of my denials, UG interpreted this as my saying that I saw “Death” walking in!
Valentine and Ramesh, as well as UG, all came in. I greeted them, led them into the kitchen and seated them at the kitchen table. UG sat next to the wall in the kitchen and I sat across the table from him. I served lunch to everyone. UG was praising my upma to Ramesh saying that it was the “authentic stuff.” UG started talking mostly about himself. During the conversation he and I exchanged notes about our backgrounds – he coming from Gudivada and I from Vijayawada, both towns in Andhra Pradesh, just twenty miles apart, and about the people we had known in common. He went to Madras (now Chennai) University for his honors studies and had as his professor T.M.P. Mahadevan who was also my MLitt thesis supervisor. Apparently he dropped out of his Philosophy Honors class, not having taken the final examinations. We both knew my Sanskrit lecturer at S.R.R. & C.V.R. College, Vijayawada, and a few others. Also, my old friend in Vijayawada, Gora, was his botany lecturer in college in Masulipatam.
During the conversation, UG joked about Satya Sai Baba, saying how earlier he used to materialize Swiss watches, but now was only materializing Hindustani watches after Indira Gandhi had imposed import restrictions on Swiss watches. They stayed for about two hours. As they were leaving, I tried to put my arm around UG's shoulder as a gesture of affection, but he quickly moved away. I realized that he was not open to such physical contact. I was also aware how in Indian culture, touch is a sensitive issue. In the living room, as he was leaving, I shook his hand to say goodbye, addressing him as “Mr. Krishnamurti.” He said that I could just as well call him “Number 69,” like a jail convict, and that people just called him “UG.”
It was a pleasant experience meeting UG. I had the strange feeling, as we were standing at the kitchen door and holding each other's hands, that he was similar to me in so many ways that I was meeting myself. The feeling was one of closeness. I was already bonded with UG! As he left, he invited me to visit him in Mill Valley. I thought that it was merely a formal invitation. I said, “Yes, thank you,” and didn't take the invitation seriously.
First Visit to UG: I think UG visited me a second time, when Elena, a young Russian woman, was also present. She had been staying with us for about a month. She was recently separated from her husband and apparently they had both met UG once before in India. It must have been about a month or so after his first visit. I can't remember much about this visit except that this time he invited both Elena and me to visit him in Mill Valley. Again, I didn't respond except to say, “Okay, thank you.” But the night before Thanksgiving that year, I got a phone call from Ramesh saying that UG would like to see me, asking if I could come. Earlier, I had built all kinds of excuses in my mind not to go to see UG: that the invitation was just a formality and he probably wasn't very serious about it, that I didn't like driving long distances, that my old AMC Rambler wouldn't make it that far, and that I didn't like traveling, to mention a few. But all those excuses had evaporated now, as the invitation this time was so specific and personal that I couldn't as well turn it down. Also, Kodvatiganti Subba Rao, an engineer from Berkeley who worked for FEMA, was visiting us for Thanksgiving. He was leaving on Thanksgiving Day and was willing to give Elena and me a ride. So, we all three drove up to Mill Valley.
We arrived at UG's house in Mill Valley around 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Subba Rao and UG quickly got into an argument on the subject of the Bhagavad Gita. The argument got nowhere and Subba Rao left after about an hour. Julie Wellings, whom I had met in 1975 in Tiruvannamalai when she was living in Chalam's household and learning Telugu from Sowris, being her companion, was also visiting UG. She brought her own beer that night and drank it, to my surprise. I thought one didn't drink or smoke in front of “holy men.”
UG gave me a room upstairs with a big soft bed and some sheets. Not much else. I couldn't sleep well. I was there a couple of nights. The next day in the kitchen, UG asked me if I could “look into” the cooking which Kim, a friend from New York, was doing. I put a few spices like cumin and anything suitable I could find on the shelf in the food.
On the second day there, Ramesh visited. UG went on talking hours on end about his past life, his wife and family, and so on. Then a young man walked in. He sat at the table and they talked about Zen. UG challenged the man, holding a cup in his hand. “Tell me what this is. Do you really see this? What do you really see here?” And he kept on pounding him with such questions. Soon, he enlisted my help. I remember saying, “There is something funny about Zen. How can anyone certify that someone had a satori or enlightenment and to what degree?” UG appeared to agree with me.
It was during this visit that Terry brought mimeographed copies of conversations with UG, later to become part of The Mystique of Enlightenment, and distributed them to people around. He collected five dollars per copy for the cost of mimeographing. I got myself a copy.
This was when Elena met Krim, a young American of Russian origin, who had known UG in Switzerland for a number of years. I remember going out for a short walk with them. Apparently, UG cautioned Krim as we were leaving, “Make it short – kurz promenade.” That was the beginning of a disastrous relationship between Krim and Elena which ended several years later. UG repeatedly mentioned how he had warned him. I wonder if he foresaw the outcome of that relationship.
That afternoon, an elderly man and a young couple, all Americans, came to visit UG. I was told that they were friends of Alan Watts. UG received them cordially and soon got involved in a discussion with them. At one stage, I interjected, saying something trying to help the discussion, and UG immediately interrupted me saying, “I want to stop him right there.” I got the message and kept quiet.
When I arrived, I had noticed that Valentine was coughing. Trying to help her, I gave her a dose of homeopathic pills of Tuberculinum 200. Later, I heard from UG that in India she had had an attack of TB. I regretted giving her the pills, as I worried that they might have brought about or worsened the attack. But apparently, all was well after that, as I saw her later in Mill Valley, hale and healthy.
I was ready to leave after two days of staying with UG. Kim was driving Ramesh's BMW for UG in those days. On the third day, sometime in the afternoon, Kim was ready to drive me to the bus depot in San Francisco. I was going to take a local bus to go there, but UG would have none of that. I remember hugging Ramesh and Terry and whoever before I left. UG decided to drive with us to the bus depot. I felt honored. At the bus depot he got out of the car to bid me farewell. I felt so special that he came to see me off there. I bought myself a ticket, got on the bus, and returned to Monterey.
JSRL Narayana Moorty, Being Yourself, 2014
