Back to Square One


Conversations with Sabyasachi Guha


C o n t e n t s



E d i t o r s'  N o t e


Back to Square One evolved from Ansonia Chatter, which was published in a very limited edition in Switzerland in 2012. The revised Ansonia Chatter material has been included in this book as well as some new unpublished talks.


The name Ansonia Chatter was derived from the iconic building in New York City where many of these conversations took place as well as from the unsettling security implications of “chatter” ... an intelligence term referring to the volume of intercepted communications to or from suspected parties such as terrorists or spies, to determine whether there is cause for alarm! In our usage, what sounds innocent to outsiders, insiders will recognize as dangerous to the status quo; concepts and ideas are ready targets.


A new and appropriate title for this book remained elusive for many months even after prolonged and extensive brainstorming. Although we came up with many outstanding names, including The Functional Reality, Flabbergasted, Reality–Fuhgeddaboudit, Dangerous to the Status Quo and ‘I’ Destroys the Rhythm of Life, none of them made the final cut and we ended up back to square one ... hence, Back to Square One!


“Your mind expects an outcome, and if that is not forthcoming and you are forced to give up hope, you immediately go back to square one, the original belief structure. Without that, you as you know yourself will face a terrifying obliteration.” When a friend rejoined, “I wish we could go back to square one before man had thoughts,” Guha shot back, “We have to go back to square one in the brain we have today, not in the brain before thought, as if indeed there were any such thing, any sharp boundary!”


Reluctant to abandon those other titles, we preserved them in the front cover's “word cloud”.


We extend our thanks and appreciation to all the friends who participated in the talks and helped in the publication of

this book.


Julie Thayer

Nandini Kapadia

Ellen J. Chrystal


I n t r o d u c t i o n


Back to Square One is comprised of conversations between Dr. Sabyasachi Guha and friends in the United States, Switzerland and India from 2012 to 2014. It also incorporates material originally published in Ansonia Chatter (2012), as well as Guha's first person narrative about the deep implications of his interactions with U.G. Krishnamurti, with whom he was closely associated for over a decade.


A retired physicist, Guha exudes immense energy and is full of lively humor while discussing any topic, profound or mundane. He systematically exposes his friends and visitors to his core philosophical concepts of functional reality, natural order, rhythm of life, proprioception of thought and biochemistry of enlightenment while demystifying age-old notions about truth and reality. He encourages his friends to recognize the limits of understanding so that internal conflicts can be reduced, allowing for the possibility of withstanding social pressures and functioning harmoniously in the social context.


For Guha, all conflicts were resolved once the “natural order” was restored in his system and external authority abolished; he now functions like a “civilized biped animal”. Guha emphasizes that the physical system, with its tremendous inherent intelligence, when left to its own devices without the control or imposition of thought, can fall into a natural rhythm of its own. He warns of the futility of trying to establish this order through any spiritual practice, and never tires of reminding us that it can unfold only through complete trust. By trust he means that our system is equipped with everything it needs for the natural order to be established and any method or effort on our part, in fact, inhibits its emergence. This is reminiscent of a key verse from Kathopanishad which states:


Nayamatma pravacanena labhyo na medhaya na bahuna srutena.

Yamevaisa vrnute tena labhyas tasyaisa atma vivrnute tanum svam.


(This Atman cannot be attained through teaching or through intellect or reading various scriptures.

It is attained by one whom It chooses. This Atman reveals itself to him.)


While discussing the complexity of thought as a myth-making machine, Guha says the outgrowth of social justification has resulted in subtle and complex ways for the thinking structure to continue its onslaught on the physical body, causing it enormous stress and harm. While dismissing philosophical concepts or spiritual doctrines as pure fiction, he unequivocally states that information-gathering and knowledge can only go so far in helping us to function sanely and intelligently in the world, nothing more. A lifelong practitioner of hatha yoga and meditation, Guha met U.G. Krishnamurti in 1995 after struggling in vain for many years to discover his role or purpose in the “grand scheme of things”. From the very first day, his relationship with U.G. was exceptionally intense, pivotal and life changing. Guha believes their close proximity brought about irreversible bodily changes and snapped the stranglehold of deep-rooted concepts and beliefs, freeing him from conflict and bringing an end to seeking once and for all. These biochemical changes made him realize that if there is anything to enlightenment, moksha, nirvana or whatever you want to call it, it is completely physiological.


For the past year, I have had the inestimable benefit of close association with Guha and I can clearly perceive that his words reflect, in the most natural way, only what he has directly experienced. I must also confess that while editing these talks, at times I was deeply shaken by the intensity with which Guha's words impacted me. In fact, while trying to digest what he was conveying, many a time my mind seemed to come to a standstill and I felt a strange sense of unburdening and boundless expansiveness. Although Guha repeatedly warns that he has nothing to offer, being with him I get the inner strength and courage to explore my own notions about truth and reality, discard all crutches imposed by society and stand on my own two feet. In Guha I have found a true friend who addresses my core well-being.


Nandini Kapadia

Pennington, New Jersey

March 2015



Each one of us is a unique creation of nature and an incomparable movement. A great intelligence is continuously working to maintain this living movement and its equilibrium with the external world. If somehow, a “complete trust”—in Bengali we call it paripurno astha—develops in us, then the naturally induced order, preprogrammed at birth, will begin to unfold. Life then falls into its natural rhythm and the system begins to function in a very different way.

Q: There is a problem, the sense of separation created by the mind.


GUHA: What would it take to bring that separation into a rhythmic movement?


Q: What do you mean by “rhythmic movement”?

GUHA: I mean the natural, continuous rhythm of the body. The constant demand of thought destroys the body's natural rhythm and harmony. When the body is not hungry, it doesn't care about food, but you go on thinking about food all the time. The problem is created because the mind necessitates things the body doesn't need or want.


Q: But the fact remains that we can't seem to do a thing about it.

GUHA: You don't believe that one hundred percent.

Q: That is true, but it is surely more than a belief?

GUHA: What do you mean by “belief”? Your body has certain beliefs; when the first step is taken the body knows that the second step is necessary for it to move.

Q: I would say it's more an intrinsic knowing or intelligence, not just a belief.

GUHA: What prevents your thought from having this same intrinsic order?

Q: I think it's the separation, which the mind produces—the thoughts—it is constantly objectifying.

GUHA: What purpose would there be for a species to evolve that is out of balance with its natural rhythm? The thinking capacity gives us an edge for survival. Thought is ultimately a kind of reflection that occurs in the human brain by which it can retrieve information in the absence of the stimulus and response of life. In this parallel world of thought you can recollect any incident from your memory and that becomes almost real for you. With this capacity, you can also use thought to reflect on or analyze your experiences. For instance, if you fall down and hit your knee on a stone the thought comes, “I got hurt because that stone hit my knee.” From there you project, “I can use that stone to hit somebody; I need to protect myself.” You can retrieve the memory that shows you the causality between the stone, the wound and how to use that as a weapon.


Q: But that is not really the problem.

GUHA: No, I am talking about the inception of the problem—the adaptive capacity acquired by this biped animal.


Q: Well, isn't it a mental movement? For instance, animals don't have the concept of “enlightenment”.

GUHA: How do you know that the perception animals have is very different from ours?

Q: The difference is they don't have a sense of being individual, independent entities like we do.

GUHA: They do have the same sense of being independent entities with a survival mechanism like ours to protect themselves.


Q: But that is just an instinct, it's not a thought process.

GUHA: What is not an instinct in our brain? Our recognition is programmed—98.9% of the mechanism that you need to survive is functioning independently. Our immune system is a perfect example. It fights off harmful bacteria and increases healthy bacteria in the body. And take vision—the light is deciphered through the retina and various segments of the brain in a systematic way to generate a completely seamless, depth-induced universe and present spontaneously what we see in front of us. If you don't perceive colors, variations in shape and movement, your body is in danger. We don't even know how the body is doing this. Science, with its tremendous achievements and discoveries still does not know how life continues to unfold.

Q: Maybe we will never know.

GUHA: That is a belief that many people seem to have. But it is possible to know.

Q: We can only know through the mind, and the mind is totally conditioned and limited. This is an infinite movement.

GUHA: Maybe one day we will know what makes this process possible. A hundred years ago there were many things we didn't know that we do today. We know so much more about nature and it's functioning—about the brain, about how the body is trying to fight against bacteria and with that knowledge we are trying to improve our physical health. So, it is possible to know, but that information is not going to be of any use to bring about harmony inside you. That is the main problem. The problem is not the gathering of information. We now know indirectly about the existence of neutrinos, whereas earlier it was thought to be impossible for the human brain to understand such a thing.


Q: But we have also realized that the more scientists know, the more they don't know. It's as if the universe keeps receding …

GUHA: That doesn't stop us from acquiring knowledge, but that is not the problem. The problem is what that information does to an individual. The problem that you think there is a problem destroys the harmony. The information that if I smoke cigarettes I will have a greater chance of cancer has no value unless I decide to change that thought into action.


Q: Many people smoke their whole lives and never get cancer.

GUHA: It is a question of chance, a matter of probability.


Q: There is a collective suggestion.

GUHA: That is social dynamics—altogether a different matter, but here I am just giving you an example. Suppose you are convinced that there is something in your life that is destroying the body's natural rhythm. My question is, what is it that impedes the rhythm?


Q: I question that too. That seems to be the crux of the problem.

GUHA: The social dynamics creates a structure that wants to use human beings as guinea pigs.


Q: Society is totally screwed.

GUHA: These are the dynamics, but what is your position within that? You can say, I have no problem; I am just a part of life; if they give me poison, I will drink it and die. You don't say that because there is a problem, you do feel there is a violation, an imposition of ideas that is not important to your functioning.


Q: That is true, but what can we do about it?

GUHA: That is the thing! To pursue any ideology is like waging a collective war. To fulfill my idea, I have to convince myself first and then convince others. That's the only way an idea can perpetuate itself.


Q: It seems impossible to do anything about it. The urge to find out seems to push through and keeps it going. You cannot just say okay, finished; I will stop the search.

GUHA: That is the only honest approach. To some extent pondering over a problem gives it momentum. We have the power to reflect on the problem; if there is no reflection there is no problem. If we contaminate the environment, animals are the victims but they don't think about it. Their systems have an innate intelligence that works to bypass this imbalance. Out of this process something can emerge, which is not a belief; it is an overall confidence in the system itself.


Q: Well, it's an intrinsic intelligence.

GUHA: My focus is to enable that intrinsic intelligence to work in its own way, to reach its optimal capacity.


Q: But isn't it doing that already?

GUHA: There is a parallel world of thought and one interferes with the other.


Q: I think it's an illusion, a fantasy the mind creates.

GUHA: Do you see when it creates this fantasy?


Q: No, that's the problem.

GUHA: Even though you identify it as a fantasy, that recognition is not active.

Q: First of all, it's impossible to bring it about by that tool; secondly, nature never repeats itself.


GUHA: It is a process that can unfold in so many ways. The idea that you will be like someone and behave in a particular way is an impediment; it is an illusion, a wish fulfillment. The movement in thought creates the will and the desire and projects the future and that has to be nipped in the bud.


Q: Yes, but how to nip the movement in thought?

GUHA: The movement that produces the “how” creates that separation. This parallel movement interferes with the natural way you have evolved to function. You do acknowledge there is a way that this body can somehow handle the whole situation without the interference of thought?


Q: Well, it constantly does.

GUHA: Then where is the movement that tells you there is a problem?


Q: If I look for it, I can't find it.

GUHA: The looking has to stop.

Q: Yes, but I am still suffering, so the looking cannot stop.

GUHA: The suffering is the acceptance that there is a prime mover, someone who has a say in this.


Q: Exactly.

GUHA: There is no prime mover!

Q: I see this and yet the movement is still going on!

GUHA: The foundation of that movement is the wanting to know. When you hit a dead end in every possible direction, that movement is nipped in the bud. The discriminating power of the brain processes thought and whatever you see is an outcome of thought. A suicidal thought is a danger to the body; it does not want to produce anything like that.

Q: But there are animals that seemingly commit suicide.

GUHA: That's what you have been told, so you are projecting that knowledge on to animals. You want to see it in that particular way by using an example from nature. If you want to believe something, then you will convince yourself somehow. Justifying the way you behave is the sense of self.


Q: It is a totally hopeless situation.

GUHA: You say it is “hopeless,” but that does not have real energy behind it. You are only projecting what that hopelessness would bring and that creates all kinds of possibilities that are detached from the movement of life. Whenever we have this kind of a discussion, there is a movement that tries to slow it down by not allowing it to grow in any direction. You think that if you are hopeless, you will become a vegetable, and have suicidal thoughts but these are just projections. You can never know what the outcome will be.

You are always looking for better food, better nutrition, etc. You are looking for something that will satisfy you and give you pleasure, some thought that will make you function in a better way. Everything seems to match the information to produce a resonance that will give you a high and prevent you from going to a dead end.

There is a possibility that the system will begin to discriminate before the production and outcome of thought and will not have any justification when thought arises. There will be no punch line or sensation—if you turn your eyes away, what was there in front of you is gone. There will no longer be any conditioning. Conditioning has a ripple effect from the past, through the present, into the future. But the brain will not allow that if it begins to function in the same way the immune system does—it destroys the bad bacteria by recognizing it as an invasion and dealing with it directly from within.


Q: So you mean the brain can do the same?

GUHA: The brain is no different from the immune system. It is all a part of the whole organism that is protecting itself.

Q: Is the brain or thought responsible for solving the problems of life?

GUHA: The brain, as part of the body, is responsible for solving the problems of life, including discarding thoughts that are not necessary and create long-term disturbances. The body is only interested in optimizing energy. The perpetual nature of thought and thought-induced actions are daunting tasks for the body to handle. The body has to supply energy to sustain thought and its reactions. To maintain appropriate balance, there are intricate processes, which are multivariable optimization processes through different stages; there are activation and inhibitions mediated by negative and positive feedback at every stage. The brain can even sort out what is dangerous and what is not in an extremely efficient manner when certain glands are activated, which means they are pre-programmed to work. It is a spontaneous and programmed activity. However, the system has been over-loaded by the demands of society and culture. Out of those demands we are forced to process our vision and hearing as images and thoughts outside the space of life.

Q: It seems that the sense of separation occurs during childhood.


GUHA: It is a gradual process; it is unavoidable and every human being will have to face it. There's NO WAY OUT.

Q: Parents impart the knowledge—this is your name, you are so and so, etc. But very small children have no idea …

GUHA: …no idea that they are being bombarded by ideas which reinforce their identities. Every single child will face the same situation that you and I faced in childhood, that is a given. Nobody is free from this invasion of ideas—just as the bacteria constantly keep invading our body. Our immune system constantly fights the bacteria to protect us; otherwise we are done for.

Mysteriously, in every individual there is a force of opposition, which denies the inception of thought. It is an endless struggle. It's like a drug that gives a good sensation; as long as you get what you want the reward circuits get the upper hand but at one point in time this circuit will break down in every individual. We have been brainwashed to believe that social justification is primary to individual justification.


Q: That's how it keeps us going.

GUHA: The brainwashing process uses humanity for a particular ideation. What I am concerned with is how an individual can find the necessary tools to recognize the problem. That recognition can give us a chance for a solution.


Q: But isn't it the same intelligence that throws out all these questions?

GUHA: Sure and when it exhausts everything, it sees that this questioning mechanism leads to a dead end.

Q: But only when it is really exhausted do you see it is a dead end.

GUHA: Exactly. You give the system a chance, but without hope.


Q: Hope perpetuates it.

GUHA: Hope perpetuates the energy-draining process. There is a mechanism in action as the human body goes through different stages of life. When you are a child you don't have the chemicals necessary to produce a baby. During certain stages of life modifications occur that deal with life at that particular stage of development. There is an ongoing process that tries to minimize the stress and strain produced by the environment. Information is one of the most important ingredients of our environment; that's why this is a human problem.


Q: Animals don't have problems! Or if they do, they don't seem to worry about them.

GUHA: Our worries make us more vulnerable, produce stress, cause energy depletion and prevent the internal organs from functioning optimally. If I put my finger in the fire it will burn, but I may not be able to tell you the physics, the chemistry or the biology of it; it's a phenomenal understanding.


Q: Well, that's not really a belief anymore.

GUHA: It is a functional reality that your physical system will respond to the challenge in a given situation and will handle it optimally. That is not the same as the knowledge or information that can be used to make a good cup of coffee.

Q: It is prior to that.


GUHA: If the brain is functioning optimally, then it discriminates the inception of a thought at the cellular level and eliminates it if it is inappropriate. And most importantly, it falls outside the information gathering process.


Q: So it's on a need to know basis.

GUHA: It's on a need to know basis for this functional aspect. Society creates rules and you need to abide by the rules for your own survival and protection. If you do not obey traffic rules and laws while driving, you put yourself and others in danger; everything in life is an extension of that. The only truth that can be expressed by words and images is the functional truth that society has invented to maintain the status quo. Whatever you recollect or whatever images you construct, they are only useful for the purpose of social interaction.


Q: Would you say the so-called spiritual way or path is an extension of it?

GUHA: That recognition is a dead end sign. Then the metamorphosis can start.


Q: So, is that a spiritual fantasy?

GUHA: The identification of the dead end reduces a tremendous amount of stress by removing the false hope generated by religious and spiritual thinking, which keeps lingering and perpetuating the conflict in us at the core of our existence.


Q: How did they (religious authorities) come up with it in the first place?

GUHA: The movement of the self that wants to understand creates this kind of a signpost.

Q: But for instance, take someone like Ramana Maharshi. I don't want to elevate him but apparently something happened to him. It seems that someone like him may have seen something, which is perhaps beyond this whole structure.


GUHA: The idea of that possibility gives you hope until the day you die. You don't give a chance to the one that is most vital, most important. All your knowledge of biology will not destroy the myth that Ramana Maharshi was different from you. We imagine that there is something inside us, in some form or another, which is superior, but it is not so. That is separation—I am intelligent because I have a self, which produces thinking and retrieves information. It is just a functional system.


Q: What do you mean by “the self”?

GUHA: I mean, there is no “self”! There is a movement, which from childhood has geared us to recollect the information they taught us.


Q: And that seems to create a separate identity.

GUHA: No, that seems to create a continuity of the same movement, because it is tied in with reward and punishment. If I outsmart some guy in collecting appropriate information, I am rewarded. That reward has a drugging effect; it feels good. The sensation of being a winner creates a brain pattern through the chemical responses that produces a sensation in the body that is identified as desirable, positive or happy. The drugging effect is a phenomenon that causes the loss of discrimination of the positive and negative feedback loop. That discrimination sustains the balance that the body is always seeking; somehow that is displaced. In some experiments, biologists observed that when they gave an electrical impulse to certain areas of a rat's brain, it would forego food and choose the impulses repeatedly until it died.

Thought creates the idea of perfection. Nature does not know perfection. It has the capacity to maintain infinite forms of life and as it faces challenges, it keeps adapting to overcome them. What we see today is a result of millions of years of challenges and nature constantly adapting and problem-solving to maintain life.

When we put Ramana Maharshi, U.G. Krishnamurti or anybody into that framework of perfection, we create falseness. This image-making process has brainwashed us to believe that the intellect is superior to the intrinsic intelligence of the physical system; yet it is not any different from all the other life forms that function parallel with us. Our brain has evolved through millions of years of adaptation; it can learn any human language to interact. A monkey cannot do that, no matter how much you expose it to your language. A human baby born in a particular country will learn the language spoken in that country. If you raise your child in China, he will learn to speak fluent Chinese. We should give credit where credit is due! We have been brainwashed to believe that we have to be someone important or accomplish great feats—become a great king, god, holy mother, or whatever.


Q: And know all the answers.

GUHA: Whereas all that is completely unnecessary. Do those who work the fields and cultivate the crops need to appreciate Beethoven? The conditioning of our culture makes us believe we are Christian, Hindu, white or black. The fact is the mechanism of the physical programming is the same for all human beings.


Q: What can you tell us about advaita Vedanta, or “non-duality”?


GUHA: The human mind can neither conceive of nor function in a state of non-duality. If you try to function in a state of nonduality within this living form, you will make yourself miserable. You believe that Ramana was in that state and you are miserable because you are not.


Q: Definitely, that's true. But are you happy? What is happiness?

GUHA: Why should I compare? Right now I feel great, that's all that matters. Why should I project a situation better than it is now and spoil this moment?


Q: Well, that is the insanity of humanity but seeing that it's insane doesn't stop the movement.

GUHA: It is not seeing, it is a mere verbalization.

Q: But when you talk to these so-called non-duality teachers they seem to have a strong position that there is just the void. Of course, there is an appearance, but it's not real. My gut feeling is it is not true, but still I go and talk to them or sit in front of them.

GUHA: I won't go and talk to them because I don't need anything from them.


Q: So you think they are taking you for a ride?

GUHA: Yes.

Q: That is my feeling too. It is a closed loop.

GUHA: It's not just a closed loop; they need to justify the nondual state. Life does not need any justification. Justification shows it is a false concept; it is just like any idea that takes energy in order to sustain some system—capitalism, socialism, advaita, God—these are all ideas or concepts. If something is functional in me, I do not need to justify it. When I eat good food I feel satisfied, my hunger is satiated and I sleep well. I wake up again and eat more food. That is the rhythm of life and I don't have to justify it to anybody. Justification imposes an idea that you brainwash yourself to believe and then pass on to others.

Q: Is this all brainwashing, even if they say they are beyond beliefs?

GUHA: There is no such thing as being beyond beliefs; the one who talks is part of the belief!

Q: All the advaita teachers say the only thing you can be sure of is existence.

GUHA: What gives you the sense of existence? The mind. But the mind cannot function in a non-dual state. It is just an idea created by the mind which as you said in the beginning, creates a separation.


Q: These teachers tell you to stop thinking.

GUHA: Whoever tells you to stop thinking does not understand the dynamics of thought. Every word we utter is a product of our thought mechanism.


Q: So even if you stop thought for a second …

GUHA: You cannot stop thought for a second. What can happen is at times there can be a suspension of intention and you may not be able to recollect the places you went to or whatever you were engaged in. How much do you remember of your night's sleep?


Q: So would you say that all these so-called teachers are just bullshitting you?

GUHA: If you are not afraid to challenge them, you will find out for yourself. I challenge all ideas and give credence to only what is truly functioning in me. Whatever is not functioning, discard it! I am not any different from others. Ramana had a mother and a father who brought that little fellow into the world and he grew up just like you and me. Everybody is like that, what's the big deal?


Q: But he had an extraordinary story.

GUHA: There are so many stories. If you write your own story you can write a story as good as the Life of Pi. Did you see that movie?

Q: Sure. I also read your story. I found it fascinating and very touching because you recognized so many elements; I can totally identify with it.

GUHA: There is no longer an investment in upholding any ideology—spiritual or otherwise. We constantly try to perpetuate some point of view that is more logically correct than some other point of view; much of our energy goes into that effort. If that is absent, you become more vital and give importance only to the functional instrument. In fact, what happens is your reflective capacity is enhanced and you will fearlessly see what is right and what is wrong in this context.


Q: Only in that context?

GUHA: That is the only context there is. I can't read others' thoughts or know how much of what they are saying is true. People tell lies all the time.

Q: It's like Shakespeare said—no good, no bad, only thinking makes it so.

GUHA: It is due to conditioning, that's all. Certain things are considered good by our society; the same things are considered bad in another society. What is right in a capitalist society is shunned in a communist or religious society. I am just a slave of the way sound, words, light and images have been accepted in my brain and are identified as good or bad.


Q: But I am questioning whether you can let go of this movement.

GUHA: No, you can't. The movement produces some result because you want to know; you have to see the functional aspects of those results.


Q: How they function?

GUHA: How they function in your life. If they do not, then reject them! This is a simple thing.


Q: But there is also the movement of hope. You think you are doing something wrong: if it is working with this guy, then why is it not working with me? Maybe that guy got it right and I got it wrong.

GUHA: It is a projection that someone has to get something. Have you ever questioned what is there to get?


Q: Yes, definitely. When you have been in this so-called spiritual circuit for a long time, you come across all kinds of people and the momentum in oneself is tremendous. You can't let it go.


GUHA: That is like being high on a drug. If you are too long on the run, the system will either break down or shun everything.


Q: It is like sitting on a machine, which is just pulling you along.

GUHA: That is the burden that you have been carrying.

Q: But Guha, you don't create this; it's there from the beginning.

GUHA: No, I am not saying you. All these concepts that you have become accustomed to give momentum to the very thing they say should not be there.


Q: Yes, yes.

GUHA: You see how perverse this process is? Every fellow wants to justify that he is in a position of imparting knowledge that can help others to become “liberated”. Then he wants others to stand behind him; otherwise his purpose will not be served.


Q: But they also don't have a choice in saying that.

GUHA: Yes, they do! They brainwash themselves to believe that they are in a state of non-duality and that they are in a position to give it to others. It does not matter if I brainwashed myself to believe that or I am a con man—the harm is equal.


Q: But apparently these guys don't suffer any more.

GUHA: I am not talking about their suffering. They are enjoying the benefits of selling goods that they do not possess.

Q: But they are apparently “producing” other people who see that and who have gone beyond the suffering. I recently met an old man who was with Nisargadatta Maharaj. He somehow got “this thing” thirty years back. He is eighty-five years old now and is very humble. He just sits in his living room like we sit here and talks. He teaches advaita (non-duality) to those who come to see him and he seems to be free from suffering. Many people who meet him are moved by him; but my feeling is, it is still a closed loop.


GUHA: It is not just a closed loop; the very idea that there is something to get sows the seeds of suffering.

Q: These advaita teachers seem to have transcended suffering. They seem to have recognized that there is no person there.

GUHA: That is not possible to see.

Q: That is just a manner of speaking. Something seems to have shifted in them; the illusion of a separate entity has vanished.

GUHA: To say that there is something that you can do to get what they pretend to be enjoying has caused a lot of suffering.


Q: Well, it seems one has to investigate to see the truth.

GUHA: I am ready to hear—if it is an investigation, how do you investigate? That is an assumption; that which you see in front of you is an assumption.


Q: You can look and see if you find anything permanent there.

GUHA: There is nothing permanent.


Q: Yes, exactly. So isn't that an investigation?


GUHA: How do you investigate yourself and your state with the assumption that there is some other state that is more desirable than the one you are currently in? What and who are you investigating? When you investigate through introspection by comparing an assumption or an idea, that comparison is another concept.


Q: That is the only tool we have to do this.

GUHA: What is the process going on there? How can you identify the state that you are in? You are only bothered when you have a conflict. You don't care what state you are in when you are taking a walk and things are going fine.


Q: Yes, we only do it because we are suffering.

GUHA: No, because you have accepted the idea that a particular state of being is desirable and you believe you are not in that state. By comparing two fictitious things you perpetuate the conflict. What or who are you comparing yourself to? “You” is the knowledge that is given to you. Concepts about non-duality, the questioning mechanism—who am I—all these have produced concepts about a state we think is valid and true and we compare ourselves to someone we think is in that state. Both are illusive and fictitious and indulging in these types of mental games is completely useless.


Q: I totally agree with you. It's beautiful.

GUHA: You understand what I am saying because you have been trying so hard for so long. Now you are questioning the process through which you have come to accept the idea of a state through your imagination; that is only in the field of duality.

Q: But this kind of questioning does seem to bring peace and happiness to some people, doesn't it?


GUHA: So why don't you investigate yourself?


Q: It doesn't seem to work here.

GUHA: No, it is not working.

Q: Then why does it work with certain people?

GUHA: You are not looking at yourself at all. What is the source of your unhappiness? You assume that you should realize something, which you have been brainwashed to believe because you have been searching for “truth” for so many years. You believe and search for what you assume is true and you project that those so-called spiritual teachers sitting there and giving talks are in a peaceful, harmonious state. By running after the permanent state, which is just an idea, you are making yourself miserable, giving no importance to what is vital and functional.


Q: What is vital and functional?

GUHA: You, your body!

Q: Yeah, beautiful, great!

GUHA: You have been bombarded with the ideas of Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramana Maharshi, and others in the spiritual marketplace. Their vocabulary creates a sensation inside you; that information functions through the retrievable capacity of your imagination. The words and images of Ramana or Nisargadatta are in your head! Imagination creates an artificial authority in the brain, which you call you, a projection of that belief structure.

You do not exist for any purpose other than to provide this physical body with what it needs for survival, procreation and to face the challenges of society. There is no need to run after an imaginary truth. Your ideas of a perfect state are taking you for a ride and you are searching for something that does not exist, other than in your imagination.

The religious thinking of man gives no importance to what is vital; only to the idea of a perfect being—one who is compassionate, peaceful, harmonious and problem-free. That is what drives humanity. Yet people kill each other over ideas of good and bad or right and wrong. If I think that my beliefs are superior to yours, then I will impose them on others! My knowledge is the right knowledge, my God is the true God, my advaita philosophy is the only solution for humanity's problems!


Q: All this stuff is on a kind of autopilot; there is nobody really doing all that.

GUHA: Yeah, let it go. Are you going to try to lead humanity on the right path?


Q: I don't even know what the right path is!

GUHA: Then it is not a problem for you. You avoid your problems by looking outside to see who is peaceful, who is in that state. Maybe you are a really peaceful person.


Q: No, not at all!

GUHA: Minus those terrible ideas of peace, niceness and how we should behave, there is no struggle.


Q: Of course, but the struggle is there.

