About U. G.
Matrusri, Vol. 12, No. 3, May 1977
By K. Ramachandra Reddy
Dear friend,
I have recently seen, of course with the physical eyes, a spiritual personality rather a tower – taller than innumerable of the kind. Fixed to the ground as we are, our means of measuring limited, we have no way of better description being except to translate what is spoken by him into imagery, language and ideas for easy grasping.
His name is U. G. Having lost his mother soon after his advent, he was brought up by his maternal grandfather, an advocate, and deeply religious-minded man. U. G.'s stay in his grandfather's house helped him to come into contact with several spiritual luminaries that used to visit the house and he was familiar with the basic information in all the Hindu religious texts before he was seven. His grandfather was also associated with the Theosophical Society and he extensively read from the theosophical library of his grandfather. As a student, he was not persevering in studies. Driven by an intense desire to know, he moved from one spiritual master to another, but dissatisfied with all of them he finally gave up seeking.
He spent about three years in Swami Sivananda's Asram without any progress, and on the advise of a friend he visited Ramanasram with the hope that Maharashi would show him the Light. His dialogue with Maharashi:
U. G.: Can you give what you have?
Ramana: I can give it to you, but can you take it?
U. G.: Are there any stages or degrees of unfolding freedom?
Ramana: Man cannot be sometimes slave and sometimes free. Either he is totally and forever free or he is not free at all.
Having spent about seven years with J. Krishna Murthy, he, one day exploded.
U. G.: It is like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that is not there.
Hitting hard with his fist on the head of U. G., J. K. said: ‘I tell you, Sir, it is there’.
Two years after, when he was 35, while listening to a talk of J. K., U. G. entered into the state taught by J. K. i. e. ‘Silence of Mind’. He had also other experiences which he now says were of no value.
Along with his unending spiritual seeking, flowed another stream, along the line, his material life. With the death of his grandfather, he inherited a fortune, married, begot four children, went to America for treatment to one of his children afflicted with polio, having run out of his inheritance, sent away family, moved to London from America. Penniless he wandered in the streets of London ‘like a dry leaf in the wind’. He says it was not the dark night of the soul. It was a ‘simple withering away of the will’. He took refuge in the Ramakrishna Mission in London. He went to Switzerland with the hope that his friend in the Indian vice-consul there would help him to go back to India. Generosity of a Swiss woman, named Valentine took him to Saanen village in Switzerland, where he earlier lived with his family for some time. He settled there.
It was here, around his 49th birthday that he had ‘liberation’. It fell on him ‘like a ton of bricks’. What happened afterwards is a metamorphosis in sensory functioning. He called it physiological mutation. He says there is nothing spiritual about it.
What is this State? How does he behave?
He is like a moving camera which takes pictures of any object that falls on its lense without choosing. He has no likings and disliking. Has he no feelings? No opinions? Not in the sense as we know them. Individuality as we know it does not exist in U. G. When there is no entity there is no base for any feelings or opinions. But, how does he answer our questions? He says that he does not answer. The question itself contains answers and that the answer belongs to the questioner. Not to him (U. G.). It is like a computer. The computer is fed with information. It gives answers to the questions from the information with which it is fed. When we put a question to U. G. answers come from the information his memory has collected, which he calls background. When there is a demand from ‘outside’ (actually there is no ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ says he) he answers and when there is no demand he will be in a ‘declutched state’.
Does he teach anything? He has no teaching except describing his state, ‘the natural state’. He discourages people coming to him saying that they have nothing to gain from such visits. It is not the thing that one can give and another can take.
Can one follow the ‘path’ tread by him and reach where he is? Is there any fixed course of Saadhana? He categorically states that through Saadhana one cannot attain the State. There is no attaining the State. Everyone is in that State. By Saadhana, one is moving away from the natural State. So, Saadhana is not a means, it is an obstacle. But, did he not do Saadhana, the spiritual practices? Did he not seek the knowledge from the great masters? Is not what he has ‘attained’ a result, a culmination of all his efforts? He says No. He claims that as long as he did make efforts he did not get it, that it was only when he stopped effort he fell into the State. He got it not because of himself, but in spite of himself. Conclusion: Saadhana does not take you to the goal, it takes you away from it. Stop effort. He is so forthright. He does not mince. ‘All search is futile. Is there anything you can do? You have no choice in that matter.… You are part of that … you see. That is the consciousness.’ Then how does one approach this State? By surrender. What is surrender? Surrender is giving up all effort, feeling totally helpless. Is there someone, some entity which surrenders and someone to whom one surrenders? No. It is only the effort coming to a stop.
But one can get experiences by following the course fixed by spiritual guides. ‘Whatever experience one wants one can experience. If one does not know there is always somebody to help him. But whatever one experiences is worthless. Because It is not a thing which can be experienced. Enlightenment, if there is any such thing as enlightenment, is not an experience. There is nothing like self-realisation. You realise for yourself and by yourself that there is no self to realise and that is a shattering blow … to whom? to the one who is pursuing. It is the absence of imagination, the absence of will, the absence of effort, the absence of movement in any direction, at any level, in any dimension that is the thing. That is a thing which cannot be experienced at all.’
This has no social content. It cannot be used to change the world, create a New Man, a New World – all that is balderdash.
Does he mean that all the teachings of great masters like Buddha and Ramana are meaningless?
He says that he does not need any authority, Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads are somebody else's statement. He describes how he functions. ‘THIS HAS NO RELIGIOUS CONTENT – NO MYSTICAL OVERTONES AT ALL. It is pure and simple physiological function of the organism – nothing else.’
Has he got any spiritual powers? He says that he does not know either the thoughts of others or the coming events always. But sometimes they occur to him. That is only 50 : 50. He does not give any value to them. If one asks a question on a subject he never knew, he says I don't know.
What does he say about Moksha?
Search for Moksha is the Dukha (sorrow) of all Dukhas. The searcher is not really interested in Moksha – Reason – Moksha means liquidating oneself. How can anyone be interested in liquidating himself? All one wants is to know, to experience which means continuous existence but not ceasing to exist. (He says that everyone will have liberation 48 minutes before death).
The other thing he says:
As one cannot experience one's birth and death, one does not have either birth or death. Clarifying further he says that we can experience birth and death of another person but not our own, so we have neither birth nor death.
He does not recognise any individual entity and a residue after the physical shape dissolves and as such the question of rebirth does not arise.
‘There is suffering because you want to be something other than what you are. You just don't have the courage to be yourself. That means you have to be all alone. The whole lot goes. Finished. All alone. In this world. One without a second.’
Meaning of life and purpose of life: ‘So many answers were given by the saviours, sages and saints. You have thousands of them in India. And yet today you are still asking the same question, has life any purpose or meaning… You are not really interested because it is a frightening thing. It's a very frightening thing!’
U. G.: Is there anything such as truth?
Questioner: There are so many truths.
U. G.: They are all lies. Fops and fakes and cheats in the world!…that he has searched for truth and told the truth. You assume that there is such a thing as reality, ultimate or otherwise. It is that assumption that is creating the problem.
‘You are trying to capture something which cannot be captured in terms of your experiencing structure. So this experiencing structure must not be there in order that the other thing may come in. What that is you will never know. You will never know the truth! The truth of the matter is it's a MOVEMENT. You cannot capture it. You cannot contain it! You cannot express it.’
