"Sages Yajnavalkya, Aruni, Sanatkumara come out of him and speak to you." - Dr. KB Ramakrishna Rao

UG & Dr. KBR (both in white) and Dr.S.S. Raghavachar

UG And His Encounter with 'Calamity'

---By Dr. K B Ramakrishna Rao

For all purposes, U G (that is how U G Krishna Murthy is known) is like anyone you may come across. But begin to listen to him, at once you feel that a description ‘extraordinary’ would be simply inadequate. He pronounces, ‘whatever he has said or has been saying is tradition‘. This amazes you. For what of that ‘tradition’, he has spoken? As he talked, you were feeling corroded -- and when he says, it is all tradition you feel he is kidding you. For you have witnessed the uprooting of the ‘tradition’ you had known. And its collapse!

Yes. How can everything that has been or has come into being be 'tradition’?

UG admonishes: ‘No, that is no tradition, that is no authority’.

Then, what is that ‘tradition he says he is speaking of? It is neither old, nor what is believed’. It is the truth that speaks for itself and by itself. Its emergence is not related to time or belief. lt is not corrected by experience, nor perfected through practice and skill. It is not obtained by meditation. It is not a result.

What the sacred scripture (the ‘sastra') has wished to convey, but failed to express, or what it said, but we have failed to grasp, that sprouts here, in UG, with extraordinary power and life. Maybe, what had all along rusted in the course of custom and habit, bursts forth here with a luster, and we are dazzled by its brilliance. We proclaim, ‘how new it is, how refreshing and pure it is!’ In no time we have realised how this ‘tradition’ of U G has exposed all false tradition we have been in and about.

A ‘State’

U G is not a ‘person’. He is a 'state'. lt is this ‘state’ which the Vedanta identifies as the ‘Brahman‘ or the ‘Atman‘, or 'Moksha‘ or ‘Ananda’. We do study the Vedanta and the scriptures. We think we have understood the secrets of Vedanta so well taught by the teachers. We are proud of our learning. But we should only ask ourselves, if really we had the experience of the truth or a glimpse of the thing indicated by the sacred lore. We are too prone to dabble in terms and loudly too on several occasions. We speak of those great terms: Atman, Brahman, Sushupti, Turiya etc. Neither having understood their depth nor having grasped their extension. We speak as though they are like concrete things on our work-table—a ‘fait accompli’. But a single encounter with U G will be sufficient to realise how deluded we were about things and concepts. All our storehouse of knowledge is belied in his presence. He will have destroyed our ‘knowledge‘, and pride too!

Is it, then, our learned knowledge and scriptural mastery ignorance of false?

Meet UG and discover for yourself the answer, how to receive it and how not. ‘Lead us from darkness to light’ is our constant prayer.  It is for this purpose we put our effort, practise meditation, cultivate austerity. But UG brushes them aside, and decrees: ‘all that leads you from darkness to greater darkness’.

U G says: ‘this State in which l am, was not obtained by all such Sādhana, however sincere it was.  For, that is not of the nature of a result. It should happen, and can happen to anybody in spite of endeavour. lt is something far removed from the relationship of cause and effect. And so, l could not obtain it by Sādhana’. We may be surprised at such statements. But they are true we learn in his company. We are taken aback at first, but while coming back, we wonder whether all our labour and schooling had not been futile.

But we ponder, and ask ourselves: How could that be admitted? ‘Haven’t we had numberless saints and mystics in our religious history? Haven't they wanted us to do sādhana? Aren't we told that ‘avatars' themselves had descended to lift us up and redeem’? Aren't we told of devotees in scores getting salvation by grace? We ask, aren't these our evidences for accepting the 'way' tradition has decreed, and the 'goal’ it has visualised? We are satisfied, and nurture our hopes and work for our salvation. We continue our search for a Guru and his promises of a heaven, a bliss, a beatitude, till we, again, encounter UG.

He smiles at us, and dashes our dreams! With a calmness that has the strength of Himalayas, he says : ‘All that you need to know and ought to do is just to seek for food and clothing!‘ ‘Beyond that, any pursuit of bliss or beatitude or salvation is will o’-the-wisp!' This is plain talk and we are told that all aspirations of getting an eternal and unchanging bliss or salvation, would be the first blunder. It is like being in one's own home, but seeking outside its address. It is the sign of having missed what you have, but going out in search of something which is not.

Is it, then UG is a rank materialist, an atheist or a positivist?

He is none of these. He is simply a ‘natural man’.  He has no ‘theory’ to put forth, and no argument in defense.  ‘l am not speaking’, he says, ‘the State is expressing itself’. Yes. His statements have nothing in them of the heat one may find in the dialectic of the pundits engaged in establishing and describing the nature of reality, either as one or many, or as this or that.