GUHA: The struggle is not built in; it has been imposed. The system tries to weed out memories; clear the memory of the computer so it can function properly. This movement inside the body has to clear up the functional local memory so that whatever is not right for you is identified and goes one step ahead of the problem. That's how the body wants to function. It wants to be very sensitive to everything around it. It is not a closed circuit. The physical body is in danger if it is not sensitive to its surroundings. All the ideas that are imposed on us by society are the exact opposite of the way life naturally functions. Ultimately, you give validity and momentum through your belief structure.


Q: If ideas and beliefs have no meaning, why are U.G.'s friends still hanging out together?

GUHA: You are projecting your ideas of what someone should be doing, and pointing out to me what I should be doing.


Q: I never intended to do that.

GUHA: I don't mean to say it is your intention, but that's the way the mind functions. What am I supposed to do? What is anybody supposed to do? I have two daughters, a family, I have to be somewhere; I am here now, at some other time I will be somewhere else. If somebody comes to visit, I will talk. I am not telling anybody to do anything. I am not even trying to give you proper information that will lead you anywhere. I am just giving you the information that you already have. What makes you feel that more information or association with liberated or enlightened gurus is necessary for you to find peace? What I am saying is that you should sort out the already existing information within you and throw out what is not important.


Q: I totally agree with what you are saying but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

GUHA: That is because there are two things going on: one inhibits the process that gathers information; the other sorts the information through the memory bank that accesses the information and categorizes it as good or bad. If you have a problem you are told the only way you can solve it is if you have more adequate information. Information gathering is different from the movement that sees that gathering information is a futile exercise.


Q: One seems to constantly interfere with the other.

GUHA: Information weighs you down and creates conflict within you. You are no different from the information itself; thought creates the thinker. Information processing gives the feeling that there is somebody called me. Information creates a disposition that is always working to maintain a balance. When you try to be what you think you should be, you tip that balance. You desire a sense of stability that matches the imaginary state you have projected; it will never be true because it is an illusion. When you are completely functionally grounded in its futility, you will see it is like a dream; you wake up and don't even remember it. The brain discards that information in the process of refining itself. It's like a language you never forget. Ideas, which used to receive a lot of energy, lose their impact. This lightens the system; it really wants nothing else but to sort out the information that is creating stress.


All your stress and desires create an imbalance in your brain. Desire loses ground when you know that thought only exists in your imagination; it is like shedding weight. The ideas we have accepted have a different focus; now they highlight something functional and vital.

Q: It seems that some of those spiritual teachers got what you just described.


GUHA: That idea has to be knocked out.

Q: Because I can't really know if that's true ...

GUHA: You can't know and it doesn't matter how many enlightened beings there are. It doesn't matter to you.


Q: That's true; the only thing interesting is to just live.

GUHA: You will not project what you will do or how you will live. You live the way that is appropriate for you. When you project you are still pushing, as if I am making something understandable to you so you can create a path. There is no understanding; understanding is an impediment. Understanding creates an idea and strengthens that idea for you to perpetuate.


Q: How can you stop that movement?

GUHA: You don't stop, you don't even ask that question.


Q: Still it comes up.

GUHA: Then what should you do? How should you respond? Any answer you give hits a dead end because it does not address the problem; the problem is created by your desire to solve the problem.

In my childhood it was constantly drilled into me that I should emulate great scientists, philosophers, poets and spiritual masters. People told me I should be smart like Einstein, appreciate music by great maestros and study the life and teachings of spiritual giants such as Lord Krishna, Buddha, Rabindranath Tagore and Aurobindo. Those ideas and images were planted in my mind. I convinced myself of the existence of a state which would solve all problems faced by mankind. I had a keen desire to be like those worshipped by humanity because they were great thinkers, philosophers and scientists. However, I soon began to see that what is projected is perpetuated through ideas that do not mimic life. Why do I buy any idea? Why should I accept that someone is in a state that mimics the life beating here?

Q: It's part of the conditioning, I guess. It would have been more practical if it were put into me that I should become a millionaire. It would be great to have a few million. In India I worked 30 years for free, like a slave.

GUHA: That's why U.G. said to face the challenges of society you need two things—good health and money. However, there are emotional demands too which come through relationships and the play of social dynamics.


Q: Of course, you need a passport and a visa to travel, you need this and that, but otherwise don't you think that when a real need arises, it is fulfilled?

GUHA: If that condition is completely functional, when a need arises it is fulfilled, and then you can say goodbye to worries about the future forever.

Q: But you have to make decisions; it is not just black and white.

GUHA: What I will do in a certain situation is imaginary. I may not do any such thing when I face the real situation. Why should I waste my energy speculating about imaginary situations? I don't function that way because I find it is an exercise in futility.

Q: There seems to be a solidity in you, which erased all that. I totally agree with you but I don't have that solidity.


GUHA: It's not solidity, but I do know that this body has the capacity to take care of whatever needs to be taken care of. All the speculations and concepts creating a drive in me to be other than myself are gone. I don't know what I will do at any given moment in the future.


Q: But one has to plan. For instance, I have to get a flat somewhere so I have to sign a contract and set dates.

GUHA: These are all functional aspects of life that we have to accept and there is nothing more to that. It is something you have to solve realistically. If the influence of others has no impact, you will do a much better job. There is no non-dual state of existence that will solve all your problems—they are not in the same frame.


Q: It kind of paralyzes me.

GUHA: The depression and inspiration (ups and downs created by mental images) that you have become accustomed to do not give importance to this social need. But this is a very important thing.


Q: That is functioning all the time.

GUHA: You have to pay your rent each month or your landlord can evict you from your home. You learn to accept the reality as it is imposed on you by society; that is the beginning of intelligence.


Q: You cannot deny it, but things often function spontaneously.

GUHA: That is not a product of your thought structure.

Q: No. It is totally out of it.


GUHA: If that is so, then why do you bother about where you are going to stay tomorrow?


Q: Because there are still doubts.

GUHA: If that is functional, you will live differently. If not, then you will not have the capacity to live outside the framework of your thinking. Still, thoughts are habitual; they go on and on. Thoughts about problem-solving are looked at through thought. That which functions naturally is not in the field of thought. If that transition is fully operating, thought will only be used for the functional necessities of life. If you are not worried about paying your rent, if you don't know where you are going to stay tomorrow, that action is going to take over.


Q: If you let it be.

GUHA: If you let it be then what is there to think about?


Q: Nothing, but thinking happens.

GUHA: Thinking happens because these are still problems for you.


Q: Would you say that you are in a thought-free state?

GUHA: No! If anybody says that, he is a bloody fool. I have to use thought to access information. How can I talk to you without using thought? It is such a stupid idea—to say you are in a thoughtless state! When you are in deep sleep you are in a thoughtless state. What is the big deal about achieving that? If you are not honest, you can make money by telling people you are in a thoughtless state.


Q: Or telling that you have all kinds of powers.

GUHA: The power vested in a human being is given by others. No matter how powerful one man is if he does not use another human being, he has zero power. Power is generated by using others. There is no power outside of you and me.


Q: None of these gurus would have existed if they had no followers.

GUHA: No god would exist on this planet, no cross, nothing. The human mind accepts and propagates certain ideas; that is the source of power. If I am king, I have no power unless I am given the throne and all the people obey me.


Q: But don't you think it is one movement, that there is no separation?

GUHA: By understanding that, what will you do?

Q: The king comes with his followers; it's already set up.

GUHA: So are you going to use others to achieve certain objectives?


Q: That's always happening.

GUHA: But are you? What actions will you take? Are you thinking about social reform? Or are you thinking about educating fellow humans to help alleviate their suffering? If you are thinking along those lines, then you should work for what you think is right for humanity. What is it in human thinking that perpetuates conflict, war and exploitation? If that is a real issue for you then you will not waste one more second; you will take your pen and paper and start writing, organize a committee or give lectures! Still, you will not be totally convinced that what you are proposing is the solution for the future of the human species.

Q: No, because there is no solution.


GUHA: If there is no solution, then why think about it? It is a useless entity that produces useless speculation.

Q: We trap ourselves with all kinds of self-perpetuating thoughts.

GUHA: Your self-reflection reveals the conflict inside which creates a sense of justification and projection. What is it that you want? That is the foundational question; it stops the illusory thinking, which drains energy and brings an appropriate solution and optimal functioning. You can never be anybody other than yourself. Your body is the product of millions of years of struggle that your ancestors have lived through. You are a marvelous creation of nature, but you have been brainwashed to believe that you can be someone else who can be better than you are now.


Q: That's the crux of it, we are brainwashed to believe so and it goes on and on.

GUHA: It goes on and on—in your sleep, in your dreams, in your discussions; you find yourself with people who discuss these things everlastingly.


Q: It perpetuates itself, but it does create nice feelings.

GUHA: The information created by social justification appeals to us in a different way. Scientists have been doing interesting research on that subject. For instance, when a Japanese man bows down, his brain undergoes changes that cause feelings of piety and give him a mental high. Similar changes occur in an American's brain when his favorite football team wins a game and he shouts with joy.


Q: It's a very strong instinct.


GUHA: Sexual pleasure sometimes corresponds with parallel guilt, so there is a conflict. In some societies if a woman is attracted to a man, her information center tells her it is akin to death.


Q: It's a tremendous conflict.

GUHA: All this is conditioned by the society.

Q: It's shocking to see that what keeps us going is often just a belief; there is nothing more to it.

GUHA: It resides in the field of imagination, and imagination is sustained by belief.


Q: So what is there?

GUHA: You will find out.


Q: Will I?

GUHA: Yes! These are all poppycock, bullshit arrangements that human beings have been creating from the beginning of time.


Q: But then what is really there?

GUHA: That's what I am saying, that question will go and so will the answers. U.G.'s thinking found substance through his experiences. When a woman is pregnant something tremendous unfolds—and when this begins to unfold in you, that myth-making structure will lose its ground. That authority must find a dead end; until then, you cannot flower into your natural power and sensitivity. You don't need to know anything to walk properly; everything in human existence is like that. The idea that there is something superior that I have to achieve cripples me and drives me to use my imagination. Why should I use my imagination when it has no validity and inhibits the power inside me?

You don't have to justify anything. You will see the dead ends, the futility, the falseness and the fear; all religious and spiritual gimmicks that deny the intelligent power of life. They cannot use this. If you see that human beings are not different as far as the functional aspect is concerned, you will not believe that you are superior or inferior to anyone, and you will act accordingly. If someone sits on a dais and gives lectures while people sit below him, that creates a dynamic and we develop aspirations from false knowledge.


Q: But there are things that have a resonance, like sitting here with you now.

GUHA: That's just a part of life. Why should you form a belief structure out of that? As we go on the walk of life, we meet people, some appear to be honest and truthful and others have brainwashed themselves to believe in something, while some are so narcissistic that you don't feel like even talking to them for one second. That's the variety of nature. Why should I form an opinion, faith or a belief structure about that? If there is any drive in me, life will move in its own way. As the river flows, when it comes to an obstacle it changes its course and keeps on moving.

The reality we conceive is the reality that comes through imagination and thinking. We can sit here and talk about Ramana and feel good but it's all in the field of imagination. It has nothing to do with the way life is beating inside us, or the problems we face in life with relationships, friends and family.

Our imagination is entertainment; when you have nothing to do you can entertain yourself.


Q: You have to do something.

GUHA: It is all entertainment. There is nothing wrong with that until you come to the point that all your energy is invested in your imagination. This began with the question about the difference between reality and illusion—the idea of finding an inner reality, which can identify and reject the sense of illusion. Ideas such as those create an imaginary, fictitious world and ignore the reality of your existence.


Q: What does reality of existence mean?

GUHA: That you cannot know! You are imagining a state and it isn't that.


Q: Yes, in the head, trying to reach an imaginary state.

GUHA: It's a peculiar dynamic. The more we gather and exchange information to establish the validity of that state, the more we use the intellect to justify our movement towards that state. Every justification is in our imagination, so much so that we will disregard physical pain, suffering and needs to satisfy those ideas. For example, say you are imprisoned and tortured, but somehow if you can imagine yourself as suffering like Jesus, you can bear the pain. I am suffering like Jesus; he suffered for my sins.


Q: There are accounts of people who have been in prison and they have seen that and suddenly the prison was transformed for them.

GUHA: It's all in the imagination, but there is a definite effect; you can reduce the stress inside you if you put yourself into a not knowing disposition.

Q: But you cannot put yourself into that. That's why they speak about grace, no?

GUHA: The only grace is to have no conflict.


Q: But you cannot bring that about.

GUHA: There is no conflict when you function according to the needs of physical existence. It is the imaginary drive that creates conflict. What suits your disposition is to not create a conflict; the system functions best by disregarding whatever the imagination produces.


Q: But it's not something you can just drop.

GUHA: It's not dropped; you identify the process of imagination, which presents itself as the reality. I don't want to give life to a projected state, but if this process takes hold, the power of the physical body will reject imaginary thinking even before it arises.

The glands in the body are connected to vital areas in the brain and with each other in such a way that they can efficiently maintain the overall energy balance in the system. The response of the nuclei in various brain structures, mainly the thalamus, is innate with information coming to it, and its response going to other brain areas, making the whole system function as best suited to the particular frame where energy is optimized. Healthy functional glands trigger accordingly and allow the system to function in a way that will not continuously create pressure or stress. Thought cannot be sustained unless there is a motivator feeding it energy.


Q: Where is this motivator?


GUHA: The motivator resides as an information center, but the information center doesn't exist unless there is a conflict in the information. What does this mean?

Q: This all seems to be the way you would describe a mechanical process.

GUHA: It is a mechanical process.

Q: There is no ghost in the machine who pulls the lever?

GUHA: This body is a powerful living organism with tremendous innate intelligence. When you give importance to the thought that there is a you, who has some special purpose, the body has to generate a lot of energy to maintain that. If this energy drain, which is further enhanced by conflicting thoughts, is reduced, the body becomes energetic and powerful. In turn, the excess energy can radically transform the functioning of the glands that will inhibit conflicting thoughts from taking over. It will also not allow the continuity of “you” as you know yourself. From then on, the new mechanism is doing its job optimally. However, you have to protect yourself and be one step ahead of the game, namely not give in to the demands created by the social structure. The movement to be somebody, to attain some state, is highly inappropriate. The conflict will diminish only when you hit a dead end. When you realize this movement creates an endless merry-go-round, then there is true helplessness and you begin to understand that anything you think or do will not address your core well-being. Then the “give up” happens.

Q: This movement is so deceptive, so subtle and has so much momentum behind it. It seems to elude you because it is constantly shape shifting.


GUHA: It maintains the loop of self, God, selflessness and nirvana; the same loop that justifies the importance of organic food, taking care of the body and all your imaginary needs. From one concept to another, the energy drain is the same.


Q: Or even family, friends, anything and everything—any belief basically.

GUHA: Beliefs created by ideas have no place in the physical functioning of the living organism.


Q: But this whole culture is set up on beliefs.

GUHA: It is functional but there is no truth to it. The concept of truth is a con game that religion and spirituality imposes on us. There is a God and if I don't pray he will bring disaster to me and to humanity.


Q: It has also created the devil. It's all about opposition.

GUHA: All our energy goes into sustaining the ideas we uphold.


Q: Once this is seen, then there seems to be a void.

GUHA: Don't project.

Q: Well, it's also an experience.

GUHA: No, it is not an experience. It is a logical conclusion.


Q: It's not an experience that there is nothing there?

GUHA: It's a logical conclusion that people draw. When the movement to understand what is being said is reduced, you will hear everything loud and clear; your perceptive quality will find a new dimension, and everything around you will spontaneously destroy the years and years of momentum of desire to create illusions; that compact wholeness will take hold instead of what you are told you should believe.

Q: That means there is only right now, what is going on here?

GUHA: That's it. Nothing else is important.


Q: Everything else is a conclusion.

GUHA: It is a logical conclusion which has nothing to do with the reality of our existence. Whatever that is, you will never know, I will never know. Why do you think about it? The one who thinks is creating a barrier right now. What is moves in the field of life when stress is minimized. That's all it wants. It does not want to pursue or uphold any idea whatsoever. If I have to say anything is functional in me, it is that.


Q: But this came about through a certain process.

GUHA: In a sense it was a process. I can't prove anything scientifically, but I do make a causal connection between the events of my life, otherwise we could not talk. If you ask me a personal question, I reflect on the ideas that I have generated. I feel the hand of U.G. Krishnamurti because his constant negation completely and finally cleaned up the shit below my feet. The system now stands in a place that does not have to imagine its own existence.


These are physical experiences. The reason I talk so much about the glands is because I had a question, is there anything that we can think and imagine that does not have material existence? Because of my scientific background I did not believe anything could exist without interacting with me through material existence. I had to question the physical effects due to my association with U.G.


Q: Because of the physical changes or movements?

GUHA: Yes, intense physical movements inside.


Q: So you connect it with his presence?

GUHA: That is my point of view; I can't prove it. U.G. came into my life and I experienced unusual changes in my physical system. Biology was not my field, but I became interested in it because I thought it might explain what was happening in my body. I was afraid. I thought I had cancer or something.


Q: They were very strong physical sensations?

GUHA: There were lumps appearing on my body, and strong glandular changes. I began to consider that it was not thought or belief; it was a chemical change. We know that hormones can change feelings, emotions, thoughts and dispositions. The physical effects due to U.G.'s presence brought about a disposition that dispelled myth and belief.


Q: This hit you in the body?

GUHA: The body, physical existence; I could not even sustain my thinking. It was as if I had caught a germ and my immune system was activated: I had fever, pain … this body was fighting. It violently dispelled the thought process. Thought goes through several processes in the brain before it surfaces and becomes an actionable entity. That peculiar process is difficult to describe; if this hits you, you don't need justification. Physical existence is more vital and powerful than all the thoughts and ideas that have been produced by culture and society.

Q: You mean the needs and urges of physical existence make you move now?


GUHA: You are in front of me. The information structure is all there …


Q: Yes, but in the background?

GUHA: It is in the information bank. Your presence creates a response in me; I am talking to you now. Your presence, expression and conflicting thoughts create an imposition and the aim of this existence is to nullify that effect. I am not imposing anything on you; all I am doing is not accepting anything that you say as true. What is in your mind is an expression of conflict, nothing else. If there is nothing here, nothing there, we just walk away; there is nothing to ask, nothing to know. What we want to know is how good is this coffee—simple, straightforward questions which have simple answers. I need cash to travel, how much is the ticket? Other than that, there is nothing that I can say that I have or you don't have or you have that I don't have. It's all the same, just differences in functionality. This is my observation of the way things function in me.

The physical body breaks down authority if it gets a chance. It's an aberration that you think you are the mover. You are not. The moment that authority collapses inside, there is no external authority whatsoever. If your heart doesn't beat, if your lungs don't provide oxygen to your blood, you are nothing.


Q: And there is no me here who makes these movements.

GUHA: There is no conscious me turning this physical existence into a mystical being. We know that; biologists know that. There are thousands of neurons in a properly functioning thalamus gland. If you stop one neurotransmitter from this set of neurons to the rest of the brain, you will end up in a coma. That alone is not what drives consciousness, but that is conditional in the sense it is one necessary condition. Most functions in our bodies continue without the interference of thought or the sense of self.

Q: These are still explanations of a process we don't really know.

GUHA: It is totally unknown.

Q: We don't really know what consciousness is.

GUHA: We don't.

Q: We give it a name, but it is something we don't know.

GUHA: That does not mean that we cannot try to understand the fundamental attributes of the brain that produce what we call consciousness. We can come to that, but for an individual, that information does not help him function. Our movement to know creates an information bank that has nothing to do with the modification of information processing. But that is what you are trying to do. You gather information by going to various gurus, and try to change your information processing so it does not produce conflict and sorrow. It actually interferes with the natural functioning of the body.


Q: How can it interfere when it is totally an imaginary process?

GUHA: How can a small change in the neurological circuitry of an elephant make it go on a rampage?

Q: A tiny amount of certain drugs can totally alter your mood.

GUHA: The human species has gathered this capacity for only about the last 40, 50 or 100 thousand years, which is negligible. It takes generations and generations to modify a particular capacity, so we are at the baby stage as far as the invasion of thinking is concerned. It is part of the game of life. As individuals, there are so many processes that we can't control. The system never repeats itself in its organization and there is no perfection; there are always normal gaps and defects. Some of the defects can expand so much that they become an advantage. The system is always trying to repair itself. That is the only thing that I felt is a functional truth—just functional, not an ideological truth. There is a movement to be free from the imposition of thinking and thought-induced actions which creates a conflict and takes you away from the central need of the system to find equilibrium in the field of life. It always wants to be in equilibrium and does not want to waste energy. That is the name of the game—the rhythm of life.


Dangerous to Ponder


There is a strange disposition that can stop the momentum of seeking. It is then that something radical can take place and allow something else to begin—then only. And what is that? It is attraction, resonance and a gradual unfoldment. The end of the search is the beginning of a new order, a new disposition.

GUHA: When someone like U.G. Krishnamurti comes along, people are curious about his personality. They are looking for certain behavioral aspects that match their expectations of a person who has apparently achieved a deeper sense of freedom or emancipation. The general consensus is that it should be reflected in how the person lives; otherwise he is only paying lip service to his understanding or is at best a philosophical enthusiast.


However, U.G. never indulged in such things. He completely denied the spiritual and religious aspects of culture, yet at the same time everything about him seemed to indicate that he was the outcome of the highest spiritual teachings. U.G. seemed to generate an unusual interest, buried in the deep unconscious, a living signature of the glorified past, the forgotten old.

Perhaps U.G. was saying something altogether new. But how can one be sure of that, if he by-passed arguments and denied logic, not to mention the foundation of the arguments? What evidence do we have to justify his utterances? We have no biological evidence that he was radically different, yet we recognize that there was something extraordinary about his personality and in the way he touched the lives of people.

My experience with U.G. seems to have brought about an irreversible change in me, yet it is difficult to describe this without creating a myth. Sooner or later I have to ask myself the motivation behind talking about it. There has to be either some biological advantage or a common mode of expression; the essence of one's experience has to match conventional expectations. You can see the difficulty. These were the things I used to reflect upon when I was experiencing unusual physical effects around U.G.

There is a gnawing conflict in each one of us that emphasizes the eternal struggle between the concept of freedom and surrender to authority. Until a fragment of my information bank, a particular string that constitutes it, matched my experience and resonated with the value system, there was no comfort. It was a struggle through and through.

There are two aspects to our existence, theoretical and experiential; in other words, conceptual and functional. Whether you are a farmer or a physicist, regardless of the level of your knowledge and information, your brain still functions exactly the way biological evolution has brought it to its present state, independent of the nature of your knowledge but dependent on the previous genetic lineage that shaped its functionality.


Q: Would you say our functionality is new?

GUHA: No, the functionality comes from the old. The foundation was laid down by our ancient scriptures such as the Vedas, the Upanishads, Ashtanga Yoga, Tantras, etc. and in all of these there is a fundamental theme. It is not something you can argue about; to many it was and is a working solution.

If a person has a 20-20 vision and sees things the way they are perfectly cut out for his existential needs, the measurement will be the same now as it would have been ten thousand years ago. There is no argument about the physical clarity of vision. How our brain functions is a question for philosophers, psychologists and biologists; it is theoretical knowledge which includes the information we have about the world and the body. The problem starts when we gather information with the hope of achieving functionality.


Our value system imposes conditions on us to follow certain ideals and goals. It projects an ideal and creates a path to reach it. As a result, we find ourselves like products on an assembly line in a factory. This value system emphasizes that if you work hard, you will be amply rewarded, if you seek you will find, if you practice from the heart with love and devotion, have faith in God and diligently sustain it, you will function perfectly, and that is the goal of life. This is the game we play.

U.G. functioned very close to the expectations of these values and exemplified them, but he denied the causal connection. His functionality had nothing to do with following the do's and don'ts of the society and gathering information. He spoke a different language and negated everything. He emphasized that this is not the way we function. There is no ground on which we can have a common mode of expression. In that state, there is no source movement that creates fear about the future or desire for pleasure. How can one communicate such a thing? His was an extraordinarily functional life in the face of the most complex and suffocating problem.

If you look at a rainbow, you can describe it and everyone can identify with that experience. But if something extraordinary is happening inside you and you are functioning in a different way, you cannot communicate that to anyone. This is the problem I face all the time. In addressing the situation that I find myself in, I upset my friends and family; communication ends because it requires a relationship, and there is no reference point.


For instance, let's say I have 50,000 dhinra (fictional currency). To someone who does not know anything about that currency it has no comparative value; therefore he has to establish a relationship between his currency and dhinra, only then will it have some value to him. This is the kind of relationship needed for measurement. However, to measure is illusory because you take something as a standard, and from that standard you find meaning or value. Now, if something unfolds inside you, which is unknown even to you, you are frustrated because you have no reference point. It becomes a serious problem when it comes to communication. And to give any definition of this condition is an assumption. For centuries, Indian thinkers have given exhaustive accounts of such topics which are extremely logical and subtle.

If an internal shift happens, it may appear that the person has renounced everything and unburdened himself from the pressures of the value system and others may try to follow his example of renunciation to achieve that kind of functionality. But that does not work as it is unnatural and generates untold misery. You want to understand how someone can function outside the realm of ordinary, desire-driven living and thoughtinduced suffering. You begin to think that person must have attained an extraordinary state and become a Brahmajnani! You can write verse after verse based on that theme and expound on the state of a Brahmajnani or a Sthitaprajna who is supposed to have transcended pain and sorrow that ravage the ordinary human mind. You try to analyze why such a person functions differently. But if his views don't resonate with the analysis of the pundit or scholar—who doesn't function that way himself—it is difficult or almost impossible to tell what is so special about that guy.

Q: As a westerner with a Catholic background and no familiarity with Hinduism, after meeting U.G. and watching how he functioned and then reading the Hindu scriptures, I found many descriptions of people who seemed to be functioning like that. There is no description of that as far as I can tell in the western system. It was coded because it was dangerous to talk that way in the west. But it does seem like they were describing this state; you can't come up with those descriptions unless you have interacted with someone like U.G.


GUHA: It's difficult to convey this experience.

Q: Well, just to be contrary, we have these descriptions.

GUHA: Yes, we have the descriptions, and from these descriptions, suppose a person believes in the existence of an enlightened state by reading the Brahma Sutras, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras or from the definition of a sthitaprajna in the Bhagavad Gita, and then looks for someone who has those qualities, the end product should be someone who talks and lives like that. There is exhaustive information about the way such a person would function, how he would talk, interact with people, sleep, whether he dreams or not, etc. But all that is just theoretical knowledge!


In all ancient texts, holy books and scriptures whenever they refer to a natural physical desire, they give the impression that it is a low-level animal state. Hunger, sexual desire, natural pain and pleasure have a negative connotation and have to be overcome. But these are simply the fundamental aspects of the movement of life and U.G. acknowledged their validity. My doubts are more important than my faith; this is more fundamental than what my culture tries to convince me of. My desires are real and my effort to become desireless has no foundation and forces me to be false. Dealing with doubts and desires can bring about proper discrimination.

The natural state has nothing to do with the so-called enlightened state the religious teachers talk about. This is where the whole problem starts. It has nothing to do with sacchidananda; there is no religious content. According to U.G., bliss, beatitude, immensity has nothing to do with it; those experiences are described by the ancients as a result of imbibing soma juice (extracted from a creeper for use in Vedic sacrifices) which creates an artificial high. He totally denied the validity of these descriptions. If you read those ancient texts you will realize they are referring to something that takes place internally. The way such an individual functions and behaves reminds us that something like that happened to U.G.

It is difficult to describe how U.G. functioned but there is a distinct line between U.G.'s functionality and that of the other so-called enlightened gurus and god men. They all believe that they exemplify the state that has been described in the scriptures. But U.G. was referring to something altogether new. Anything that exemplified the value system had no importance for him and had no relevance to what he was referring to. If I exemplify the things that match the society's expectations and its value system, and suppress the things that I feel they wouldn't approve of, I would be doing the same thing the holy men in the marketplace are doing—claiming to be something that is not functioning in me. I myself would be perpetuating the value system. The so-called holy men are forcing themselves to be something they are not. What is more important to me, their value system or U.G.'s existence and the way he functioned? He vehemently denied the value of teaching by emphasizing, “The teacher is important, not the teaching.”


Q: That is what got displaced.

GUHA: It has to be talked about. Until U.G. breathed his last, he had to fight against our tendency to create myth and our weakness towards blind faith and useless ritual, and instill in us the courage to see things the way they are. Putting a picture of U.G. in your shrine and reciting the Vedas every day is easy, but the very thing that settles down out of the demand for security and comfort is bondage.

Q: It's harder to kick him in the teeth. There's no point in kicking him in the teeth either, you know, but in a way he was saying until you kick me in the teeth, I am not going to be of much use to you.

GUHA: U.G. was constantly kicking from inside. Don't utter his name in vain. It's not a joke, it's dead serious. You use him as a shield for your psychological fear, the very thing he wanted you to resolve once and for all, and you are using his name to keep it going. You are perpetuating something that he was fighting tooth and nail to obliterate in you. That is the reason it was so hard to listen to U.G. When you came to him he orchestrated a serious verbal attack. You felt the earth would crack and you would go down if you had an investment in any idea. Or, you could just walk away and ignore him. He wanted you to observe how he functioned, and then you would begin to see the effect in yourself. Someday you have to stand alone, by yourself. That's how nature unfolds in every individual.


Q: Everything in us is saying we need him.

