" Our effort to fit into the value system is consuming a tremendous amount of energy. " - UG

Human journey is all about negotiating the 'biological' and the 'mental' worlds. 

The tremendous biological apparatus with its built-in hardware, software and 'flash memory' ( the components of 'animal cybernetics') has the capability to deal with any physical functioning and survival challenges. 

No wonder humans can thrive anywhere and everywhere - snowy mountains or dark caves, wild jungles, dry deserts or remotest islands. Yes, handling physical threats or challenges for the body is relatively a simple affair.

Mental journey, on the other hand, is a lifelong journey of 'compliance.'

Complying with the incompatible, the unnatural 'cultural norms' or fitting into society or the value system is an exhausting journey. 

The family and its logical extension, the society form the very basis of this rich 'mental world.' 

The idea of 'family' is central or core to our day to day existence. Together with its patron society, it places never ending psychological demands, duties, obligations and  exhausting responsibilities. 

The social challenges of acceptance, compliance or compatibility are all in the doamin of the 'mental' and cause huge amounts of friction guzzling huge amounts of energy and biological resources, leaving us drained, dazed and exhausted.  

UG makes us see this reality here in its simplest and most naked form.

" The question HOW is adding momentum to knowledge...You are a product of that momentum. " - UG

UG narrows down the scope of self-inquiry, strips it down to the nuts and bolts of self-formation, self-sustenance or self-continuity.

UG tears apart the needless complexity or abstraction surrounding the 'self' and calls into question the deep-rooted cultural mechanism behind the build-up of the 'self'.

Our knowledge-based, knowledge-driven psychological existence is exposed or revealed with these four pithy statements:

One, " 'Self' is nothing but 'the movement of knowledge' "

Two, " Experience strengthens knowledge and knowledge strengthens experience"

Three, " 'You' as you know yourself is a product of the momentum of that knowledge passed on to us "

and

Four, " The 'How' adds momentum to the acquired and accumulated knowledge passed on to us.

Who we are, or who we become is the work of culture. Like cattle branding, cultural branding is a proof of ownership. With its humungous repository of knowledge culture molds, shapes and owns Rama or Radha, Saif or Sarah, John or Jane.

" The Mind Is Interested Only In Sensuality " - UG

Every moment there is craving for some experience or the other. It is the most direct and immediate form of 'self'-validation and 'self'-continuity. Our only insurance against self-doubt or uncertainty.

UG points out that craving in any form - intellectual or religious, corporal or social promotes sensuality.

Sensuality or pleasure of experience 'simulates' the 'self' or the psychological beast while sensation 'stimulates' the biological beast to act for survival.

" The demand to change is born of your isolation " - UG

Unlike rest of creation, humans are culturally programmed and forced to bear the 'cross' of an artificial 'identity' or a societal 'badge'.

There is a premium on the 'badge'. More shiny the 'badge', more the recognition, repute and reward.

Given this societal construct and lure, comparison and competition become inevitable, performance is judged at every level, making life increasingly stressful.

UG's 'back to basics' exhoratations highlight the absurdity of becoming someone. He boots out the cultural complexity, the burden of pretension, releasing tonnes of bottled up energy to help us lead simple, uncomplicated, beautiful lives.

" My path can never be your path " - UG

The real guru or the sage frees you from himself. He refuses to become a puppet of those who receive his wisdom and benefit from it.

It takes real guts and gumption not to succumb to sentiments of gratitude, adulation and affection that could easily sway and enslave an ordinary, attention-seeking, crowd-gathering guru who actually ends up as a follower (puppet) of his own followers, dancing to their tunes.

UG rejected reputation and following, a rare individual who walked the talk.

" If you try to copy them (models), you are lost..." - UG

With UG, all man-made models lost their meanings. He made us breathe freedom, freedom from vicious clutches of imposed models and goals.

He made us realise how societal impositions and goals could become addictive, burdensome and debilitating.

" Religious thinking has no answers for our problems today." - UG

UG emphasised that the so called solutions have created problems in every walk of life. Solutions that are inadequate, incomplete propogate more problems.

