"It is neither physical nor psychological transformation" ~ UG

JK and UGK -The Anarchist Duo

    The current audio clip has been sourced from two separate recordings of UG's conversations. Here, UG is on a mission to set the record straight about some of his statements in the book, 'The Mystique of Enlightenment'. 

    Post the 'calamity' (death and resurrection) on his 49th birthday, 'UG' (or 'the personal identity') lost all the moorings, the physiology shifted gears to the 'neutral' or the 'declutched state' falling into its own natural rhythm. Heightened sensitivity, awareness and vitality became the default mode of functioning. 

    For lack of a better description, UG labelled the 'new normal' as the 'Natural State'.  This entire happening was later captured in his own words and published in the book, 'The Mystique of Enlightenment'. 

    The 'calamity' happened in Saanen in Switzerland. It was a sheer coincidence that his namesake, Jiddu Krishnamurti (JK), the world-renowned philosopher happened to be in Saanen at the same time. He was there on a lecture tour. There happened to be some common friends between the two Krishnamurtis  who shuttled between the two camps. For them, UG having gone through 'calamity' was the 'new kid on the block', a new philosopher of sorts, singing an altogether different song about the fascinating Natural State.

    For common friends, the 'JK lingo' was part of their daily diet. UG found it difficult to express his 'calamity' to such minds drunk high on JK's intellectually intoxicating stock phrases and expressions. UG decided to go the other way, avoiding all platforms and discussions, he started describing the physiological changes seen in the Natural State. For the limited audience, this was an entirely new dimension into reality. This was in total contrast to JK's intellectual 'armchair trips' or 'journeys' or 'voyages on uncharted seas' to inquire into the 'unknown'. 

    JK, to his credit, was the first ever thinker to completely brush aside all kinds of religious or spiritual overtones in any inquiry into reality. He encouraged fearless, independent inquiry. He debunked churches or crutches of all kinds, discouraging recourse to a beaten path or technique or teacher. 

    JK's was a commendable feat, a tremendous achievement given the vicious grip of tradition or culture over the human mind for centuries upon centuries. He, for the first time, in modern times, singularly dismantled the deep religious or cultural structures, nay, their very foundations, loosening their vicious grip over our minds. Many tasted their 'first freedom' and savoured the power in JK's enchanting words to inquire into reality beyond the boundaries of any known religion or tradition. 

    JK's approach was refreshingly different and intellectually invigorating. JK had managed to brilliantly put together one of the finest and the most refined vocabulary to date to facilitate probing or inquiry. His audiences were mainly those who were fed up with the status quo. Revolting, daring and intellectual minds from all walks of life eagerly welcomed and embraced JK's new lingo. His talks were appealing, seductive and intellectually stimulating.  

    Dissection and analysis were the essential ingredients of a regular JK diet. With JK on the dais, there was always the magical element of anticipation in the audience of some great adventure. It was the feeling of being on an airplane about to take-off. The engines roared and the airplane gathered enormous speed, rolling on and on... but for some strange reason, the plane failed to lift off. In aviation parlance, this is known as an RTO (rejected take off) when the plane returns to the gate. This happened time and time again. 

    JK's overemphasis on analysis, verbosity and generalisation brought home intellectual weariness and exhaustion. Also, his catchy abstractions - 'the flight of the eagle', 'first and the last freedom', 'the mind will come upon that which is 'sacred' and 'nameless' - all bordered on the poetical and mystical. In fact, these odysseys and discussions added more and more layers of intellectual and mystical baggage running contrary to JK's own idea of 'freedom from the 'known'. 

    After listening to JK for years and his umpteen references to the mystical - like the 'unknown', the 'sacred', the 'religious', the 'nameless' etc., the intellectually exhausted sought a new kind of freedom," the freedom from JK's 'unknowns'." 

   (An aside: I too was a die-hard JK freak, 'haunted' by JK every waking moment of my life for years that completely wrecked my academic life. In a strange climactic moment, one fine morning, as I stood alone on a terrace, JK simply got flushed out of my system, once and for all, leaving no trace behind, I tasted 'last(ing) freedom' from an extraordinary man who had 'possessed' me during the most youthful years of my life.)

    UG too had his share of 'one on one' exchanges with JK. They had a similar background; both were part of the Theosophical Society of India. UG pushed back and revolted against all those mystical 'abstractions' and demanded clarity. Between them they had many heated exchanges but for some reason, JK was not very forthcoming. 

    Many followers of JK (UG began to refer to them as JK's widows), after listening to JK for years, realised they were stuck on square one. 

