"The whole movement has to slow down, and come to a stop!" - UG

 
( Photo: Heinz-Richard Vieten )

The Enchanting Spiritual Goals

    Many feel that there is some magical or enchanting quality about spiritual goals that is simply absent in the material goals. That is not to discount the lure of material goals that are tangible and gratifying.  

    Those of us who are chasing after spiritual goals do so for various reasons – either we have sufficient bank balance, insurance and property but are plain bored with the din and grind of everyday life, or we want to attain moksha or salvation or enlightenment prescribed by some spiritual book or guru, or we want to awaken the hidden spiritual power or kundalini  or the enormous potential within ( self-actualization), or we wish to escape the harsh realities of life, or boss over legions of followers by becoming future gurus or leaders or guides.

    Most of us wittingly or unwittingly get initiated into the spiritual journey at some point in our life. Regardless of the goal, the spiritual domain remains an obsession, a promised land. But it is also a minefield of perils if we discard reason, caution and discretion. Our spiritual pursuit could then turn into a life-wrecking misadventure.

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Experience-seeking Minds & Spiritual Misadventures

    Rarely do we encounter a firebrand anti-guru like UG who holds a mirror to our search and clinically dismantles the very basis for the reality or factuality of the enchanting spiritual goals. 

    UG advocates healthy scepticism as an antidote to spiritual fevers of all kinds. He asks us to stop the search and step back for a moment, and ask ourselves a few simple, honest and fundamental questions about the reason for our search. 

    UG dissects our spiritual pursuits by calling into question two fundamental assumptions on our part, 'our clarity about the goal' ('what do you want?') and the reason for the pursuit or 'our intention' ('why do you want it?').

    Yes, rather than being impulsive, naive and gullible, we would be better off in any spiritual undertaking by initiating a sincere and honest probe into the rationale for our search on the lines of UG's questioning: 

     "What do I want in life? What is my real intention? Am I honest enough to see or admit my own ugliness or weakness? Am I afraid to face my own reality? Am I chasing after something which I really don’t know? Have I considered the possible missteps or traps or dangers in my blind pursuit? 

    What is the basis for the ideology or teaching that is beckoning me? How genuine or authentic is the proponent of the teaching or the guru? What is the basis for his or her teaching? Does (s)he really walk the talk or does it really operate in his or her own life? 

    By any chance, am I walking into a dubious cult that could blow up later in my face? Am I being manipulated by some uncanny group dynamic or mass hypnosis? Am I following or ignoring the dictates of my own heart? Am I being led up the garden path by someone else, however close, well-meaning (s)he may be? 

    Do I get to see both sides of the coin -the public and private life of the guru or the walking god before committing to his or her path? Am I afraid to question the teacher or the teaching? Am I infirm or reckless? Do I lack the assertiveness to say 'no' to avoid any future pitfalls? Do I possess the courage, in case of need, to walk out of any tenuous and demanding spiritual relationship? Can I walk alone if the situation demands it?"

    UG warns us that we are merely chasing mirages when we go after spiritual experiences. There are plenty of gurus, godmen or phonies in the spiritual marketplace offering cheap spiritual goodies and experiences. 

    The seductive power of spiritual experiences is akin to the pull of narcotics. The drug-induced experiences give a taste of an alternate reality that is full of temporary 'out-of-the-world' experiences or euphoric states. Market gurus promise more lasting, petty spiritual experiences. No wonder the spiritual market has a lot in common with the narco business. Both are highly seductive, lucrative, powerful and notorious. 

UG categorically dismissed all kinds of spiritual experiences, 

"All your spiritual experiences are just worthless experiences. However profound, they are just petty little experiences, shoddy piece of goods. If they have really helped you at all, why are you here? Why are you still seeking answers?" - UG

    UG rubbished all kinds of spiritual experiences as either illusory, or thought-induced (self-hypnotic), or pathologically induced (out-of-body experience due to physiological or chemical imbalances like high blood pressure etc.). Just like drugs, these extraordinary experiences only turn us into mere addicts or slaves. 

    Petty spiritual experiences make us feel special, superior and arrogant and push us into self-deception and delusion. This sets us up to be vulnerable to deadly spiritual traps and predators. No doubt, personal tragedies are very regular and common in the spiritual realm as well as the narcotic world.

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The Idea of Change & Psychological Time

    The 'idea of change' is central to any holy business. And also, it is key to every social or political movement. Changing the behaviour of people and programming the minds is at the very core of all conversions. 

    Individually every one of us is invested in the 'idea of change'. We believe in bringing about a change not only in ourselves but also in others and even in society. 

    Basically, the whole idea of change or the idea of improvement revolves around making oneself more adaptable or acceptable or successful in the society or the value system where we want to belong. Or it may be that individually we may want to become someone or  follow a role model. 

    For UG, the idea of a 'perfect human being' is anathema. He explicated that nature does not use a single mould for all of humanity. There is no duplication or repition in creation. Nature does not use anything as a model. For nature, there is no one individual who is 'preferred' or 'special' or 'the chosen one'. Every human being is unique and unparallelled just like any two leaves or flowers.

"Nature is only interested in creating perfect species but not perfect individuals." - UG

    For UG, the idea of any psychological change, the idea of trying to follow in the footsteps of someone, however great or noble is unnatural and a crime against nature. He warned us that it will only lead to dichotomy and inner conflict disturbing the supreme balance, peace and harmony inherent in our biology. Nevertheless, most of us are irrevocably caught up in the act of change, trying to become somebody - 'I am ugly but tomorrow I will be holy', 'I am fallible but tomorrow I will be noble', and so on. 

    One of the greatest inventions of the human mind is the idea of 'tomorrow'. Tomorrow forms the basis for all psychological time. Without time, there is no future. It is the idea of tomorrow that makes possible all of our psychological journeys. We humans cannot live without a calendar. Our transactional world will fall apart without the benefit of a calendar. 

    No wonder 'the idea of change' and 'the idea of tomorrow' are always tied together.