GUHA: That is where the problem lingers. There is a part of your information bank that U.G. referred to as, “Shit, shit, shit.” You eat more, you shit more, you read more, you dish out more verbal shit. You don't give importance to what you already have, to what is most essential and vital. All your experiences and knowledge have not helped you to resolve your conflicts. That is the reason you read U.G. in the first place. It made sense and so you wanted to interact with him. Now you are adding more information about U.G., that's all.

The image of U.G. is no different from the images you already have and it is not helping you to see anything because those images are irrelevant compared to what functions in you to keep you vibrant and strong. U.G. never failed to say he didn't have anything that you don't. He would ask, “Why do you want to be a cheap copy of anybody?”

You give importance to the wrong aspects of your existence. The myth-making tendency of human self-consciousness is never content with what is. It creates an imaginary self and when, through its peculiar logic, it finds it cannot justify its specialness, it creates a bigger self and aggrandizes the little self. If these things are not fully sorted out within you, you cannot express yourself as a unique individual.

This is what U.G. said should actually be the meditation—holding one question at a time and get to the bottom of it. He asked himself, how do I know I am in New York City? That was his meditation when he came to New York for the first time. After I began to interact with him, things unfolded in such a way that his personality became my meditation. I had no doubt that something in him was producing a physical and irreversible effect in me. My reflection on this made sense to me, not because I had read and practiced, but because he helped me to appreciate the underlying essential qualities and the essence of that information in me. I realized that because of my interaction with him, something was beginning to take place in me that was impossible to deny.


I did not accept the descriptions of the chakras and the different shapes and colors of the lotuses described in the spiritual texts. To me, those descriptions became meaningless. U.G. never indulged in such talks; they are a product of our image-making faculty. The concept that everything is material was important to U.G. Thought is matter and our concept of time is created by thought; therefore everything is material. There is nothing spiritual and there is nothing to our images. The energy that powerfully beats inside the body is the prime mover of life. If that becomes your meditation, you will be surprised what follows. U.G.'s presence brought about the essence of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras: Ultimately you are alone; that is your fundamental nature.

We believe that when someone is self-realized, the presence of that person can induce in us a similar condition. However, that effect is ephemeral, like seeing a good movie, attending spiritual talks, participating in yoga and meditation retreats or associating with feel-good-New-Age enlightenment peddlers—titillations through new information to fool the senses—all short-lived. When I began to interact with U.G. what happened to me was not ephemeral.

Q: Some people say they are in a “thoughtless state”.

GUHA: A thoughtless state does not exist. If you think that you can achieve a thoughtless state, you will die with that hope. To live in this society sanely and intelligently, you have to use the common modes of expression that come to us through thinking.


Q: So, when U.G. said, “They are all wrong …?”

GUHA: They are all wrong because they think they have achieved some state like the advaita state or become a Bodhisattva by the blessings of God, spiritual practices or the accumulation of good karma from past lives. They believe Lord Shiva handed over the enlightenment platter from Mount Kailash to some lucky chap. We just can't accept the fact of unknowability of the source of life and consciousness. First, we invented God, now we are inventing something or the other to prove or disprove that invention.

Q: I remember standing at the back of the church thinking, “This is complete and total bullshit.” But I know it works for a very good reason. Even when you think you don't believe in it, the pattern of behavior is still about obedience and submission.

GUHA: It works because it temporarily postpones the conflict and brings about a sense of peace and belonging and gives the body a little respite. How it worked for centuries was a mystery until they coined the term placebo; it is a real physical effect from something imaginary. The capacity to think abstractly means we can imagine a world outside the space of life. This capacity is a product of the movement of life; the space where we imagine and create can exist in relationship with preordained knowledge.

The concept of identity born out of that capacity, although closely related to the biological proprioception of a particular organism, creates a sense of separation and fear; hence the drive toward belonging and fearlessness. The urge to return to where the identity crisis began is translated into the preordained knowledge of human society in the acceptance of the almighty God or a state of dissolution. Everything is always in relationship to that definition.


Q: So the preordained knowledge is God, by which you mean belief; this is a shared belief, which is what God is.

GUHA: I want to give you the hang of this: there is the dynamic of thinking. You need an object to think; sometimes the subject is the object. It is impossible to have a thought without an object. The god that is a product of conceptual space only exists in the parallel world, in the space of imagination, never meeting life!


Q: So this is a parallel world that is totally subjective, it doesn't exist. Isn't it a material concept that has taken root?

GUHA: No, the parallel world is indirectly a biological necessity. It has tremendous functional value, but it is an extremely difficult proposition to have any relationship or one-to-one correspondence between the conceptual space and the space of life. Life is the biological space, which accommodates physical existence. You and I cannot occupy the same space at the same time, but that is not the space where our concepts operate. Our concept of time is invented by thinking; thought is time. Our conceptual space is born out of thought.

We have a beautiful but a problematic situation—beautiful because conceptual space gives you the sense of freedom to create and ponder the possibilities, but problematic because the drive to actualize those possibilities creates a burden on the system. When the burden becomes unbearable the movement turns towards understanding itself, which is impossible, since the nature of its production is divisive, illusive and hidden from introspection. The question of what maintains that division has no meaning; therefore there is no functional answer. We are victims of this cyclic process and the momentum keeps growing. There is an unfolding in the biological space to somehow adjust and to be supported by the biological system. There is nothing outside the biological system.

The demand from the conceptual space is a huge pressure, an illusory demand that causes enormous stress. The entire system is hardwired to function in life by managing a dynamic balance. Hence, the problems related to self-consciousness and conceptual demands are going to grow out of proportion and will be reflected in the culture of such individuals. Once U.G. stepped completely into this biological space and functioned accordingly, to him ideas and concepts were a mere necessity for social survival, a means to a particular social end.


Q: Then you have passed through to the other side of the mirror and whatever you say no one can understand.

GUHA: The other side doesn't exist! That is the space we think we live in.


Q: It makes no sense at all.

GUHA: Can you eat that and survive? No. You do that with exchange, that's a functional reality. The only thing you need is money, nothing else. All relationships are in that category.


Q: U.G. did a really fantastic job there, Guha. That takes the whole thing out, philosophical and emotional, which are usually held as two very different things—bhakti and jnana and all that crap.

GUHA: Finding yourself in this space is not in your hands, nor in anyone else's—it's not a comfortable idea. This proposition is not acceptable to the sense of self, even if you think through your logic that it is a superior state and you pretend to accept it. Finding yourself here leads to a denial of all authority, traditions, systems and methodologies. The knowledge and image that creates authority ends in you and you will never again exercise authority over anyone. This seems to have been U.G.'s specialty. There were people who must have had a sense of it, one of them being J. Krishnamurti—The path is not the mountain, existence of a goal is always in the known, there cannot be a path to the unknown, and so on. But the hope of a future always seemed to linger.


Q: It has to be; this is the hardest part, which is like a weed garden. I could listen to him and I can listen to you, but then I step out and my sense of survival is so powerful. Both U.G. and J.K. acknowledged its momentum.

GUHA: Why do you think there is a way? Think about the brain—you don't know the process that goes on in there. What comes to you is the end product, the final thought and your response is to that. Do not underestimate the process, the power of thought and the logic that justifies its agenda. You have seen in your own life how suddenly the sense of logic crops up and tries to convince you that what U.G. is saying may not be correct. Perhaps you think there might be some other way to come upon the truth. You ask yourself why you are reading U.G. and you wonder—could the whole of society, philosophy, and cultural background all be wrong and this guy right?


Q: Are you saying that everyone is paying lip service until that moment?

GUHA: There is a qualitative change when the conflict ends. There is no sense of investment and therefore the unknown remains the unknown without a trace of pretension. Repeating ideas protects the continuity of the thought-thinker cycle. The mechanism that protects the thinker utilizes the same mechanism that protects the body's organization; that's why the sense of self is akin to physical fear. Fear is the most important survival instinct of this physical organism. Without it the body will die. If you don't move when you see a cobra about to strike, you will be a dead duck. We have a tremendous amount of information about the world, which causes us to operate according to necessity. There is a similar principle that we call “psychological fear”, a protective mechanism, which sustains the sense of self.


Q: Do you mean the social world or the body?

GUHA: You give the name “fear” to that most important ingredient of the responses that takes care of the body's survival. The hypothalamus, thalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands are highly evolved and beautifully configured to make the body act. We have created a parallel world; you have to delve deep to comprehend this. You have seen the way U.G. functioned. If people asked him, “Do you have fear?” he would say, “Yes, physical fear.” And they would say, “That means you have fear to a different degree than we do.” They didn't get the point. The psychological fear that comes through thinking and involves a future time was absent in him. He would express it by saying he did not believe in the psyche. This parallel world, which functions in conceptual space, has little to do with the way our system works. It creates a fictitious state through the faculty of imagination and then uses the body's total chemical repertoire in exactly the same way that the body's physical survival mechanism uses it.


Q: This parallel world which functions in a different space has very little to do with the biological reality?

GUHA: Not exactly, but I am trying to give you the hang of it. The body responds to a physical threat and also to a future psychological fear with the same intensity. In that conceptual world, the fear of something imaginary can be so real that it may make you feel like committing suicide. If you happen to step into the other side and the structure of conceptual space collapses, you will never create a proposition that would put you in such a situation. You remember U.G. saying, “If you are not worried about good and bad, you can never do anything bad.” It is not just a very wise statement; deep down it comes from his functionality. What was happening there, in my opinion, is that even though his verbal influence was as powerful as his physical presence, they were qualitatively very different. The process through which our self-consciousness works has a deep reasoning mechanism. You must have observed that U.G. spent a tremendous amount of time expressing how he functioned. The hearing and comprehension mechanism of the listener resonated with him in a mysterious way.


Self-consciousness, involved in recognizing, reflecting and recollecting, has a deeper resonance with its functioning than you know or understand. It creates its own causality, subject specific. A beautiful aspect is that if a person's conflict is reduced, conflicting ideas also arise less frequently. This is difficult to prove because we don't fully understand the unconscious process, but for me it is a personal empirical observation. In that sense religion can reduce conflict in some individuals. Certain practices have been invented to reduce complexity. Deep faith can bring about a reduction of conflict, and therefore to some extent reduce continuous stress, which is the demand of the self. If you keep thinking about Jesus, for example, your conflicting and divergent ideas will decrease. The feedback is supplied through one channel, true, but you can get stuck because to defend this idea you have to use your other mental faculties and you are back to square one. Now you have created a fresh new burden on the physical system.


Q: Are you talking about somebody like Ramakrishna Paramhamsa?

GUHA: From what I know about Ramakrishna, it seems he had some kind of a systemic collapse and was on the verge of killing himself—a rupture of some sort. His system completely broke down.


Q: His path was total devotion to Kali, the mother goddess.

GUHA: That is not what did it for him; it was the giving up. He wanted to commit suicide; giving up is the end of the search. His endeavor had to culminate there. In my own case, during those early interactions with U.G., I did not understand what was going on. There is a cognitive limitation. If the response to that limitation is honest and not replaced by any dogma or a belief, which strengthen the sense of self, there is a better scope for an individual to become aligned with the rest of life. There is genuine modesty in that.

The moment you take something for granted, make an assumption or create a belief, the conflict is not going to end. Life's outcome will never match your concepts, in which you have an enormous investment and don't want to lose. The sense of self will justify anything that makes you suffer, from social injustice to a physical affliction. Belief is you and you do not want to come to an end. Your belief tells you that God is punishing you because you have not fulfilled the conditions that satisfy your ideas.

Q: Is God the total social order?


GUHA: God is not the social order; believers can't bring about that internal order, nor can non-believers. God was and is a concept. The Hindus claim “It” has no qualities that interact with the human mind and “It” is independent of human will. That’s the definition of Brahman. You can't imbibe this through conceptual understanding; it is beyond the intellect and experience. If you believe in God, you will never give up your concepts, but if you accept that you don't know, you don't blame yourself or praise yourself for whatever happens.


Q: You may say you don't believe in God, but you still blame yourself; that means you believe in something that is the equivalent to God, so you are in the same situation.

GUHA: U.G. was constantly focusing on that subject of justification because that is the way the individual mind operates. Mind means totality in Hindu or Eastern thought. Here in the West it is the totality of consciousness. Animals have consciousness, but we have the added element of self-consciousness, the one that is aware of itself, which can create its own understanding. In that world, the movement in consciousness that creates thinking cannot move easily, therefore it begins to break down the causality, the backbone of the information structure and the apparent center. It always exists in relation to its content.


Q: Then what do you do?

GUHA: Then you don't do anything. Your confidence and certainty grow according to the way things unfold. It is in this regard that U.G. had deep conviction and the certainty came from his experience—an extraordinary experience that he could not pass on to others. Conviction and functionality go hand in hand, and were fully operating in him. When the movement of thought slows down sufficiently, the information processing ceases and there is a natural energy balance that tips towards functionality in the space of life.

We can't really know how something can be biologically triggered that is independent of our knowledge but keeps the demand for knowledge in its proper perspective. Why did my system begin to function differently when the movement of self-consciousness slowed down? That was my constant research. U.G. used to say, “You will discover something.” I would respond, “I discovered you, that's my discovery!” I cannot say exactly what happened to U.G., and when I reflect on what happened to me, it's only a recollection, a conjecture or speculation. It's an effort to explain my experience and knowledge.

The main purpose of enquiry into the nature of the self is for something to unfold in the system so that one can begin to live in a different way. When you reflect in an effort to understand how life works, the resultant ideas will be empirical, static and lifeless. What can you discover that is not known? You may get a few ideas that will help you straighten out certain things or you may find that some odd worries have disappeared with introspection. That's what the therapists do—they suggest you think about it this way or that way, but it is only a replacement.


There are certain things that have functional qualities, if the objective is to understand with ruthless integrity the nature of desire and conflict. If you focus your thought on a single subject, you may acquire the qualities of mind that can help you to function more efficiently; many things demand mental attention and attention reveals the connection of the information that justifies your point of view. There can be a change in the quality of attention, however, and what emerges will surprise you.

Something happened to me that made my conviction stronger. I had practiced meditation for years, but nothing caught hold until U.G. came into the picture. There was a stunning quality about him, a definitive difference in his functionality that was exhibited through his actions. As soon as I came in contact with him, that quality became my object of meditation. This was the most mysterious thing that ever happened to me; I tried earnestly to understand. I began to observe the response mechanism of life, how the attention of two animals locks in one with the other; I observed their focus. The connectivity of life is so complicated that it bypasses much of our intellectual ground and recognition processes that are accessible to self-consciousness. Our brain's limbic system is where most of the functions and relay processing take place. It makes one feel like there is a guy sitting there in the thalamus. Well, not a guy really, but many nuclei! It may not make any sense to you, but you can inquire into what was it in U.G. that exemplified the essence of all religious and spiritual literature.


Q: If you talk about U.G., others will say, “I know that. My guru is just like that.”

GUHA: Yes, that's fine but if someone talks like that and does not function that way, he is living in an illusory world. The functional aspect is most important; you don't need to verify anything. That need for justification will certainly lose its ground in you. When true meditation happens there is a subtle hierarchy that is functionally beneficial and addresses the greater harmony. If meditation is holding on to an idea, it means you are still functioning in that conceptual space.


Our functional reality has increased tremendously. Necessity has forced the system to modify itself by expanding and layering the circuitry in our neo-cortex, which makes the system respond and take on the challenge with similar baseline activities that deal with the feedback and reentrant mechanism to negate or terminate the demand. Every conflict and continuous stress-related problems can be solved through the information in the circuitry. This functioning physical system with all its attributes existed long before the thinking process began. Thought is incapable of addressing the symbiotic equilibrium of the physical system, an equilibrium that has been established through millions of years of evolution.

Our biological space is connected in an intricate way to our conceptual space and supports its functional reality; there is but one energy resource for both which is connected to the dynamic balance of life. There are certain dynamics in the conceptual or imaginary space that won't interfere with the programmed activities of this biological space and thus will not disturb the core well-being of the system as a whole. That equilibrium is what meditation is supposed to be. Through meditation if you aim to dissolve the self or achieve a thoughtless state, you will fail. Meditation is a movement in self-consciousness; therefore it will keep self-consciousness dominant. When you try to meditate, the field of consciousness that produces the sense of self will perpetuate its dominant role.


Q: So you just tie yourself in a knot …

GUHA: And keep spinning around that—a real merry-go-round. If you are honest, the only way to end thinking is to commit suicide. This is what U.G. was trying to tell us. We have heard of cases where saints jumped into the water and drowned. In West Bengal there was a saint who did exactly that and today we praise his action by saying he took jal samadhi.

Q: I thought U.G. was kidding about that, but it really wasn't a joke.


GUHA: You thought that by meditating you were going to stop thinking but it's a movement that keeps its dominance intact. This sums it up—give up! Give up everything that you are doing to get what you think you want to get. That's why U.G.'s favorite Sanskrit verses (from Kathopanishad and Mahanarayana Upanishad) were:


Nayam atma pravachanena labhyo, na medhaya, na bahuna srutena
Na karmana na prajaya, dhane na, tyage naike amrutatva manashuh


(This soul is not attained through discourse, nor intellect, nor by repeated listening.

Neither through work, nor through progeny nor through money—only through renunciation does the eternal state of mind come into being.)

By listening to someone's commentary and using your intellect, you are not going to get it. By listening again and again and doing good works, you aren't going to get it. Just because your dad or mom or uncle got it, you're not going to get it. By spending or giving money you're not going to get it. The renunciation that U.G. was talking about was renouncing all the methods you and your predecessors discovered and adopted.


Q: That was his argument against neti neti; it's a positive approach.

GUHA: Yes, it is a positive approach because through the process of negation you want to arrive at something positive (Brahman). The positive outcome is already embedded in the process of negation. Using negation for a positive goal is a convoluted process. Indian thinkers—oh my God, they will drive you crazy!

The difference between Indian and Western thinkers and mystics is that the latter, in general, believe that by reasoning and rational thinking one can come to the truth. Indians understood early on that one cannot end the misery of thinking through reason. This is the brilliant stroke of advaita Vedanta. For an intellectual, thinking and knowledge are the greatest pleasures. Vedanta means the end of knowledge. The logic that generates knowledge is not the solution for the balanced existence of a living organism. Most Western thinkers die holding on to the hope that the human mind can know it all, that it can somehow achieve absolute knowledge.


Q: That was the problem with those guys. Their ideas were fascinating, but then you read about their lives and it was a nightmare—depression, suicide, madness.

GUHA: Or, as U.G. used to say, if they're lucky, they'll get Alzheimer's! According to him, most Indian gurus were like that. The drive itself is a signature of imbalance; extreme imbalance is narcissism—the end product is I am That or God. If you say I am That or I am not That, it implies the knowledge of That, and contradicts the definition of That! Those who claim such things do not find equilibrium!


There were subtle aspects that I observed and liked very much in U.G. He was extraordinarily profound. The things he had reflected on and examined deeply operated in him. You may not understand what is working in your life, but that functionality has more value than understanding. I always thanked my lucky stars for the movement in U.G. that made him go from place to place; it was there for me to respond to and made him accessible to me! Had he lived in a cave, in some remote village or was not accessible through the internet, probably I would never have known him or heard about him.

You need food for survival and certain essential things to sustain your well-being. A lot is available, much of it harmful. What U.G. addressed is the very thing that has to make sense to you. Your knowledge mystifies things because it is derived from a partial observation, especially when it comes to your own life; you mystify, even if you don't want to. Your effort to acknowledge that you have come to know something you can't put a finger on creates mystified information and this can be used as a camouflage by convoluted intentions. Even though there are dangerous animals around a waterhole, you still have to find a way to the water. In social dynamics, there are internal dispositions that address our well-being, but they are often camouflaged. Some people pretend to possess that disposition in order to exploit others. They will say, “Yes, this will help you, and I have it to give to you.” This is the source of the conflict. There is always a danger of eating poison, but at the same time you can't survive without eating.

U.G.'s personality and restlessness were beneficial and life abiding. If you equated that with egomania or narcissism, that was not a problem for U.G. The problem rests in your faculty of discrimination. Do you see the difference? Thinking is incapable of detecting what addresses the system's well-being. It is not the instrument and there is no other instrument!


I remember a beautiful story once told to me by U.G.:

Once there was a man who came to know about the life and teachings of the Buddha. He began to read what the Buddha taught and the more he became familiar with his words, the more he wanted to meet him in person. He started on a journey to find him and finally arrived at a place where many tents had been pitched and where the Buddha was supposed to be staying. As he was looking around for someone to help him, a stranger appeared and asked him who he was looking for. Our man replied that he was looking for the Buddha. Instead of showing him to a tent, the stranger asked, “Why do you want to see the Buddha?” After further discussion, he asked, “If you do not know the Buddha, do you have any way of recognizing him?” This question startled the man and he began to ponder, “Is it possible to detect that special quality in the Buddha and recognize him?” Perplexed and unable to answer that question, the man returned home. He had been talking to the Buddha all along!


How can you recognize those qualities in a person? That is the most important and difficult question.

Q: Because you can't see it in him if you can't see it in yourself?

GUHA: No, it's not that. The moment you see those qualities in him, you have already won the jackpot. If what you saw in U.G. was unmistakably correct, appropriate action would follow. We are constantly trying to match and react to the same information bank. An actor can play the role of a king better than a real king; that is human camouflage. You are only conditioned to respond to acting. You have nothing other than that recognition, but unfortunately you will only respond to a wordsmith who will play the game of logic and come out victorious!


Q: You could see it in his movement.

GUHA: What exactly was that tremendous attraction we had for U.G.? All you could do was think about him, while at the same time seeking justification from the cultural value system. This is the research that will bring what attracted me to U.G. in the first place into vital operation; I realized that aspect of life does not need external support. What we are seeking is a game that is going on in our intellectual faculty. You can learn it from a book. A book or a tape recorder will do a better job. If only they could do the job! The Brahma Sutras, Yoga Vasistha and the Bhagavad Gita have been there for centuries in India, and look what happened!


Q: Not very good evidence in favor of books; we learn like monkeys.

GUHA: U.G. would say, “Don't give me that crap about your capacity to repeat the Vedas; the tape recorder will do a much better job of repeating those things. Nothing ever touched you!” Your brain is no match for the computer when it comes to repeating things. If that repetition worked, there would be a Brahmajnani on every street corner, and if it were beneficial to mankind, it would be seen all over the world. It does not work that way. Functionality and the instrument you are using to test the validity of a working solution were the most important aspects of U.G.'s existence. As he said, “What you are using is not the instrument and there is no other instrument.”


What unfolded in U.G. that made him function the way he did and why did he have such an impact? If this becomes your meditation, life will touch you; a new order can unfold. Instead, you are trying to figure things out intellectually so you can use that knowledge to solve your problems.

In my case, I sensed a new movement that beat from inside and took a leap. I saw that the old man left behind something in me and everything around me took on a different dimension. You too must have witnessed this hundreds of times with him—how it suddenly changed everything in your perceptive world, how it electrified your surroundings.

Q: What's crazy is that I watched it, heard it and then went right back and did the same things again. Everything he said sounded like a joke when he was saying it, and only now it feels like it wasn't a joke, it was the punch line.

GUHA: In India, many people couldn't swallow what U.G. was saying. The living quality of his energy destroyed the cultural input, part of their self-image; Hindu scriptures call it samskaras. If one could digest what he was saying, all these Brahma Sutras, the gods and goddesses created by our imagination—a burden for the system—would have no value at all. The thing that was unfolding inside would have given us a powerful balance and the courage to make such an unburdening possible. There is a peculiar problem: It is not that there is nothing, there is something. Whatever it is, there is nothing outside the human being. It is in the space of life, not in the space of concepts and imagination.


U.G. was a perfect testimony to that; we saw how he functioned. Fear of God was not applicable to him. To make this point he would say, “I would have put more nails into the cross, so that that fellow could never come back!” If you imbibe U.G., you say things just the way they appear to you. I once said to him, “If I ever ask you for anything, it will be, give me the strength to say things as they are.” U.G. did not play the social game; he had zero investment in it. If someone didn't feel that his presence was important in his or her life, he would just say, “Nice meeting you and goodbye!”

Q: It's the tenacity, the weed-like quality of those beliefs. I remember the first week in Southgate Hotel in New York, joking with him, thinking, “If anything is sacred to that guy it will be wrong.” Somehow I felt that in my gut, if anything is sacred it means he has something to hide or has something invested and there was absolutely nothing. He went way further than I did with that. The beauty of it for me was he was saying, “Right, there's nothing to any of it.” I could not even take the degree to which he meant that.

GUHA: The moment there is recognition of the value system it plays this trick on us. The trick is its nature. When you have a particular aspect of your investment, say you want to see him as a divine teacher, the desire grows inside you and lo and behold! along with this you also want to become a divine teacher yourself. From this root, thoughts and ideas will spring forth. Everything is going on inside you, and will come to you as an active passionate movement in the thinking world and will drive you to do things; I am not saying good or bad, it is just how thought responds.


Q: It means you've got to lose everything; it's really true. You have to lose it all.

GUHA: There lies the beauty, his life itself. “Dump my dead body into the garbage, but you can't because it will stink.” U.G. was that disrespectful just to show us that whatever we are holding onto is not the living quality of life. It's not disrespect; his experiences were extraordinary. For him there was nothing more important, no power, no God compared to his own living body, the greatest temple that ever existed on the planet Earth. Nothing could change his conception of his experience. There was absolutely no space for doubt. He was playing with fire and he knew it first-hand.

Those parrots, the teachers who are determined to control us, hand over their concepts to us. U.G. destroyed those concepts, because if they were not finished inside, they would come out as our worst enemy. We use them to satisfy our desires, protect ourselves from psychological fear and aggrandize the information center, the most illusive high the human being gets! All the time U.G. vehemently opposed the phoniness in our culture and chipped away at our image-making structure. We constantly try to gather knowledge, the holy shit, and think that this is life itself. The human mind is a mythmaking machine.

We convince ourselves to exemplify things that do not exist; we may be sentimental about it, but in the long run it is oppression, self-delusion, and a means of controlling others. Knowledge is power. I know, you don't, so you should bow down to me! This is dangerous to ponder!


Nature Takes Over


“Not knowing” will put you in a perspective where there is a chance of you imbibing the most important ingredient of life, symbiosis.

Q: Is there any difference between the “Natural State” that U.G. Krishnamurti talked about and the “Natural Order” you talk about?


GUHA: If your system is aligned to its natural order, you will realize there are two competing factors, the physical functioning and the illusory mental space. The body wants to maintain its equilibrium in the biological space of life by cutting through what the movement of thought compels us to do. If the demand to establish this equilibrium results in a change in the system, it will destroy the continuity of thought, which depletes the energy that is essential for our balanced existence. And the foundation of our enslavement to the illusory world will collapse.


The conditions in the biological system are very stringent due to fundamental necessity. The hierarchy of the dominant input of the senses is effortlessly sorted out to determine the functional reality and to create a seamless unitary conscious state for protection and procreation. More than one scenario cannot exist at a time and the biological system discards what is irrelevant for its proper functioning. In the illusory space you can imagine anything, the conditions are less stringent, discrimination is weak and the ideas that propel one to act do not address the biological necessities and so the equanimity is lost.

This is a simple, physical body, but you want to dominate everything because it is the nature and function of thought, and you are a product of that. The body never sets up a proposition like that; it is not worried about the future or imaginary goals and ideas. It has no such investment. If the process that leads thoughts to run amuck slows down, nature becomes the dominant functionality and thinking is reduced to a background murmur and takes a back seat. This is the only way the sense of self will be on track. The energy of the system is optimized and the activity in this biological space becomes primary so that the dominance of the illusory movement is destroyed for good and will arise only when there is a functional demand. Mother Nature takes over!

Our consciousness gives us the cognitive faculty loosely tied in with the demand of biological necessity; cognitive closure means individually we are limited in understanding the source of our own consciousness. Consciousness is primary to the faculty of understanding, just as the cells of the retina are to seeing. The unitary nature of consciousness demands closure; hence the desire for a final cause. That is why we create these assumptions—God, Creator, Soul and the Blind Watchmaker (from Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker). Understanding means nothing to consciousness; in scientific terms it is like the definition of infinite and zero. Anything finite is as far away as anything else.


The ordinary has a beautiful dynamic. It is better for our social existence if one doesn't have presupposed assumptions about the existence of the supernatural. We can then function according to the innate necessity and our system will respond optimally to whatever we interact with. Not knowing or what is, therefore, is more beneficial than assuming the notion of something and defining it in a way to solidify the illusory aspect of our functional brain. At least not knowing will put you in a position where there is a chance of your imbibing the most important ingredient of life—symbiosis.


Q: Because we won't be in resistance?

GUHA: You will have no conflict. You will not have any idea that creates a demand totally out of sync with the movement of life and the environmental demands. That's how nature takes care of every living being. Only humans want more than they need. Because of the weakness of our cognitive capacity, the moment self-consciousness holds on to any ideology, it becomes more important than life's demands.

We have the capacity to ponder and reflect and thought has tremendous power, but it is almost always inappropriate and non-functional. If you keep reflecting on the functionality of your ideas about yourself, you will see how nature's power functions and how your intention falsifies you. If you understand this, you will have more trust in the biological system than in your beliefs.

Your ideas are nowhere near that order; that is the problem of causality. The movement of life cannot be deciphered well enough to predict the future through cause and effect; the parameters involved in deciding the course of events are too numerous and interdependent to be comprehended by human cognition. No matter how much one boasts about futuristic knowledge, not one person has ever been able to predict how the movement of life will play out. That is a foundational principle.