    In this audio clip, UG accepts that it was JK's overemphasis on the 'psychological' or the 'intellectual' that had initially pushed him to revolt with his own counter narrative with emphasis on the 'physiological'. He gracefully acknowledges that while doing so, he may, in fact, have gone overboard. And offers this necessary correction.

    In the clip, UG rubbishes the very idea of 'transformation', either physical or psychological. And maintains that it is only a concept or notion, with no basis or reality,

    " Any time anybody throws a sentence at me from the book, I tear that book even at the risk of people calling me you are inconsistent. I don't want to talk about the mistake (mystique) of enlightenment, the description, it is (actually) neither physical nor psychological transformation. 

    That book gives the impression that it is more physiological than a psychological one. 

    At that time, I was surrounded by these (Jiddu) Krishnamurti freaks in Saanen. They were throwing all those phrases at me, the 'Krishnamurtian lingo'. So, I had to answer that way. 

    But even that, it is neither physiological nor psychological because there is nothing there to be transformed, so, this (physiological transformation) is also misleading, that has to be corrected by me."

Natural State or 'unconditioned consciousness'

    UG has remained largely ambivalent about the loaded term, 'consciousness', sometimes using it as a synonym for 'life', sometimes denying or debunking it, treating it as a pure mental construct.

    But here is UG's rare take on 'consciousness':  

    " This consciousness which is functioning in me, in you, in the garden slug and earthworm outside, is the same.

    You have no way at all of finding out for yourself the seat of human consciousness (brain etc.), because it is all over, and you are not separate from that consciousness.

    All the experiences - not necessarily just your experiences during your span of thirty, forty or fifty years, but the animal consciousness, the plant consciousness, the bird consciousness -- all that is part of this consciousness. " 

                                                                      ~ UG (The Mystique of Enlightenment) 

    In this light, 'primordial consciousness' means 'life' or 'essence', beyond the bounds of all experience - animal, plant, bird or human. It remains untouched or uncontaminated by any 'conditioning'. Nothing, no thought or knowledge or experience can ever taint its pristine purity. 

    Compare that definition of 'primordial consciousness' with UG's description of the Natural State: 

 " Then thought cannot link up. The linking gets broken, and once it is broken it is finished. Then it is not once that thought explodes; every time a thought arises, it explodes. So, this continuity comes to an end and thought falls into its natural rhythm." 

                                                                     ~UG (The Mystique of Enlightenment)

    UG's descriptions of the Natural State and the 'primordial consciousness' provide us a tiny little glimpse into what he refers to as 'calamity'. 

    'Calamity' or whatever happened to him and so many others perhaps was just the restoration of the 'primordial consciousness' or the 'unconditioned consciousness ' that always exists including in each and every one of us.

    " This kind of a thing 'must have happened' to so many people. " ~ UG

    " Hundreds of people - 'probably something happened' to so many hundreds of people. This is part of history -- so many rishis, some Westerners, monks, so many women, and sometimes very strange things..." ~ UG

    Natural State or the state of original 'unconditioned consciousness' presupposes no 'linking of thoughts', no 'continuity of thought' and therefore, the absence of any 'psychological identity' or 'thinker' or the 'I' or the 'self'. 

Conditioned Consciousness - the ' self ' and 'psychological time'

    It is important to remember that conditioning is very essential for our functioning or survival in the environment. Conditioning involves experience and learning and is all about memorisation and sensitisation. All life forms undergo conditioning or adaptation to survive and avoid natural threats or hazards like fire or predators etc. 

    Like the animals, humans too are conditioned and sensitised to various threats in the natural environment. But apart from 'physical conditioning', humans undergo the 'cultural conditioning' for functioning in a social or cultural setting. Yes, humans face not only the physical threats but also psychological threats in the form of enmity, fear, uncertainty, anxiety, hatred, war etc. 

   Cultural conditioning, therefore, is essential but there are many undesirable consequences including psychological distortions, illusions and delusions that wreak havoc.

    One of the outcomes of cultural conditioning is the solidification and stratification of thought or the 'buildup of human knowledge'. This is passed on from generation to generation. UG suggests that this collective human knowledge creates a powerful 'field of thought' that always surrounds us and envelops us. He calls it the 'thought sphere'.  

    Whenever there is 'thinking', there is the 'movement of knowledge' or some mental activity like fetching, sorting, recalling, reasoning or recognising etc. This 'movement of knowledge', according to UG, is behind the illusion of the 'self' or the 'I'. 

    'I' is akin to the illusion of a 'shadow' that has no basis or independent existence. As long as there is light, there is shadow and as long as there is thinking, there is the 'I'. 