On the otherhand, UG laid emphasis on technology as the hope for many of our stubborn problems. Technology and not Politics, nor Religion holds the key for overcoming many of our problems.

The prudent application of frontier technologies like the AI, ML, IoT, Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, 3 D Printing, 5G Networks, Blockchain, Bio Synthesis etc. could drive innovations that could 'provide more with less' and solve the nagging problems of hunger, nutrition, education, health, medicare etc through their phenomenal reach, access and affordability.

Agri Tech, Food Tech, Process Tech, Precision Agriculture, EduTech Bio Tech, Med Tech, Pharma Tech etc. are indeed game changers that need to become part of the curiculum and pedagogy of every school and university.

" There is no way you can listen to anything without interpretation" - UG

UG is reminding us that we are no more than socially engineered 'reference points'.

Human interactions and transactions are a daily social necessity. Understanding, translating or interpreting is the only way to function sanely and intelligently within this social order or framework.

Because every social interaction or transaction is rooted in this 'reference point' , every act of understanding or interpretation will only strengthen, fortify and legitimize the social beast.

" Problem of living has become a very tiring business " - UG

UG is a master disruptor. He cuts to the chase and peels off layers of acquired meanings that have crept into our verbal structures and got deeply entrenched.

Every thought, word, expression, meaning that we have inherited is culturally soaked and biased. Heaps of misinformation and disinformation lie buried beneath our indomitable belief structures or the value system.

UG here, is explicating life and living, in the simplest of words stripping off all the mystery.

For UG, the questions on life and its meaning, however profound, were just abstractions, mental gymnastics. He focused on ground realities, our problems of living, pointing out that they are our own creations. Problems of poverty, hatred, terrorism, cultural wars, all the problems of living, he maitained have their roots in our ways of thinking and the inherited value system.

" Intellect is the cause of destruction..." UG

UG is de-constructing Buddhi or Intellect here.

The constant use and reshaping of thought is the intellect. This, by the way is the process of human learning. The more we learn, the more we experience, the more we gather knowledge, the more we end up sharpening the intellect.

Artificial Intelligence (A I) mimics this exact process of human learning. ChatGPT is just the beginning!

A I machines gather 'intellect' using enormous computing power and speeds

( hardware ). Trained initially by the humans with the help of powerful algorithms and unfailing mathematical models, the machines are then exposed to enormous amounts of information (or Big Data) in any field.

The machines then go on the 'auto' mode and by constantly running and re-running thier algorithms and using statistical models on the big data that they acquire, begin to 'learn' ( Machine Learning or M L) and 'see' patterns, 'recognise' things, places and people, 'make' judgements, 'take' decisions and 'predict' events all on their own without any explicit instructions. That is pretty much all of the attributes of a regular human intellect.

A I , the experts predict, will surpass the human intellect very soon. The greatest intellect, Einstein, with an I Q of 160 will be no match to the acquired intelligence of a machine in just a few months from now, say the experts.

UG here speaks of intellect turning into a weapon of its own destruction and so do the experts who say that A I could soon turn into the next 'nuclear bomb' in the wrong hands!

" Thought is our enemy " UG

Thought fakes identity (I or the self) through separation. And then gives itself continuity or protection through purpose (rights and wants).

"The intellect has not helped me..." - UG

Intellect is the showman that runs the transactional world (or the superimposed reality -UG)

Demonstrably, intellect (methodical, refined thinking) is capable of dealing with myriad problems of existence, whether it is learning a technique, finding a job, building a home, driving a car, using a computer...so on.

This gives rise to the erroneous notion that intellect is a comprehensive 'problem solver'.

UG debunks this myth and points out that intellect cannot resolve 'the living problems' of life like love, hatred, anger, jealousy, division etc. The instrument is hugely limited and singularly incapable of finding solutions for many problems associated with living in society.

Problems born of thinking, cannot be solved by thinking.

Psychology - the tenacious world of superimposed reality

Psychology - the tenacious world of superimposed reality

In this deep dive, UG de-constructs and lays bare the roots of 'conditioning' or 'psychology' or 'superimposed reality.'