There is always a twinkle in U G’s eyes, and his smile beguiles us. He draws us as a magnet would do, and we go. He asks: ‘why have you come here? I cannot do anything for you. Neither can I give, nor can you receive. Get out of here!’  Yet an inexplicable force draws us to him.

If ever we can intuit of what he says, that would be the end of our stay there. That may also be the end of all our seeking, our visits to holy places and holy men! The peculiarity of this ‘magnet’ of U G is, as it draws, so it repels!

Many are caught in to the magnetic web of U G. They lose all awareness of time or surroundings. Hours they sit enraptured and mystified. How does this happen? Look at him straight. He is a spell, both his form and deport. All our scholarship, wisdom, and knowledge of sciences and scriptures get dumb in his presence.

The most talkative gets mute. And the most argumentative misses his logic. The hair-splitter gets lost. The invincible meets his defeat!

But is it ‘defeat?’ No. That should be ‘victory’! For herein, one has unwittingly stumbled upon something he has been in search for ages, and has been missing all along. It is an ‘accident‘, one which changes. You don’t stay there. You run. All by yourself, towards no ‘goal’, but towards yourself avoiding all mentors who may promise heaven, bliss and all glory!

Is this not new? Is this not strange‘?

Not a Recluse

UG is not a recluse, nor a sanyasi. He wears no ochre robe. Neither rides on a palanquin with pomp and pageantry. There is no intermediary or a mediator. Many who have gone to meet him, have asked him ‘where is UG?’ Yes, you can even address him by his personal name. This is extraordinary for one expecting to meet a ‘spiritual guru'. But here there is no embarrassment or need to prostrate or address him as Lordship, Holy presence or World teacher. He says, he is none of these. It is rare to come across a man of the type of U G. He is just there, a simple man. You knock, and he opens the door!

‘Calamity’

Not many have heard of him. And of those who may have heard, not many have met him. It is not enough you meet him, you must be with him—not once, but often, if possible. And what may happen to you, you alone can be your witness! That may be your ‘calamity’ -- not a bad word, indeed, if you come to know what it means in the context of UG.

What is U G's message?

‘Nothing’, says he.

His words are like those of ‘Upanishads'. Many a time you find in what he says reflections of the great sears. Yajnavalkya, Aruni, Sanatkumara, the seer of the Mandukya Upanishad come out of him and speak to you. Buddha, Gaudapada and Sankara stand before you.  For those who cannot follow U G everything would be inconsistent. But for him who can know, it is all joy, nay, it is fulfillment.

The vision that U G gives is new. Here the philosophy of Self of the Upanishads is reconciled with Buddha's philosophy of No-self: the immutable theory of the real is harmonised with theory of eternal flux. Are not these sets mutually contradictory? The question bothers the follower of the Upanishads, even as it does the opponent.  Herein lies the most unique aspect of UG‘s vision.  What U G says, the pundit neither can digest, nor reject. Pointing to his chest, U G says ‘There is nothing here called the Atman, but there is Witnesshood.  Here there is no agent, but all that 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.’

Such statements naturally bewilder us.  Here the ‘tradition’ that we know fails us and logic gets derailed. Yet UG says with a smile: ‘there is nothing that mystifies here, there is no mystery at all!’

U G is akin to an ocean.  Of it, if you ask, ‘is it unchanging, static or eternally dynamic?’ he simply says: ‘it is your question, not mine.  I am not concerned at all. lt need not even be answered. If you realise the meaninglessness of it, it disappears.’  All this is confusing to us. Yet, it we can intuit the 'state' of U G, in the words of the Upanishad, ‘the unheard becomes heard, and the unknown becomes known.’

Root of Dharma

UG warns: in this ‘state’ there is no 'religious' content, yet we cannot forget that it is the root of all ‘dharma’ (in its primary sense of an all-bearing and all-sustaining force).   He says there is no ‘social’ content in it, yet we see in it the foundation of all social structure and good life. He says, there is no ‘value’ here, yet we cannot deny that all value originates therein, and gets evaluated.

If such is not the truth, we would not have reason to go to U G, nor like to listen to him enraptured. Even though he does not invite any, what reason compels us to go to him?

Is U G a ‘mystic'? Is he a ‘prophet’?

None of these.  As he says of himself, he is just a ‘natural man‘, ‘the end product of human evolution.'

Not that we can understand such simple statements. Perhaps never can we understand. The Evolutionist, both the philosophical and the scientific, has something new here to encounter in the description:  ‘the end-product of human evolution.’ Does the Evolutionist digest it, or gets dizzy when he does? It is an open question.

Naturally we become curious, and ask: ‘how and when this state occurred?’