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The Planet Is Not In Danger But We Are In Danger

     Being the organic part and parcel of the society where we belong, we can never bring ourselves to question our role models nor do we question the wisdom or rationality of changing ourselves to become one like them. We succumb and submit, blindly and willingly, to the dictates of society. 

    UG decried the whole idea of change as utterly flawed and therefore the root cause of all our problems.

    In the social world, the chaos, the wars, the ongoing conflicts are nothing but the result of flawed ideologies or doctrines or theories of just a few powerful leaders or individuals who took it upon themselves to bring about a change in swathes of people or society. 

    Each leader or messiah offered some social model, a framework or value system based solely upon his own individual life events, guided by his private experiences, his personal successes or failures under the prevailing social or political order of his times. Many such value systems or social models are outdated, incompatible or irrelevant to the times in which we live in today.

    There cannot be a bigger fallacy than the dictum: 'one size fits all'. All the chaos and conflicts we see today in the world are the direct or indirect consequence of this extreme position or groundless fallacy. 

    All 'isms and 'cracies - socialism, liberalism, communism or theocracy, democracy or autocracy are such models or experiments trying to fit all of us into a common framework with grave consequences. 

    Currently there are plenty of on-going wars and conflicts, the result of trying to force a change or impose a different social or political order on whole lands or nations.

"It is your desire to bring about a change, to create a heaven on earth that has created this hell for all of us." -UG

    Consider mother nature. Anything that we do to alter or change the natural order of things put in place by nature over the course of millions of years, is only counter-productive to the established order and harmony of the planet. All that science and technology can offer is more and more comfort or convenience. 

    UG averred that everything that is needed for human survival already exists in nature, that too in great abundance. But our disruptive inventions or technologies are impacting the planet in such a way that it will be detrimental to our very safety or survival. 

"The planet is not in danger, but we are in danger." - UG

    It is again ' the idea of change' in the name of progress and development that has brought us all to the brink of disaster with rampant and relentless exploitation of natural resources by only a handful of powerful countries. 

    In the name of creating peace & heaven we are sowing the seeds of war & hell.

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End of Search Is The End of Psychological Time

  In this revelatory audio clip, UG explains in simplest terms how thought as psychological time has turned into our biggest stumbling block that prevents us to see the living reality of the world. The moment we look at anything or anyone, immediately the thought interferes and distorts it by either invoking the past or the non-existent future.

    UG in no way discounts the significance or the role of time, its value or purpose in building or construction, or for travel, or for learning or for practicing an art or technique, or even for making progress in our careers. All this involves chronological time.

But the goal of becoming an enlightened being is intrinsically tied to the idea of change from what one is to what one should be. And this involves psychological time.

UG offers a great pointer to ending of all distortions and delusions caused by psychological time by simply dropping search or seeking:

“So, whenever such a thing happened, it happened to those people who had given up completely and totally all their search.

You know, that's an absolute requisite for that kind of a thing.

The whole movement has to slow down, you see, and come to a stop, but anything you do, to make it stop, is only adding momentum to it.” 

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Audio Clip

Audio Transcription

Unless the past comes to an end, there can't be any present, the now, the present moment.

And that present moment is something which cannot be captured by you, cannot be experienced by you, you see.

So even assuming for a moment that the past has come to an end, you have no way of knowing that it has come to an end.

You see, so then there is no future for you at all.

There may be a future ( the psychological time measured in terms of achievement), tomorrow you will become boss of your company in which you are working, I don't know.

The school teacher becomes the head of the institution and the professor becomes the dean, you see. That possibility is there, but you have to put in a lot of struggle, you know, that takes time.

So you are applying the same technique (to achieve spiritual goal or enlightenment), you see.

That (thought) is the only thing, that instrument which you are using to realize whatever you are interested in and so it puts it (out) there, in the future.

So, it has produced tremendous results in this world (that you can observe).

So, how can that instrument be not the instrument to achieve your spiritual goals, if there are any spiritual goals you have before them?

So that is not the instrument, obviously, because you have tried, you see, you have done everything possible.

Even those who are burning with (spiritual) hunger, they find it, you see, it's impossible, you know.

In India everybody, you see, tried this, you wouldn't believe that, you see. Not one was lucky enough.

So, whenever such a thing happened, it happened to those people who had given up completely and totally all their search.

You know, that's an absolute requisite for that kind of a thing.

The whole movement has to slow down, you see, and come to a stop, but anything you do, to make it stop, is only adding momentum to it.

That's really the crux of the problem.

So what you are interested in, doesn't exist.

It's your own imagination based upon the knowledge you have about those things.

And so, there is nothing that you can do about it.

You are chasing something that does not exist at all.

YOU ARE CHASING SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT EXIST AT ALL.

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"Actual relationship between two individuals is relationship between two images." - UG

    UG led a truly untethered life making sure that none of his associates could ever manage to build any relationship whatsoever with him or around him. This was indeed a remarkable feat, a demo of real guts and gumption to reject the lure of power, control and worldwide followership, the ultimate goal of all greedy gurus and godmen. 

" I don't want any circus or buildup here...I don't need you, and you don't need me...there is nothing you can get from me or from anyone else, for that matter. Stop seeking what you already have." - UG

      Friends of UG, across the globe, got to meet him for a few days or weeks of the year. He ensured that those times were joyfully spent with no burden of the past nor anxiety of the future. He was a real, genuine friend and placed no demands of any kind whatsoever, on anyone. His company was truly unburdening. Time spent with him provided a real break, a pause from all the suffocating daily grind or societal nonsense that is our life. The many concerns and problems of living, the feverish chase, the meaningless goals, all took a backseat in his presence.

     Is it possible to live with someone without mutual expectation, obligation, dependency? Is it still possible to be committed to bringing out the best in the other person? Also, is it possible to fearlessly point out the fallacies or shortcomings of the other person even if it meant losing a relationship or a friend?

   

    UG proved that it is indeed possible to associate this way with many of his friends. If there is any definition of true friendship, this, by far, is the closest that you could ever witness. 