U.G. put forth all his energy in every situation; whatever the outcome, he accepted it completely. Having no investment in a particular outcome is the mode of functioning that he was talking about. That is the action the Bhagavad Gita refers to—Karmanye vadhikaraste—you only have the right to act. The effects and fruits of action are not in your hands. The movement of thought, which produces retrievable information, can never know the way life unfolds. I cannot know the future. That is my take on the subject.

As far as I can understand, consciousness does not propose the idea of a future; it has a window of remembered presence and an inconceivably equipped innate drive. The migratory bird does not have an image about where it is flying and why; it simply follows its innate programming. We interpret that as beauty, grace and wisdom. We are also a product of that innate programming, but we use our knowledge through a much weaker discriminating filter, a filter that allows the aspect of consciousness, which produces the thinking or the “sense of self” to grow out of proportion.


Q: Chandrasekhar Bharati, a great Indian saint, said: “Even God does not know what will take place in the future.”

GUHA: But Chandrasekhar Bharati assumed that there is an entity called God who can know. There is no such entity!

Q: He indirectly hinted at that idea, but the people around him could not understand what he was saying.

GUHA: It is a problem in the long run, sir! It is not so simple. If he had been free from the conditioning of upholding an idea, he would have immediately understood the wrong implication. If someone realizes that it is not possible for him to know, he should say so, rather than assuming something mythical and putting himself in a place where he can't deny it! If you say, I don't know what it is, then there is never going to be any further movement to invest energy in an image or an idea and say something mythical.


Q: He could not do that, I suppose.

GUHA: It needs guts and ruthless uncompromising integrity to do that; U.G. had that. I would rather say, I don't know. I don't care if you do not bother to talk to me again. I will say, I don't know until I die rather than create an ideology around an image, with say ten hands and five heads which people miserably accept as truth and live and die in hope. The idea that if you do this, you will attain that is false; you will always find you are not what you think you should be.


Q: Do more and more of the same even if it doesn't work.

GUHA: Not only that, the image we get stuck with may have some coincidental and falsely identified beneficial effect, but if you are sincere and integrated, you will not compromise and that image will haunt you until it collapses inside you; it is the last frontier that stands between you and nature. Life itself is the most important aspect.

It is not a question of ego or self-satisfaction. It is a misconception that I know and understand more than you and therefore should get a bigger share from Mother Nature. This is the beginning of delusion that leads to exploitation! U.G.'s understanding of this was seminal and foundational; nothing could shake that. People accept ideas as the prime movers of life. If you experience this deeply, are touched by it and it becomes a functional aspect of your living, then you will not buy anyone's concepts. No one can take you for a ride, even by so-called love and devotion!


Concepts and ideas had no value to U.G. because he had seen it all. He didn't compromise because he did not use this understanding for his livelihood. It was his life, not his livelihood; that was the difference. All the bullshit they are telling you to do by propagating false knowledge and creating a false sense of confidence in you is a means for them to earn lots of money. If they give you a prescription and you do everything they ask you to do, you may have experiences, but you will still find yourself in the same place. Experiences don't change anything. The problem lies in the demand of the experiencing structure.


Q: You will be as you are.

GUHA: Exactly. But you still don't have that thing, that certainty, that's why you can't tell others that whatever they are doing is not going to produce any results. If the movement of life hits you hard enough to halt the movement of thinking, the whole dynamic will be revealed to you in a way you can never imagine; it brings the “right thing in the right place”. When it hits, it puts the nature of thinking in the right perspective. You do not use your fingernail to stab yourself—that's what the continuity of thought does. All the self-dissolving meditation, guru worship, reading of holy books, chanting—everything, all aspects of doing to obliterate self-consciousness will fail. Anything you do is using the illusive space to maintain its dominance.


Once U.G. stepped into the biological space, the other space was a mere necessity for social survival. And the only thing left in the social exchange is money. If you want to travel you need a passport; the social structure has created these boundaries. Proper documents are needed to travel from one country to another. We have occupied everything in this way. Society has grouped itself together and it uses everything in its power to maintain the value system. A one hundred dollar note is just a piece of paper, but it is an exchange medium. There is nothing more to money than that. I need one thing to function sanely in this insane situation I find myself in, and that is money. If you are honest you will be surprised to discover the extent of its reach. Functionality was the key word for U.G.; if you want to function “sanely and intelligently” you have to keep your perspective straight.


Q: Everything becomes clear; you only do what you need to for your survival.


GUHA: You align your needs and wants; there is no internal investment anymore.


Q: There's a full stop.

GUHA: That's it. One who has no objective in mind, no goaloriented drive, will never harm anybody, nor can he be used for your entertainment. That is the way we function naturally.

To become this or to become that you have to fight everyone around you, write a theory and justify your arrogance by calling it “survival of the fittest”—the perfect platform for capitalism. What is this bullshit about spreading democracy? You can't fight directly, so you need to cover it up and use the opposite end of the idea to achieve your goal. That is why U.G. said if you are not judging good or bad, it is impossible for you to do anything bad. If you have no investment in good or bad, you will not impose morality on others.


Q: This is so simple, so clear.

GUHA: So simple and clear that people will not accept it.

Q: The reason it's unacceptable is that it does not give you what all the other things are secretly promising—power and money.

GUHA: One of the most important pleasure movements is self-aggrandizement; it produces a tremendous high. I thank J. Krishnamurti for pointing that out. His frequent writings on understanding self-aggrandizement are critical. He showed every single aspect of its color and where it could surface.


Q: Well, he was an expert on it.

GUHA: Whatever it was, ultimately he was digging his own grave. Little did he realize that somebody would understand it through and through and finally kick his ass! But at the same time he was at least trying to get the ball rolling.


Q: He went a long way in eliminating esoteric language and setting the argument in clear and simple terms.

GUHA: It is not difficult to grasp this if you have basic honesty. Many people have enough understanding to grasp the salient feature, namely don't promise anything you can't deliver. Don't accept anything that has no functional value to you.


Q: I believe he set the platform for U.G. to come.

GUHA: U.G. did accept the challenge and gave everything he had and something aligned in him so beautifully that everything became functional and transparent. He no longer needed to push himself for understanding or experiencing, or even to demonstrate his confidence.


Q: People often ask me, “How did U.G. make his money?”

GUHA: If you ask me, I would say he had a way with money that was as enigmatic as everything else about him.

Q: U.G. never charged anyone anything to meet him, and he had no organization of any kind, no dues, nothing. At first Valentine shared her money with him and after she died, others gave this and that from time to time, but it was an individual matter. He helped me enormously regarding money. The bottom line is that he gave me far more than I gave him, on all and infinite levels. He encouraged me to become independent of family expectations; it was extremely difficult, but it created what I believe is a balanced and normal interchange between us.


GUHA: That was his beauty; I have seen the dynamic. Everyone had a unique relationship with him. When it came to money, nobody knew the details. He didn't take donations and returned most of the gifts people gave him in one way or another. If he was gifted a sweater, for example, he often would give it away immediately, or after wearing it a few times. I have received so many cashmere sweaters from him!

One day U.G. took out his finances file and told me “Come here, see this, you understand?” He showed me everything, whatever he wanted to show me, that is. Then he put it aside and said to me, “Okay, now write, five years rent from, supposedly, my New York apartment, my birthday money from anonymous sources, this is from the dog, this is from the cat.” It was kind of true and hilarious at the same time.


Q: I used to be in tears. He would say, “Now listen to me, I am going to explain about the 7% bonds again.” And he would explain in detail about bonds which would yield 7% interest and my heart would start to pound and sink, and he would glare at me, fix me with his eyes; I understood not one word. Then he would repeat the whole thing again, all to no avail.

GUHA: It was not understandable, that's the whole thing. He was going to fix you there, make all your usual intellectual movements come to a halt and soon you would feel as if something was punching you in the gut. Sometimes, he would shout at one particular person, but it was meant for everyone present that needed to hear those rants. It was meant for all of us in one way or another. He might have a straight-forward understanding with a particular person, but he would keep everyone else in the mist.

Q: The times that he came after me with a fury that I can never forget were when I was interfering while he was interacting with someone else. You absolutely did not get involved when it was between him and somebody else.

GUHA: That was the bottom line; I knew it so well. In the beginning and even after a few months of my interaction with him, I was very respectful, formal and he was also extremely respectful. But one day when I inquired about someone, he suddenly snapped, “You guys are so fake, you really are not worried about others, you don't give a damn. All you think about is yourself. Why are you so pretentious to think you are really concerned about someone else? It's fake!” I never asked him such a thing again. I immediately saw what a moronic conflicted person I was, trying to start some chitchat because I had been trained to interact that way. How is he, is he all right? All fake! Gossip!


The book Mind Is a Myth is seminal. It is our nature to create myth because the “I” functions in that mythical space. The Bible, the Hindu epics Ramayana and the Mahabharata are born out of our capacity to create an imaginary world. How will you ever know and find out the truth, let alone resolve the perpetual conflicts, which lead to war? Even if you accept any or all of it, that so-called truth is of no use when you need to solve your day to day problems.

We create myth out of our imagination. You can create a pink cow with a crown and a pair of angelic wings or anything else you want. If you do it well, you may have a wonderful Harry Potter type story, an all-time bestseller! See the effectiveness? That is the reality!

Q: You once said, “The spiritual people have done better work because through meditation their ability to focus on one point helps them to function more efficiently.”

GUHA: That is the Indian spiritual tradition, the practice of yoga.


Q: So you would make a distinction? Yoga?

GUHA: Yoga first teaches you how to discipline your mind. Through that discipline you can acquire the capacity to concentrate.


Q: When you say mind do you mean discipline your thought pattern?

GUHA: I mean discipline that part of the mind which is special to human beings and its natural tendency is to be fickle. Yoga's main function is to bring this aspect of the mind under proper control.


Q: U.G. said that the natural tendency of the mind is to move.

GUHA: It is very difficult to focus even when you need to. The mind is always scanning and depending on the situation, it has to focus and act. U.G. used to say, “I can sit here and talk on this matter for ten hours at a stretch without getting tired; my voice will go hoarse and I will need water and a little food for energy.” That is focus. The mind is both aware of its surroundings and under control at the same time. We can call him a yogi for that reason.

Yoga's main aim is to achieve the ability to focus when necessary. The second sloka of Patanjali's Yoga Sutra says, Yogesa citta vritti nirodha, which means in yoga the movement of the mind will be arrested. If you want to work and do a good job, you have to focus and learn the subject well. The ability to focus and gain information is called dhyana and dharana. That is the mental exercise; the physical aspect of hatha yoga focuses on postures and breathing exercises.


Q: Sound mind in a sound body.

GUHA: Yes, that is the aspect that will help you to function more efficiently in your day-to-day life, but it will not address what most yoga and spiritual teachers imply—the annihilation of the (little) self by merging with the (Universal) Self. No meditation can do that; on the contrary, it increases the power of the conceptual instrument. The very thing you want to get rid of gets strengthened and fortified. If you are deluded enough to think that you have merged with the Self, it is narcissism.


Q: Some people believed that if U.G. had not practiced yoga with Swami Sivananda, he would not have been able to withstand whatever happened to him. Yoga, meditation, let's just say conditioning the body, enabled him …

GUHA: You mean to say that his years of yoga practice and meditation prepared his body to withstand the calamity? Well, you know U.G.'s answer to that! My answer is that it is impossible to find a causal connection, if indeed there is one, logical or even empirical. You want to find causality to see whether it can be used to achieve similar results. To me, the impossibility of finding a way to attain a particular desirable state has much deeper implications. This understanding unburdened me. The addiction to searching (for Truth) will inevitably lead you towards spiritual prostitution; it must come to an end for anything to happen—if there is anything to happen!


Q: In the West there are fewer recorded examples of this “state” and I can't help asking—is it because this hasn't been prepared for here, or has this possibility been further obscured by a lack of preparation?

GUHA: The aspect of freedom from conditioning is absent in any organized religion. Whatever jnana and bhakti can bring to an individual, scientific or philosophical enquiry into the cross can do so as well. There is no difference in the outcome of that movement. The cessation of thought is a big joke; if you believe that, any joker can take you for a ride.

If I think of the help I may have gotten along the way, it was U.G.'s uncompromising push to obliterate any leftover intention that might have been there from the core conditioning of my background and unexamined belief structure. I started looking at everything in a very different way. Then the body underwent great torture, and it still continues; it's a process that never seems to end. I am sure it was very painful for U.G. too, so much so that he used to say, “You wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot barge pole.”

From time to time at night, I get a suffocating, torturous feeling that tends to implode my consciousness and there is a fierce resistance from within, probably to the informational part of the brain. It is equivalent to the death signal; it is an unbelievable struggle. Sometimes I pass out and the last thought is this may be the last night of my life!

I understand now what U.G. was trying to convey. I look through my concepts of how his presence could have deeply affected others; it comes down to the body as an irreversible mechanism. When you are angry your body is tense; when jealous there's a knot in the stomach. There's a fire inside propelling you to destruction. It is as if the information center has locked into the body's chemical repertoire, which is needed for physical survival. When that structure loses its ground, it is like a death signal; it is not a joke! Why would anyone be interested in this?

A total collapse is necessary to straighten things out. You need anger, you need jealousy; these are the actions of the human species that are functionally important—but only in demanding situations, not as continuous corrosive ingredients that destroy what these aspects were designed to protect.


Q: Right, it's a conceptual world.

GUHA: It is conceptual but the body is similarly affected.

Q: That's the whole point of U.G. saying “the stranglehold of thought”.

GUHA: Exactly. When that stranglehold of thought comes to an end, you will drop dead! The structure that creates the movement of self-consciousness extracts valuable energy. When that rupture takes place, you will think nothing in this world has any meaning. It's like a scorching desert without an oasis—no hope, no relationships, nothing—just a total burning and obliteration all around.


Q: That's why people are not interested.

GUHA: He was not joking when he said, “You can't be interested in what I am saying.” “You” does not mean the body; the body wants to throw that squatter out. “You” have no desire to be thrown out because you are the slave who habitually uses this palace for illicit, meaningless purposes. Our body desperately seeks equilibrium with the rest of life. That was U.G.'s premise; everything else was shit and you realized you didn't go there to joke around with him. He meant business and he wasn't kidding.


Q: U.G. was always clear, crystal clear.

GUHA: For him it was operational, everything else was garbage. It was simple for him. Our complex mind has discovered the laws of nature, correctly predicted celestial events, unraveled the mystery of nature, its power and used it for desirable and undesirable purposes, but it cannot accept such a simple thing; if it could, that would be the end of it.


Life Discards Everything


We continuously generate myth. We live in a fictional world. We create fiction. We read fiction. We love fiction. We dream fiction. We are basically a species spinning its own web out of imagination.

Q: Can you tell us about the “order” that you talked about in your Bengali book, In the Company of U.G.—14 Days in Palm Springs?


GUHA: This order, there at the beginning but inert, gets activated inside the body. Where does the order come from? You are born with it, and it is ready to be set in motion. You are dependent on something that you do not know exists but which is already functioning inside you. You are living in an enormous electro-chemical and mechanical balance, and that which maintains the balance brings out the order if certain conditions are met. A new balance is then established and life unfolds in an entirely new way to maintain and preserve that order.

Thought interferes at the onset, but the organic necessity of the establishment of the order is innate and powerful. This power balance is all the time asserting itself. The conflict between the natural order of the body, which refuses to supply energy for the perpetual nature of thought, and thought's onslaught on the system, causes an enormous disturbance in the individual, needlessly wasting energy. The process of freeing oneself from this conflict is mysterious and cannot be solved by the intellect. Once that fact is faced, there is a tremendous relief from the burden that one has been carrying. The process inhibits the continuity of thought and it begins to slow down.

My point of view is based entirely on my own experience, by observing the way I myself function and feel. Only total trust can allow the body to straighten out things for you. Any other way of activating the order proves to be detrimental. In fact, any effort you make actually depletes essential energy and opposes whatever you are expecting to achieve or are hoping for. That energy is necessary for the establishment of the order—the order that is already there within you, waiting to express itself. Any effort on your part is inhibiting its natural process of emergence.

The conflict somehow perpetuates itself by following an idea or a concept, and only the development of total trust can address that conflict—by not allowing any movement to carry on. In other words, stopping any movement in any direction. The hope that if I do something I can get something cannot find any energy, because to the system there is no UNKNOWN to be known. That's where the salesmen in the marketplace dish out absolutely wrong concept, that hope is the only way—and perpetuate misery and slavery.


The search (for Truth) exemplifies both negative and positive aspects—pain and pleasure—and feeds into a self-sustaining nature of seeking. It glorifies the pain of suffering and gives joy at the hope of finding the truth. It supplies energy to continue the very thing that one identified as the source of the problem in the first place. There is really nothing to get! The search has to come to an end!

Q: It's more like getting stuff out of the way so this energy can express itself.

GUHA: Out of the way means you don't do anything to get out of the way; you simply know that anything you do is blocking the way. But you can't stop thinking about this—that is the unfortunate situation. The viciousness of the cyclic process that causes misery is virtually unrecognizable by the system! As U.G. Krishnamurti said, you will live in hope and die in hope.


Q: Well, this is where they invent all the tricks.

GUHA: Therefore it doesn't work. It produces an apparently achievable illusory goal. When you have lost faith in all the tricks, you have to be convinced that there is nothing you can do. The question of doing comes because you think you can get something. It's not that. You can't get anything. Doing is a misnomer; doing and getting are inter-linked. You can get something from somebody, and you know what that is. Then the question comes, what do you do when you come across a personality like U.G.? That's the problem.


Q: Yeah, what do you do?

GUHA: What do you do? You don't.


Q: You don't?

(Long silence)

GUHA: Of course not. I know it's not the translation of my book, but you are literally focusing on U.G. It's that that has the captivating power. The Hindus call that Swayampramanya, Swayamprakasha; in other words, Swayamsampurna, which is when an individual is harmoniously connected to the totality of life. It will be noticed, felt by an outsider if he is extremely sensitive. The functionality of a personality like U.G. is proof of such a possibility. His actions were an expression of life, pure and simple.


Q: That's why it was so fascinating just to watch him.

GUHA: Yes, because that's life. Life never copies. That's what he was trying to show us all the time. You don't need to copy anyone. His negation had a fundamental necessity; he was totally denying everybody's imagination about a behavior that they were expecting from him. That did not mean he would act oddly on the streets or say something inappropriate in public. He knew … yet he was denying! There is something inside and when it moves powerfully that movement is infinitely more important than satisfying people's expectations. These expectations are born out of ideas nurtured by our cultural background and the image-making aspect of the individual mind.

People who came to U.G. had various ideas about what it would be like to meet a realized person—a Brahmajnani, or an Atmajnani who had attained nirvana or enlightenment. These are very loaded terms and for centuries people have been trying to understand and experiment with their functionality. The moment you utter those terms, depending on your cultural background and conditioning, they create feelings and expectations! These words used to be our “numero uno” intentionality because they signal an end to all our problems.


These dynamics create the stage whereby one person acts like a god while others feel they are being helped by that enlightened one! People don't know to what extent they are puppets in the hands of society and culture. When we come across a personality like U.G., we realize that his very existence is an order in the space of life—this order produces power and its extension is beyond our conception. That is the power of life. Our thought-induced imaginary order is an imposition and a disturbance, so we always confront abnegation. He had the certainty which was not obtained from a logically ascertained premise and was so confirmed from within that he knew very well it was useless to satisfy the expectations of behavior coming from our knowledge, which is fictitious and illusory. He would mock at our concepts of purity and holiness. That is why he often used vulgar words to shatter those concepts.


Q: He could say anything he wanted.

GUHA: Yes, he would joyfully say he peed on Ganesha's idol or shat on Ramana Maharshi's picture.


Q: He said, “You're listening to me because you think what I am saying is what those other people said before, and it's not.”

GUHA: We want to preserve our past glory and icons, but U.G. was an iconoclast. There is an undeniable effect of what U.G. stands for. There was a time when I used to feel that the sheer luminescence of U.G. was going to make me blind and the incandescence of that heat would make me faint. I began to observe that other people were also physically responding to U.G.'s energy. Julie was the supreme example of “U.G. cooking”. I used to think that her brain cells would get thoroughly reorganized; I used to call it radioactive exposure, which cooks silently. In my Bengali book I have mentioned that he was like a radioactive source. If you are exposed to it, you don't know it but you're burning inside—your cells are getting cooked. Of course, the meaning of the word “exposed” is very important.

Anyway, that's how I was literally feeling. How would I compare these things? The references were so uncommon and extraordinary that I had to use these strange scientific examples. Whatever I was conveying was not it and I realized that fact every time I made a reference to it. Yet we are forced to talk! This is one of the reasons that my way of expressing it is always different. I am always looking for an example that gives a hint or a sense of the source of my physical response and the feelings generated from it.


Q: It's a problem.

GUHA: I used to tell people, “Look, there is nothing you can do. All you have to look for is the day you are going to fall in love with this guy.” That's it. You don't need anything else. Why? Falling in love means you want to spend all your time with your loved one. That's the meaning, right? Nothing is better than a lover's company, no matter how torturous it is. It's the only way you can withstand the pain, that's the equation.


Q: That's the equation. It may sound embarrassing, but it's a fact. Show me the whole thing.

GUHA: You are like a puppy! You are mine, I am yours, take everything I have! So, if that happens, it means you have him inside your unconscious brain! It appeared to me that U.G. was really conveying that to me. Let me illustrate the point. One day the three of us—U.G., Julie and I—were browsing in a store in New York City looking for something. At that time my whole being was burning with questions and U.G. was constantly hammering the point to me that no answer could end the questioning mechanism. He said the questioner would always want more convincing answers and more clarity. One cannot force such a thing into operation because the one who forces is the major problem, so the frustrated me, the hungry me, was trying to understand every gem that dropped from his mouth. I was staring enviously at his every move and wanted to kneel down and beg for answers, so that this system would no longer be tortured by the demand for answers.


I was moving like a zombie around him when he suddenly turned and looked at me as if to say, Ask anything you want. I made a gesture as to tell me what I can do. He immediately pointed his finger towards a poster on the wall. When I saw the poster I literally froze and asked him, “Are you pointing to that one?” He answered in no uncertain terms, “Yes!” The poster read: “LOVE IS THE ONLY WAY.” Okay! And he didn't stop there. He said to me, “Show it to your sissy.” I quickly found Julie and literally pulled her to show her the poster. In the meantime, U.G. almost vanished, probably because he knew Julie would flip and buy the whole store to commemorate such an event!

On another occasion, I was in Julie's house, talking to U.G. She was in the kitchen cooking for us, and U.G. was in a great mood, laughing and joking. He would do that more and more when my vacation was coming to an end. I said, “Sir, I have to go home.” Do you know how he responded? He said, “Where is your home?” I was so moved! I hugged him tight and wouldn't let go of him! He didn't take my hands off or move away; instead he called Julie and said, “Hey, hey, look what this fellow is doing!” She was out of her mind when I repeated what U.G. had just said that caused my exuberance. He was a living system that was, as he used to say, just stimulus and response.


During that period I would do anything just to stay with him. But to be with U.G. was a constant, agonizing struggle. I feel he sensed what was going on with me. Once U.G. and I were alone in Hotel Iroquois in New York, and I was going through hell. On the one hand, there was the pulverizing attraction for U.G. and on the other hand, the justification process that my self-consciousness was dealing with. This justification is constantly opposing the attraction.


Let me tell you an important, meaningful story that will make you understand the context and the implication of what I just said. The president of Sri Ramchandra Mission, where I had been practicing (Vivekananda's) Raja Yoga before I met U.G. came to know that I stopped attending satsangs and was very unhappy about it. He urged other local devotees to somehow bring me back to the mission—I don't know the reason as the mission has thousands of devotees. My friends were concerned that I had completely stopped meditation for the past eight, nine months. However, they failed to convince me and I felt it was impossible to convey to them of my conviction that the promised goal of “self-realization” itself was an illusion. Anyway the “Master” finally came to New York and asked my friends to tell me to speak to him. He was also ready to give me a special “sitting”, if necessary. However, I had no interest in playing this game anymore and did not call him. I told my friends just “forgetaboutit.”


Q: Then what happened?

GUHA: The strange part is, in those days I used to call and speak to U.G. almost every day. In the beginning of this commotion I didn't tell him anything. As soon as the matter came to this point, I thought of discussing it with him, but suddenly U.G. vanished! You won't believe it, but this man with whom I had been talking to on a daily basis was suddenly avoiding me at this critical juncture.

Finally, the president called me to find out why I had left the Mission. I told him that what we hope to achieve by practicing Raja Yoga was just an idea and I was no longer interested in pursuing it. Consequently, the activities of the mission were finding no feedback in me. He quickly responded that it was a “good state” to be in and I should continue with my practices. However, I answered that unless I came to know myself that it was a good state, I would do nothing further. At this point, he got angry and warned me, “You know there are people who made this kind of mistake and later fell at my feet asking me to forgive them. I don't want this to happen to you.” Suddenly, something twisted in me, a movement in the gut, and I told him, “I would rather die than turn back.” That was the end of that chapter of my life.

U.G. came to New York a month after this episode. I was excited to see him. When I went to meet him at his hotel early one morning I was feeling indescribably happy. He started making breakfast for the two of us. The oatmeal was overflowing and as he poured heavy cream on it and I commented, “Sir, it is like your love, no vessel can contain it.” He reacted almost violently and said with a force that I didn't realize was possible, “Love is a filthy word! Filthy!” I could not utter a word for five minutes and mechanically finished my breakfast.


Later, I told U.G. about the Mission episode adding that I couldn't find even an iota of interest to go and meet that man. I added, I had enquired honestly, wanting to find out why I had struggled so much about meeting the head of the Mission, and why I had difficulty explaining that to my friends. U.G. kept quiet and listened intently, and when I finished, he looked at my face with a strange, distant, vacant expression, and said, “If you had gone there, you would have lost everything.” I almost flipped. I had been so close to seeing that man, because every single friend of mine had been asking me to meet him. U.G.'s comment was like a stab in my heart, truly! It shattered my entire existence. He was dead serious. That would have been a miscarriage; I would have produced a dead baby—that's how I felt.

I was shocked. This incident kept spinning in my head for months. I couldn't tell this to anybody. I knew something was going on in my physical existence but logically U.G.'s comment seemed to be the very antithesis of his own philosophy. Sometimes he said things to a particular person in a particular context at a particular time, but those same words would not carry any significance later or to another person. In my case, it was revealed to me that there were things he took care of personally, that were for our own well-being, without any sentimentality or possessiveness. It seems now as if he was taking a big risk of being misunderstood! Really! I mean, those words will always live with me.


My seeking ended; something was growing inside me, and I had to look after it! I realized there is nothing to look for outside myself anymore. That does not mean that I will not meet people. If somebody comes to see me, by all means I will talk to them, but I don't need anything from anybody. I don't need any confirmation or justification. All I need is money to survive in this man-made world. Money is like oxygen in social dynamics, you need it to breathe. You need money to live. Period. To live sanely and intelligently in this world you need decent food, clothing and shelter. I don't want to live like a bum, but that doesn't mean that I am critical of people who do. If you have some talent why shouldn't you use it to get what you need? Don't make a virtue of failure. But if you have the means to live without working, you are lucky, that's all.


I will tell you another incident. At the time U.G. fell and hurt himself in Gstaad, Switzerland, a friend was interviewing people who had been with U.G. for long. He wanted to make a documentary about how people were being affected by U.G. He asked me too for an interview, but I was not interested and I told him, “Forget it.”


Q: Why, Guha?

GUHA: Because I also have so many personal anecdotes which kind of deify U.G., and I really don't want to do that. He is inside me; if there is something real they will know about him by seeing how I function, what he made of me. I don't worship him, and I don't want to sell him in the marketplace and use him for my own self-aggrandizement, protection and fear. This is important to me. I was also very deeply aware that discussing too much about the physical changes would make me sound like I was trying to copy him. My describing things the way they were was the only thing I was feeling gutsy about because it didn't require any reference. I wanted to go into details and talk about the implications, but I didn't do that in the beginning. But many of U.G.'s friends didn't like to hear that from me. There was a general consensus that only U.G. could talk like that. I couldn't sit like that and talk, it's not my way.


Later, when we were all sitting around U.G., the interviewer told U.G. that Guha had refused to be interviewed. And I said to myself, holy shit. No offense, but I didn't realize that he was going to put me on the cross like that. But U.G. was so sweet. He didn't enquire what happened or ask me anything, but after barely five minutes, he suddenly brought up this energy topic, you know, “America's energy is in Guha's hands,” the usual stuff …


Q: About superconductivity.

GUHA: Superconductivity, the energy business. And then Larry, one of U.G.'s friends, asked me, “So Guha, tell me, what will happen if suddenly there is a vacuum (meaning when U.G. is not there)?” I replied, “Larry, don't worry about others, don't worry about what will happen to anybody. If you handle this guy in this life, I guarantee you this, if you are successful in handling this man, come close to this man, once you've dealt with this man, you will never, ever, ever in this birth need anybody again for that purpose.” At this point, U.G. told the interviewer, “That's your interview!” He added, “If you don't know this by now, you will never know it.”

That was it. There is nothing to know. If there is something that you have tested, and the validity is functioning inside you, it is a life-abiding experience. Once you learn swimming, you just know it, you don't think about it, it's part of you. The evidence of the functionality in you is all that matters. It gives you the courage to stand on your own two feet.


Can’t Lose a Friend I Don't Have


It is your attention, your genuine interest and hunger for things that you want to hear—something from you is triggering something in me, which is gathering information and pulling it out. Of course, information has to be there to start with. What you do not know you cannot say, but without you these things would never have been said.

Q: In the light of whatever happened to U.G., what do you think of the concept of advaita (oneness of life)?