And he answers: ‘when all my inherited tradition of history and culture, and all the instruments and institutions that these had fostered broke down in my life.’  And after that he says: ‘l have no biography.’

U G describes it as a strange ‘happening.’ ‘Every cell in my body exploded.  Biological and chemical changes took place. A strange awareness came about. What had hitherto been an unnatural  life, mistakenly taken for the natural, came to a close. That is the happening of the real Natural State.‘  Of this UG calls a ‘calamity.’ For him the term ‘realisation’ is like a worn out coin, much used and disfigured. He does not use it.

What the jnanin, the yogin, the tapasvin craves for, but fails to get, is that Primordial State, which UG calls the ‘Natural State.‘ How can we understand him who is in that State?  Does he help us‘? He says, 'no'! But we hear him saying. ‘it is unique, peerless, deathless and birthless.  It is no effect, has no cause. That is no bondage, nor even freedom.  It is a divisionless awareness, a witnesshood.'

Again, you ask him, for you are enchanted: ‘how to know it, how to be it‘? UG repeats: ‘I do not know myself, I cannot teach. It is a state of not-knowing. To know, and to make one know I have no means with me!' Is it helplessness, or is it the uniqueness of the ‘state’, which does not admit of communication'?

If one who is in that ‘state’ were to say what is said, does it not strike us queer or crazy? No, for that is the very logic of it, as the Upanishad says:

‘How to know that, by which everything is known? How to know the Knower?’

( Reproduced from the Article published by Manasa Gangotri on 20-03-1978 by Dr. KB Ramakrishna Rao. 

Dr. Rao hosted UG regularly in Mysore in the late '70s and also was instrumental in introducing UG to many a friend in Mysore and Bangalore. 

Article Courtesy: Dr. Narayana Moorty, Montery, California)

" If I hear the voice, I know his entire past and future!" -UG

UG rubbished the much glorified, celebrated faculty of Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) as no more than the natural endowment in living creatures not just among humans, even among dogs, pigs and cats.

UG often used to recount a phenomenon that he had observed over the years during autumn months in the Swiss Alps.

 'Man is one of the species on this planet to inherit these things in common with all the other species. Man, in his anxiety to maintain his non-existing and illusory identity, has been using thought to translate sensory perception. Now the yogis are promising these things back to us and making a business out of it. Let me give you an example of how effectively it operates in the animals. In Switzerland, where we live up in the Alps, hunting of deer is permitted from 16 September every year. Would you believe it, on 15 September every year, hordes and hordes of deer come down from all over into the safety of the animal sanctuary next door to us. How do you explain this phenomenon?'

From <http://ug-k.blogspot.com/2007/04/encounter-if-you-are-searching-for.html>

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People who have interacted with UG have witnessed the heightened sense of perception on numerous occasions. Here are some personal experiences. 

My first meeting with UG was on the 10th of July 1992, a day after his 74th birthday, in Poornakuti, Bangalore.

When I reached his place, I learnt that UG was upstairs and all alone. I knew I was walking into the lion's den and was prepared for any eventuality - being 'gobbled' up live or getting thrown out of the house! Come what may, I was determined to seek his audience!

As I reached upstairs, I found him busy in the anteroom attached to the main hall with his back turned towards me. Folding my palms together in a 'namasthe', I gently called his attention , " Good morning Sir!" He spun around greeting me back with folded hands. The lion, after all looked 'harmless'!

I remember Mahesh Bhatt querying me the first time I met him a year later, " Where and when did you meet this monster?" 

UG could 'finish' you! He held a clear threat to our false sense of 'self' or ego!

Major Dakshinamurti once mentioned to UG that Sri Ramana Maharshi used to say that he was like a tiger who swallowed his disciples wholly spitting out only the bones and asked UG what he would do to his people. Seems UG immediately responded," Yes!  I am also like the tiger, I swallow them whole, and here even the bones are not spared, everything is chewed up, even the bones will not be spit out!"    

After initial pleasantries, UG escorted me to the main hall, sat himself on a settee and offered me a seat opposite to him on the other side of the room. We then started talking. I was lucky to get his exclusive audience the very first time. After a while the crowds started pouring in. There were many elders in the audience. I soon vacated my chair for them and sat comfortably on the floor. UG beckoned to me half a dozen times to sit next to him on the settee but I looked the other way, I continued squatting on the floor, I felt more comfortable sitting at his feet, that was my mental makeup! At some point, however Chandrasekhar Babu started insisting that I should follow UG's commands and go and sit next to him which I finally did.  

As the day progressed, some JK freaks arrived on the scene, among them was a pretty young woman.  Very soon there ensued a heated discussion on JK. UG began his famous crusade against JK. Now the woman started arguing furiously with UG.

At some point UG suddenly sprang a surprise, " Look here! You don't know a thing! Your place is not here! You should go to the mental asylum, that's where you belong!"  