    Real friendships can happen when we truly possess the courage to walk alone. In UG's words, it means:

"Uncomplaining and uncompromising self-reliance"

    Association with UG demanded only one thing - brutal honesty about oneself and that took real courage!   

    In the audio clip, UG lays threadbare the hollowness and shallowness of all relationships, and the enormous amount of psychic energy we expend to keep them going. 

    In this unique take down, he gets to the bottom of all relationships,

    "The most important thing is the security, you see, and then, the possessiveness." - UG

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Audio Clip

Audio Transcription 

We are not honest, decorous, and decent enough to admit that all these relationships are built on the foundation of what do I get out of these relationships.

It is mutual gratification, if that is absent there, to keep that relationship for whatever reasons, for social reasons, or for other reasons, children, property, activity, and all this.

Part and parcel of the whole, the relationship business that we are all trying to maintain, when that fails, when that doesn't give us what we really want out of this relationship, we superimpose on that what we call love. So, it is just not possible to have any relationship on any basis except on this.

But the whole culture, for its own reasons, has created this situation for us. It has created the value system.

But the most important thing (in all relationships) is the security, you see, and then, the possessiveness.

I want to possess the other individual.  When my hold is becoming weaker, for various other reasons, it wears out after a while, you see, you cannot maintain this lovey-dovey relationship, that the relationship started between man and woman, all the time, because it is based on two fundamental images that we create for ourselves.

So, the actual relationship between two individuals is the relationship between the two images.

But your image is changing, and the image of the other person involved in your relationship also is changing, changing constantly.

But the demand to keep it in the same basis, the same image level, is just not possible. So, when everything else fails, we use this final, the last card in the pack, and the marvellous romantic ideations around that thing called love, to me, love implies two.

Wherever there is a division there, whether it is within you or without you, that relationship cannot last long.

The relationships are formed, and then the relationships are dissolved, and both of those things happen in the same frame, in the same frame.

So, that is really the problem.

To me, you may think that I am a very crude man, but if anybody talks to me about love, it is to me a four-letter word…

That is the only basic relationship between man and woman.

" It is absolutely necessary for us to live neurotic life to function in society" - UG

All problems of living in social settings arise out of complex and complicated human relationships and situations. 

Our way of life or 'thought-centric existence' is a far cry from natural living we see operating in children, or across the animal world. 

Society lays down the 'normal' for social conditioning and functioning, legitimizing what is right or wrong, what is good or bad, taking charge of our lives. 

Society runs its agenda through social or cultural memes or algorithms. It uses knowledge or thought to program its surrogate in every individual by establishing firmly its local power-centre in the psyche.  

Thought or cultural knowledge dominates all our individual decisions and actions scuttling the natural response of innate intelligence. Thought-induced fear, anger, worry, anxiety and depression are thus norms in a societal existence. 

UG exposes the sickness of thinking and living by calling out our intellectual slavery, 

' You only hear what they (society) want you to hear, you only see what they want you to see, you wear labels, you eat ideas.... there is nothing there inside of you that you can call your own...'   

Pretentious or neurotic ways of living have turned into norms in society. 

An ancient story from Taoism elucidates the societal dictate or mandate on how one has to live or behave. 

Long time ago there lived a sage in China with his wife and disciples in a modest dwelling in a jungle. One night some robbers broke into the house. They beat up and tied the master, his wife and disciples and began looting the house. To the utter surprise of his wife and disciples, the master looked visibly shaken, turned his face towards the wall and started wailing in a loud voice. This rattled his disciples who found his behaviour absurd and unbecoming of a teacher. The robbers made good their loot and departed. Upon questioning his childish, ridiculous behaviour with robbers, the master finally replied, " Those thugs will not hesitate to kill you if they find that you are fearless and calm. That behaviour is a threat for them. They had weapons and I wanted no harm for anyone of you."

Yet another instance from the recent past.

The great Nisargadutta Maharaj used to apply a big vermillion mark on his forehead and put on the appearance of a holy man when he had to attend some religious festival in nearby villages, saying to the effect, " All this drama is for the sake of these genuine, innocent rural folks who do not understand what I say. They are simple souls." His talks were full of living truths extolled by non-duality scriptures like the Upanishads and the Maharaj knew well that they were pure abstractions for ordinary souls carrying on simple lives in fields and farms. 

These are all wise acts of adaptation, for survival in the human jungle, and are born of natural intelligence. 

Even a sage has to fit into society and UG spells out a golden rule, 

"I am affected by everything around me but am not 'involved' in anything."

The wise one acts, when necessary, not bogged down by reputation or repercussion and moves on. 

Thought has purely a functional value for the wise. UG beautifully sums up the place of thought in our lives,

" The thoughts help us to function very efficiently in this world. It is a tremendous instrument we have. 

So, it is the most difficult thing for us to understand that thought can only create (psychological) problems, it cannot help us to solve the problems. " 

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Audio Clip

Audio Transcription

Q: So, perhaps we teach first, and we believe of course, that you're not good or not good enough, and later when we are grow up, and we still feel not good enough, then we ask or seek for people that can give us the feeling that you are good.

UG: Yes, that is the guilt complex which is put in there by our culture.

So, you feel guilty that you are not up to the mark, that you are not fitting yourself into the environment, that you are not fitting yourself into the value system and so you feel guilty.

It is created by the society and so, then they have an antidote for you or get free yourself from guilt.

So, they have turned us all into neurotic individuals.

But it is absolutely necessary for us to live that neurotic life, otherwise you have no way of functioning in this world.

Q: If you would stop it, you would die.

UG: No, I don't know what exactly you mean by if you stop it. There is no way you can stop it.

Q: Some people believe that they can be good or get on a spiritual, on a higher level by for example meditation.

UG: No, how do they go about?

The only way they can stop their thinking, is through thinking.

So, it is the most difficult thing for us to understand that thought can only create problems, it cannot help us to solve the problems. that's all that we have.

The thoughts help us to function very efficiently in this world. it's a tremendous instrument we have. That's the only instrument we have. There is no other instrument.

