U.G. Krishnamurti
Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti also known as U.G. Krishnamurti, was an Indian thinker who said that there is no "enlightenment". Although necessary for day to day functioning of the individual, in terms of the Ultimate Reality or Truth he rejected the very basis of thought and in doing so negated all systems of thought and knowledge in reference to It.
U.G was born on July 9, 1918 in Machilipatnam, a town in coastal Andhra Pradesh, India, and raised in the nearby town of Gudivada. His mother died seven days after he was born, and he was brought up by his maternal grandfather, a wealthy Brahmin lawyer, who was also involved in the Theosophical Society. U.G. also became a member of the Theosophical Society during his teenage years.
During the same period of his life, U.G. reportedly practiced all kinds of austerities and apparently sought moksha or spiritual enlightenment. To that end, between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one, he undertook all kinds of spiritual exercise, determined to find out whether moksha was possible. Wanting to achieve that state, he had also resolved to prove that if there were people who have thus "realized" themselves, they could not be hypocritical.As part of this endeavor, he searched for a person who was an embodiment of such "realization".
U.G. emphasized the impossibility and non-necessity of any human change, radical or mundane. These assertions, he stated, cannot be considered as a "teaching", that is, something intended to be used to bring about a change. He insisted that the body and its actions are already perfect, and he considered attempts to change or mold the body as violations of the peace and the harmony that is already there. The psyche or self or mind, an entity which he denied as having any being, is composed of nothing but the "demand" to bring about change in the world, in itself, or in both. Furthermore, human self-consciousness is not a thing, but a movement, one characterized by "perpetual malcontent" and a "fascist insistence" on its own importance and survival.
U.G. denied the existence of an individual mind. However, he accepted the concept of a world mind, which according to him contained the accumulation of the totality of man's knowledge and experience. He also used 'thought sphere'(atmosphere of thoughts) synonymously with the term 'world mind'. He stated that human beings inhabit this thought realm or thought sphere and that the human brain acts like an antenna, picking and choosing thoughts according to its needs. U.G. held all human experience to be the result of this process of thought. The self-consciousness or 'I' in human beings is born out the need to give oneself continuity through the constant utilization of thought. When this continuity is broken, even for a split second, its hold on the body is broken and the body falls into its natural rhythm. Thought also falls into its natural place – then it can no longer interfere or influence the working of the human body. In the absence of any continuity the arising thoughts combust.He stated that we inhabit a thought realm. When the continuity of thought is broken, even for a split second, its hold on the body is broken and the body falls into its natural rhythm. Thought also falls into its natural place – then it can no longer interfere or influence the working of the human body. In the absence of any continuity the arising thoughts combust.
In its natural state, the senses of the body take on independent existences (uncoordinated by any 'inner self') and the ductless glands (that correspond to the locations of the Hindu chakras) become reactivated. UG described how it is the pineal gland (Ajna Chakra) that takes over the functioning of the body in the natural state, as opposed to thought.
U.G. also maintained that the reason people came to him (and to gurus), was in order to find solutions for their everyday real problems, and/or for solutions to a fabricated problem, namely, the search for spirituality
“*Only if you reject all the other paths can you discover your own path.”
“The plain fact is that if you don't have a problem, you create one. If you don't have a problem you don't feel that you are living.”
“Thought can never capture the movement of life, it is much too slow.”
“We are not created for any grander purpose than the ants that are there or the flies that are hovering around us or the mosquitoes that are sucking our blood.”
“You can have the courage to climb the mountain, swim the lakes, go on a raft to the other side of the Atlantic or Pacific. That any fool can do, but the courage to be on your own, to stand on your two solid feet, is something which cannot be given by somebody.”
“The fact is that we don't want to be free. What is responsible for our problems is the fear of losing what we have and what we know.”
“To be yourself requires extraordinary intelligence. You are blessed with that intelligence; nobody need give it to you; nobody can take it away from you. He who lets that express itself in its own way is a "Natural Man".”
“If you have the courage to touch life for the first time, you will never know what hit you. Everything man has thought, felt and experienced is gone, and nothing is put in its place.”
“I am not out to liberate anybody. You have to liberate yourself, and you are unable to do that. What I have to say will not do it. I am only interested in describing this state, in clearing away the occultation and mystification in which those people in the 'holy business' have shrouded the whole thing. Maybe I can convince you not to waste a lot of time and energy, looking for a state which does not exist except in your imagination.”
“Society has put before you the ideal of a 'perfect man'. No matter in which culture you were born, you have scriptural doctrines and traditions handed down to you to tell you how to behave. You are told that through due practice you can even eventually come into the state attained by the sages, saints and saviors of mankind. And so you try to control your behavior, to control your thoughts, to be something unnatural.”
“I discovered for myself and by myself that there is no self to realize -- that's the realization I am talking about. It comes as a shattering blow. It hits you like a thunderbolt. You have invested everything in one basket, self-realization, and, in the end, suddenly you discover that there is no self to discover, no self to realize -- and you say to yourself "What the hell have I been doing all my life?!" That blasts you.”
“It is fear that makes you believe that you are living and that you will be dead.What we do not want is the fear to come to an end. That is why we have invented all these new minds, new sciences,new talks, therapies, choiceless awareness and various other gimmicks.”
“Life has to be described in pure and simple physical and physiological terms. It must be demystified and depsychologised”
“Don't follow me, I'm lost.”
“My interest is to point out to you that you can walk, and please throw away all those crutches. If you are really handicapped, I wouldn’t advise you to do any such thing. But you are made to feel by other people that you are handicapped so that they could sell you those crutches. Throw them away and you can walk. That’s all that I can say. ‘If I fall....’ - that is your fear. Put the crutches away, and you are not going to fall.”
“Yes! is the thing that blows the whole structure apart.”
“The body is a fortuitous concourse of atoms. There is no death for the body, only an exchange of atoms. Their changing places and taking different forms is what we call 'death.' It's a process which restores the energy level in nature that has gone down. In reality, nothing is born and nothing is dead.”