This was a shocker to all those present!

The man who accompanied the lady was shocked out of his wits, " UG tell us how do you know? She in fact was being treated in the asylum till recently and has now returned home only last week! Who are you? Are you some kind of a face reader?!"

To this UG turning to me (now I was sitting next to him) with a mischievous smile added, " There is no need for me to look at a face sir! Even the person's voice is enough! The moment I hear someone saying, " Good Morning Sir!" I know his entire past and future!!"  referring to our exchange of greetings early that morning!

******

For sometime I was associated with a saffron-clad Swamiji. He once bade me to carry a message for UG. 

On meeting UG, I said, " Sir, our Swamiji sends his regards to you! He has also sent a message ! One, he says that UG stands for Ultimate Goal ( to which UG immediately mumbled," Sir, I am a Useless Guy!") and he says that he would be soon meeting you on the astral plane!"

UG wasted no time, " Sir! Let me tell you, there is nothing to these astral travels! I used to do astral travels as a student while in Presidency College, Madras! I used to lie down on my bed in my room and 'astral-ly' travel and reach Connemara Library and refer books for my exams the next morning!"

******

ESP and other faculties, perhaps are more common among indigenous people. All the higher faculties find a free expression in the natural, simple and innocent lifestyle of these real people.

Just to instantiate, a few weeks after the tsunami struck the islands of Andaman & Nicobar in Dec 2004, self and Kamal met up with a friend Venky, a helicopter pilot who was in charge of 'Search & Rescue' ( S & R) operations in the Andamans.

Venky narrated to us the harrowing, disturbing scenes after the huge tidal waves, tens of meters high, stuck and ravaged the beautiful islands. Death and destruction greeted them everywhere.

While on this mission, one day Venky & his team ran into a 'miracle'!

As the rescue 'copter landed on top of a hillock, they suddenly stumbled into a group of natives or indigenous people, cuddled up in a make-shift settlement! To their surprise, despite tsunami that decimated the life on the island, the natives in the camp were all unharmed, alive and kicking!

Lo and behold, they found an American scholar among the natives in the camp! He had come to live with the natives to research their mores and medicines. He had even picked up their language. He narrated how they had managed a 'miraculous' escape thanks to the uncanny powers of their tribal chief.

On the fateful day, the chief had set out to the seaside for his morning stroll. He immediately noticed two strange things - one, the sea was unusually calm and had receded more than a kilometer into the horizon, far, far away from the shoreline, a very unusual occurrence he had never seen before during the low tide! Two - animals like the dogs and cows were seen scampering away from the coastline towards the hillside and some were seen climbing on to the nearest hill.

Without further delay, the chief summoned his people and ordered his band including his American guest to immediately repair to the nearest hillock. Something terrible was about to hit them, he could discern the early signs of an imminent disaster about to strike!

The native intelligence of the animals and a keen sense of observation helped them survive the day!

******

Sages or Real People ( as ancient Chinese described them) are grounded in natural state or 'sahaja sthithi' having escaped the clutches of the 'false self'. Their lives follow a natural rhythm and order, resonating with Life itself. Siddhis or psychic capabilities are natural to them, but never employed for self-aggrandisement or exploitation. All faculties operate naturally and remain in great balance and harmony. 

"Do Nothing! I repeat, do nothing! That’s all!” - UG

Doing Nothing or Wu Wei (Taoism) is a piece of sagely wisdom!

Given our cultural, sociological, conflict-ridden way of life, sages at various points in time have offered us the remedy, "DO NOTHING!"

This happened in Parekhji's place, Santa Cruz., Bombay.

Two young men in their mid-twenties came to see UG, they sat bang opposite to him. They sat glued to their seats, wide eyed, intensely listening to UG as he rubbished all things spiritual, dethroning saints & sages, ridiculing ‘sadhanas’ & ‘sadhakas’, debunking all kinds of search or seeking!

UG was at his blasting best that particular day and once again made it clear to all those present that we were all mere bundles of confusion leading futile, nonsensical lives chasing all kinds of spiritual dreams!

UG nailed it further – ‘”No! You are not even living!”

No one had the guts to defy him!

There was a long pause - the calm after the storm! Everyone had been thoroughly shaken to the roots!

One of the two young men, with a beautifully sculpted face, Jesus-like beard, with black and beautiful pair of eyes had been sitting with his eyes transfixed on UG.  He now got up from his seat, he had been silent all through the morning.

Folding his hands reverentially, he began to speak softly;" Sir, please permit us to take your leave", apparently reluctant to leave UG's presence!

One could sense a sudden movement in UG!  UG's face lit up, leaning forward, showing keen interest in the young man, he inquired his whereabouts, and how he happened to be there. This time his partner butted in, "Sir, we are basically from Poona, we started early this morning, drove in our car to meet you. This is our first visit."