But we also know that that is our enemy and it is that that is creating all the problems. But it is very difficult for you to understand that that is not the instrument and there is no other instrument.

When that realization dawns on you that that is not the instrument and that there is no other instrument there is no need for you to look around for another kind of instrument. No instrument is necessary.

Thought falls in its proper place and it functions in a very intelligent and sane way. It helps us to function sanely and intelligently in this world.

It cannot help us to create in what you are interested in. What are you interested in? What is anybody interested in this world?

The quest for permanent happiness. That's all that they are interested in.

All of these religious people who are selling those shoddy piece of goods in the marketplace assure us that there is eternal happiness, that there is another kind of a bliss, beatitude, immensity and all that kind of stuff and they put us on a merry-go-round.

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" If he tells he is spiritual, you should not touch that fellow at all " - UG

    Once you encounter a spiritual claimant, and recklessly throw caution to the wind, and start living with him or her under the same roof, even for some time, all your questions on Reality, Life, Enlightenment, God etc. will slowly evaporate, and, instead, you begin to encounter the Reality of the Guru- the raw human ambition, the delusion, the self-deceit as well as the gullibility of followers and the vicious grip of tenacious, debilitating relationships. 

    The only question that you will be left with is, 'how to escape from the clutches of the guru?'  

    Having personally spent tumultuous times with gurus (teachers) and jagat gurus (world teachers) for decades, as a willing victim, I too, like many others, have witnessed firsthand, the dangers of spiritual seeking and its many traps. 

    The very fact that someone is prepared to let go career, money, property, anything for the sake of spiritual goodies, makes one an ideal candidate for recruitment by spiritual conmen.  

    Market gurus thirst for limelight, feverishly recruit followers, mindlessly grab assets - palatial mansions, acres and acres of land, fleet of high-end cars, and ruthlessly pursue power and control, over ranks of followers or 'willing victims'.

    In this clip, UG comes across as a powerful voice and force, offering immense strength and courage, to all those silent victims, struggling hard to come out of highly demanding and demeaning spiritual relationships.

    He vehemently calls the bluff on all spiritual freeloaders pointing to their true colours,

"There is no way that those people (gurus) can prosper in this world.

The struggle that they have to deal with (to survive in the materialistic world), is absent in the religious field. It is exploitation. It is easy living."      

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Audio Clip

Audio Transcription

The problem is not what is the meaning of life, what is the purpose of life. The problem is living. It is the living that is causing the problem, for us.

How to live?

In other words, you and I, how you and I can live in this world. What is the kind of relationship that you and I have?

Is it possible to have relationship between two individuals?

So, the meaning of life, the purpose of life, is anybody's guess.

You don't probably see any meaning in your life.

And so, you are looking for the meaning of life.

You don't see any purpose. You are sick and tired, of doing the same thing day after day, day after day, day after day. The same thing. So, you are bored.

Is that all, that is there? So then begins the mischief. Is that all?

Then there must be something more. Then there is speculation.

Then anybody who thinks he has the answers, comes along and leads you on this kind of a path.

The problem is not what is life.

Nobody will ever know (life). You can only define what is life. 

But life is something like the live wire.

If you try to find out what the live wire is all about, you will be burned.

Life is something living.

So, the one that is interested in finding out the answer for life, the thought, which is matter, thought is matter. So, all our questions are materialistic.

You may talk of eternity.

You may talk of the eternal life, this, that, and the other, spiritual goals.

But even those spiritual goals are materialistic in value.

The spiritual goals you are looking for, you think, will satisfy your material needs and help you to achieve your material goals, faster than otherwise.

That is why you are interested in the spirituality, you are interested in the religion, you are interested in all these things.

But actually, all spiritual goals are materialistic in value.

The man who talks of spiritual values, the man who talks of spiritual goals, the man who tells you that he is a spiritual man, you should not touch that fellow at all. He is more materialistic.

That is why everything associated with the so-called spiritual and religious institutions are interested only in amassing wealth.

There is no way that those people can prosper in this world.

The struggle that they have to deal with (to survive in the materialistic world), is absent in the religious field. It is exploitation. It is easy living.

And so, we are responsible for that.

We make it easy for that fellow to amass wealth in an easy way and thrive on our gullibility and credulity.

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" If you don't use thought for any achievement, then it is not a burden. " - UG

When there are no definite goals or wants or any purpose, thoughts are random, drifting and fleeting. They are never a problem or burden. 

But when there is a motive or goal, thoughts gather momentum, begin to solidify, bolstering the notion of the 'thinker' or 'achiever'. 

"Wanting and thinking, always go together." - UG

If there are no spiritual or material goals, UG says that 'thought becomes disconnected and disjointed.'

Any goal or purpose keeps us preoccupied, hijacking our senses. 

"The only difference between you and me is that you are preoccupied, and I am not." - UG

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Audio Clip

__________________________________________________________________________

Audio Transcription

UG: The notion of your natural state, not my natural state, I am describing the natural state of the individual when this constant interference of the manipulative thought, is not there.

That is what I am describing, not my state. I don't know a damn thing about my state. So, you are relating that to the way you are functioning.

Q: And find wanting, find that wanting…

UG: So, relating it to the way you are functioning, and you do that because you want to change that into this state that I am describing, the change.

Q: That is the...That movement is not there.

UG: There is no change necessary, what I am saying. There is nothing to be changed there. The demand to change into something.

Q: Which is there in me, is not there.

UG: There is nothing to be changed here. You think there is something to be changed.

Q: I think so.

UG: Because you see the description of your natural state has created a division there and it says you see that not the way I am functioning, right?

Yes, all right.

But why do you want to function that way? The other one.

Q: Because you are not satisfied with the state in which you are in.

Exactly.

Because of that, sorry?

Q: The manipulative thought creates the division.

UG: The thought creates the division, but the thought in its very nature is short-lived.

Q:But you are saying that painful thought is not the true state.

UG: What is that?

Q: The changes in thought, frequent changes in thought, show that they have no basis.