GUHA: These are concepts and they come to us through our intellectual and logical thinking; therefore they are always problematic. How can we experience the oneness of life? It is just a concept; we cannot experience such a thing. Ironically, by trying to understand this oneness we invest tremendously in the dualistic nature of thought and imagination. During this process we may have various experiences and by trying to further understand these experiences logically we generate various ideas and facets of advaita.

When you really want to experience the nature of advaita for yourself, you will begin to see the problem. What can you do? Through introspection you can say that you are experiencing pain, pleasure, fear, feeling high, and so on. You have various ways of finding out what happens to you physically during these experiences, and by using sophisticated instruments you can see how different parts of the brain get activated. You develop concepts like perception, images and thoughts to explain the way you function, pinpoint possible sources and understand how the brain processes information. You go on thinking about it and come to various conclusions. Nowadays you can even use information from brain scans to understand what happens during sleep and have come up with different stages of sleep. As a result of these theoretical, logical conclusions, you have discovered that there is something going on—stimulus and response. Then you come up with the idea of oneness of life. But these are all theoretical constructs.


Q: So U.G. also wouldn't agree with advaita?


GUHA: How could he? As a functional species in the thinking world, we cannot experience the state of unity or oneness. I cannot. I cannot report anything that is going on there. The reporting mechanism is itself a divisive process.


Q: Like seeing that non-duality is a conclusion …

GUHA: …a conclusion, an inference. So, when you try to understand certain aspects, you say, for example, these are the things that I thought. Let me ask you, “How do you know God exists?” Then I tell you to close your eyes and sit for meditation. In the beginning you will not be able to concentrate. Gradually, after practicing for some time, you will be able to concentrate better, which means you will perhaps have a larger space of absorption or a kind of drowning feeling and then you will experience certain things. The nature of your experiences will be different from mine because our backgrounds are different. Instead of saying that maybe this is just a fundamental property of the human system, you may say, “Since I am experiencing that, something else is responsible—that must be a spiritual experience and the source of divinity.”


So, this is the construction of a model—the model is an assumption. All science builds on a model and I give certain attributes to this model. If this model is true, then logically it should produce this, and then I match that. All psychological theories are like that. To match this model, human intentionality twists facts. That is the nature of the self, which strengthens, fortifies and aggrandizes itself when it is confirmed by its predictions.


Even if I am not intentionally twisting facts, my filtering mechanism sees things in a particular way and will manipulate the process. If I am talking to five people, each one will be conditioned to hear what I'm saying in a different way. Even if they don't understand, their conditioning creates an intention and a disposition. In that disposition, this information—this set of words—is creating a meaning in a particular way. So the whole thing has a constant feedback loop of its own justification.


Q: Is it possible to listen open-mindedly without the conditioning?

GUHA: No, it's not possible. Anything that you construct out of a discussion is essentially either supporting or denying your pre-existing set of ideas. It's always going to do that, and there is no choice in that matter. There is no way you can function with the concept of advaita. Similarly, you cannot function in the “here and now”.


Q: And Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, was he not talking about non-duality?

GUHA: No, not non-duality. I think Sri Ramakrishna was very authentic, and also very intelligent but he was clearly expressing that in the field of life these things don't exist. They exist in our dreams, trances or in bhava—our thought world and ideas. So that world is a world of duality because that's what the imagination is.

Maybe you can predict that in a certain context there is a possibility of a certain state of existence because there are moments when you can't remember anything that just happened, you can't recollect things even in your waking state. From that you perhaps infer that the absence is an indication of something else existing compared to what we are normally recollecting and saying. So, honestly you cannot tell what happens there.

Q: So you think even Ramana Maharshi didn't describe an experience but it was …


GUHA: Describing an experience itself is duality. So that is the reason U.G. always said, “You stop at what is.” The moment you try to describe what is, it becomes a cock and bull story, including feelings of bliss, beatitude, immensity, everything. And why it is bad? It is bad because you are solidifying the wrong concepts. You are looking for the existence of an advaita state through duality. The absence of duality is not knowing—nothingness. You can never say, “I have experienced non-duality.”

What is the silence that you say you are experiencing? It is the absence, not silence. Silence means you don't hear anything. Similarly, what can you say about formlessness? It is just a word. You can't talk about absence of things or absence of images. All you can say is absence—over! You cannot say anything more about it. That can also happen in your sleep. You don't remember many things. And according to modern day brain research, our description of deep sleep is not all that correct. There may be dreams in deep sleep.


Q: There's no dreamless state?

'GUHA: No. Hardly.

Q: I thought there is a state where there are no …

GUHA: They have changed the definition. It's called rapid-eye movement (REM) …


Q: Yes, that's the dream state.

GUHA: That's the dream state, and in non-REM patterns are different but that does not mean that the thought processes have completely stopped. Of course, you as an individual will not be aware of anything. The boundary line between dreaming and not dreaming is not sharp.

Q: U.G. talked about the “natural state” or “natural functioning”. Is that something that can be experienced?

GUHA: No, no, no! His descriptions about the “natural state” or “natural functioning” are an outcome of his background knowledge of advaita. Don't be taken in by any descriptions of the “natural state”. There is a danger in doing so because if you try to follow what he described, your life is going to be even worse and more miserable than the guy who is following and copying the advaita existence.


Q: You can't imitate that.

GUHA: It is not possible. If you try to imitate someone's behavior based on your knowledge about a state and try to prove you are functioning that way, you will definitely falsify yourself. There is no doubt about that, no matter who says what.


Q: So, there's nothing you can say about it?

GUHA: You can't say anything. All you know is that you are feeling those things and you have no desire to project yourself into the future. From that you might conclude something has happened but these are all suppositions and speculations. About life you really have to get down on your knees and say, “If you ask me honestly, I really don’t know anything.” If I project my knowledge and try to recollect how I felt, I will come up with something that is in the field of duality.

However, what you CAN feel is the absence of conflict. That is something that you can definitely feel, and the power that will come out of the absence of conflict is something that you cannot convey to anybody else. You will feel it, and I think that is what I felt in U.G.'s presence. In the absence of conflict there is a tremendous outburst of energy.

There is a strange thing about the superconducting proximity effect. When I described the superconductor and the proximity effect to U.G. he loved it. The superconductor is a medium in which no matter how much energy you put out, it can effortlessly flow. The energy that can flow in a non-superconductor (resistive system) in the proximity of a superconductor, where the conflict is minimized, can also be qualitatively different, if not enormous. How the orderliness will be established and how it produces and sustains power is a different story altogether. If you were extremely receptive to U.G., the power generated inside your system in his proximity was boundless and different. If you could suspend your preconceived notions while interacting with him the energy flowing in U.G., by its nature, would temporarily establish a similar energy flow in you. All conditionings were resolved in U.G. and when you were engaged with him, it induced a qualitatively different tremendous energy flow in you. You would get the hang of it once in a while and a feeling of great lightness and a resultant euphoria would descend. U.G. used to say if you really listened to him it would help you to unburden yourself. It's like when you clear out the algae you can get a glimpse of the clear water underneath. His system had changed radically, so much so that whatever was happening around him he was never affected longer than its natural necessary duration. I gave this example from a scientific standpoint. I am not telling anything about its validity in a living situation. Anyway, he is no more, so it is meaningless now.


This is the nature of the superconductor. There is perfect harmony with nature without any resistance. The energy that will be available to you will depend on your conflict and that is why it can vary. You can feel it in the system if there is no friction, conflict or fear; there is no idea that it is trying to withhold or defend. You will come to know—there is a tremendous frictionless disposition of life energy and it is beating at its best inside you and there is nothing you have to do. That has a different kind of impact.


Q: And how does it impact?

GUHA: The impact is always like life's energy. When it feels the imposition of resistance, it means there is a challenge and the energy builds up. The system is trying to overcome that challenge and the energy continues to build up and gets more and more animated. It's just pumping more and more. At one point, it will obliterate you and you are out—literally. It just can't process any more information in the brain. It goes to a different kind of functioning that does not otherwise happen -unless you are forced to come to a state between being awake and being asleep. That is the forceful situation, meaning some energy is almost trying to not let you move, process and recollect. It often happens that you don't know why you feel euphoric because it somehow establishes in you a kind of frictionless condition and you don't know what you feel—a different disposition.

These theoretical concepts are all logical but the foundation of logic has to break down. Your investment in logic is based on certain suppositions, such as you will probably find the cause and effect of the movement of life. You have hope and if that begins to break down, the information structure with its very inept logic created by the human social intellect, begins to lose its grip. It's not that you will not believe anything, but that belief will always be in the context of functionality. The moment it addresses something outside of that, you will know it's a blind alley. But the existence of that causality in the information structure is always going to put you back into that loop because the mechanism which has produced that kind of interest, the pleasure of understanding, lingers inside. And that's what, as U.G. often said, is always trying to establish its past glory. It's always lurking in the shadows.

If something radical happens in the brain and thought does not find its space like it did earlier, it has to burn out. The system soon realizes that it's trying to establish its old circuitry where it goes for this imaginary space and begins to invest more energy unnecessarily, which comes through with hope. The old cannot reestablish its imposition. So all the interest, all this trying to understand is part of that mechanism. The mechanism of thought is still there but it has no function, therefore it just ends there, nipped in the bud. It's over.

You can never say what is happening. All you will see is the impact of a different functionality and from that you cannot infer anything. You cannot say, “Because of this, I have become THAT.” That means you are still upholding a particular idea. You will never know. Even the scientists will tell you the outcome of an idea is a mechanism of an enormous process that is going on in the brain with its billion, trillion circuitry. It's just the tip of the iceberg. What is going on below that, you will never know. All you will see is the outcome and you have no control over that.


Through logic I can perhaps say your condition is moving this way or that. There is no way you as an individual can have any idea or have any possibility of knowing what is going on there, except the outcome—when a thought pops up. You will have no way of knowing how it came. The knowledge that your brain is working through conditioning is not going to be of any use to you as a mechanism that brings up or throws out thought. There are two different regimes altogether. One is not going to help the other. So, it is out.

I am not interested in knowing what is going on in the brain. I am interested in knowing how my knowledge is going to straighten things up. It's not going to do anything for me. So, gaining knowledge to straighten me up or solve life's existential problems is an exercise in futility. Getting knowledge to make a living—yes, because the whole world functions according to that. So, the instrument that you use for a particular functionality has no place in the other, but you are trying to use it for that purpose anyway. If you try to find out why you are feeling sad and try to address the sadness it won't work. By understanding the fact that it is not in your hands and by “giving up” you are giving an opportunity to the system to find a solution instead of putting more energy into your lingering thoughts. If you are lucky, maybe the system will address something, maybe it can help. That's it. Or you can take some drugs, because you know chemicals have an effect on the brain. Our entire existence is the outcome of chemistry. You know if you take poison you will die—plain and simple. But ideas cannot do anything.


Happiness is an idea. It is a function of your predisposed notion of what makes you happy. For instance, if my daughter gets good grades in a particular subject, I feel happy. If I hear that she failed, I feel sad. This is simply my conditioning, just some information creating a disposition inside me which I call unhappy. That is happiness. There is no other happiness. On the other hand, the chemical function or chemical order that can cause something to suddenly change the complete disposition inside you is acausal; you will not know but you will feel lucky. You cannot say, Oh, something happened to me. All you can say is, I am lucky. If you say anything else it means you are using it for a different self-satisfying purpose.

Q: And it can't be exploited any more.

GUHA: Exactly. If it is so foundational, you know that there is nothing you can do about it. That is the only positive aspect of the experience, nothing else. If somebody tells me, “If you do this you will see God,” I have seen it all. You don't have to tell me. Perhaps you haven't, but I have. All your advice is of no use to me. That is the only positive aspect of the experience.

People do all kinds of things to get visions of God. But if you are really integrated enough, if you are honest to the core and if you still have the power of discrimination, you will want to sort it out for yourself, not to just feel happy because you are having a vision or a dream of God. You will begin to see that these experiences have done nothing for you. So when someone comes with a grand promise that if you do this you will experience that, it will have no value to you. You become a useless entity for those phonies. But if you don't believe in yourself, if you have not experienced, if you are naïve and gullible—that is what we normally are—then their camouflage works. They are giving you empty promises either for self-aggrandizement or to make a living.

I have experienced so many things, yet what authority do I have to think that I can help you? It's a joke, a pretension. You can be brainwashed to believe that I can help you, but it is not possible. Yes, I can give you money or you can make good food for me. These are all practical functions. Nothing else is necessary. If I have no investment, truly I will not care. At the same time, the system is so sensitive, so responsive; it functions naturally. That vulnerability is a thing of beauty to me. When I saw that flowing kindness in U.G.'s eyes, it just broke the whole thing. It was a simple, natural response. Even he didn't know.


People are always pretending because they have an investment. If I know that this is the way I make my living, because it has a social value, and the value is created by the society's give-and-take, and I am very clear about that, then there is no friction. The friction comes in the investment that what I am saying is the truth that will help you.

That is the only danger of not processing the relationship between experience and inference. You are trying to uphold something without going through it very carefully and getting to the bottom of things. That's why U.G. used to always say, “You feel a tickling in your head and you think you are getting enlightened. You just start scratching the surface and you think your kundalini is rising. These are all petty little experiences.” That is so dangerous, you know.

Q: Like the J.K. people they always thought it's a great thing if they have a headache because J.K. had headaches.

GUHA: That shows the level of our gullibility, the justification of a thinking mind. When you try, there are a lot of things you can experience but the moment you try to interpret it, you are not allowing anything to bloom. In this area, I think best is “not knowing”. This needs courage. The mind never gets satisfied in a state where you don't know.


Q: Then basically if I just shut up, that's the best thing.

GUHA: Yeah, even when I am with friends, unless there's a demand or somebody seriously pins me down, I just laugh, talk and chit-chat. U.G. used to tell me, “You have the glee of insanity.” The insanity is the real thing. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that many people who want to do sadhana and are really interested in knowing the reality, truth, God, whatever, and when they become very serious about it there is a lot of obstruction. There is fear in Indian middle class families that if someone comes close to God-intoxication, they will be lost to the family. A lot of people who cannot withstand social pressures pretend to go mad because they know then the society will leave them alone.

Q: It's funny that they set up an ideal and then they try so hard to keep you from going for it. It's like that in Christianity too. Saint Francis came from a rich family. He gave up everything and went and lived in the mountains with a bunch of wild people. That was horrible; his family couldn't stand it.

GUHA: So, one of the ways to avoid social pressure is to act as if you are mad. We have a lot of stories like that. One story goes—a mad guy, who was actually very wise, was peeing in the street in public. Someone asked him, “Don't you feel shy?” He replied, “To pee in front of cats and dogs, do you feel shy?” They said, “Wow, sorry. We asked the wrong person.” Indians are very good at storytelling. All these god men can hold you spellbound with their stories. Actually, Rajneesh was a great story teller …


Q: Except he talked too slowly.

GUHA: Too slowly? That means he lacked spontaneity …

Q: In Ireland they call it, “The gift of the gab.” You are also good at telling stories.


GUHA: Storytelling is the passing on of human culture. When we were young and all of us brothers, sisters and cousins were living together, we would be sitting around my grandpa, and he would just totally mesmerize us with his stories, which were never-ending. He was a fantastic storyteller.

Q: That doesn't exist any more, what with TV, internet, play stations, etc.

GUHA: The human contact is going.

Q: According to Lao Tzu, “He who knows does not tell, he who tells does not know.” I think that he was very close to …

GUHA: In the sense that if something hits you hard, there is no need for you to project certain ideas. And there's always going to be a gap between what someone is describing or projecting and your struggle to match those things inside you because life's unfoldment can never be expressed by words and images. So it's going to be a struggle.

If somebody asks about my experience, then of course I have a point of view. My point of view is that when I fell in love with U.G. it was like a pulsating sensation; I felt like eating that man up. There were times the experience would be just overwhelming. But I didn't know the connection. It was the feeling and the experience. Maybe it was producing certain effects in me, I cannot tell.


Q: Right, but you had no choice. It was not like you were trying to be in love …

GUHA: Yes, I loved everything about him and it was just building up and I was feeling more and more for him. That produced experiences and he was adding fuel to it. I came from a spiritual community where it was so difficult to get close to the revered one and here I was fully entangled with this guy. He was cooking for me, we were having feasts together—just merry-making! That overwhelmed me. It was simply great, but he was always making fun of me. He used to say that old habits die hard because I ran after my guru with full passion, and now I was running after him. I said, “Look, how can I explain this to you? I am like a guy walking in the desert, dying of thirst, looking for an oasis, who suddenly finds himself knee deep in water.” He said, “Wow, you have a vivid imagination!”


Q: Once I told U.G., “I've been around a lot of people and read a lot of things but there is no one like you. There's no one anywhere like you.” He looked at me and said, so simply, “Yes, some people tell me that.” It was so sweet and unpretentious.

GUHA: Very sweet. His pretensions were just play. But when you confronted him seriously, he was dead serious about the right things. U.G. had absolutely no sense of any investment. He would tell you the way things were with the possible outcome of losing you as a friend forever. It was that extreme. He would say, “Can't lose a friend I don't have.” That was a sweet way of saying that you can f-off if you want.


There Is Nothing to Defend


It is this anarchy inside us that refuses the social dominance. What is social dominance? They want us to be something, and there is something within us that is resisting it—it is a constant battle. Why should I know anything other than what is necessary for me to get by? It's a burden on the system.

Q: What was it like to live with U.G.? It must be surely different than reading his books or watching his videos.


GUHA: It was very different being with U.G. Still, there is a mystery that is continuously created in the minds of people without prior religious or spiritual inclinations who come across his website or a book and are unable to brush it aside. There is something more those words are addressing—more than just religious or spiritual ideas. Something in your very core has a demand and his words are resonating with that demand. Now that he is no more, even someone who has never heard anything about him, gets affected by reading his books. It is, of course, a human phenomenon and is mind-boggling.

It is not just for someone with a specific background. I was deeply involved in meditation and spirituality. I had tremendous spiritual experiences and I thought this was so different compared to the way I was experiencing the world through my work and knowledge of physics. I thought, here I am dealing with my own mind and body, whereas in science I was using my mind (often not aware that I was doing so) to study how physical bodies interact with each other and their fundamental properties. But I was excluding myself. I thought I was using my intellect in science and it was not responsible for my spiritual experiences. What I was promised through these spiritual experiences, I couldn’t see it in myself. I was in a very difficult situation; neither here nor there.

Then I came across U.G.'s website and everything changed for me. I felt that for the first time I had found someone who was truly addressing my dilemma, someone who had such tremendous spiritual experiences, yet denied their validity altogether and had the guts to come out and tell things the way he saw them. That was such a comfort. In that sense, I felt at last here was one guy who was telling the truth. He had no investment and he was not defending anything. I should meet this man at least once, I thought.

That is the fundamental difference. People talk about spirituality, religion, theology, science and philosophy because they want to use their knowledge and understanding to make a living. But for U.G. what he came into was his life—he never used it for his livelihood. His life itself was going a certain way and he had no choice. In that sense it was truly choiceless; he could not live any other way.


If you see things the way they are and if you respond accordingly, you have no choice; that's the way you function and interact with another human being. When you realize that there is no difference between the functionality of that human being and yourself, it gives you an unimaginable strength. We always interact with other human beings with a totally different perspective. I have an idea about myself, who am I, and I am trying to look at you from that idea. Those things were absent in U.G. He went to the core of your existence and you felt it immediately. There were hundreds of people who came across him and felt that. You know the story of Julie (Thayer), and Luna (Tarlo)? By chance they met U.G. in California, and right away all their sadhana, satsang and guru went out the window. Julie couldn't think about anyone or anything else from that moment on. The gurus always tell you to love them, to obey them, to surrender to them, but U.G., who denied the concept of love altogether, you couldn’t do anything but love!


Something that works from inside does not need any support because that's the only way it can function. The behavior that comes out of a particular functionality does not need justification and you don't have to know how it is functioning. For instance, you don't need to know what nuclear reaction is going on in the sun to feel its warmth. From that perspective U.G. was a tremendous phenomenon. If you listen to him, if you really try to understand what he is telling you, this information will slowly seep into your very bone marrow and you will begin to function in a different way. There is no magic, that's what he was saying. You are also like that. There is something inside you that is constantly addressing its demand, and you are not letting it function that way.


Nobody wants stress but social interaction creates nothing but stress. No matter how much money you have, how much talent you have or how healthy you are, this pressure remains constant. Nobody can be free from this pressure, and he is telling you this body just doesn't want it. This pressure could not continue in U.G. because it had created a new mechanism inside his body which shunned it all the time. That's essentially how everybody wants to function.


Q: It's amazing how you describe it.

GUHA: You begin to describe things this way when you're hit in your very core. You need faith when things don't work. You don't need faith to have a functional relationship with fire—you learn it. We are all gifted with that capacity. I can talk every day, five, six hours and I don't need to think about it at all.


I used to tell U.G. when I first went to Palm Springs that I was convinced there was something extraordinary unfolding in me with his physical proximity. I felt it was responsible for my strange experiences. I was ecstatic that something like that could exist and I was jumping with zeal and enthusiasm all the time. I was previously in a spiritual organization where I saw how people were hungry for experiences. They needed constant justification for what they were doing. It is the desire for justification that creates experiences, most of the time ephemeral. We generate these experiences with subtle constant demands. Around U.G. you didn't look for these things because he hammered at us all the time that there is nothing there to be changed! His relentless attacks on the demands of the experiencing structure unburdened my system to such an extent that I couldn't help but notice changes in me. Something undeniable was taking place. I said to him, “So many people would die to have experiences such as this; people should know that something like this exists.” U.G. said, “It doesn't work that way.” He meant my experiences had no valid information that could be of any use to me, let alone to anyone else.


Q: What puzzles me is that U.G. said the “natural state” is just the basic functioning of the organism.

GUHA: I can go into details about my own experiences that pushed me to study biology, although I am a physicist. When something really touches and changes the internal functioning of your body you won't understand what is happening; however slowly the desire to mystify drops off. You realize there is nothing spiritual about it. It's all material in the sense that for the memory and thoughts to be functional, we need so many chemicals constantly buzzing in the brain. Their organization and their separate triggering mechanisms for electro-chemical communication in the neurons are responsible for whatever we think and feel.

First of all, we are constantly in touch with our surroundings for our survival and to create a species like us. That is the continuity of life. For life to sustain it was necessary for it to understand its surroundings. That is how the innate biological capacities are created in us. So, when you look at me you have no choice but to see things in a certain way. That's the way nature has organized itself, with a slight modification in different species. A tiger has an innate understanding of the difference between a deer and a rhino.

Humans, however, have a separate parallel existence through thinking and image-making. That has created a world which can exist by itself separate from the stimulus and response that connects life. So, you can sit here, read a book and create a fictional reality as if you are there. But in reality, in the space of life, that doesn't exist and you know that but you are responding to those words and images anyway. Your continuous response to those images has created a demand for more and more responses. What is happening now is that the demand for such responses has tremendously exceeded its necessity. Say you have a certain capacity, which when used in moderation helps you to protect yourself, but if the balance is lost, it can become a threat to your survival. That is the way things are. Thoughts are necessary for us to function sanely and intelligently in any environment. We need thought to function, but it takes a lot of energy for the body to maintain thinking. When it exceeds its necessity it puts pressure or stress on the body which is constantly rejecting and fighting it and creating a new environment to handle that pressure easily.


One positive outcome of that aspect may be that you can achieve talent in a particular field. Talent is something you can use to address and handle the challenges of living in society, nothing else. There is no other fundamental truth behind it. If you have a talent then you are lucky because you can use that to address the social challenges. Human beings have occupied everything on this planet. You can't go to a forest and cut down a tree or pick up a fruit; it belongs to somebody. You have to contribute to the society in some way and then you can get what you need from the society. It's a question of give and take. That's the relationship between an individual and the social structure. And that addresses money too. The foundation comes down to money, not relationships or anything else. Your very survival in this society is addressing that aspect.

The thinking mechanism has many attributes, and in so many different ways it can create an imbalance in the circuitry that fires in the brain. When you hear a name, it reverberates in your head and when you can't control it, it becomes stressful to the body. But if you look at the origin of these responses, they came into existence because they were needed. The body uses a set of chemicals to respond to thinking. And it uses the same set of chemicals to respond to its surroundings. A fearful, happy or an angry thought creates different states in the body, and these states are actually necessary to function in this world. You need fear to protect yourself, you need attraction to have sex, or you need a particular food taste to stimulate your appetite—these are all mechanisms for survival and procreation. They are absolutely essential. And then your body learned to discriminate yes from no. Similarly, the thought-induced world inside you should have discrimination to accept what is good for it and what is not. In the absence of that faculty, stress becomes unbearable.


When I came in contact with U.G. I felt his response mechanism was unusual and there was a very different order in that system. A scientist will know the orderliness has a different embedded energy in it, and that energy constantly protects its order by inducing local order around itself. To create an order from disorder, one has to spend a lot of energy. But if that energy is not available, that temporarily induced order reverts back to disorder, which dissipates energy. That's the natural way.

When a person like U.G. has that kind of energy, it's like his functionality had potency where the embedded energy did not dissipate unless it was called for. When you interacted with such a person in whom functionality had a different purpose, you felt a tremendous difference. That was the beauty. He had no investment in any idea and did not defend or support it. There was no give-and-take relationship with him. He was responding to us from a very different context, and that context was actually negating everything because our disorderliness was hampering his order. He had no choice but to do something so that the order was temporarily restored around him. The order and energy give you a different kind of feeling. That is the disposition that our physical body is seeking—a genuine taste of freedom from the burden of constant social pressure. Our information center does not know what it is because all that we have learned from childhood is “get, get, get”. People are constantly telling you how to “get” peace, love, etc. All the time they are telling you “how, how, how”—it is a constant. And suddenly someone like U.G. comes along and tells you “There is no HOW! Your wanting to know ‘how’ is the problem.”


There is nothing to get from anyone. And yet, being in U.G.'s presence was addressing my core well-being. When our thought world, full of imagination, cannot justify anything, it begins to slow down. What would be the justification? Is there any well-being that is not justified by thought? Thought is just a word. The body wants to be in a less stressful situation; it does not care about justification. Your energy, which was draining all the time, suddenly cannot drain any longer and a different process begins to unfold. Because of that, there is a big shift in your disposition. In that state where the stress is minimized, the body begins to function and carry out its task for the establishment of its pre-programmed order. At a certain point, between order and disorder the balance can tip towards order. A shift in the glandular mechanism is the signal of that order, and the system begins to function in a radically different way. It does not need any thought-induced logical justification any more.


Q: It makes so much sense, what you said about the body looking to minimize stress. For over a year and a half I've been living mostly by myself. It seems less stressful, like something calms down inside.

GUHA: That is the way perhaps your system wants to live but there is still a battle within. The battle is social dynamics and it will not leave you alone.


Q: You have to make money again.

GUHA: That's the most important aspect. But there is another very important justification. The mechanism that has established its status quo inside our heads is very smart; it wants to find a new justification for its own activity. Do not underestimate it! That's the problem people face who have enough money to get by decently. This is unique to every individual. Each person has to decide how much he needs and with what he can live. It is very system specific. For example, I can live in a house where the arrangement of photo frames means nothing to me. But others may not be able to do so. They have to set the pictures right, otherwise it's a problem.


Q: What about empty spaces?


GUHA: That is very system specific too. You have to know exactly what you can live with. Most of us are intelligent and talented enough to earn a living and have our day to day needs met. Many are gifted with a lot more than that. This instrument that we have, the one I am using right now to recollect things and talk to you, can satisfy those needs. Just as the tiger has claws, similarly we have intellect. The intellect (this realization made by U.G. blows me away) is the only instrument we have; there is no other instrument. To meditate you are still using that instrument. It has no other purpose than to satisfy the demands of your physical needs.


Q: That's what blew me away when he said all spiritual experiences are mind-made. We think we experience silence because it is there, but it’s because we heard about it.

GUHA: Actually, it is not silence. You cannot get rid of sound. It is still beating on your eardrums and if this process slows down, it is not the silence, it is the roaring, the buzzing. It is like being surrounded by a million crickets! It occupies your hearing space, like you have never experienced before! In the case of vision you can close your eyelids so you forcefully detach yourself from the field of view. And whatever objects were there, your retina, your optical nerve and the cortex can conjure up images from memory for some time and those images eventually die down, unlike sound.


Silence is something that they (spiritual gurus) dish out as a concept-induced mechanism. Silence is still a comparative state of someone telling you that it is silence. But what silence actually is you can never know. There are two mechanisms that goes on within us—first is created out of our intention. You don't want to hear the sounds falling on your eardrum. That means it is still not passive. It is very active through your desire. It is still using the mode of the mechanism of recollection that is you. Your intentionality is not letting you hear whatever is out there. You mutter mantras but if there is a bird calling you don't want to hear that. You don't want to hear anything that shakes your core belief structure.


If thought slows down, the other mechanism takes over and brings you closer to the active world, the world of life—it is not separate from you. Actually, your entire being will become the sound of the bird. As long as you are using that instrument called thinking you are demanding something. You want to hear and experience something very specific. All your wants are demands. They throw you out of balance and drain energy from you.

If you are very integrated and honest with yourself, you ask yourself, “I have experienced so much but has anything happened to me? Nothing. I have read and heard all these things for years and if I look at myself is there any change in me? No. So how can I tell about my state to somebody? That's fake.” The moment you talk about a state that you are in, you are borrowing terms and definitions of that state and forcefully imposing them on yourself and trying to project to others, that is, pretending to others. You have brainwashed yourself to believe that you are in such and such a state and are fooling yourself first and then others. It's all fake.