The bearded young man continued standing with hands folded, his eyes transfixed on UG, still mesmerized as he spoke, "Sir, I discovered you on the internet, eventually got hold of Chandrasekhar Babu's number in Bangalore, contacted him & traced your whereabouts in Bombay."

UG smiling, prodded on, "What made you come here? There is nothing you can get here. There is no message! We all sit here and gossip from morning till evening!"

The young man did not seem convinced and began his narrative, "Sir, I was a very devout Muslim, I used to do namaz five times a day. But deep inside I was restless, I was not at all happy! I spent all my time seeking answers on life, its meaning, I wanted to know the existence of God. At some point, I got totally disillusioned. I gave up on my namaz. My parents were very unhappy but I just moved on! My search led me eventually to Sufism, I embraced Sufi practices & I used to spend whole nights singing away Sufi devotionals! I also dabbled in meditation, this whole thing consumed my life for years!  But I found no answers, this was the time I moved on to Hinduism, to Yoga etc. Again there was no luck! I was totally disillusioned. I lost interest in everything! This was when I stumbled on to your website and now I am here in front of you".

Everyone resonated with the young man, his checkered life was not very different from our own.

There was complete silence in the hall.

After a long pause, the young man resumed, "Sir, please tell me what am I supposed to do now?"

UG thundered back, "Do nothing!" staring him in the eye! And then turned away, signaling the end of their meeting.

But the young man was quite determined to get an answer and stood his ground.

He gathered himself once more and began speaking softly. This time he pleaded, "Sir I have to leave now. Please, please tell me what should I do now? What is the message for me?"

UG raising his voice spoke with an air of finality, "Do Nothing! I repeat, Do Nothing! That’s all!” dismissing the young man.

And in a sudden move, turning over to where I was sitting, "Sir, this is what your Bhagvad Gita says, “Do Nothing!" Taken aback, I sheepishly nodded my head in agreement!

The beautiful young man that day was a picture of deep discontent and sadness. His search for enlightenment, happiness, God had deeply bothered him, and tormented him!

The look of disappointment, as he made towards the door was unmistakable. I thought to myself, “Boy, is he any different from anyone of us here?”

How fortunate we were to have met someone like UG who stopped us, freeing us from chasing these endless chimeras!

Lucky are those who get to hear the sagely instruction, “Do nothing! Just be!” 

******

  

Like the Bhagvad Gita, Taoism also recommends 'Do Nothing' or ' Wu Wei'!

  

‘Do Nothing’ or ‘Wu Wei’ is not advocacy for inactivity or laziness. Rather, perhaps it means doing or acting without a purpose or an ulterior motive! 

The sages are definitely not against action. Do Nothing perhaps means - Doing Nothing on Purpose! Purposelessness of action singles out the sage!

What about UG who recommended "Do Nothing!” Boy, was he not a human dynamo?

Irrepressible and bubbling with energy, never resting for a moment, UG was seen constantly on the move! He trod the globe many times over, meeting friends across continents, tirelessly offering his sagacity in his inimitable style. He spoke to the pouring stream of people throughout the day. He remained a ‘live wire’, scintillating, even on his death bed!

******

  

Bhagvad Gita, the Science of Action, lays it down clearly,

कर्मण्ये वाधिकारस्ते म फलेषु कदाचना

कर्मफलेह्तुर भुरमा ते संगोस्त्वकर्मानी॥

Ch. 2, 47

"Yours is right to work only! Never to the fruits thereof! Never resort to inaction but know that you are not the ‘doer’!"

The sagely Krishna raises a red flag and cautions Arjuna not to fall a prey to doer-ship!

With false sense of doer-ship, one suffers the consequences of accomplishment, of failure, of pride, arrogance, fear, despair or dejection.

The context of the verse is the battle field in Mahabharata.

Arjuna, the warrior, is a tormented soul. He is caught up in a dilemma whether to withdraw or fight the evil in the form of near and dear ones.

Realising that he is inadequate and unable to resolve the crisis, Arjuna resorts to lamentation about consequences of war and consequences of his own action (doer-ship) in war. Eventually unable to live up to the situation, he surrenders at the feet of Sri Krishna.

Sri Krishna, the sagely voice, soothes and heals Arjuna by allaying his fears and calming his nerves by exorcising the ‘ghost’ of doer-ship. He relieves Arjuna of his doer-ship by advocating ‘Non Action (absence of doer-ship) in Action’!

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Just like the Bhagvad Gita, the great classic, योग-वासिष्ठ ( Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha), the dialogue between Sri Rama and the sage Vasishta dedicates an entire chapter to ‘sankalpa’ or ‘purpose’ and its far reaching impact on our thoughts or thinking.