UG: No, you see, the use of thought to achieve something is the problem.

Whether it is material achievement or spiritual achievement.

You call it a spiritual achievement, but the instrument which you are using is matter.

So, the so-called desire to achieve a spiritual goal is also materialistic.

So, both of them are finished.

Q: Thought should cease.

UG: Thought will not cease. Thought is not the instrument.

Q: What is the instrument?

UG: There is no instrument at all.

The achievement you are interested in is made possible, but not guaranteed, through this instrument called thinking.

Q: What exactly is the material?

UG: Thought is the material.

The idea that there is something to be achieved, the goal is fixed.

So, what you are doing is putting these thoughts together to achieve that goal. That's all that you are doing. You are thinking.

So, this material has been supplied, to you, by the claimants who talked about this.

Q: Granted.

UG: You are using that. So, then what is the question?

Q: Then, is the thought condition in which I am itself satisfactory for life?

UG: It is. It is. It is…

If you don't use that (thought) for any achievement, spiritual or otherwise, then it is not a burden. Then it becomes disconnected and disjointed. The demand to continue through the repetition of the thought is not there.

You have to experience that, again and again and again. Otherwise, you are not there.   

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“No, you have not come to that point…no!” - UG

(Please scroll down for the audio clip and transcription)

This audio clip captures an interesting exchange between UG and an intense, stubborn questioner. 

UG goes to great lengths explaining that all ‘intellectual understanding’ is futile, leading only to the burden of knowledge.

He makes it clear that intellect can never solve our living problems like the problems of anger, jealousy or hatred etc.

Intellectual understanding gives rise to mental concepts or notions or conclusions that in no way can resolve any emotional problems. We are left saddled with unwanted ‘knowledge dump’ that clutters and clogs our minds.

At some point, the questioner insists that she gets what UG is saying, that she ‘understands’ the futility of intellect, but goes on to question him further. This is when UG cuts her off, delivering a clincher, a real eye opener for all of us,

“No, you have not come to that point…no!”

Saying that we intellectually understand life, or its workings, is pure hogwash. If we have really understood anything at all, there can never be any doubts or questions, avers UG.

‘True understanding’ or ‘seeing’ (sages are referred to as ‘seers’ for a reason) is beyond all reasoning and ends all questions, whereas logical reasoning or ‘intellectual understanding’ leads to more and more questions.

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Intellect is the ‘cognitive’ or ‘thinking’ tool.

The convergence of ideas - UG, Neuroscience, Cognitive Science and AI

UG was a ‘free man’ or a ‘natural man’, freed from the vicious grip of thought or culture thanks to his ‘death and resurrection’ (he described it as a calamity) on his 49^th birthday.

UG’s calamity was akin to the accidental pushing of a ‘reset’ button that flushed out his entire cultural past, the collective human learning from his system. This was like the strike of a lightning bolt that completely reset his life, pushing his entire physiology back into the default ‘factory mode’ or the natural mode. This involved major changes in his cognitive apparatus including vision, touch, smell etc.

Freed from the vicious grip of thought or culture, his physiology slipped into a natural rhythm resonating with life all around. For him, thought was a pure ‘on demand’ phenomenon, appearing only when there was a need, freeing him of the constant clutter or chatter that hijacks our tryst with the ‘now’ or the ‘present’.

“The only difference between you and me is that you are preoccupied (all the time) and I am not!” - UG

It took years before UG could recover from the aftershocks of the ‘calamity’ but eventually he began to settle down into the new normal. He slowly and steadily bounced back into the mainstream of life and started sharing his explosive observations on life with friends and the public.

UG’s life offers the much-needed counter factual giving us an opportunity to see the natural operation of life as opposed to life under the grip of culture.

Thought or culture has completely hijacked our lives by taking control of all our actions and behaviours. Only someone like UG functioning naturally, free from the tyranny of culture, can hold a mirror for us to really see the real, corrosive nature of thought. No other way!

Coming from the very depths of life, UG’s startling revelations are quite novel, very refreshing and invigorating. They are some of the rarest pointers to reality, life, and its workings.

UG comes across as a unique individual who spent decades travelling across the globe and speaking tirelessly to people everywhere about the many distortions, falsehoods and traps of the psychological or spiritual kind. 

He dismissed the ideas of eternal happiness, God, enlightenment etc. as pure cultural fabrications. And hammered home the truth about the utter futility of chasing after all such fictitious goals, warning us about the many threats or dangers lurking in the spiritual bazaar.

In his journey extraordinaire, UG met up with all kinds of folks – the seekers, scientists, sages, reformers, politicians, artists, technologists, philosophers etc. and held candid discussions on an array of topics.

Some of the commonly discussed subjects included the likes of human intellect, the phenomenon of understanding, the workings of life, of culture, the mechanics of thinking, the myth of mind or self or I etc.

In the unquenchable thirst of the philosopher for reality, or that of the seeker for God, or the scientist for the God-particle – we see extraordinary sincerity, intensity and commitment. Each of these journeys delights us when they throw up common truths about life or reality.

Here is an attempt to highlight some striking parallels between UG’s take on life vis-à-vis the learnings from the far-flung fields of neuroscience, cognitive science and artificial intelligence (AI).  

We shall begin with the very tool that is at play here – the human intellect. Getting a handle on intellect is to get a scoop on everything that is significant or consequential in our lives – thought, knowledge, culture etc.

UG on ‘Intellect’

UG referred to the stubborn problems of love & hate, greed, jealousy, envy, anger, fear etc. as ‘problems of living’. And repeatedly emphasized that the problems of human relationships cannot be resolved by the intellect, our ‘go to’ instrument for understanding or solving problems.

For us, intellect is the king, our de facto ‘problem solver’. It is an incredible instrument - the promoter of all knowledge and the driver of science, technology, medicine etc. All our individual accomplishments, education, career etc. are a grand testimony to its capabilities.

Then, UG comes along, faulting it, calling it futile, ineffective, and incapable of resolving human problems.