Q: You are just reporting from your memory.

GUHA: Yes, what else is there?

Q: I have a question about U.G.'s statement that it is just biological. Even if there are people around him who at some point experienced the same thing, the dropping away of the mind or the body functioning without the interference of thought, to me it seems unimaginable.


GUHA: U.G. never said his mind dropped away. If somebody says that he is experiencing his mind dropping away, don't believe it.

Q: But it still seems that U.G. was different. Something radical happened to him …

GUHA: The functionality will bring out things in a certain way. That person does not have to copy anything, does not have to go through the formalities of satisfying your expectations or behave according to the knowledge you have of a particular state. It is self-expressing in the sense that it is being just the way it is and the person has no other choice. You can't train a tiger to behave like other animals. He was in a state in which all this radicalness was exhibiting because that's the way he was functioning. He was not quoting from the scriptures to convince you that he was in a particular state.

Q: I am reading a book about the functioning of the brain, which better illustrates what U.G. was talking about than any spiritual book, because it's talking about your inability to control or even know what your thoughts are.

GUHA: Any book, spiritual or otherwise, will give you the perspective that by knowing all these things will bring about a change in you. No. Knowing all about the functionality of the brain or having detailed knowledge about your fear is not going to take your fear away because it has a different mechanism. The only thing that will reinforce what U.G. described is you have to be hit from within by something that you cannot explain; then it will begin to function inside you differently. You will never understand what it is, but it will reinforce the way he was behaving and functioning because it will resonate inside you.

When something like this hits you, you don’t need to explain in the language used in the scriptures. You will immediately deny that because it's false. This state is not a part of your collectible information, so by reading or by gathering information, you can't explain it. That gap is the unassailable problem and so what do you do? If you try to fill that gap or try to understand, you are caught up in the same game again. Why do you want to understand? It's not that you shouldn't know; maybe there is some small benefit. In trying to sincerely understand that question, you will begin to imbibe some innate and important information. That may be a factor that will let this function in its own way. We have hope. The hope through which society maintains its influence on us about the teaching, about the understanding, about the resolutions, about the emancipations brings about some kind of passionate activity in the thinking world, that by knowing a little more I will solve this problem for myself and for others. The bigger hope is that you will perhaps achieve some state that you don't know anything about, such as enlightenment or liberation. But it's all a marketing gimmick, nothing else. You think it will solve all your problems. It's easy to sell that idea in the spiritual marketplace. I tried to shop around and got nowhere until I met U.G. That changed everything for me. Finally, you begin to realize that nobody gave you the responsibility to save all the misguided people.


Q: Every time you get into a corner, the question pops into your head, “Why am I trying to convert anybody?”

GUHA: That's the problem. Social justification allows the thinking structure to continue its onslaught in different ways. For example, if I don't sing like Michael Jackson or play basketball like Michael Jordan or paint like Picasso my life is worthless. That is what we have been taught. From our parents, from our peers, from our environment right from childhood these comparisons were instilled in us.


Q: U.G. described his coming into the natural state as when the whole social conditioning was burned out of his system. Do you think that is something that was unique to him?

GUHA: No, that is the nature of it because ultimately what happens is a massive restoration in the system and that is a violent process. Giving birth to a child is a violent process. Any order that sets in from a complex mechanism is a violent process. We have a term called “growing pains”. When you are growing up there are different aches and pains. Similarly, there is pain even in sex. When there is a change, there is reorganization. And in that reorganization there has to be some mechanism in which there will be a lot of activity in the brain that produces unusual sensations, feelings, thoughts and images. That which was constant, like your demands or desires has now found a rhythm of life of your innate existence.


The essence of spiritual search is to find out if there's God, truth, liberation, etc. In that process you create a lot of expectations and conjure up images inside your brain. When the natural order is restored in your system, these thoughts lose their stranglehold over you and it has to happen that way to break the continuity. For example, if I verbally abuse you it will send a wave of violence inside your guts. Or if I tell you that you are an angel, you will feel euphoric. So, all these words and their meanings are completely anchored to your body through social influences. To break the continuity is not an easy thing. It's almost like dying. In fact, it is death. It's a process that makes you feel that you will never open your eyes again. It's a real thing and that's the reason I could not fathom why I wanted such a thing from U.G. I remember he used to say you would not touch this with a ten-foot barge pole. He was dead serious when he said that. Little did I know then what he meant.


Q: But it still seems extremely rare, doesn’t it?

GUHA: Yes, it's rare. All natural phenomena are like that. Nature does not respond to our sense of justification. Its organization is very strange. Why this happened to U.G. and why not to others—nature doesn't ask this question. Why do millions of seeds go astray and only one becomes a tree? Nature fought for millions of years to bring me here. If I do the math, it will be an absolutely impossible chance, beyond any imagination, that I am standing here today. Can you imagine what kind of mechanism Mother Nature has put together to bring me here? The tree does not have to justify its existence. Its existence is its own justification. Nature does not respond to our sense of justification. Society is occupied by the thinking mechanism and the thinking mechanism itself needs a status quo which is to bind you in its game. If you rebel, you are still participating in that game. There is nothing you can do. When it becomes absolutely certain for you that there is nothing you have to achieve in terms of social justifications like spiritual goals, God, love, bliss, beatitude, etc. the bondage mechanism introduced by the society will lose its ground and you will begin to function in a different way.

There is no message, but abnegation has tremendous power because that is how this wants to address—to reduce the constant social demand so that the stress will not be there. But to live in society we have to use thought. So thought is already there and our brain has evolved in such a way that it has created a separate space distinct from the space of life. In our left brain hemisphere the thought-processing mechanism interferes with the workings of the limbic system. There is no choice. But we have to use it as a functional system, not allowing thought to act as the owner of the body; actually it is the other way around! It is because of this body’s infinite mercy that it is allowing that mechanism to continue like that.

The moment these facts begin to filter down in you, you will not be the same. Really listen and try to understand what U.G. is saying, every word, and there will come a time when some mechanism will begin to operate in you where you and U.G. will not be functionally different.


Q: Have you ever come across anyone else in any culture or tradition or time who has said something similar to U.G.?

GUHA: That's the beauty! It just completely exploded my brain. I could not see this in anyone else. Everybody compromised except U.G. Even on his deathbed, until the very last moment he would not compromise. That was the difference between his world of action and the way we live, giving ourselves and others false hope. He could not and would not do that. To U.G. that was the most important thing in the world because anything else was just useless. He was telling you that for your good. He was not giving false hope because hope is the perpetrator of that mechanism. You think because so many people have talked about nirvana, enlightenment, emancipation, liberation, or whatever, maybe it is there? These concepts will take you for a long ride and you will live and die in hope.

U.G. was angry with the religious heads and spiritual gurus because they exploit the most cherished and purest thing in you, knowingly or unknowingly. Setting you on a beaten track is a total waste of your valuable energy. A thief is much better because he knows he is stealing from you. The relationship is clear there. But these guys are exploiting the core of your faith and beliefs. It's as if someone gives you the address of God with an exorbitant price tag; you go there, open the door and God is nowhere to be found! He doesn't exist! There is just this, where we are talking to each other. THAT does not exist; what you are left with is just THIS! All false! Anything else you find through your reflecting and recollecting capacity is a result of a power struggle in your mind. At best it gives you illusory comfort through a logically ascertained premise.

The moment you feel happy about that state, you lose it. Even to translate what I am saying you stop listening to me and cut the flow because that is the way your world of imagination is tied up in your brain. You have to cut the flow of what is going on here and exercise your will to imagine, that is how “you” continue your domination in the system. It is fictitious. That's the problem and all imagination is like that. You stop the listening so you cut the flow. When you get the hang of this mechanism, you begin to realize that the thoughts are arising and your energy is being depleted to keep the thought, the thinker and the object of thinking, going. This mechanism is like a closed circuit but if you don't actively pursue this process which aids energy drain, the body can get the upper hand and the continuity is nipped in the bud. This process which used to lead you to the same dead end after long and exhaustive ups and downs every time, is being taken care of. It is a dead end and the promised entity does not exist; what exists is your cycle of ideas, nothing else. So what happens? You begin to function in a way that is so much more efficient. Your needs and wants gradually find a rhythm and get streamlined. You live a life where living and the ideas you have about living are almost in unison. They are not creating a fantasy anymore.


“You” Is a Camouflage


You and your thoughts are not two different things. Without your thoughts, there IS no you. That's all you are—what else are you? Your body does not give two hoots for the nobility of your thoughts.

Q: Can you translate the key passage about the “natural order” from your Bengali book, In the Company of U.G.—14 Days in Palm Springs which is also on the back cover?


GUHA: Here’s the summary of that passage, not a literal translation:


Each one of us is a unique creation of nature and an incomparable movement. A great intelligence is continuously working to maintain this living movement and its equilibrium with the external world. If somehow, a complete trust—in Bengali we call it paripurno astha—develops in us, the naturally-induced order that is pre-programmed at birth, will begin to unfold. Life then begins to function in a very different way. The internal power that is associated with the pre-programmed order is so far beyond our imagination that its exhibition and extension are incomprehensible. Everything that you need to move in the field of living is very naturally supplied by that power, the power that comes out of that order.

The words I have used in Bengali would literally read, “The order gets reincarnated in us and the reorientation follows.”

Q: That's an interesting way of putting it—it gets reincarnated inside what?

GUHA: Inside the body—that order. The order was there at the beginning, right at birth. I'm not saying that the order reincarnates by something, just that if total trust develops, the nature-induced order begins to unfold. Its exhibition and extension—this order and its innate power, antarnihito shakti—has no limits. It's not an explosion; it's an order, and when you deal with that order you can see how powerful it is. The logical mind cannot grasp such a thing.

Q: When you were describing your process with U.G. Krishnamurti, you said, for instance, you were feeling elated. You used your intellect to describe that.

GUHA: I had to, to put things in proper perspective. I came up with many different ideas. As my point of view began to emerge, I tried to explain these things in different ways but none of them is actually and factually exactly the way it was. I was gathering information from books and discussions and using that knowledge to find an explanation. Why is this happening? It is a physical body; its functioning has to be known by biologists. Little did I know then that they knew precious little about our consciousness, especially the cause and effect of the totality of the human body. You can be a specialist of a particular part of the body, but everything in the body is connected in such a complex way, especially when it comes to the mind and the other organs that it is controlling and influencing.


Q: So your point of view came out in a variety of ways when you were trying to explain how you were affected by proximity to U.G.

GUHA: Yes, at first I wanted to explain it on a scientific basis: There was a man called U.G., and I had no doubt that he was affecting me physically, period. I wanted to find out what was it in him that caused this effect in me. I also wanted to know what this effect was and how I was being affected. That was my research. I thought, we have a scientific explanation for transmission of a disease, how about one for transmission of total well-being? I felt it would be amazing if I could find an answer to that. Neither did I understand what was happening to me nor did I know what was going on in him. I thought if I start worshipping U.G. I would have to worship myself too because like him physical changes were taking place in my body too! But if I start worshipping myself, it would give me the greatest narcissistic pleasure and the nucleus accumbens would fire crazily and the mesolimbic pathway would get superfluid—making me crave for more pleasure!


My interest was also for the spiritually-inclined because I had a large circle of spiritually-minded friends. Therefore, I was looking at the whole thing from a spiritual perspective to start with. I was a hundred percent sure that the people I was associated with during my spiritual search would be totally blown away if they came in contact with U.G. I never thought of myself as someone special, so I thought if I could experience something so fundamental without any psychological imposition, and if others could experience something similar to this, then there must be a sense of objectivity. I really wanted to tell my friends about the uniqueness of U.G. but I kept hitting a dead end every time I tried to do so! I gradually realized there was an insurmountable barrier because everyone was talking about their guru in exactly the same way! In my enthusiasm, whatever expression came to mind was created in the first place by the lingo I had learnt and was familiar with. This lingo has been misused and exploited in every possible way by the spiritual conmen and their cohorts in the marketplace. You know very well an actor can play the role of a king better than the king himself.

They were also looking at their guru in the same way I was looking at U.G. They wouldn't believe my experience was anything different from theirs, and I had no way of convincing them that the other guy (head of Ramchandra Mission) who had also been my guru, was pushing me to see and act according to his beliefs and psychological disposition. And U.G., on his part, was fanning the flames, so to speak, and left it entirely up to me to figure out what was going on. I kept thinking, What is this? How can I tell them? How can I convince the logical me? The logical me is part of the social structure. What is the difference between my ex-guru and U.G.?


U.G. taught me words are the only medium we have to communicate with each other and with ourselves, yet words could not correlate to what I was going through. If I were to speak this way about their revered master, they would be very upset or consider me a complete nutcase. If someone thinks he is a Brahmajnani, he is seriously deluded. Words are something that society has given us to have a common mode of expression to maintain the protocol, the status quo. It wants to use us in a certain way. What else is there? That's what I was beginning to realize.

Information is the source of both, our sorrow and happiness. That is what shrinks, teachers, priests, politicians and New Age hope peddlers are using to achieve their goal. It is the outcome of an inner conflict and they have no idea about the natural order that the human body is seeking, even if one or two among them may have had this sense. They believe they are doing this in the name of helping humanity, although actually they are helping themselves to have wealth and prosperity forever at our expense—from our hopes and fears.

So, then how could my experience be of any use to anybody? That question made me look for a scientific explanation, because I still had some functional trust in science. Because there are reasonable arguments, we act on that trust. Otherwise you will never get on a plane. Do you know in how many ways an airplane can fail? Or you will never take any medication because you yourself don't understand anything about chemicals in the pills.

When it comes to the notion of truth or reality, you begin to see how deep U.G. was, in the sense that he realized that words generate more words, more meaning, more connectivity, and you will never ever come to an end because the end and the beginning are one and the same! But there are certain things that we need to know to function in this world, right? Where is the balance? When should I use my energy and when should I not? Functionality is subject specific. How you function will depend on you and will be different for each one. What information do you need to function sanely and intelligently in this world? But looking for truth is different. It depends on how passionate or intense you are to find what you are looking for. That's an important factor when you're doing something and meditation is important because that is the only thing you are focusing on, nothing else matters. You want to find out only that and that capacity separates you from others. You can go as far as thought can take you to get something or do something. Scientists, artists, people in the creative field are extremely passionate. U.G. was absolutely passionate about finding out for himself and by himself the meaning of life and the answer to the question—is there any truth? Why should I tell other people the way I am not functioning?” Why should I be fake? Why can't I say that I don't know? What makes me do that? If you have that kind of passion and if you go on feeding that passion and putting energy into it, you will begin to see things in a different way.


There is a big shift in focus when you go deeply and passionately into things and you gradually realize that you are swimming in the middle of an ocean with no end in sight in any direction. I had a vision like that, which stopped all this kind of activity. It was an uncomfortable movement but I had to find out; culture had put that urge in me. I had to find out first for myself and then justify it to others. Just the way I wanted to tell the difference between U.G. and the other gurus who claim to be enlightened. I really wanted to get a true perspective. Suddenly something started happening to me, from time to time. There was an uncomfortable movement focused inside and I felt as if my anchor was completely gone. At times, when I closed my eyes I would be floating freely and travel to faraway, unknown places and see strange things. It was fascinating but extremely frustrating at the same time because I didn’t know what was going on. Was I going insane?

One day in my waking state I saw clearly that I was flying in front of a huge wall. The wall was made of 3x5 bricks, and I was moving upwards along the wall with tremendous speed. How long I moved I don't know but I was breathless. I wanted to scale the wall to see what was on the other side. But there seemed to be no end in sight. Then I started moving towards the right but was met with the same unending wall. Then, suddenly some power came to me and I started moving through the wall itself. All around me was the wall with the same structure everywhere I looked. Whichever way I went, it was the same exact thing. I felt as if I was literally dropped in the middle of the ocean and the shore was absolutely beyond my reach. How long I moved through those bricks I don't know and where I started or where I was, I had no idea. All movement was absolutely futile. And then, as suddenly as it had started, so it suddenly stopped—everything stopped! When I came out of the vision, my tremendous urge to find answers to life's questions was totally gone.

There was another movement inside me during this time period, which was to move out of the US and live in a place where I thought I could find more comfortable human interactions. I was shown then that human beings are the same everywhere; now there is no preference in place or in things. We have one set of problems here, another set of problems there—the problem is inside us, not outside. Problems of living will always remain. My avoidance to face the present situation was pushing me to look for an alternative. So it was me that was resisting my own surroundings and existence. Everything just smoothed out and worked out by itself and there was a tremendous release.

Then at night I began to experience something that is very difficult to describe—a real, physical grinding process that just seemed to stop my heart, and there was something resisting it. The struggle I faced is beyond description. Everything seemed to stop, and I thought, okay, I cannot understand this but why should I try to figure it out? But things would keep popping up in my head, without any intention on my part. I didn't want to understand or want to know my future, but thoughts are so habitual. I knew whatever I know now will have no relevance to the future. It was as if something inside was telling me, When you move with somebody, you don't know what's going to happen to you. One day your dad died, suddenly. Like that, things change. Why are you, in your imaginary space creating an investment of hope that makes you feel good, and when that investment doesn't materialize, you feel bad? All the time you are dealing with a fictional imaginary space that has nothing to do with the reality of the situation. Why do you do that? It kept coming, jolt after jolt, and as I went through it I felt better and better. This was not volitional on my part; I cannot cause such a thing by myself. But something was unfolding within me and all kinds of thoughts were popping out.

I cannot create a situation where I can stand still and be oblivious to time and space. If some chemical process takes place in the brain, then probably it can happen. Sometimes when I walk in the woods, I feel a kind of cool breeze blowing inside my head which slows down my breathing and makes my eyelids so heavy that I cannot move them. At the same time I feel some twisting and turning movements going on around my heart and neck—it's like something is tickling my guts from inside and pumping my heart and neck simultaneously. It's an extremely pleasurable sensation—I have no other way of expressing it. It is an enormous high as if all my burdens have been suddenly released. Just great, I am flying! I don't want to understand. It can't be explained or conveyed nor can it be shared with anyone. Therefore, it's of no use to anyone. It is deep down, unknowable for me. I want to say here that I feel there is something inside all of us that could bring this on, just like that, but it's nobody's doing; things just have to stop on their own. It has to find its own place in the space of life. It's not that I will not be hit by a car, or fall sick, or have problems because these are part of living. All species face challenges as they pass through the movement of life. Inside us there are two enormous movements—one wants to invade, the other to protect. The battle is always going on. Sometimes one wins, sometimes the other.


I was really in love with U.G. By resonating with him, I had the greatest time of my life. All I wanted at that time was to be with him. Something in me slowed down in his presence. His very disposition, the way he was functioning, had that power. He could not hand that over to anybody, it wasn't like that. His disposition was the outcome of some natural process. If something in you resonated in his presence, he would respond accordingly, but if you said, “U.G., I love you,” you know his response, “You bastard, get out of here!” He could not function any other way. He knew very well how to shut up your imagemaking instrument if it threatened his sense of order.

When he was alive I used to try to make people understand what a valuable gift we had in U.G. I would argue and tell them, “You go and experience and see what it is like to be with him. Your physical existence is the laboratory and your discrimination is the instrument; note down your inference accordingly.” The power of that order increases the conflicts in us because it is challenging the self, which is oppressing the organism. To illustrate that point, I wrote a poem in Bengali about a servant becoming the master of the household: Once the master of a big home hired a servant to help with household chores. This servant lived and performed his duties well for a long time and gradually started believing that he was the real master of the house. He knew every little corner in the house and it became very difficult for the master to throw him out. The master didn't want the servant around any longer because he was interfering with every aspect of running the household. The servant's roots were deep and he made things very difficult for the master; he was ready to burn the house down before leaving. Finally the owner realized, “The house is made of gold; it can't burn. The squatter has to get out!”


All Solutions Are Fictions


The body does not care about what information you gather. All it cares about is how that information is creating stress and strain. If the information is stressful, the body is going to reject it. If it is pleasurable, the body is going to reject it too after some time. Happiness or sorrow—the body does not like either to continue for too long. It wants to come back to its equilibrium. The demand for happiness is a problem for the body.

GUHA: I was a J. Krishnamurti freak while I was studying for my Ph.D. in physics in Bangalore. When I wanted to relax my brain after a day's work, I would read J.K.'s books. I knew every single word that he ever said.


Q: He gives you the impression that there is something there.

GUHA: Yes, and that you can do something to achieve it. He created another value system in the process but it is the same movement. It does the very thing that he was criticizing to start with, and instills in you the concept, “the power of the present”, which is impossible for a thinking mind to imbibe. The fearlessness that he described is not functioning in us and his words become our crutch. He made fun of mechanical repetition of the Vedas, mantras and doing japa or blindly following religious rituals, but ironically his followers and New Age spiritual junkies are using his ideas and phrases in exactly the same way. It is doing exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to do—it has become a new pleasure movement for the so-called “choicelessly aware” selfless individual.


There is a stage after which you realize you cannot fight against your thought because the one who struggles is an outcome of thought. You will try all your life and die in hope or you will use that lingo to make a living. Of course, there are different ways of dealing with thought. You can always replace a bad thought with a good thought but the vicious cycle doesn't end and does not address the foundation of the problem. To get to the bottom of the problem you have to come to a place where you are confronted with yourself. Your capacity, how badly you want to know and your intensity will bring some action. So, in one way, when you put all your passion into one channel, you will see certain things a certain way—that is definite.

Many other things will fall off, because this is the most important thing for you. It addresses the core problem, not a non-functional, hopeful, fictitious solution mixed with a dose of high producing mythical future.

Q: When I was studying psychology in the early 90s, I was in a university that did a lot of research on self-organization, system theory, etc. and they said there is no central entity. It is self-organized. You can try to push the organization a certain way, but you can't control the outcome.

GUHA: The organization of the brain is very intricate with so many reciprocal connections and these use many areas where the combinations are degenerate. To have one output from one input, so many complex processes are involved, it's not just one. If an optical nerve is damaged you cannot see with the right eye. If you can trace it back to the damaged optical nerve, then you know that is the reason for vision impairment. It is just a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition for vision, and most brain functions are like that.


Q: And it will rewire to accommodate that.

GUHA: No, it cannot do so. There are major things that cannot repair themselves. Other sensory functions, yes. The plasticity, the assigned activity of a particular type of neuron cluster can perform different jobs if not used for the assigned functions. In the brain there are some cells reserved for sight, but if there is no visual input they will be used by other perception mechanisms to create an internal universe for you to function, depending on the environment.


Q: Which is as effective as seeing.


GUHA: As effective as seeing for itself. That's the way things function. But one thing is certain—the situation is different for me now. The way things used to be and the way I used to respond—now it's very different. For example, it is very difficult for me to close my eyes and imagine a picture or a color, or anything like that. It just doesn't come, which was not so earlier. So, definitely there is a mechanism which organizes itself if there is a certain change. The thoughts and ideas that used to control me cannot produce any action in me now; they have lost their meaning. Something in the system that controls the underlying steps, which create thoughts and ideas, is now inhibited.

Q: What is beautiful about reading these brain mindfulness books by Daniel Siegel and relating them to U.G. is that information now has a different kind of resonance. I realize I am functioning this way; we all are. U.G. said we all function the same way, but for us the imposition of ideas is still there. What I liked about this guy's book is it shows the complexity.

GUHA: I have read a lot about the functioning of the brain and my warning is not to get caught up in the details. Nothing is going to emerge out of that knowledge. You know, we scientists have a standard joke about physics and beauty. There was a physicist who loved the ocean and the beauty of the waves enamored him so much that he wanted to find out how these beautiful waves were formed. So he started to read about waves and the more he learnt, the more he was intrigued. Finally, he got so caught up in the mathematical intricacies of hydrodynamics and the origin of the movement of the waves, that he dedicated his entire life in solving equations, and never looked at the waves again!


In our body more than a hundred different chemicals are involved in information processing and thirty three functionally segregated groups of neurons involved in forming, processing and delivering the seamless visual field and associated memories that we use without an executive planner. Can you imagine the complexity? And where did all this come from—a tiny sperm and an egg!


Q: In any kind of brain research, we know just a fraction of what's knowable anyway because it's so hard for the brain to know itself—it's so limited.

GUHA: If you look at it logically, our brain is not very different from that of a primate. You can teach a smart chimp how to do different things, but we have gone to a much higher level of complexity. That complexity, which gives us all our ideas, is a by-product of our brain development, which helps us to survive and drives us to increase our knowledge. The organization responsible for creating our ideas and thoughts is always hidden; we can never be aware of the brain processes, no matter how much we know about them. That's the kind of mechanism it is and that is the reason we have secondary consciousness. Primary consciousness is responsible for allowing us to see the world the way it is.

This world, in short, is nothing but hundreds of different electro-magnetic radiations that are all reflected and scattered from different bodies bunched together and falling on your retina—that's all. That is one way of knowing what is going on deep down. The retina has six layers of cells, rod, cone, and other types of neurons. These cells are interacting with the electro-magnetic radiation which brings the information about the world to you. In an unknown, complex process which involves many other brain areas and deciphering mechanisms, individual appearances are created. When you look, all you will see is the result of these interactions, and scientists will see electrochemical organizations and their activities. You will never see you as an individual is seeing—that is always going to be the mystery. All you see is the information you have about yourself through introspection. You can see everything in the microscope, but the microscope will not know what it is seeing through that electrochemical interaction. Maybe we will invent a computer which can decipher the interaction and produce imageries, but it will not be aware of the outcome. So, this gap of what is happening in terms of the knowledge of the physical process and the outcome of that physical process, these two mechanisms are never in the same space. They are fighting to obliterate each other!

There are many things that you CAN know. The organization of chemicals inside our body, called the immune system, has chemical sensors that detect and always keep a check on harmful germs so that when they cross a critical population the immune system starts producing the antibodies to kill them. A similar organization in our brain maintains the equilibrium. The brain is also an organized chemical repertoire—the entire brain processes came to exist in this manner. If it were not so, you would not be able to discriminate between what is good for you and what is bad. This organized intelligence sends a signal, warning of danger to your body—fight or take flight! The same holds true for other processes. First, there is the appearance of thought about the object. Thought means a set of particular chemical dispositions, which is charging a circuit and running it to decide about the objects' necessities for the system. It does not need to continue without a situation. That's why you can't keep on thinking endlessly. If you continue to do so, at one point you will be exhausted and not be able to think anymore. You have drained too much energy and the body wants to shut down.

Similarly, there is a certain chemical disposition where the system is more aware of the internal situation and that can happen if certain glands begin to function the way they were potentially meant to. For example, if your immune system is boosted, you can become much healthier. So, your brain begins to have a self organization where it can detect, just the way the tiger detects, a dangerous situation and it begins to assess its own mechanism, which is not addressing the well-being of the organism, and begins to correct it, and ultimately shuns it, if necessary. Not you, because you are part of the system's energy expense—it is not you, it is the system. It is the work of the system that is hidden from self-consciousness. That is the beauty still present in the human system. That is the most important thing. I see the aftermath, and slowly over time, if it sinks in, you will function in a very different way.

That driving force may be there, but if it does not address the right energy balance beyond a specific time, it is useless. The system does not care about good or bad but is aware of the consequences. It is only concerned about the long-term energy balance, what is constantly draining energy and creating a stressful situation with the adrenaline and cortisol (stress hormones) responsible. If the glands are activated, the pituitary gland will discharge some chemicals that will enervate the connection between the cortex and the amygdala (for controlling the emotions), switch off the adrenal gland and it is gone. You can reduce stress with the use of chemicals, but chemicals create another imbalance. That is why drugs never solve problems as you expect—you always need more and more of the same. If anything can bring about balance it is the body's capacity to restore itself, by itself.

This self-organization has that capacity and it shuns the thinking process from time to time, whenever necessary. This is how my system functions now. Even the recollection mechanism, through which one retrieves information from the information bank to respond to a challenging situation, is different. For instance, earlier when I had to give a lecture, I would prepare notes and explain the topic systematically, step by step. It's not like that anymore; I do not prepare myself to give a talk. I began to realize what U.G. meant when he said, “You are bringing it out from me.” It is your attention, your genuine interest and hunger for knowledge that triggers something and pulls out information from me.


Q: Is that why people like U.G. didn't write books, because the information cannot come out of a vacuum?

GUHA: No, it cannot. When I go home, I do not remember what I talked about. And even you will find it very hard to recollect most of what I said because the moment you try to recollect, you are breaking the flow and that is what happens most of the time when you are listening. Therefore, this U.G. phenomenon has different aspects. It affects our vocabulary in a radical way. Words have meanings, and through that meaning they engage our body, causing energy drain. To regain its equilibrium and preserve energy, the body wants to shut down or slow down the thinking mechanism and U.G.'s energy helped this process. That is one aspect. Even in trying to understand the meaning of what he says, you get a small resonance of that energy, which ultimately can help restore the balance. But actually, it's a lot more than that because beyond a point you just don't hear what he says. All you are left with is pulsating energy inside you.

Q: When I am listening to you I am wondering it's like most of the people are deceitful, it's me talking, it's one dimensional, we are talking about something, it has a certain meaning, and there is something to you it's just opening up space and there's nothing to hold on to, it just kind of keeps whatever, whatever, it solidifies, it opens again. It's just like three-dimensional. It's totally different, and it's very, very exciting; you don't meet people like that in daily life usually. It's more like an experience of dissolving, of opening. It's like it doesn't go into the usual tracks of knowing something.