The red flag on ‘purpose’ or ‘doer-ship’, once again is raised, this time by the great sage Vasishta!

Purpose or motive is a tremendous psychological force like no other! It solidifies, coalesces independent, discrete thoughts into a fictitious ‘thinker’ or ‘doer’!

Douglas Rosestone recollects that in the aftermath of Calamity, UG used to insist that he daily read out a few pages from the great Yoga-Vāsisṭha to him!

******

UG clarified, “Food, clothing and shelter - these are the basic needs - beyond that if you want anything, it is the beginning of self-deception."

Discarding all that is non-essential and firmly rooted in the essence, the sage performs action in the realm of non action ( without any sense of doer-ship).

Doing Nothing, the sagely recommendation, holds cure for all forms of self-deception! 

 Therefore the sage manages affairs without doing anything, and

conveys his instructions without the use of speech.

All things spring up, and there is not one which declines to show
itself; they grow, and there is no claim made for their ownership;
they go through their processes, and there is no expectation (of a
reward for the results). The work is accomplished, and there is no
resting in it (as an achievement).

The work is done, but how no one can see;
'Tis this that makes the power not cease to be.

Tao The Ching, Chapter 2

(http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm)

****** 

" The cow looks at me with Choiceless Awareness" - UG

JK and UG 

Years before meeting up with UG, somewhere along the line, I stumbled into Jiddu Krishnamurti or JK who stormed into my life though his mesmerising lingo and catchy phrases. 

In a way,  JK  paved the way for UG. UG himself acknowledged this in no uncertain terms and on numerous occasions. 

JK attacked and lobbed grenades at the stronghold of religion and tradition like no one else before him and loosened the tenacious grip of orthodoxy, the beliefs, practices and rituals on our minds with his liberating and mind-shattering observations. Much of the spiritual dross and clutter of ages got rooted out by JK much before UG took over and UG made a clean sweep of even the intellectual clutter left behind by JK!

I was initially spellbound  by JK's revolutionary thinking, a path breaking approach to life! His persuasive and uncanny discourse made religion look like a practical joke!

Unlike UG who proclaimed that he had no message for mankind, JK was a global brand , a salesman par excellence, who offered intellectual gymnastics through what UG described as ' bogus chartered flights.'  Like many JK freaks, I too enjoyed JK's verbal journeys into ' the unchartered seas' and went on my ego trip that lasted for years!

His fabulous repertoire made JK a great 'wordsmith'! JK improvised in amazing ways. JK's stock phrases like 'the first and the last freedom' , 'the flight of the eagle', 'awakening of intelligence', 'choiceless awareness, ' sounded revolutionary and captured the imagination of many educated and thinking minds of the times ! 

Even UG acknowledged JK's innovative expression! UG was of the opinion that JK's proximity to brilliant minds like Aldous Huxley , Carl Jung among others played a key role in forging his unique style of expression, the famous 'JK lingo'

Once I chanced to meet a top ranking marketing executive. On finding his shelf overflowing with JK books, I queried him regarding his JK connection. He was candid, " More than anything, JK has a great intellectual appeal and supplies me with the  verbal ammunition that helps me crack deals in my high-profile marketing job!"

During my college days, I had breathed JK day in and day out! I hungered after his books, had a huge collection of his audios and videos. In the 80's, there were no Indian prints and all titles were imported and they cost a fortune! My pocket money given to me by my middle class dad vanished in a day or two as I shelled out huge amounts to buy endless JK ‘stuff’!

My ambition to meet up with JK wasn't very successful and was hijacked by a well meaning friend ( his grandfather had donated lands to Annie Besant near Madanapalle where the Rishi Valley School later sprang up ) who deliberately lied to me about JK's dates of travel to US to prevent me from bunking my exams to be with him in Rishi Valley. Incidentally that turned out to be his final visit to India!

My brush with JK philosophy made me feel intellectually superior and puffed up my ego even more! Unknowingly, I had started parroting JK's phrases in my day to day conversations.I spent most of my waking hours practicing ‘choiceless awareness’ believing naively that I was on the road to attaining a highly evolved spiritual state! 

UG was to explain later " When I go out, even the cow on the street looks at me with 'choiceless awareness'!" making it abundantly clear that awareness is just a functional aspect of the brain physiology, a pure biological phenomenon! Awareness is being peddled sometimes as a meditative technique, as a tool to help bring about radical transformation and sold to gullible minds! UG pooh poohed the whole idea! 

Like countless souls, I too was completely floored by some of JK's penetrating statements. Particularly the following ones:

" How can you discover God? You could perhaps discover the needle in the proverbial haystack ! But how can you discover something that you really do not know?"