He trashes the notion of intellectual understanding, especially in dealing with problems of living or the problems of hate, jealousy, or greed.

This is where are all stuck. Our immense faith in intellectual understanding cannot be easily dismissed.

For UG, intellectual understanding of anger or jealousy is plain hogwash. Anger or hate or any other emotion is a tremendous burst of life energy. And understanding cannot capture or control life energy.

Understanding only promotes or provokes ‘thinking’, resulting in ‘knowledge dump’ adding to the existing clutter of knowledge.

UG added that intellectual understanding is useful and needed only in dealing with technical problems or transactional issues. Otherwise ‘knowledge is garbage’ and is utterly worthless in solving living problems.

UG’s exposé on intellect is indeed an eye opener and a breath of fresh air.

At first glance, UG’s dismissal of intellectual inadequacy seems incomprehensible and irreconcilable. But given his sagacity and clarity on matters of life, it merits a deep dive.

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Intelligence and Intellect

Questions on life or consciousness or intelligence continue to confound scientists, philosophers, and commoners alike.

Some form of intelligence, of course, is evident across the entire sentient kingdom. Tiny creatures including ants, worms, bees etc. exhibit extraordinarily intelligent behaviors while they hunt for food, or look for a mate, or a nest.

On the other hand, intellect, the higher form of intelligence, can be seen only in a handful of species.

Intellect, here, refers to higher order cognitive abilities like language-processing, vocabulary, logic, learning, reasoning, judgement, discretion, planning & predicting, analysis etc.

Human intellect is a social intellect or socially conditioned intellect, tailor made, culturally programmed for community living.

Social intellect, of course, is not a human legacy. Other primates, wolves, dolphins, elephants, dogs, pigs, rats, parrots, crows, and ravens etc. too display various aspects of social intellect.

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Biology of intellect

( https://embryology.ch/en/organogenesis/nervous-system/fundamentals-of-cerebral-development/histogenesis-cerebral-cortex/neocortex-and-allocortex.html) 

Firstly, is there any biological basis for the intellect? What size or complexity of the brain tissue qualifies for a true intellectual processor?

Science has no definitive answers yet on this question!

The research so far suggests that the intellectual gear in humans (all mammals) is actually a sophisticated piece of brain tissue called the new brain or the neocortex (weighing ~500 grams in humans). Some scientists humorously refer to it as the ‘VR headset’ similar to those used in games or Virtual Reality.

In ‘bird brains’ as in crows or ravens, this hardware is a teeny-weeny piece of cortical tissue, roughly the size of a nut (~8 -14 grams). But surprisingly this small tissue is capable of formidable intellectual capabilities.

Neocortex forms 90% of gray matter (cerebral cortex), about 2-4 mm thick, made of six-layers, weighing nearly half a kilo, made of nearly 10-14 billion neurons, spanning more than 70% of the entire volume of the human brain, with a surface area almost equal to that of a A3-sized paper, crumpled into the human skull (reason for wrinkles) squeezed atop the old brain as shown in the graphic.

(source: multiple internet sources)

Neocortex could very well be the seat of human intellect, thanks to various studies both by neuroscientists and the medical experts well versed in brain pathology.

Many of the neurological disorders, the likes of intellectual disability, social deficit, autism, schizophrenia etc.[1] are directly mapped on to distinct patches of flawed tissue in the neocortex.

For example, we might lose speech if the left brain (temporal lobe) is damaged (exactly what happened to my dad) or lose eyesight if the hind brain (occipital lobe) is damaged and so on.

So, when you drive out next time, don’t forget to don your helmet, or put on your seat belt!

Every inch of the brain tissue is matchless and priceless!

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Intellect and Social Environment

Yes, human intellect is right at the top of the pecking order. It is the most versatile and capable instrument on the planet.

The old brain (consisting of the limbic and reptilian brain) is hardwired by nature over millions of years to regulate all critical bodily functions and to handle various threats in the physical environment.

The new brain is more a cultural or intellectual apparatus based off the neocortex. It gets continuously wired and re-wired to enable us to live and function in a constantly changing social environment.

Yes, you heard that right!

Various neural pathways are constantly created and modified every time there is some learning or experience.

This physical flexibility of the brain to shape or reshape or make or modify neural connections or pathways is known as the plasticity of the brain.

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Neocortex & Culture

Did neocortex play a role in development of culture? Or did culture bring about the development of neocortex in the brain to facilitate cultural adaptation?

‘Which came first - culture or the neocortex?’ This is the ‘chicken or egg’ question for neuro-anthropologists.

In a way, humans are ‘sentenced’ to live, function, and die within the confines of a complex and sophisticated cultural environment.

There is no choice for the human intellect but to continually ‘learn’ and ‘adapt’ to the ever-changing landscape of culture.

Culture adds a new layer of reality during our lifetime that is forever difficult to shake off. 

“This superimposed reality is the only reality we have, and there is no other reality!” – UG

Merely possessing the best intellectual apparatus (hardware) will not be enough in this superimposed reality. We also need to invest years of ‘training’ or ‘conditioning’ (software) to build up a capable and formidable intellect with premium skillsets to adapt to, and take on the various challenges of society.

Adaptation is complex and cumbersome and there is a huge price to pay!

In the animal world, only we humans go to schools and colleges as education is the legitimized form of systematic social or cultural programming.

The early stint in school or college ‘conditions’ and ‘trains’ the intellect to a certain extent to handle a variety of complex tasks to prepare the individual to fit into society, earn a livelihood, to raise a family. The skilling includes social tasks like organizing or community service, technical tasks like programming or flying, or transactional tasks like banking or shopping etc.

Education refines and impacts the intellect and influences what we pursue or who we become.

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The Burden of Intellect

Routine or undemanding tasks like driving, cooking, washing, or shopping may not tax our brain tissue. But engaging in demanding tasks like learning, collaboration, communication, organization etc. places a huge cognitive load on the brain tissue.

Hi-tec jobs and environments cause huge stresses on the gray matter inducing disorders in the cognitive apparatus. Cyber-psychiatric disorders are common among techies or geeks. 

