"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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