" In order to understand the 'problem', you must be free from the desire for an answer!"

" In order to encounter a live cobra, you must go far, far beyond the city lights into  the darkness and into the bushes !"

It took several years before I could finally flush JK out of my system! 

One fine morning, it suddenly hit me that the much celebrated JK's ' journeys on the unchartered seas were mere fantasies, pure mental gymnastics! My system summarily rejected JK in a single moment of rare clarity that morning! JK's 'intellectual baggage' of years got jettisoned out, once and for all!  

When I met UG for the first time, he supplied the words to my unspoken gut feeling about JK's pointers to the 'door' and his suggestive expression about 'what lies beyond the door' and his constant refrain about the 'unknown'! UG summarily dismissed any such misgivings saying , " There is no oasis situated yonder; you are stuck with the mirage!" 

UG gave the analogy of an airplane on its take off roll to explain the futility of JK's 'bogus chartered flights': 

" Sir, we would all wait in the tent with bated breath as the plane started rolling forward on the runway for take-off! We waited eagerly as it picked up speed and lunged forward. We wondered, 'Now, this is the moment! It will take off NOW! But... no! Nothing would happen....some more precious moments would slip by! Again we hoped that it would take off NOW! Again and again we were disappointed, talk after talk, we ended up with the same feeling of despair .. nothing....nothing ever really happened...and soon we realised that it was just another case of 'aborted' take-off...the plane never took off but only returned back to the gate....it was like that every single time!" 

Unlike JK, UG's uniqueness lay in the simplicity and economy of his expression. For the most part, he stuck to the day to day vocabulary. Sophistry and scholarship found no place in his simple and effective statements. Even children could understand his plain talk and enjoy his tirades and satires immensely. 

Unlike JK, UG was a free man, not bogged down by puritanical inclinations. Unrestrained, UG would resort to slang whenever he needed to throw in a punch line and rubbish some nonsense! And that was quite often! His slang hit the bull’s eye every single time! He pointed out the utilitarian value of slang and referred to Sri Ramakrishna's original Gospel in Bengali that showcased the choicest slang resorted to by the famous sage to drive home the truth!

With UG, knowledge had no place, only pure Life resonated and reverberated there! In his company, one tasted real freedom, felt unburdened and relieved from the clutches of social and cultural tyranny!

In UG's portal, there was no scope for any externalisation or internalisation of thought, no chance for rumination, mentation or ideation. In his presence, there was no scope for any preoccupation! You found yourself flowing along with whatever happened around you - the mirth and laughter, the relentless talk and discussion, the noise and the din of mundane existence - all became part of reality!

UG would metaphorically describe his role as the AK 47, the machine gun that fired away at the slightest stirring of minds around and about him!

UG's whole approach, it appeared, was to spray potent words like bullets that ' silenced the stirrings of our restless minds!' 

In the staccato outburst of his gun fire, our chatter simply got suspended, at least for a while!

"Therefore the sage, in the exercise of his government, empties their minds, fills their bellies, weakens their wills, and strengthens their bones."

- Lao Tzu, Chapter 3, Tao Teh Ching

" “There is no looking back in life, just move on!" - UG

In my early years with UG, I was confounded and often felt chastised when I heard UG repeating, " I only get JK's widows and Rajneesh's divorcees, and disciples of some guru or other, but I never get a virgin", I once decided to counter him openly with, " Sir honestly tell me if there are any virgins out there?", wondering if it is possible to stay away completely from any spiritual influence whatsoever! UG didn't disappoint me, " No! There are no virgins sir!"

People tend to get hooked on to books, temples, doctrines, ideologies, gurus and what have you! Everyone goes through this patch when societal life suddenly turns pale and loses its significance making one restless to seek meaning outside and beyond the mundane existence.

This is the time when many begin to knock at the doors of gurus, god men who claim to know the 'other side of existence', whatever that means! One ends up getting 'married' to some role model or guru or ideology, rarely retaining virginity!  

Even UG's early life is rich with encounters of the spiritual kind. He had a brush with the renowned Swami Shivananda and spent several years practicing severe penance and austerities in the Himalayas, not to discount his well accounted, engaging meetings with JK and that momentous visit to Sri Ramana.

Much before my meeting with UG in 1992, my first flesh and blood guru happened in 1987.

My guru, in many ways was a remarkable man!

He was not a literate, he even had plenty of problems graduating his high school! He spoke eloquently in Kannada but hardly managed a word or two in English.

But this guru of mine did play a role in grounding me into the realities of life and letting me see the shallowness and futility of intellect and its serious limitations in comprehending matters of life.

I particularly recollect an exchange between us , when in his own characteristic way, my guru shed light on the vicious grip of thought, of reasoning and logic that plays such havoc in our lives. This episode again highlights how our intellect is stuck in a rut with no way out!