Conditioning is layered atop biology for the sole purpose of 'functioning sanely and intelligently (sic) in the world.'

This process of conditioning helps the biology to actually survive in two different ecosystems - the natural environment (where all living creatures get schooled or conditioned...or the biological conditioning) and the artificial environment (where humans get soaked in the superimposed reality of culture, society, religion, god...or the fallacious psychological conditioning).

UG is a pointer, not a promise!

Every cell, every tissue, every human perception is contaminated and colored by knowledge. Conditioning, on the other hand, is inevitable for human beings in society.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad describes the corruption of senses by 'knowledge and experience' (superimposed culture) as the death of the senses. (Chapter I, Third Brahmana, B.U.)...freedom from knowledge (dying to acquired knowledge) as true liberation.

Calamity or death as described by UG, in his case, was a natural, acausal event that put an end to the tyranny of human knowledge and experience of centuries.

For us, UG is a phenomenon that points to the vast unknown dimensions and possibilities of human creation. And will debunk the many assumptions and presumptions in the extant literature on such phenomena.

UG is a pointer, not a promise!

" The demand to bring about a change - is the cultural input. " - UG

Humans perhaps been around for millions of years on the planet.

But the fundamental nature of how humans live has been upturned in the past few thousand years - with the invention of religion that altered the way communities live among themselves and with the environment.

Furthermore, in the last two hundred years, mother earth has seen such plunder and destruction never seen before since 5 billion years of its existence due to 'mechanisation' that replaced the muscle and 'automation' that is now replacing the human mind or thinking to facilitate the 'mindless' plunder.

Humans, unlike other forms of life, singularly continue their destruction of nature's resources belonging to all living creatures, in a delusional, incurable sickness 'to change things.'

UG deconstructs this gluttony for 'change' as the cultural demand.

****

"Everything is genetically controlled" - UG

Biology is nature's design, 'psychology' is a social and cultural design.

The way humans behave when in crisis (thought gets suspended during 'fight', 'flight' or 'freeze' moments) is biologically or genetically coded. Our primal behavior is influenced by the biological apparatus.

Scientists, Nobel awardees (the likes of Eric Kandel) tell us that there are serious, genuine limitations on what we can see, hear and sense, they point to 'how the senses distort reality'. They say senses capture only the 'shadow' of life but not life (Thought cannot capture or contain or give expression to life - UG)

Intellect is superficial, it plays an insignificant role in how the body really functions or operates.

The intellect or refined thought (the only instrument we have and there is no other instrument - UG) processes only 'the snapshot of reality', the mere shadow of the living, dynamic moment.

Thought, no doubt has changed the face of the planet with the advances in engineering and technology but has no way to solve the human problems of love, hatred, anger, greed, jealousy which have deep roots in genes or biology. There is nothing we can do. UG rightly recommends, 'stop thinking, start living!'.

Truly remarkable is the native intelligence of the body which is unparalleled (no technology or innovation can ever match it) that takes care of functioning and survival of the body under all circumstances.

This revelation is truly humbling!

"If anyone thinks he can help you, he will inevitably mislead you..." - UG

The wisdom to see reality as beyond a single teacher or a single path or a single tradition is imperative in the exploration of Life.

Only UG says it bluntly and so does Taoism of ancient China, that teachers or gurus or masters play only a peripheral role.

Taoism goes a step further and says that any Teacher is not fundamentally different from the Disciple but only a little more advanced in the journey, only he or she has had an early start.

Taoist sages caution us not to be stuck with one teacher due to sentiment or tradition ( many times inadequate or un-enlightened ) because a single teacher provides only a small window, a very circumscribed view into the vast expanse of reality.

To be eternally grateful or thankful, or to hold dearly onto relationships or sentiments could indeed be counterproductive in our individual journey or the appreciation of reality.

Many a soul is lost and trapped in master-disciple, guru-shishya quagmire!

Let us hear UG's take on gurus, in his own words:

"If anyone thinks he can help you, he will inevitably mislead you. And the less phony he is, the more enlightened he is, the more misery and mischief he will create for you!”

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