GUHA: If you do not have a specific goal inside you or when that is dissolved, you will talk only when there is a demand. It will not be from your demand because you don't have any investment. It's the demand from others that creates the disposition in you and accepts the challenge from outside to throw out things just the way they are. If somebody hears what we talked about, they will be confounded; many of these things will not make any sense.


Q: What you're saying is beautiful and the effect created by your words is amazing.

GUHA: I myself am surprised that what comes out is a different thing. I have read a lot about the unconscious processes in the brain which do a tremendous job and we can never be a part of that. It's not the secondary consciousness or self-consciousness that we use to recollect words and images; this self-consciousness brings back memories from the dead past. This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is a process that goes on inside. And when something addresses those things and resonates with subtle movements, it has a very different connotation. I will not know, you will not know. At best, you can get a glimpse of it.


Q: This brain book (by Daniel Siegel) illustrates that all day long things are going on, decisions are made and it can be proved that they are made even before you are aware of it.

GUHA: Yes, they have done experiments on that but you have to focus on two important aspects. The first aspect is that, yes, it gives you the information and it's your conditioning which is doing things over which you have no say. But the second aspect is that you will never know what the outcome will be. Your self-consciousness will never know, no matter how much information you put in there. So, the knowledge about the brain and its activities is never going to inform you how you will respond in a given situation. Reading any book about the brain is not going to address your problems.

Q: One of the main reasons for reading this book and also this discussion is how to present what I felt around U.G. in my own way. And I found the central problem is that the brain is looking for cause-effect all the time. The information in the book seems to undermine the cause-effect explanation about U.G.'s effect on me. The book is saying that there is no cause and effect, really. There's a just string of unrelated events.

GUHA: Scientists are trying to find a correlation between apparent unrelated events through cause and effect so that we can use it to better our lives.


Q: From my perspective, how do I begin to approach as to what happened to U.G.? Do I try to explain in the light of non-duality or the influence of Theosophical Society and J. Krishnamurti on U.G.? After all, he struggled with J.K.'s teachings for twenty years.

GUHA: Once I told U.G., “In you I see a classic textbook (scripture) example of things that are working there.”


Q: Textbook classic case in the tradition of the spiritual?

GUHA: Yes, not only spiritual but the function that the absence of the self is in operation here harmoniously with the rest of life. In the absence of the self, U.G. functioned in perfect harmony with nature and life. All problems associated with the self were absent in him. He said, “I myself do not know anything that is going on inside.” People who come in contact with such a person are always projecting their knowledge on to their behavior and giving elaborate descriptions about their functioning.

You are trying to find out if anybody like U.G. exists. You don't even know what to look for. Anyone can read a few books and dish out characteristics of an “enlightened” person. How would you know? Is that your mission? Or, do you want to discover the effect he has on you and how it is unfolding.


Road to Insanity


Love is something that I don't want to define but it feels as if there is something left behind in me after interacting with a person that cries for their company again and again because something deep down found something that's addressing its own true well-being. That is not something that you can put into words.

GUHA: I wanted to describe my relationship with U.G. Krishnamurti to a friend in Kolkata, so I wrote to him in my mother tongue, Bengali, and it all came pouring out, page after page. I wanted to show him all the notes I had taken down and even a few poems I had written.

Here I have to tell you a story: My mother was practicing Raj Yoga in the same spiritual organization that I had been previously involved with. When she came to know that I had thrown out the whole package of seeking from my system, she was really worried and dreaded that something bad would happen to me and my family. Then I told her to read the life of U.G. Krishnamurti, but her English was not good enough for that, so I began to translate U.G.'s biography into Bengali for her. Strangely, this book was given to me by U.G. himself on the very first day I met him in New York. I read the book, U.G. Krishnamurti—A Life by Mahesh Bhatt in Julie's apartment while they went out to run an errand. When I completed translating the entire book in Bengali, I sent it to my mother.


During this period, from 1996 to 2000, my energy was intense and I could work for eighteen hours at a stretch. I was a powerhouse—I worked hard in my physics lab all day, and back home when I couldn't sleep at night I used to write. My condition at that time was that the “me”—before losing its ground—wanted to create havoc, play every trick of the trade and entice me in every possible way to instill fear and pain to postpone its own demise. In so doing, my brain was continually throwing up things. I kept on writing, singing Bengali songs, studying biology, etc. It made me realize how one's brain could become highly proficient and reach its best by doing the same thing over and over again. Most people get stuck there.

Maestros, great artists and musicians actually know that at a certain point there is a lapse of time and space and something happens. Their energy gets released directly without the complex filtering of the thinking mechanism. While the musician is playing the piano, there is no space for thought that creates the sense of self at that time. Although thought helped him to learn music, when he is performing, his total energy is tuned to and resonates with the playing; the space created by thought is a barrier to the flow. He may not be aware where it is coming from but the organization of the brain is directly connected to the source of his energy. If he is honest, he will admit, “I don't know why I am doing what I am doing. It just comes that way. The world seems to be exhibiting its colors that way to me. I find myself absorbed in doing these things. Nothing else can capture me like that.”

The strange thing is that we don't know the source of this inspiration. You may imagine that love or passion is the source of your inspiration and later the critics may say, “He was trying to express such and such in his work.” But I am telling you from my own experience of the unknowability of the core movement. It is an exercise in futility. This is how I felt. Although my field of work was based on logical thinking and step by step scientific analysis, suddenly it was no longer like that. I was writing impulsively and using words pulled out by movements of my emotional center. It was accessing my vocabulary and throwing out things that had meaning but no logically thought-out propositions. It took me by surprise.

The relationship I had with U.G. at that time was mysterious. To put things in perspective, the essence of the organization of this body seemed to have a very deep connection with that relationship; therefore a strange demand developed and action followed. When I try to analyze my feelings, which I think is a result of the movement that resonated with him, I feel that when something like this happens, the result seems to affect the narrative and the expressive part of the brain organization.

We have seen the tremendous influence of religion and spirituality in the development of art and music. It is not religion per se but something that resonates in our core when there is an indication of the resolution of the deep conflict within us. It's not the reason, it's not the causality, it's not the finding of truth, but there is something fascinating expressed by people from time to time who resonate with the freedom of the flow of energy in the system; something in our core has that demand and the system senses it. We don't know what it is.

The system has the power to throw out concepts from a meditative brain. When the brain gets tired of thinking one thing or when it holds on to a particular subject, pondering and reflecting over it, something can emerge. Suppose you want to know your purpose is in the scheme of life—that becomes your meditation. Since you are holding on to that question, it goes deeper and deeper into your unconscious process, which is not in your control, but the question remains whirling about. Finally, the system throws out something that may surprise you, although it will be expressed with what you have learnt from the social context.

What happens if a scientist thinks about a particular problem and cannot find an explanation or an appropriate solution for it? As it often happens in greatest human discoveries, he may find the solution in a dream, or suddenly something inside the brain starts forming a logical thought and a new idea emerges that neither he nor the entire humanity thought of before. If you ask him where that idea came from, he will not be able to tell you. In fact, once I dreamt that electrons were circulating in orbit and were jumping from one orbit to another and based on that assumption I could answer so many unanswered questions!

Q: There's a story about Einstein, that he had one of his biggest insights while relaxing in the bathtub.

GUHA: That actually happened to Archimedes, ancient mathematician and physicist, who lived in the Greek city of Syracuse. The story goes:


Once the king appointed a goldsmith to craft a golden crown, to be offered to the gods in a certain temple. He weighed and gave the precise amount of gold to be used for the crown. The goldsmith did as he was ordered and on the appointed day presented to the king the exquisitely made golden crown. The king was pleased but he had a doubt whether the crown was made out of pure gold or whether silver had been mixed in it. The king believed there was only one man in the kingdom who could solve this problem—Archimedes. He summoned Archimedes and ordered him to find out, without breaking the crown, whether there was any impurity in it.

Archimedes was consumed by the problem, and deep in thought he went for his bath and as he was lowering himself into the bathtub, the water in the tub began to spill over the sides. Curious, he continued to lower himself slowly into the water, and noticed that the more his body sank into the water, the more water ran out over the sides of the tub. Suddenly, the entire thing formulated in his head in a flash and he ran to the palace naked, shouting “Eureka! Eureka!”


It's called the Archimedes' Principle. You can measure what is called the specific gravity, density. You know pure gold's density, and then you put the crown inside the water and measure the density; if there is an impurity, the density will be different and one can easily calculate how much silver is there in the crown.

Q: When you are in a crisis, your system shuts down.

GUHA: When you are in a crisis, the system throws out a solution, or it shuts down and starts working differently. This is the power of self-organization of life itself—simply the magic of life. Life functions according to some basic programming. At different stages of life it behaves and functions differently and finally, dies gracefully. But we human beings cannot gracefully die because our desires are unending.

The movement generates inside us and creates desires—we keep replacing one desire with another. This movement, if allowed to continue, doesn't address the well-being of the system, because it can manipulate the powerful organization in the brain, which is there for automatic response. And trying to eliminate or control the pleasure movement, which has a very specific purpose, is also a kind of manipulation.

We try to restrain and control certain desires because our religious beliefs or traditions make us believe that we will receive the grace of the creator of the universe (as if such a thing exists) if we do so! But we see that it doesn't work. For instance, people who take a vow of celibacy often find other modes of pleasure, if not indulging in similar activities behind closed doors. They may become obsessive about food and nutrition or take up some other causes which satisfy their sense of self. The movement of the information center convinces itself of its superiority, eventually becoming a victim of its own grandiosity. Creating the movement that gives pleasure is important for human beings. Not reflecting why the movement is there to start with, even though we have an instrument to reflect on that, is the beginning of delusion.

The thought that completely imbibes or avoids the movement of sex can never ponder on the implications of the result of the sexual act since that movement is not as important as the triggering of that which produced the pleasure. Thinking about sex becomes a prolonged pleasure movement for the self. Our thinking capacity and imagination give us the means to find pleasure without actually indulging in the act physically. This parallel processor—the fiction writer—is addicted to that movement, not the end product.

In the physical process, the body gives a signal. It enacts a process and the sperm has a span of a few days before ovulation can occur. Then there will be real union. It's like a frozen lake there; it can even live there for few days and the one that wins the battle will be part of the metamorphosis. We all are a result of that metamorphosis. This physical union process triggers the entire parallel thinking mechanism which creates a sense of drama and romance. And we find great pleasure just thinking about this without having anything to do with the actual union. So the parallel movement takes over and manipulates everything! In modern times we have moved so far away from the physical process that we can create babies in a lab and exploit the pleasure movement in any way we want. I am not saying whether it is good or bad, but as individuals we have very little choice.


We call the movement of the information center that generates pleasure “self-aggrandizement”. It is also involved with the body, but originates in the fictitious parallel world. It is, however, part of the same pleasure movement that makes us feel good thinking about food or sex. This movement, which involves the thinker, the thought and the object of thinking, together creates desires and that leads to a vicious cycle that demands to fulfill these desires perpetually. You like to have pleasurable thoughts all the time and you dispel thoughts that cause pain. You want to keep the demand going but the response of that demand does not address the natural balance in the system. So when people are urged to give up sex to pursue higher goals, they end up either indulging in sexual acts secretly or try to satisfy themselves through different means, never reflecting on the nature of the demand. As long as the balance does not strike from within, it is like a balloon—you squeeze one portion and the other portion expands. For example, as a teenager I lived in a boarding school for a couple of years where we were taught in the traditional Hindu way. While living there we were supposed to be practicing celibacy but to the contrary there was a lot of secret sexual activity going on all the time among the boys.


When something triggers in the system, the body does not always remember its sexual orientation. It goes into a different pleasurable mode trying to seek release. If the whole thing is allowed to move “naturally,” however, it can lose its ground from the foundation, and one goes to a different level of functionality. Movements, accompanied by pleasurable sensations as a result of illusory continuity, are shunned by the system because it is too much to bear for the body. All addictions which are detrimental to the balance of the organism because this mechanism was not allowed to command would become naturally responsive and not habitual. It's a very strange competitive movement and the supreme intelligence of the body is extremely complex through and through. As long as that balance is not established in the system, other fields of pleasure movement become very important.

The pleasure movement triggers a release of certain neurotransmitters in the brain which makes you feel good. Meditation can give you a different kind of good feeling, because in the beginning there is a struggle between trying to concentrate and avoid thinking. But of course, it's in vain. You just want be “choicelessly aware” of the presence, or hold onto an image or a mantra, and not get carried away with other thoughts. As this battle goes on, you realize that you are not able to be “choicelessly aware” as you are part of your thoughts. By the time you discover this you are already divided into two: one part is the thinking mechanism and the other part is looking at it and saying, “I am not supposed to do that.” It is already judging, so it's already too late. You spend so much time thinking, allowing the thought mechanism to go on and on. It's as if there is a tape recorder playing in your head, telling you what you are supposed to do.

This battle tires you out. When you are tired and ready to give up, the body releases neurotransmitters and you feel at peace. It is called the relaxation mechanism that releases stress. Do you know why laughter is good for us? Laughter is a natural response for humans, a signal that the danger is over and the stressful condition is gone. Laughter produces relaxation in the brain—stimulating release of neurotransmitter—which makes you feel what you term as “happy”. Similarly, during meditation relaxation can be so deep that you feel drugged. At a certain point when the battle is almost over, the mind is so relaxed, you just drop off. That is when the actual meditation begins.

When the system begins to shut down, it does not allow the instrument to carry on by refusing to supply any more energy. Being aware is a very big drain. It's not relaxing. The bottom line is that when you have a mechanism that is already there and has some purpose to serve, if that mechanism can bypass the thinking structure, then that will be the best that will come out of a particular system. This kind of energy, like the energy of U.G., when it is trying to establish an order in an individual system, it nurtures innate talent. Often people don't know what their natural talent is. When the system is not wasting energy it allows the natural talent to flower.


Q: Talent in the sense of …

GUHA: In the sense of what kind of internal disposition it enjoys most without conflict and can accomplish what it needs to without spending a lot of unnecessary energy. That's why U.G. always said, “If a thief is with me, that talent in him will be enhanced, and he will become a better thief.” He knew the way things unfold in the system. I am sure he observed how people were being affected by him. It is never one-sided. If you were resonating with him—resonating is like an energy exchange—he became part of the circuitry that you are. It is one system, after all.


Q: Is that what he meant when he said attraction is the action?

GUHA: Yes! That is the action. Movement is the foundation of life; anything static is dead. Movement is the throbbing of life; just being alive powerfully. When there is movement, there is a vibration, there is a disposition, and in that disposition there is a natural unfolding. Whatever comes in its circuit begins to resonate. To resonate means that there are some fundamental modes that respond to his energy. When that happened in U.G.'s presence, he sensed it. If you were attracted to him he felt it. That is the beginning of the action, something that is not thought-induced. Often we get attracted by an idea that has been cultivated by our culture. That's not action but a reaction induced by our society and culture. Sometimes even though a person is not good looking or matching your ideals, there may be something in her or him that attracts you to them and vice versa. Something moves you and that is the action. It is impossible to justify that attraction.


U.G. was one such phenomenon. I used to write letters to my friends because I really fell in love with U.G.! I was consciously and unconsciously preoccupied by thoughts about him—so much so that anyone who came to meet me at my office I would call that person U.G.! I was consumed by the memory of my interaction with him, as if a kind of unconscious process in my brain was taking over as soon as I let go of myself. It was an uncontrollable impulse.

Every morning I would jot down the list of things I had to do at work. I would start ticking them one by one, but suddenly I would lose focus and my head would become fuzzier and fuzzier and in that fuzziness I would feel U.G.'s presence. It was as if some powerful process was taking over unconscious activity of my brain mechanism. By the time I emerged from this experience, again I would be unmindful of my present situation. There would be a gap of five or seven minutes during which a lot of unconscious processes unfolded in my brain that I wasn't aware of. During that time if my boss or a student, came to meet me, I would greet them, “So U.G. what … oh, I'm sorry!” That would bring me back to the present with a jolt!

I used to call U.G. every day, wherever he was. I called him every single day for three years! If I couldn't find his number, I would go crazy. And she (Julie) was like my CIA agent. Wherever she was, she would provide me with U.G.'s phone number. If she didn't know, then together we would go through hotel lists, airlines, contact friends and somehow reach him. Even if he didn't answer, or convey through somebody, “Access denied!” I felt very happy. Then that cycle was over for me.

Slowly, I began to understand that there are much stronger processes involved in our existence, just the way the physical mechanism is a powerful process that makes life on this planet possible. It is the same mechanism and it is not done by me, and I am sure his self-conscious process did not do that either. Something much bigger, a much more purposeful organized effect on human beings is doing something which probably we will never know. Its existence is as clear as the sun, though I don't know what constitutes the sun. Scientists are beginning to understand what is there inside the sun, but it doesn't matter. The sun has been there even before the beginning of life, as far as our present knowledge is concerned. It's only within the last few decades we came to know very partially what is going on there. Like that, there is a process unfolding which you don't know, but you know the outcome. The outcome is that there is something that captivated your unconscious process in the brain. That is a phenomenological truth to me, it does not matter whether anybody believes it or not. This is the way it is functioning in me; I can't help it. My self-conscious process is the outcome of a deeper process in consciousness. I have no choice but to like this guy! His presence was the only thing I was thinking about and I was longing for his company. When I was around him, it was like, as you know, whatever was going on around him, if you go out somewhere, you would feel like some unseen rubber tag is in your heart, which would pull you towards him. The further you go, the tag pull becomes stronger.

When I was a child, during our summer vacation we were not allowed to play outside because it was very hot, and servants were ordered to keep an eye on us so it was very hard to go and play outside. But some of my friends who were kind of semi-homeless, would be happily playing in the hot sun and swimming in the Ganges. It was very painful for me to watch them playing outside while I was indoors yearning to be with them. Many times I would hoodwink my caretakers and run away. That's how I used to feel with regard to U.G. I wanted to be with him all the time but my responsibilities were keeping me away from him.


People would laugh at my obsession and even U.G.'s friends would tell my daughters, “Your father is going bananas!” That was the struggle, and that really made me ponder, made me reflect. I enjoyed my interaction with U.G.—it was delicious. I had never felt that good in my life, physically and mentally. The energy was just enormous. Everything seemed to be falling in the right place; I didn't even bother to enquire how he was affecting other people. The power of U.G. was enormous and there were some incidents that just blew my mind—it was so powerful and life giving—I never felt more fulfilled in my life. But at the same time, I always carried a burden within me. If somebody would ask me about him, what would I say? What is this silliness, falling in love at this age? If I couldn't talk to him, I felt depressed and when I did reach him I was ecstatic; everybody knew because I would be beaming! It was totally uncontrollable on my part. I truly wanted to understand what was happening to me. That was the beginning of my studying about body and mind.

In my Bengali book, In the Company of U.G.—14 Days in Palm Springs I have discussed in detail about human interactions. What is it that one human can give to another? Disease and sickness, yes. A person can produce a vicious, fearful state in you which can make you break down, but can the converse be true? Can the presence of a person bring about and address something that is all good, down to the core? Is there a possibility of something like that happening? That was my focus, because that was how I felt. In the book something spilled out of me that involved my emotional center—the amygdala. For example, there is a key paragraph in the book, which is also on the back cover, which my friends tell me is beautifully phrased and loaded with meaning:


We are a unique creation of nature. The uniqueness of this is astonishing; nobody like you has ever been born or will ever be born! In a living body there are dynamic processes that have to be linked with the rest of life and the environment. This movement, the linkage that keeps this alive and functioning is so powerful, vast and complex that you begin to have not faith, but a complete trust; that is something very different. The Sanskrit expression I used was paripurno astha—it is not faith or dependency. It is like when you put food on the fire, you know it will cook. It is that kind of functionality.

To maintain this living movement and equilibrium, a great intelligence is functioning inside us. I am addressing the intelligence that creates this living movement in us; if we develop complete trust, the natural order that is already pre-programmed in us unfolds. Then life begins to function in a very different way. This internal power of the induced order, pre-programmed by nature, is so beyond our imagination that its exhibition and extension are incomprehensible. Everything that you need to move in the field of life is naturally supplied by that power.


Q: Is that why Jesus said you shouldn't worry about tomorrow?


GUHA: The logical consequences are quite foundational. You don't have to go into detail, but the fact is that you are living, breathing, and your body has an enormous chemical repertoire to maintain its balance with a feedback mechanism in place. This is largely an unconscious process. This system is very intelligent deep down. So much so, that I can never fathom the source of the process, since there is no source—it exists as a whole and we can never capture that whole with our conscious information gathering instrument. It must be much greater than my ability to find a causal connection; that is what my intellect is. So, I begin to develop a different kind of trust that is there in every form of life. Then what happens? You don't expect an outcome that is fictional and illusory. You can't ask for something you don't know. Not expecting an outcome puts you in a place where you are much more vital and acting according to your innate nature. You can respond to your immediate surroundings and address its challenges and needs. The fact that we are here means this process has been taking care of things for 13.7 billion years—when the big bang occurred, according to physicists.


Once you are free from preconceptions you will begin to discover a lot of mysterious processes that take place in your brain through sound and light. They exhibit themselves when you remove the stress of seeking. When you are free from seeking, you have tremendous energy available for the system to take you to the preprogrammed stages of human life. Your heightened perception and openness will allow you to sense the mystery up close. Since you realize this mystery cannot be solved by your intellect, you will not dig deeper and waste energy. That brings about a tremendous alleviation from the burden that you have been carrying all along, and that itself is something so beautiful. I am saying beautiful, because no sensation can ever match what takes place inside. You name it, and the process begins to slow down.

At times when I am walking in the woods, something mysterious happens—everything slows down and time seems to stand still. What these eyes see and the ears hear I can never explain. It's just pure sound. Sometimes when you can't translate and explain anything, the sound becomes a fundamental vibration and your insides resonate as if someone is plucking the string of a bow next to your ear. It's very strange what you confront in nature, if and when the process slows down inside you. The continuous movement of thinking and demanding things for which the system has no need prevents the system from coming to a stable equilibrium. There is nothing you can do to slow it down.

I came down to this “complete trust” in the physical body. I asked myself, Why am I feeling so good? What is there in U.G.'s company that makes me so euphoric, loving this guy; I can't help myself! Everyone who has fallen in love knows how the unconscious process takes over—there is nothing you can do; you are just dragged along to the object of love. I never felt so healthy in my life and never imagined that the problems of living that all of us have to confront on a daily basis could dissolve just like that. From these things, I began a different journey and the trust was iterated by itself because of its functionality. There was a different kind of certainty that enhanced my innate confidence, a self-sustaining mechanism.

U.G. used to tell us about his “death experience” while he was attending one of J. Krishnamurti's talks. Once when J.K. uttered the word death, something happened inside U.G. He couldn't think any further and his body started shaking. He felt as if something was really ending. It was a tremendous experience as far as the experiencing structure was concerned, and he couldn't say a word after that. He was very excited and he went and narrated the whole incident to J.K. After listening to U.G., J.K. quietly said, “Well, if it operates, well and good, if it does not, then it's of no value.” U.G. was disappointed.

When I started experiencing bodily movements, I told U.G., “I feel a lump next to my heart; maybe it is a cancerous growth. Something is beating uncontrollably and I can't deal with it. It seems to choke me.” He said, “Just forget it. If something is good, it will take care of itself, if it is bad, soon you will know.” Then he asked me, “Why are you interpreting it this way?” I replied, “I feel like something is pumping my gut fluid into the bloodstream. I feel high all the time. I feel like I can work eighteen hours at a stretch. Some people get enormous intelligence when they have a brain tumor—is it like that? Am I going to vanish this way with this previously unknown sensation in me? It's driving me completely crazy.” He said, “No, just forget it. You're not responsible for this, so why are you worrying about it.” I asked him, “Do you have any hand in it?” He said, “No.”


Then I began to love that man even more. In the spiritual marketplace, the so-called gurus make you believe that even the twitching of your eyebrow is due to their great spiritual power. And when I tell this guy about the cancer-like growth next to my heart and he dismisses it by saying, “I don't know anything. It's not in my hands; nothing is in my hands and neither it is in yours. Why are we talking about it? Let go.” And then I said to myself, what can I do? I am so high. I will die anyway one day. Why make a big deal about it? Right now I am feeling just great. At that time I did not realize that I was feeling incredibly happy because in U.G. I had discovered what I had heard and read about in scriptures. My happiness was also because I discovered that what I had heard all these years about spirituality I found somebody in whom it bloomed and therefore it was a great possibility and functional reality for me. Here I was with him and in love with him! This gave me unthinkable joy.

When I was in Palm Springs I used to meet U.G. in Occotillo Lodge. Outside the lodge there was a patch of small shrubs, cacti and sand, and beyond that there was a small motel where I was staying. After coming out of U.G.'s room at night in pitch dark, I used to feel so high that I could have literally run naked through that desert patch. I used to wonder if this is what the scriptures meant by Satchidananda. I thought to myself, Oh my God, I am supposed to be a scientist. How can I convey this to anyone? I was going crazy! You can never ever find a better friend than U.G. in your whole life. Never! My father, my grandfather—everyone put together could not hold a candle to him, nor match his sincere, caring concern for me. There was no give-and-take with him. His concern was total. Still, there was a doubt and I wanted to objectively find out if what I was feeling was something real and physical or illusive and ephemeral? I was head over heels in love with him. I literally wouldn't let him go. I told him, “From now on I want to stay with you.” He replied he had only twenty dollars between him and starvation, and I had a family to take care of and a lot of responsibilities. It was truly like that—total craziness.

Once U.G. told me, “People say I use vulgar words but I know that Sri Ramakrishna used to use a lot of vulgar words too. Find an older version of Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna in Bengali, read it and let me know whether he used bad words.” I managed to find an older version of the Gospel and read each and every line carefully many times. I underlined relevant parts and I know where Ramakrishna would have used colloquial Bengali slang. In that process, my Bengali also improved a lot; it had become rusty. I read the Gospel cover to cover many times. In the book I found a lot of descriptions about the physical changes that Sri Ramakrishna underwent. U.G. did not want to hear about that, but I am sure that he had read the Gospel. I underlined only the slangs and the seemingly vulgar utterances. Reading that book was an education for me.

Earlier, I had read J. Krishnamurti's books very systematically. I had also read books by Swami Vivekananda in English but I had not read the Gospel in Bengali. Strangely, after being with U.G. for many years, I found certain instances that reminded me of the Gospel, including U.G.'s last days in Italy before he passed away on March 22, 2007. I had never visited the place where Sri Ramakrishna died, but I read about it in the Gospel. The human mind can create an image out of reading a description—we can create an image of Atlantis by reading Plato. Similarly, I had an image of the garden house in Kassipur where Sri Ramakrishna died. It was bizarre but when U.G. fell for the last time in Vallecrosia, Italy, (where he was staying in a friend's villa), suddenly the Kassipur scene from the Gospel appeared to me in a vision. I vividly saw how Sri Ramakrishna died in that garden house. This vision was definitely created in me by reading the Gospel. I thought, Oh, my God, this is the end of U.G. At that time Julie was injured in a car accident in the U.S. and was bedridden. I ran to her home and told her about my vision. She was very upset but I said, “I am sorry, but I have to go there immediately.” When I reached Vallecrosia and saw the house, it was resonating in me like the garden house where Sri Ramakrishna died. After U.G.'s death I went to Kassipur and saw the place for myself. The whole thing was mind-boggling for me.


Q: There are so many parallels between those two.

GUHA: Yes, countless, especially when I read the Gospel and became familiar with all the characters who used to hang around Sri Ramakrishna. That's the reason I feel if you completely give up on your intellectual machinery, life unfolds in a really strange way. That is the power of life. It is the antithesis of the social movement. This is how I live and I never lived better or healthier. Once U.G. saw me popping an antacid and immediately remarked, “Acid has an important role to play in your digestion and you are killing it by taking antacid. It's trying to do something good for you.” I never touched an antacid from that day on and it's almost twenty years now! His attack and then his denial, all these things put together, gave me a new perspective, very different from the perspective I grew up with. Now I am totally mindless about my future or anybody's future—totally!


Q: You also don't seem to have worries about money, like most people.

GUHA: Absolutely zero. First of all, U.G. gave me a lot of money for my daughters' education. Such things happen, and you find more and more helping hands without asking. I don't know how things unfold but as you deal with life in this manner, you get so much strength and confidence that there is no space for worry.


A Dynamic Equilibrium


There were times when I would go to my room to sleep, sit there all night, hairs standing on end, with eyes wide open, chest pumping; I could barely eat because something was growing inside me, and the thoughts would go on and on. What am I doing here? It was a struggle. U.G. was challenging my intellect: The fact that you are here means you have not understood anything!

I would ask myself what I wanted from him. Obviously, my intellect was telling me I wanted to understand and get to the bottom of things. He was telling me, “Your intellect is found wanting.” I asked him why. “Because you are here, that's why. You read the book and it didn't do anything!”

Before I met U.G. and after reading Mind Is a Myth everything had gone topsy-turvy in the sense that I was already in a big struggle. I was doing spiritual practices and having tremendous experiences and whenever I reported these experiences to my spiritual mentors, they told me these were very good and positive signs. After some time, I started questioning this, since I found I was functioning exactly the same way I had always been. I still had hope for the future, creating a finite structure of what I wanted. The same hope-oriented movement of the mind produced endless fantasies and nothing had changed. I questioned what my spiritual experiences did for me. They were stories created in my head. I recollect my experiences and I feel good, so what. Nothing has changed in me.