Brain scientists too agree:

We human mammals are the victims of a recurrent dispute: a tussle between the old reptilian brain, which unconsciously runs the survival machine, and the mammalian neocortex sitting in a kind of driver’s seat atop it.

– Jeff Hawkins (A Thousand Brains)

It is true that because of constant ‘learning’ our intellectual faculties including the sensory apparatus get culturally ‘soaked’ or ‘conditioned’ in the social environment.

The ancient Upanishads describe cultural conditioning as a kind of ‘contamination’.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad explicates this aspect of ‘cultural conditioning’ through a wonderful story. The short summary is that all the five sense organs get ‘contaminated’ due to environmental learning or ‘acquired knowledge’ and ‘experience’. They carry the impressions left behind by the experiences of touch, sight, sound, taste, and smell. Therefore, the senses cannot simply experience anything new.

 

 “There is no such thing as a new experience” – UG.

 

The Upanishad concludes that only the “life force’ (‘Prana’) remains untouched by the environment. Life force is beyond the bounds of all experience.

 

“You cannot touch or capture life” - UG.  

 

The ‘pulse and beat’ of life is beyond any learning or knowledge or experience.

UG’s calamity rid his sensory apparatus of all cultural contamination.

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Social conditioning vs Machine Learning (AI)

Social conditioning is comparable to ‘machine learning (ML)’ in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

AI has become ubiquitous, has been around for quite some time. When we type into our phones, the ‘next word’ suggestions pop up to auto-complete our sentences. This is the simplest form of artificial or machine intelligence.

Take the case of Conversational AI or ChatGPT. It is the ‘wordsmith’ or the ‘text master’. It makes use of powerful processors (hardware) and algorithms and statistics (software). It is then ‘exposed to’ (‘trained on’) tons of books, articles, or writings (machine learning) to acquire the knowledge about a particular language, say English.

Once the training is complete, the Chat GPT is ready to spit out essays, blogs, reports, letters, scripts etc.

A conversational (listening or talking) AI is much like Siri or Alexa. It is a game changer. It is also called the NLP or Natural Language Processor as it responds to our voice commands given in natural or day-to-day language.

Going forward, ChatGPT or NLP interfaces would eventually become the default UI (or User Interface) for all kinds of technologies. This means that today’s buttons, levers, switches, keypads, and consoles will all disappear. Instead, we could ‘speak’ into our Digital Assistants telling them to drive the car, cook food, to shop, to pull medical or legal or tax records, to build or print 3D homes etc. in the not-so-distant future.

As you can see, AI surely is a job killer. Experts believe that AI can kill all routine and replaceable jobs, in millions. Those who are skilled in AI will get to keep their jobs in the future, as there will still be a huge demand to build more and more AI interfaces, devices and apps.

Professionals like lawyers, engineers, physicians etc. get to keep their jobs and careers but will begin to use more and more AI apps to save time and effort, to stay laser-focused on core domain issues.

Yes, not in the very distant future, we may have to live with a new species of ‘bots’ all around us.

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Child, Crow, and Artificial Intelligence

At the time of this writing, AI is still a ‘single-task master’ excelling only in a single area of expertise. That’s right. Today’s AI machines can excel only in  particular task. That means we need different AI machines for doing different things - one for playing chess (ChessGPT), another to compose an image (DrawGPT), yet another to write an essay (Chat GPT) etc.

Given this serious limitation, today’s AI capabilities are no match to that of a child or a parrot or a crow.

A child or a crow can instantly tell a real pizza from a fake 3D-printed pizza. Bees will avoid plastic flowers and flock to real flowers in the garden.

Yes, today’s AI is no match to the intelligence of a child or a bird.

Even the best AI ‘image-reader’ of today using the most powerful camera, trained using hundreds of millions of objects, shapes, contours, textures, colors etc. cannot tell a real mango or a pizza or a flower from its fake. It cannot say whether the mango is sweet or sour, or the pizza is hot or cold, or the flower is fragrant or odorless.

AI cannot ‘feel’ or ‘experience’ anything, it might never know what ‘thirst’ or ‘hunger’ or ‘pain’ is.

No wonder AI or machine intelligence cannot come anywhere close to human intelligence or even animal intelligence.

The artificial machine touted to mimic some form of human intelligence is AGI or artificial general intelligence, still a few technological milestones away.

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AI is only a tool, humans are the tool-users

A well-designed AI could be a ‘tool’ or even a ‘tool maker’ depending on how the programmers rig it up, but humans are the ultimate ‘tool users.’

We decide what kind of tool we wish to make; in other words, we determine the use for the AI. Herein lies too its utility or danger.

While beneficial AI technologies like Med-PaLM 2 could bring great healthcare benefits to humans, tons of addictive algorithms could turn us en masse into slaves of digital games and apps. 

AI can solve many serious humanitarian challenges or it could pose a threat to the balance, order and harmony of society.

AI has already gained enough notoriety for its potential abuse.  

AI’s content creation capability is a double-edged sword. It is easy-breezy to create misleading deepfake videos or images and plant suspicion, disbelief, dissent, or resentment in the minds of billions, instantly!

The Father of AI, Geoffrey Hinton thinks that given the current trends in technology, AI could become faster, more efficient, more powerful in processing information and therefore capable of churning out what he calls the ‘superintelligence’.

Machine Intelligence could be programmed to cheat, deceive, defraud or scam people. It beats the human hands down as a superior scammer or fraudster or manipulator.

“As soon as you manipulate (AI), then you can get done what you like.”

– Geoffrey Hinton

Through the spread of misinformation and disinformation, AI could prove a deadly tool in the hands of sinister minds to inflict cultural wars or conflicts, further dividing peoples and nations.

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UG on Artificial Intelligence

UG spoke of dangers of computers (AI was still in its infancy at the time). He cautioned against introducing cultural filters through selectivity and censorship that could bias the machine intelligence to act in a certain way dictated by vested interests. UG always warned that all cutting edge  research and development ultimately ends up with the regime or the authorities.