    Sages like Sri Ramana, UG, Nisargadutta summarily dismiss psychological identity as an illusion, a mere simulation born of cultural conditioning. 'I' is a virtual reality, like a 'character' in a videogame that takes on a life of its own, distinct and separate from physical or biological reality. 

    Apart from the illusion of a psychological identity, conditioning fabricates yet another powerful illusion, the idea of 'psychological time'.

    Thought is memory. When an event occurs, it gets memorised giving rise to the notion of 'cause' and 'effect' (as in 'smoke and fire'). UG explains that this notion of 'cause and effect' projects the virtual reality of time, the 'psychological time'.  

    The notion of time (or the timeline) runs as a common thread through all of the memorised events. We can't think of event without time, the time of occurrence. Time helps to 'mark' or 'link' or 'connect' independent or isolated events to create a running commentary or autobiography. This is the mechanism behind all rumination or 'talking to oneself' about yesterdays and tomorrows. 

   The more we cling to society, the more we invest in society, the more we participate in society, the deeper is the 'cultural conditioning', the more entrenched and stubborn the 'self'. 

    The powerful illusion of the 'I', the 'time' and the 'autobiography' is the tyranny of the 'conditioned consciousness'.   

                                                                ****  

 Death' of steel is the 'rebirth' of iron

    The most debilitating symptom of cultural conditioning is a deep sense of restlessness, a nagging discontent, a constant disturbance in the psycho-physical complex that eats into our vitals. This is because our true reality, as per UG and many other sages, is the original 'unconditioned nature' or the 'Natural State'. 

    UG describes cultural conditioning as a superimposed reality, an artificial imposition, a tyranny that distorts our original nature by forcing us to embrace unnatural ways of living through the dictates of its value-system. 

    The Natural State, our original reality never stops goading us or beckoning to us. This is a call from the depths of one's being to 'return to the source' or to return to one's true or essential nature. 

    As long as we chase after non-existing psychological goals like happiness, fulfilment etc. or spiritual pursuits like God, enlightenment etc. we remain 'conditioned' or enslaved under the tyranny or dictates of culture. The goals lure us away from the 'source' leaving us conflicted, restless and frustrated. 

     Our story is not very different from the 'conditioning' of iron into steel. 

    Natural iron is abundant in nature. And steel is a 'conditioned' form of iron, an alloy of iron and carbon fused at very high temperatures. 

    If steel is out in the open, it is subject to weather conditions or natural elements, it then begins to rust. Rusting is the 'reversion' of steel back to its original form of iron, a completely natural process. 

    In other words, death of steel is the rebirth or the resurrection of iron. This is the magic of nature. Perhaps herein lies the golden key - going back to nature, going back to the source is to recover one's true nature. 

   Calamity or death, as in the case of UG, perhaps is akin to the death of steel. And like the rusting away of steel, the withering away of the 'conditioned mind' (the 'withering away of the will' ~UG) seems to be the rebirth of the natural or the original or the real human. 

Audio Clip

Audio Transcription

UG: I am telling you that I made the biggest mistake in that book, the Mystique of Enlightenment to emphasize and overemphasize the physical side of it in contradistinction to what ( Jiddu ) Krishnamurti was talking about.

Only Krishnamurti freaks visited me in those days, they were throwing all the garbage at me, psychological garbage.

So, I had to emphasize this, overemphasize that this is only a physical thing.

But it is neither a physical transformation nor a psychological transformation.

It is useless to talk of it as a physical transformation or a psychological transformation because there is nothing there to be transformed.

So, what is left? What is left here is the physical functioning of this body, that is what I am describing.

~ ~ ~ ~

UG: My mission is to tear apart, that is what I am doing. Any time anybody throws a sentence at me from the book, I tear that apart even at the risk of people calling me you are inconsistent.

I don't want to talk about the mystique of enlightenment, the description. It is neither physical nor psychological transformation. 

So that book gives the impression that it is more physiological than a psychological one.

At that time, I was surrounded by these (Jiddu) Krishnamurti freaks in Saanen.

They were throwing all those phrases at me - the Krishnamurtian lingo. So, I had to answer that way. But even that, it is neither physiological nor psychological because there is nothing there to be transformed. 

So, this is also misleading, that has to be corrected by me, not for pristine purity or anything. I am not interested.

But I have been doing great injustice to myself and to the people who hang around me by allowing that at all, no!

Q: But what do you say about the physiological changes that occurred then?

UG: That is a side effect, is the shifting of balance, that's all.