I vividly recollect the incident.

I was in my kitchen fixing a meal for both of us that morning. The guru relaxed on his bed seemingly buried in a newspaper in the living room. Mine was a compact bachelor pad in Bangalore. Those were the days much before he would become 'famous ' and gather a large number of devotees, the days before his spiritual empire would engulf him completely and irrevocably. He would stay with me for days on end.

At the time, I was  practically 'one on one' with the man and as usual remained foolhardy  investing my entire time, money, energy on the novel idea of plunging headlong on a spiritual journey with a living guru!  

Just imagine the convenience of having a living guru in your quarters, readily available to plumb the depths of life and its mysteries. But there is no free lunch. I did end up paying a heavy price for this expensive luxury!

As I got busy in kitchen that day, I was mulling over a philosophical (intellectual) problem that had bothered me for quite some time.

I didn't let go the opportunity of being next to my mentor. I shouted my question across to my guru in the living room, so he wouldn't miss it!

Pat came his reply! His answer was spot on, my chattering suddenly ceased!  I was thrown into silence.

The silence lasted only for a short while.

The chattering picked up momentum slowly as my thoughts began ‘framing’ his reply - slicing and dicing the extraordinary answer, doing a  'Google search ' in my stockpile of crammed knowledge and experience.  

My  mind was working hard  trying to get a handle on this new piece of information , trying to plug it into a pigeonhole among myriad other voices and echoes in my head!

As my thoughts soaked up the new answer, successfully archiving it, my mind once again became unsettled and began to clamour for more insight! Every answer only whetted my appetite.

I wanted more of the missing pieces of my (intellectual) jigsaw puzzle. The heat and intensity of this mental gymnastics auto generated my next question.

I wasted no time and lobbed my second question straight back at my guru, this one demanding more clarity from him.  He once again obliged me with a remarkable answer in no time at all, flooring me completely! Thoroughly satisfied, I smiled and thought to myself, "Oh boy! This guy is a genius, if only he knew English, he would be as famous as Jiddu Krishnamurti!"

And once again silence reigned supreme!

The thoughts did not stir for quite a while …..But slowly, ever so gently, they made their comeback!

As the second answer began to get assimilated, dissected and pounded in a myriad ways just like the previous one, a brand new question, the third one, began to raise its hood.

Questions were getting progressively tougher and more stubborn with every answer.

I felt feverish now and was doggedly determined to probe the matter till I got to the bottom of my problem!

I now lobbed my latest question without batting an eyelid.

This time, my guru's reply shocked the wits out of me, taking the wind out of my sails!

I was not prepared for what struck me!

"THIS IS THE PROBLEM with you bastards! You, the so called educated ones are incorrigible! Well, if your first question was (like) a police constable, it graduated into an Inspector by the time you came up with your second question! Your third question got promoted itself to the level of a Superintendent of Police!  At this rate, if I let you carry on with your ways, your questions will raise in rank to that of the Inspector General of Police and so on, there is no end to this dalliance!

I say STOP! Stop kidding yourself! Enough of this nonsense! Enough of this mind game! This bullshit doesn't serve you good …with thinking, you will reach nowhere! Talk of 'tyranny of the intellect'….you guys have been reduced to slavery by your so called education , there is no way this logic-bound, well patterned, conditioned ways of thinking can help you see LIFE, all this ( intellectual intercourse) is nothing but sickness !!”        

His words were scorching but healing!

They clearly resonated with UG's remarks that I heard so often in my later years, "All your questions are born of answers." UG nailed it, “Thinking is not the instrument and there is no other instrument."

True, life has no place for thought, reason or logic. There is no way one can get a handle on life or its ever changing dynamics. Life is 'out of bounds' for thought, its poor shadow!

My guru was quite unique in many ways, he essayed a key role in my life but ……he was not against building an ashram or carving out a following of his own.

Personally I always rebelled at any kind of build-up, staying away from all kinds of spiritual organisations, clubs etc. I expressed my feelings quite openly and this was not welcome to him or those who had now started gathering around him. We had to part ways. Another chapter in my life soon came to an end!

I am reminded of UG’s words about genuine individuals who end up in golden chains, "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!”

Many years later, as I sat in front of UG, in Chandrasekhar Babu’s place, UG started describing how the guru-shishya relationship could become tenacious, exploitative and burdensome. I slipped into reverie reminiscing about my first guru! UG suddenly turned to me and with fierce intensity thundered, “There is no looking back in life sir, we just move on!”

Only UG showed real courage and defiance, never allowing anything to grow around him. Not just that , he would never let any relationship to take root! With UG, no one could ever feel important or close. Pure life was in operation, in a constant flow with no build-up of any kind whatsoever!