Don't Call Him Guru: U.G. Krishnamurti
File under: Real True Gurus
Despite his best efforts to avoid the office, U.G. Krishnamurti is a real true anti- guru, and that's the best kind of guru there is. As far as we can tell, he is the absolute opposite of the Kracki in terms of his complete and utter denial of anything that the Kracki "teaches" about enlightenment. He is also the anti-Sri Sri in that he strenuously avoids any and all adulation... at every opportunity. This in the face of the fact that he is "the most talked about thinker in India, and his biography... has topped the best seller list for the last nine months." Sri Sri would dance in a tutu at the Taj Mahal on television for that kind of press.
We're feeling rather sheepish for not knowing more about the guy, because from what little we've just read, we should be hoisting his face on the home page as the patron saint of this blog, although he'd probably call us idiotic for doing so.
It's not that we haven't known about him at all. A mentor has been mentioning U.G. for years. But from what we can now tell, this dude is kryptonite to those occluding ideas which give this blog a reason to exist:
He claims that the reason people come to him and to gurus is to find solutions to ease their everyday real problems or for solutions to a fabricated problem, namely, the search for spirituality and enlightenment. He continues to say this drive is caused by the cultural environment, which demands conformity of individuals and places within them the desire to be special. Consequently, it is this need that is exploited by gurus, spiritual teachers, and sellers of "shoddy goods", who pretend to offer the way to reach that goal but never deliver and cannot since the goal is itself unreachable.U.G. is now our new BFF... whether or not we ever speak a word to his face.
This is what brought our attention to him, and we're going to read this, this, this, this and this to find out more.
posted by guruphiliac @ 6:07 PM
9 Comments:
I agree!
U.G. is an antidote to the disease that is spread by the fauxvatars. Too bad it's a stinky medicine to the numb-headed happiness hunters who give those guys all their business.
I read those links too. He is intriguing.. I could not come to any conclusion about his motives. I am not convinced if he is genuine or not. As said by ontheotherhand, I wonder if his motive is to create a following of the 'maverick' kind. Nevertheless, his actions and his extension of help or speech or (non)enlightenment or whatever does not cost anyone any penny. That impresses me. Atleast his motive is not money like Kalki. I highly appreciate his simplicity.
> He claims that the reason people
> come to him and to gurus is to
> find solutions to ease their
> everyday real problems or for
> solutions to a fabricated
> problem, namely, the search for
> spirituality and enlightenment.
> He continues to say this drive
> is caused by the cultural
> environment, which demands
> conformity of individuals and
> places within them the desire to
> be special.
I take issue with too much blamed placed on "cultural environment." The practical problem with this is that there's so little we can do to change our cultural environment, and so much we can do to change our personal behavior and thinking, that concern with outside culture seems less than optimally efficient.
Also: it seems perfectly reasonable to me that, for instance, our DNA is blindly concerned with issues of birth, survival, death, and reproduction. Meantime, our true self is never born and never dies, so it doesn't share that agenda. Unless we pay some close attention, there can be some friction or confusion, since our DNA is campaigning for stuff that's not necessarily in our true best interest. I'm just saying that the root of suffering may be far more basic than anything cultural.
> Consequently, it is this need
> that is exploited by gurus,
> spiritual teachers, and sellers
> of "shoddy goods", who pretend
> to offer the way to reach that
> goal but never deliver and
> cannot since the goal is itself
> unreachable.
For instance, say someone has the idea, "I really ought to be, I really NEED to be, in bliss all the time. Something is wrong if I'm not." This isn't a theoretical hypothetical; we know the spiritual world is drowning in such people. It's precisely this kind of "problem" that drives many/most/all people to spiritual teachers and the like.
You could say "the goal itself is unreachable," since if one moves FORWARD, trying to get closer and closer to permanent, unchanging bliss, one will NEVER achieve it. OK.
But what's missing here is that one can also go in the OPPOSITE direction with quite different results. That is, rather than trying to achieve this assumed goal (of perfect bliss or whatever), one can QUESTION the assumption ("What is this 'I,' and why does it need to get bliss all the time?") till its emptiness becomes apparent. By going that direction, then the "goal" (in the sense of the dissolution of the problem) is very much reachable.
http://home.comcast.net/~sresnick2/mypage.htm
Reading the first link... my other thought on UG is that he says, "[The gurus] conned the whole of mankind and we’re all going to pay a heavy price for their con-game."
There seems to be some unclarity here. If there's some original meaning to our existence, then it's possible to make mistakes. We could, for instance, do something that would keep us from attaining the Ultimate Goal of Human Life or some such, so we could rightly say that we'd "pay a heavy price" for such an action.
But if we let go of the idea that there's some external Goal we're supposed to achieve, all of that stuff, then there's no need for gurus, but there's also no harm from them. And I'm not saying not to criticize gurus, there's no harm to that either. But I'm saying that there's no "heavy price" to all the delusion in the world.
That is: As long as we're throwing away gurus, why be holding onto ideas of "mistakes" and "heavy price"?
On a somewhat more relative note... I've noticed that I can, for instance, do a long Zen retreat, lots of struggle, intense mental clarity, yada yada. At the end of it, the final result may be something like a sense that the whole of existence is already in perfect balance. And then I meet a believing Christian, someone who has faith in a perfectly good and all-power God, and that belief has led her to exactly the same place that I got to. So I dunno, I wouldn't be as quick as UG to blanketly condemn gurus. Everybody's got a different sickness, and can use a different medicine.
http://home.comcast.net/~sresnick2/mypage.htm
Not sure if you guys are aware, but UG's 'enlightenment' is Open Source, making him a true blue gnuru for the gnu millenium:
http://www.well.com/user/jct/
BOOKS OF U.G.:
[All the works below are placed in their entirety and can be freely downloaded.]
Download, re-compile your kernels and DUMP CORE now!
It should have been worth a main-entry for you, that he passed away on March 22. Read This and this
May 10, 2007
Douglas Rosestone
I view UG as a hero of humankind. What he has said is best understood as a critique of the sad state of affairs the human race has fallen into, rather than an addition to the spiritual literature. That having been said, he clearly was a great Sage, which is the highest expression of our human potential. He remains by far the finest example of a human being that I have ever meet or heard of in our era.
In all the fourty years I knew him, I never saw the slightest fault in his integrity. His loyalty to his friends was off the charts. He could have had a large organization, and chose instead to leave nothing behind. He never made a dime from the books people published based upon what he said. I have no doubt that he transcended J.Krishnamurti in every way. I believe that JK was the harbinger for UG's appearence and there is much to be learned by the study of their joint story.
For those of you who are new to the subject, I suggest you go to the original material on the Web. UG can be very hard to take. This is because we are in the Matrix. Remember, Neo had a very hard time at first when Morpheus told him where he was at. UG's devotion was, and is to the “Neo” in all of us.
The beauty of UG's effect on you, is that after reading his book or after listening to him or after viewing his video, you will be able to leave or dump the entire stuff which entered into your brain cells momentarily due to your reading or viewing or listening him and you can carry on with your life perhaps with new vigor and refreshed outlook instaed of getting stuck in his teachings and mulling, meditating or everlastingly thinking about what he said or not said like an ant or housefly stuck in glue.
Very nice
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