When I read Mind Is a Myth, I immediately agreed with what U.G. was saying because he was addressing the real problem, not peddling hope. I felt he was telling me to stand back and inquire what the hell I was doing, where I was going, and if anything had ever happened to me other than just finding out what I had experienced and then interpreting those experiences. I had already stopped my meditation practice. I decided that's it, there is nothing to get anywhere, there is nothing to do and you don't need a thing. Although I readily agreed that everything was fine, hunky dory, that was actually not the case because I often found myself thoroughly dissatisfied. I read the book again, and I went back and forth with this book reading.

Finally, I wrote a letter to U.G.'s friend in California, Prof. Narayana Moorty, asking him to tell me more about U.G. and his whereabouts. He replied that it was difficult to coordinate with his movements but if he was anywhere around, he would let me know. After 15 days I wrote to him again. I was driving to my office, and a thought occurred to me: If I heard there was a guy like Sri Ramakrishna around, wouldn't I go and meet him at least once? I sent an email to Prof Moorty wanting to know where that guy was! He replied, “U.G. is coming to New York tomorrow,” and he gave me Julie's telephone number. I immediately called her; she was the perfect conduit to U.G. When I spoke with her it was as if she was preparing her own child to face an interview for primary school admission. She told me, “If U.G. says ‘no,’ don't be disheartened. If you keep trying, he will say yes! Don't take ‘no’ for an answer!”


When I called back that evening, U.G. just asked, “When can you come?” I said, “Now!” He and Julie had just come from London that night, and he said he had to do some ticketing the next day. He told me to come the day after and asked me what time I finished work. I said, “It's in my hands, don't worry about my work!” U.G. said, “Then morning is a good time.” Julie gave me directions and I arrived at 7 a.m. on the appointed day.

The first thing I told U.G. when I met him was that after reading J. Krishnamurti I realized I was a petty, shoddy, worrywart. My mind was filled with desire, and it did not know what silence was. I had read J.K. extensively to find out what one could do to have that “great mind”. But nothing worked. I wanted to do meditation. I knew that science was never going to address my personal problems, my dealings with society, conflicts or desires. It would only tell me that science is an interesting subject and I should know more and more and more.

At that time I was not reading philosophy, psychology or biology, I was just doing physics. I thought the only way to address this problem was to do formal meditation since I had been reading this stuff long enough without any results. I told U.G. that I had experienced many things during meditation and it had been very different and completely foreign to me. I said I never knew these kinds of experiences were possible. Was there anything to these experiences? U.G. said, “You can't experience something that you don't know.” I told him that I had trance-like visions and strange sound and light patterns in meditation. I saw men, women, gods and goddesses, but the context and the movement were in fantasyland. The bits and pieces were familiar but I didn't know how they were connected, perhaps by my unknown desires, and this created a storyline.


I told him that I felt his life was a like a classic story from our scriptures! He became very animated. He said, “My life cannot be described that way, you cannot connect the happenings of my life by cause and effect. Everything that happened to me happened despite everything I did. Every event of my life was an independent event.”

What U.G. had experienced, as expressed in The Mystique of Enlightenment was so great that I felt my experiences compared to his were just a pittance, nothing more. It's as if somebody just started sketching and was comparing himself to Picasso. I thought, “Holy cow, this guy who should be so proud of his experiences, and who had so much to talk about, is pooh-poohing everything. He had complete disregard for his own experiences and had just completely trashed them all. Why am I telling him my petty little nothings?” I was silenced. U.G. said, “Look, we are like two dogs barking. We are not telling each other anything. Just forget it.”


As I was about to leave I told U.G., “After I read your book there was a constant background demand. I thought okay, there is nothing to get, nowhere to go, so I won't see you, but it wouldn't leave me alone. One day it popped into my head that if there was a guy like Sri Ramakrishna, wouldn't I go and see him?” U.G. didn't comment, and we sat together for some time, and I said, “Well, there are things that I want to know, although I know there are probably no satisfactory answers.”

I was sure there were no satisfactory answers to my questions. Wanting to know sets up a desire to know certain things in a certain way, to get confirmation. But then, what he said next was the complete antithesis of what he had been saying. He said, “Perhaps you were ready to come here.” That put me back to square one! I was back to the mess I was in when I started my spiritual practices! All this understanding I thought I had was bogus! What is that readiness he was talking about? Basically, I just went home with a bad headache; something was telling me that I couldn't cover up a problem by saying there is no problem. There may not have been any problem for him, but if I pretended to understand him and claimed I had no problem, then I was a deluded bastard! There is a problem! The problem is me and I want three different things. He wanted me to address that problem. I was flattered, but also confused because I went to see him “just once” and I thought that would be it; I would go back to my science in full gun. But that didn't happen!


That was the only time I met U.G. during that visit. He was in transit to California, but he came back to New York within a month. Julie kept in touch with me and I met him again.

The second time I saw U.G., I thought I will not discuss spiritual matters with him. The answer was not going to come; it was meaningless to discuss spirituality. But at the same time it went on as a constant background. While he was talking to other people, I felt there were many things he was indirectly saying to me. He was discussing everything I wanted to know in detail.

When I went home that second night I had a very high fever. I thought I had malaria or something, and felt my bones were shivering, sending chills down to the marrow. But the next morning I was perfectly fine! I told U.G. about the strange fever. Once again, he put some kind of mysterious idea in my head, saying, “You see, problems happen if you come to see me.” I then remembered that the first time I met U.G. in Julie's apartment, I had a bad headache with nausea. So now this idea was implanted that I could look for some connection between my physical response and his presence. Until then I had never thought about it that way at all!

I was beginning to realize that U.G. was expressing that faith is necessary only when you do not have any evidence of functionality. If you touch fire you will know the burning sensation first hand. Life functions in a very different way, unlike our cocky confidence in our limited knowledge, understanding and faith. Life works to optimize and maintain its functionality; that is its movement. I had no doubt that U.G.'s presence was affecting me; something was going on.

Psychologists say we have an unconscious. The brain scientists study the unconscious, the processes that go on behind every conscious movement and produce thoughts and feelings. It is not simply one thing. I definitely felt that U.G.'s company was addressing my innate demand. Intellectually, however, it was a massive screw up! He denied everything and no one else could address my dilemma. I had to figure it out by myself. Any conclusion I came to would not be an unconditional truth and that bothered me even more. We are in a strange situation, where knowledge brings us to a place of helplessness.

Say you are told you have a mental problem and you are not functioning the way your teacher, your friend, your wife or others expect you to function. You should see a neurophysiologist to examine your extremely complex machinery. This machinery is absolutely essential for you to function properly. The problem is that you don't know how it works. You consult a so-called expert, but you don't completely trust him. So what do you do? You go to a shrink and he tells you if you refuse to take the pill the neurophysiologist suggested it is because you are rebelling against your parents. If you accept this, run to the pharmacy and take a pill, it means you are trying to please them!

There is no space anywhere to protect your dignity. You will go mad if you want to be objective and understand things by yourself. There is no solution! People who pretend to be experts don't know a thing about themselves either. They do not know the unconscious process that makes them take action. They can sort out their desires but can never be sure about the source of intentions and dreams. It is all speculation.


There is nothing you can do—that was my problem. There was no denying that interaction with U.G. was affecting me. He was making inroads into my unconscious process, but I couldn't find anything helpful in what he was saying, as far as society and I were concerned. He was saying everything was shit. You are a greedy bastard sitting here wanting to free yourself from greed. Then, you can't get up and go; that wouldn't prove a thing, it wouldn't mean that you solved the problem. Finally, as a last resort, you use the “shit box” word, love.

What can you say about U.G.? Unless you invoke religious concepts, you can't talk about him. Okay, he is God, he is freeing me, he is showing me the door to heaven—blah, blah, blah, mythical stuff. Indians might say, “U.G. lives everywhere, he is here, he is there.” Friends say, “Ah, he is in three places at the same time”—all fairy tales. His memory lives in your mind because his presence affected you; it has affected the deep unconscious processes through which the conscious movement arises. It is physical, and difficult to explain.

On the one hand, there are things beyond my logic, and on the other, there is a sequential happiness that comes when you identify something positive that you are going to get. I had an idea that there was something deep down affecting me; a person can affect you and make you feel healthy, strong and vital. U.G.'s presence was addressing something that began to form a qualitative logic that there was something inside me that wanted to function the way he was functioning. It was very personal for me.

If you are confident about what you are doing, you attract the attention of others. People around you feel it and that movement has a strong impact. When you see someone who doesn't depend on any authority, you want to be like that, it's natural. You want to be independent; you don't want to hear lectures from anybody. There is no further movement. It is just the way the natural process unfolds. A tiger can run only up to a certain speed. Everything has limits—desires and capacities are a function of limitations. Our thought-induced desires seem to have no limit because they function in an illusory space.


When I met U.G., as far as I could see, there was no conflict in him. Something in me wanted to be like that, to function that way, completely present with no distraction. He was there with me, he could do whatever he wanted with me and nothing else seemed to matter. My system was responding to what functioned in him. For example, say you are walking your dog, and the moment he spots another dog on the other side of the road, nothing else exists for him. The two are “locked in;” it's that kind of response. This same locking-in mechanism, relating to U.G., created something inside me that began as an unconscious process and kept unfolding. You can do anything, but there will be a U.G. for you, he will be there as long as you are there. You can't help it; he's sitting in the background of your mind. You don't have to learn to love. You don't have to practice anything!


At one point in time, I thought that I should do an experiment on myself to see how my interaction with U.G. was affecting my system. His effect was so strong and I wanted to know quantitatively, not just qualitatively, what that was. Qualitatively my heart was foaming, there was a physical movement next to my heart and there were bumps and marks on my stomach, neck, and forehead. There was a constant saliva secretion in my mouth, I had difficulty swallowing and I felt as if there was a lump in my chest. I wanted to find out what was going on in my own system, but at the same time I felt extremely vital. I knew I wasn't sick.

U.G. would tell doctors, “You can go to hell and stay there for good, don't come anywhere near me.” He was never going to allow himself to be tested, so forget it! I have no doubt that something functioned in him that affected me in a way I could never have imagined, but it became complex because there was one more important equation in the system, the biology of which we understand diddlysquat. It is what makes you the person you are, the mental movements, the fundamental necessity of its inception and how uncontrolled mental movements affect your system and disturb its equilibrium.

U.G.'s energy and constant negation demonstrated that something can happen to a human being that takes care of individual problems and allows one to express oneself powerfully when there is a real demand. He was an example of a disposition that had taken care of the individual's existential problems as far as the social demand is concerned. U.G. was in harmony with the world; he created balance by generating intrinsic energy, which gave him strength and vitality when external pressure tried to control and dominate. Something operating in him protected him from the pressure of the status quo. He was in a beautiful, dynamic equilibrium.


U.G. never denied social pressures. Everything was real for him at the functional level, but his system was strong and vital and it could meet any challenge. The pressure of the social structure is always trying to make you react. The information center, after losing its habitual grip, responds to that pressure only when really needed. U.G.'s system was in equilibrium with the pressure from his surroundings. That was unique. Most people do not have this, even though they may pretend they do. In general, people lie to themselves and pretend to others, constantly hammered and driven by this imbalance. The imbalance shows up in boredom or the demands of the pleasure movement.

I believe that what happened in U.G.'s case was a reorganization of the brain and nervous system, which acquired a capacity that was something like the workings of the immune system. The immune system always encourages certain bacteria to digest food for you, and always tries to fight the bacteria that make you unhealthy. Similarly, in our brain there is a mechanism which keeps a check on the different kinds of movements that create or can create long-term imbalance. Thought is extremely difficult to pinpoint because it is the outcome of a complex and multifunctional mechanism. Before a thought surfaces, many other processes go on in the brain during which there are discriminatory checks. These checks are very important for a person's mental health.


Say there is a thought of committing suicide. It is an extremely unstable mental state because thought is supposed to protect the species and make life easier. Suicide not only ends the thinker, it completely destroys the body! This is an example of an internal process where discrimination fails and does not function properly. By observing U.G.'s functionality from close quarters, and finding in myself that certain ideas which used to float freely and dominate, no longer sends propositions, like a good immune system, there is a possibility of bringing an order from within, an order which reflects in our wants and desires.

To give you an example, I had a desire to perform well because that was the way I responded to my ideas and thoughts, habitually projecting an outcome, seeing myself in a futuristic situation. Now those propositions are absent. I think the unconscious discrimination nips them in the bud. Sometimes they surface but there is no further movement and it's over. That is the mystery. As U.G. would say, “If I see something, the desire to get that will never arise unless there is money in my pocket.” That was the way he described things. The whole thing is aware of the feasibility of those things, but for most people it is not like that.


Each person reacted differently to U.G., depending on their self-consciousness and background. U.G. would say, “Once they find out that they are not getting anything here, they will go somewhere else. It does not matter to me.” I felt his physical presence was what people were responding to, whether they knew it or not. U.G. was also responding. The important thing for him was that there was this challenge to overcome, the challenge to somehow bring the habitual scattered movement of the people around him into an ordered movement so that it could be directed towards the unknown in each individual mind. Unless you arrive at a situation where your system completely realizes that any direction you move is a dead end, and there is no escape, your habitual energy draining by the monkey mind cannot be minimized, let alone the momentum stopped in its tracks. Those were the moments he was trying to impose on everybody, and after a little while the system would begin to reorganize itself towards its pre-programmed order. Otherwise, it would be in a constant mode of energy loss, even in dreams. That was the greatest challenge for him and for everybody.

According to me, the more powerful your logic, the more difficult it was for you to be pushed into a corner. You would have a self-sustained logical thought, picked up from an irrelevant action of his with a beautiful justification, telling yourself that he was wrong. In my case, despite my logical thinking, the physical effect was so strong and vital that it made me sink and the sinking process was so intense that it brought about an uncontrollable process at night, a celestial rape, so to speak. I called it, the “visitation of the messenger of death”. That made me realize that U.G. was dead serious when he remarked, “You wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot barge pole.”

Even during most of the sleep cycle, our self-consciousness is very much at work which is a result of the movement that creates thinking and recollecting images. Our system is very complex; there is no simple model of the functionality of our mind. When you try to explain something through thinking, you create a model through your imagination and then match the attributes of that model to see how close the prediction of that model is to what you want to understand. You see a mountain, you want to find out what kind of geological processes occurred in the earth that could have formed it. Then you build a model of the earth based on physics, chemistry and other forces of nature. But it is difficult to build a model like that for the mind. I thought by studying brain biology, along with my own experience, I could reasonably build such a model, but I found I could only build a point of view based on my own present situation. If you believe there is a self and a thinker and they have a particular location, it is an oversimplified model. This is the reason why explanations of non-duality can never be accepted as a model because they will never match the specific outcome of the biological functioning of the brain called the mind. The mind is more complex than the most sophisticated computer humans can ever build.

Recent brain research gives us hope based on the science of reproducibility. Consciousness has evolved for thousands of years and is responsible for what we are. The consciousness that has been there for thousands and thousands of years, which is responsible for what we are, roughly divides our lifetime into three different states—waking, dreaming and deep sleep when dreaming is apparently suspended. If our brains were wired, each state would have an identifying signature. When you are dreaming it is called the rapid eye movement (REM) state, and non-REM state is when you are in deep sleep. Thick, heavy, slow brainwaves come on the monitor and your eye movements are not rapid because the movements are an indication of your processing information into a separate place called retrievable memory through “thinking”. You are hopeful because you think by using this knowledge and by understanding the causality you will achieve immortality, immense pleasure, eternal happiness and bliss, not to mention solving all your problems! But go ahead and try, you will be back to square one!


There are two aspects involved in achieving an end to conflict. One, when you achieve functional certainty through an experimental process. U.G.'s approach was experimental, based on functionality. The other is the intellectual approach—that by satisfying the so-called self through logical thinking, information gathering and connecting the information through acceptable logic, the process will convince you and the reward of that understanding will end all sorrow. However, getting more and more information about functionality does not address the problem at all. The experimental approach is like showing you hands on what is working and what is not.

Everything you need is there inside you and whatever information you need to express that has already been gathered by you. If your mission is to find out if there is anybody else functioning like U.G., you have missed the boat completely. That situation will never arise again. The instrument that you are using to find out if there is anyone else in that state can only be satisfied by someone with a slick tongue and clever usage of vocabulary. You are also using that to convince yourself and others of your point of view.

U.G. was functional deep down and that is why he said, “If I say anything, if it is real, it will stand on its own. If there is nothing, it will fall.” He had that certainty. He realized that what was happening to him was a fundamental, natural process. What will come out is self-expressed and self-explained, like a tree and its root and everything else in nature. Its existence is its own justification. To get that justification, you have to be hit very hard, and the information processing mechanism is always postponing. You are constantly losing energy during the process of gathering information. Conventional wisdom tells us that if you know enough, you will crack the problem—the problem of life, why you are miserable, and finally the problem of the existence of non-functional solutions. That's the fundamental problem of the Western society. We have everything we need for peace and a harmonious existence. Think about the millions of people living in poor or war-torn countries such as Darfur region in Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and many more. Here in this progressive society we have everything that one can think of, yet we are miserable. Why? U.G. would say, “Once you have food, clothing and shelter, the next question comes, ‘Is that all?’” That is all!

You are supposed to be in perfect equilibrium with nature. But society is constantly bombarding us with what we should want, what we should have, and if those desires are not met you can take Prozac! If this hits you, your existence is its own justification, and that is all that matters. U.G. was setting something experiential in motion. You have seen fire, played with it, so you know it exists. You don't have to know the intricacies of the skin's biology when it touches fire, or what goes on in the plasmatic state called fire—these are all theoretical. If you have never seen fire you can still write a theory about it, but it doesn't mean a thing; it is the extension of the human capacity to imbibe illusion as real. This is what U.G. was trying in various ways to tell us, that if something really touches you, you will never need justification. There will be a living freshness and it will resonate with the core of your existence.


U.G. communicated on an individual level without needing people to support his point of view. With the collapse of the information structure his center didn't have any meaning and at one point he decided he was not going to justify anyone's teaching, including his own previous renderings. He would not support, justify, elaborate or explain even his own statements. He said he denied his first sentence with the second, and the first and second with his third, with the idea of not communicating anything.


U.G. is alive in books, through the web and in our memory. He once told a reporter, “I am talking to someone out there through you, someone who is going to be hit by this!”


The U.G. Phenomenon


The U.G. phenomenon will survive in various ways but how it affects you as an individual is the most important thing. In the beginning, I had a lot of conflicting ideas and thoughts, but at one point I felt such powerful life forces were involved that my apparent choices were completely beyond my volition—beyond me in the sense that what was going on inside my body after interacting with him was something I could not possibly induce on my own. Consequently, I could not stop thinking about U.G., I just could not.

My interaction with U.G. was addressing a core mechanism. This process systematically energized the entire body to deal with thought as if to eliminate the conflict that inhibits our innate expression. This mechanism and its functionality get a boost whenever there is recollection of a familiar situation. It is Proustian—say I am away from the person that I am intimately involved with, and after a month I open her closet and a piece of clothing falls out—that reminds me of her. She is not there, but the sight and smell makes me feel like she is sitting here with me. Memory triggers that but that aspect of memory is physical, not spiritual.


The memory of U.G. has a strange kind of zest and potency and to me it is almost like madness. Madness means it's not communicating with the rest of the world's vocabulary. Normally, when you respond to the society's demands, everything is fine. If you don't, it presumes you are mad. In that sense U.G. was creating a kind of madness. For me, interaction with him set something in motion that denied others' influence, therefore the conflict was suspended, and I felt euphoric. If someone had allowed this to go on, you would be surprised that before the person could come to grips with it, it would be difficult for him to relate to anybody the way he had before. I couldn't. It was not possible because there was some unknown disposition established inside. Now it is unbearable to break that disposition in order to compromise in a particular situation. That's why I feel that I have turned into an animal, a two-legged animal with a peculiar order, and it does not want to be anywhere or spend time with anybody if it has to compromise that order.

Everything in this society is give and take and is a signature of bondage. I could not find anything in U.G. that was expecting anything from me in any form. I was sincerely attracted to him, and curious at the same time; he made himself totally accessible to me. So unusual was the condition that this alone caused me to constantly ponder about him. He would never give advice unless asked. It appeared to me that he had no issues regarding his own situation. His total lack of concern and worry presented itself as a powerful lightness and sense of freedom. The memory of U.G.'s physical existence created a disposition in me that addressed a fundamental sense of emancipation. We are taught to be false, but once you have tasted that emancipation, you cannot be fooled by anybody.


Old habits die hard. I have been hammering this to a friend that this hope doesn't go, the hope that maybe there is something or somebody out there who is going to show you a new direction which will help you to solve the problems of your life. If you accept that there is nothing there to be changed, you will have no need to go to anybody ever again, and life will begin to unfold in its own way.

As long as you are creating an image and investing energy to exemplify that image—that image is always detached from the movement of life and the parallel processor gets the upper hand. This image-making structure, the imaginary faculty of humans, is always running parallel, back and forth, along with the perceptive subject and object, which is the foundation of life. Our brain capacity is so enormous that we have this running processor, like a multi-tasking mechanism. For example, your eyes are open so the thing that is necessary for you to keep in touch with the perceptive world is functioning but the parallel processor keeps going on, always giving a sense of its proprietary control and ownership. When you are driving a car and passing through a completely unknown territory it will be very hard for you to carry on a discussion with your friend because you need to pay more attention to where you are going. The processor, due to foundational necessity, is automatically forced to go into the background. So we have a very complex and apparently efficient brain, which does these things in a parallel fashion. That processor which is a result of your imaginative faculty, due to its very nature makes you feel that you should behave in a certain way. It is a resultant projection from that imaginary world. That's why your satisfaction depends on a predominant idea and the experience with which it coincides.


The parallel processor by its very nature establishes two groups: those who are hopeful and those who peddle goodies to satisfy that hope. It is a vicious cycle! In that regard there is no difference between the politician's hope—lying through his teeth to an extent that defies simple logic, the church ministers' hope—protecting his faith, deluding himself and others, and the temple priests and New Age slick talkers who peddle enlightenment. They are proclaiming, look at me; I am a free man, you can be like me! There is no such thing as a free man at all!

All the imagery that you are using to justify yourself is also a projection of your previous knowledge of what you heard from U.G. and what you expect from yourself, but all these are illusive and figments of our imagination. You will never know what you will do in a real situation. And, when that understanding becomes stronger and stronger, you will give less validity to that imaginary aspect. Just because you or I were with U.G. does not mean that we will do certain things that other people expect from us. If someone has created an image from hearing, seeing, or interacting with U.G., and projects that onto me, and thinks that if I am in the natural state like U.G. I should be doing this, this, this, that's wrong. It means I am not functioning like myself.

There is something inside us that needs constant justification; it wants three different things at the same time, all through thinking, and therefore the necessity for justification. If we give less importance to that image-making or information gathering process, then we will function like ourselves. We will have very little conflict, and no need for justification. That does not mean I will do anything I want to do. I have perfect understanding about social norms.

U.G. insisted that you don't need to go anywhere, read anything or listen to anyone; you already know what you need to know to function in life. You don't need anything from anybody. What you need is money; find a way to use your talent to make money.

If you invite U.G. into your guts, you will have to give up the image-making structure that the society imposes on you. You will not copy anyone nor invest energy in ideas about yourself. When you stop giving importance to that image-making and information gathering process, you will function with very little conflict, and will have no need for justification. If you compromise, it is like Joseph Goebbels' “imposition of lies”, the theory of lying: keep hammering to the countrymen the wrong information and after some time, they will believe that information. Goebbels said, “The bigger the lie the more it will be believed. And Hitler said, “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” To get along, you create and consciously remember an antidote to the U.G. logic. You keep infesting your brain to make yourself available to the game of self-aggrandizement!

We have a very evolved brain. It is extremely smart and the thing that you see about the functionality of the intelligent brain is the way it processes information. There is a movement in consciousness, which creates the sense of self or selfconsciousness. Do not underestimate the intentionality of that movement. It is very smart. It is going to constantly throw out logic for its own justification, for its own movement.

U.G. experienced many things, which due to lack of adequate words he had to call “spiritual experiences”. It is the “spiritual experience” that almost eliminates the experiencing structure. The important thing is the collapse of the information structure, not the nature and the content of the experience. There is nothing to hang on to, but when the spiritual experiences that you have heard about and identified with don't explain the physical happenings going on inside your body, terms such as mutation and radical transformation are used to emphasize the physical process.

Something physical was exhibiting in U.G.'s body, but he didn't want to use mythical lingo, especially the one called enlightenment! His state was so self-justified that he could pooh-pooh the techniques and ideas that J. Krishnamurti was propagating to bring about radical transformation or possessing a great mind. Mind itself is the greatest problem! The realization that mind itself has to be destroyed came through in the book, where U.G. coined the phrase “mind is a myth”. Thinking is a myth-making process.


U.G. was throwing us a challenge: Have you tried hard enough, have you tried with all your might so that you can say they are totally wrong? Does that process work for you, or is the guy who is peddling it a fake? You have invested so much in the teacher that you can't brush him aside. So what will you do? You try harder and harder. You live in hope and you will die in hope.

You cannot hang on to U.G.'s words; what can you get out of the statement, “There is nothing to understand?” Your mind tells you there is a goal you can reach by doing spiritual practice. You act according to that promise, but your discrimination tells you that nothing is happening. You did everything and nothing happened, nothing! Then you begin to understand U.G.'s words: “The very thing that you want to get rid of is strengthened and fortified by whatever you are doing.” This is quite an unusual situation. We are used to justifying our motivations. Hence you are justifying your spiritual experiences. This is the salient feature; it is the very thing he was telling you to fogetaboutit! The people in the spiritual marketplace boost your ego by telling you what you want to hear. He was saying that if you think you are special because you came to see him, you have totally missed the boat.

U.G. was simple, ordinary, a real human being; we are extraordinarily screwed up. I felt frustrated because in my projection he was the ideal man. That guy had something everyone wants. I was ready to jump from the tenth floor if I could get what I thought he had!

U.G. completely dismissed this aspect, and instead exemplified his own version of the National Enquirer: He made one million dollars in foreign currency exchange! He was one of the most brilliant speakers India ever produced! J.K. learned by observing him! He would say these things so seriously, ad nauseam, just to kill your word processor! U.G. must have known that if he exemplified what I thought he had, it would destroy his integrity, a structure would be created around him and it would force him to play games with people's lives. U.G. refused to do that.


P a r t i n g  S h o t


If the desire to know yourself is all encompassing—like you'll die without oxygen—only then will you be cornered, see the futility and give up completely. Then you are part of Mother Nature. You will have no desire to know anything, including seeking an answer to the eternal question, “Who Am I?” –Sabyasachi Guha


A  P e r s o n a l  N o t e


After I had known U.G. for about a year, and after Guha had come on the scene, I had a dream: In the deep ocean, parallel to an island shoreline, swam a large black horse. At the head of the horse rode Guha, Julie sat behind him, and I was hanging on for dear life to the tail.


Meanwhile, on the shore, happily watching and waving to us, was U.G.


I have often reflected on this dream and it seemed perfectly appropriate in view of how our relationship to each other and to U.G. developed over the years. Guha always had an intense love, direction and clarity in his relationship with U.G. Julie never wavered in her one pointed devotion to U.G., and her steady and loyal friendship for Guha. It seem to me, U.G. purposely and directly linked them to each other. U.G. would refer to Julie as Guha's “Sissy”—or sister. He would also make sure that Guha and his family's frequent travels to visit him would involve Julie in one way or another.


So, the two of them riding together on a horse in the ocean as U.G. watched from the shore, reflected a fitting symbolism for the direction of their lives. But what was I doing hanging on to that damn tail? Perhaps because I held back, but at the same time I did not let go; I struggled to hang on, trying to stay connected. Eventually, I came to realize that I just had to let go of that tail and drown in that deep, terrifying ocean. I did, and nothing has changed; nothing has to change.


I thank Guha and Julie for taking me along on the ride and keeping that friendship and camaraderie, even as I remained disgruntled and apart.


I loved working on this book with Julie. I was not present during most of these conversations, so I was happy to transcribe them. Julie and I did most of our editing over the phone early in the morning. Guha let us do pretty much whatever we wanted and would comment or clarify things when asked. English is not his first language, and when he talks, sometimes words tumble out on top of each other, which is fine in a conversation because what is going on then is a lively dance—but in a book, well we decided that it should be readable—no one can hear the laughter, the interruptions, the tone of voice, or see the gestures!


Then by the grace of the gods, goddesses and godlets, and as U.G. would say, from the land of Sita, Savitri and Damayanti, Nandini came along at the perfect time and added some professional help, as well as a total enthusiasm and dedication to the project. So what I see now is a lovely book of conversations between friends who are enjoying the ride, holding on to the tail, getting a good soaking and letting go.


Ellen J. Chrystal

Editor, The Courage to Stand Alone

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India's Greatest Minds

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U.G. Krishnamurti ( 1918–2007 ) Anti-teachings Aphorisms This incident took place sometime in 1969. One evening, when his friends had gone out and U.G. Krishnamurti was alone in a coffee estate near Chickmangaluru, Karnataka, he heard a wild wailing of a child coming from the backyard and was drawn to the outhouse there. He went in and saw a woman beating her child. She hit the child so hard that the child almost turned blue. He could not intervene, because he simply could not move. There was no way he could stop the mother, for he felt a continuous movement inside of him, which embodied both the anger and frustration of the mother and the pain and suffering of the child. Later that evening, when his friends returned and he told them about the incident, one of them asked why he did not intervene to stop the mother from beating the child. He showed them the marks of the beating on his back and said: ‘You are the child and you are the mother, which one you are and for which one the heart
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