“We are not different from computers, but this is (human intelligence) something extraordinary, you can’t imagine the human computer.

This is what I am telling all those experts who come and brag what wonderful computers are, and how it’s going to be of great help to us all, I tell them the moment you put selectivity and censorship in the computers (cultural prejudice or bias), there usefulness will be finished.

They will be used the way society and the leaders of mankind are using our thinking mechanism which is nothing but ‘selectivity and censorship’ and destroy that or use them to destroy everything. Their usefulness will be finished.”                                                                                          - UG

AI, without proper guard rails, could disrupt or destroy long standing social systems like democracies and well-established institutions like banking etc. causing havoc.

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‘Self’ vs ‘Intellect’

Does the social intellect fall under the same rubric as the ‘self’ or ego?

Whereas intellect has the aspect of physicality, the ‘Self’ or ‘I’ is more of a socially engineered reality.

Intellect has its correlates in the cortical tissue or neural circuitry whereas ‘self’ or ‘I’ has no biological basis. It is a pure psychological identity.

But there is one thing common to both the ‘intellect’ and the ‘self’, it is the ‘knowledge and experience.’

UG often spoke of the ‘experiencing structure’, that resonates with the idea of biologically wired intellect. But he and Sri Ramana summarily dismissed the idea of ‘self’ or ‘I’ as unreal.

In one of his talks, UG tells Mahesh Bhatt,

“What you call ‘Mahesh’ is only a fictitious entity put ‘in there’ by your parents.”

A harmless name or label given by parents marks the psychological underpinning of the ‘self’. All subsequent ‘learning’ or ‘gathering of knowledge and experience’ further reinforces the idea of the ‘self’.

UG and many Eastern thinkers aver that the ‘I’ or ‘self’ is a pure psychological beast, fabricated through social and cultural algorithms.

Even the scientists completely brush aside the reality of the ‘self’ or ‘I’, or ‘ghost in the machine’. They find absolutely no basis to support this hypothesis.

The famous Cognitive Scientist Daniel Dennett ridicules the illusion of ‘self’, as a tiny human (homunculus), sitting inside the brain, acting like an ‘observer’ witnessing the ‘show of life’ projected on a screen inside the skull, dismissing it as ‘Cartesian Theatre’. 

UG relentlessly hammered home the fact that ‘there is nothing there except knowledge.’  He referred to the collective human knowledge and experience as the ‘thought sphere’.

All our knowledge is primarily siphoned off from this collective. 

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‘Self’ is the movement of knowledge 

Based on his observation, UG explicated that the ‘self’ or ‘I’ (or thinker) is just an illusion created by ‘the movement of knowledge’ (or thinking).

Tom and Jerry Spring to life only in the rapid movement of the projector but collapse into plain images upon slowing down.

Sri Ramana also spoke about slowing down of thought to expose the bluff of the ‘self’.  

UG’s position resonates with findings of some neuroscientists based on observations in the laboratory:

“Thinking is a form of moving (or movement)” – Jeff Hawkins (A Thousand Brains)

Hawkins says that thinking is movement of knowledge, a continuous process of association and prediction.

Hawkins concludes that thinking is a form of ‘movement of knowledge’ almost echoing UG’s observation about the ‘self’.

Hawkins explains that we are constantly associating objects and people in our environment (office or living room or kitchen or garden or town) with those stored memories from our past experience (past knowledge). This association helps us to make predictions about what we should see or experience in the next second or the next time frame. This is the psychological security mechanism at play. If we do not see what we expect to see, the alarm goes off that something is amiss, alerting us!

To instantiate, as soon as you reach home, thinking tells you that the family dog will be at the gate waiting for you, and as you open the door, thinking continues on to the next frame, now projecting the familiar settings or furniture in the room that you expect to see and on and on, ad infinitum. If there is a mismatch between your previous knowledge about a thing and its current status, there is an immediate alert!

Thinking is ‘analog’ or continuous in all of us. But UG spoke of his thinking as somewhat ‘digital’ i.e.  from frame to frame and complete absence of continuity.

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The ‘Binding Problem’ of Consciousness

The experience of a mango or an orange or a tennis ball involves multiple sensations or the sensory modalities of sound, color, touch, taste, smell etc.

How do these various sensations get ‘linked’ or ‘bound’ or ‘integrated’ into the unitary experience of the mango?

This is the famous binding problem (or linking problem) of consciousness of the cognitive scientist. In the absence of ‘I’ or ‘observer’ or any agency, how could all the sensory channels come together? 

The ‘binding problem’ remains the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness.

So, the question is ‘who’ really undergoes the ‘experience’? Or who is the ‘experiencer’?

The scientists aver that there is ‘no ghost in the machine.’ And UG and other sages too dismiss the existence of any ‘I’ or ‘self.’

Then how does the experiencing of the mango come about?

The jury is still out, and the problem humbles the best and the noblest of minds to this day.

In this context, sometimes we refer to yet another phenomenon of ‘awareness’.

‘Being aware’ or ‘being conscious’ sometimes reinforces the idea of ‘self’ that is ‘aware’ muddying the waters.

But UG made it clear that awareness is nothing mysterious but only a functional aspect of the brain. And he added the rider that this is not something unique to humans, “even the cow on the street looks at you with choiceless awareness.”

Some gurus and philosophers have made a big deal of it and spun this natural functionality of the brain into a technique, awareness meditation, to achieve some spiritual state.

UG rubbished the whole idea as bunkum.

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Here there is no Agent, only Action- UG

            Finally, here is UG’s masterful summary on life recorded by Dr. Ramakrishna Rao, a professor and an Advaita philosopher from Mysore:

 ‘There is nothing here called the Atman (soul), but there is Witnesshood.  Here there is no agent, but all that (there is) is action. There is no subject here, but every object creates it. There is no immortality, but nowhere there is birth or death. There is no mind, and if there is one, it is not different from the body. The mind divides life, but if it unites with life, ‘it illumines and makes it dynamic.’

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