Fwd: UG meets Ramana

[Guest guest]

The_Angry_Sage , J Akkha <jakkha@e...> wrote:

.....from Part One of UG Krishnamurti's book The Mystique of

Enlightenment.

 

I arrived at a point when I was twenty-one where I felt very strongly

that

all teachers -- Buddha, Jesus, Sri Ramakrishna, everybody -- kidded

themselves, deluded themselves and deluded everybody. This, you see,

could

not be the thing at all -- "Where is the state that these people talk

about

and describe? That description seems to have no relation to me, to the

way I

am functioning. Everybody says 'Don't get angry' -- I am angry all the

time.

I'm full of brutal activities inside, so that is false. What these

people

are telling me I should be is something false, and because it is false

it

will falsify me. I don't want to live the life of a false person. I am

greedy, and non-greed is what they are talking about. There is

something

wrong somewhere. This greed is something real, something natural to

me; what

they are talking about is unnatural. So, something is wrong somewhere.

But I

am not ready to change myself, to falsify myself, for the sake of

being in a

state of non-greed; my greed is a reality to me." I lived in the midst

of

people who talked of these things everlastingly -- everybody was

false, I

can tell you. So, somehow, what you call 'existentialist nausea' (I

didn't

use those words at the time, but now I happen to know these terms,

revulsion

against everything sacred and everything holy, crept into my system

and

threw everything out: "No more slokas, no more religion, no more

practices

-- there isn't anything there; but what is here is something natural.

I am a

brute, I am a monster, I am full of violence -- this is reality. I am

full

of desire. Desirelessness, non-greed, non-anger -- those things have

no

meaning to me; they are false, and they are not only false, they are

falsifying me." So I said to myself "I'm finished with the whole

business,"

but it is not that simple, you see.

Then somebody came along, and we were discussing all these things. He

found

me practically an atheist (but not a practicing atheist), skeptical of

everything, heretical down to my boots. He said "There is one man

here,

somewhere in Madras at Tiruvannamalai, called Ramana Maharshi. Come

on,

let's go and see that man. Here is a living human embodiment of the

Hindu

tradition."

I didn't want to see any holy man. If you have seen one, you have seen

them

all. I never shopped around, went around searching for people, sitting

at

the feet of the masters, learning something; because everybody tells

you "Do

more and more of the same thing, and you will get it." What I got were

more

and more experiences, and then those experiences demanded permanence

-- and

there is no such thing as permanence. So, "The holy men are all

phonies --

they are telling me only what is there in the books. That I can read

-- 'Do

the same again and again' -- that I don't want. Experiences I don't

want.

They are trying to share an experience with me. I'm not interested in

experience. As far as experience goes, for me there is no difference

between

the religious experience and the sex experience or any other

experience; the

religious experience is like any other experience. I am not interested

in

experiencing Brahman; I am not interested in experiencing reality; I

am not

interested in experiencing truth. They might help others; but they

cannot

help me. I'm not interested in doing more of the same; what I have

done is

enough. At school if you want to solve a mathematical problem, you

repeat it

again and again -- you solve the mathematical problem, and you

discover that

the answer is in the problem. So, what the hell are you doing, trying

to

solve the problem? It is easier to find the answer first instead of

going

through all this."

So, reluctantly, hesitatingly, unwilling, I went to see Ramana

Maharshi.

That fellow dragged me. He said "Go there once. Something will happen

to

you." He talked about it and gave me a book, Search in Secret India by

Paul

Brunton, so I read the chapter relating to this man -- "All right, I

don't

mind, let me go and see." That man was sitting there. From his very

presence

I felt "What! This man -- how can he help me? This fellow who is

reading

comic strips, cutting vegetables, playing with this, that or the other

--

how can this man help me? He can't help me." Anyway, I sat there.

Nothing

happened; I looked at him, and he looked at me. "In his presence you

feel

silent, your questions disappear, his look changes you" -- all that

remained

a story, fancy stuff to me. I sat there. There were a lot of questions

inside, silly questions -- so, "The questions have not disappeared. I

have

been sitting here for two hours, and the questions are still there.

All

right, let me ask him some questions" -- because at that time I very

much

wanted moksha. This part of my background, moksha, I wanted. "You are

supposed to be a liberated man" -- I didn't say that. "Can you give me

what

you have?" -- I asked him this question, but that man didn't answer,

so

after some lapse of time I repeated that question -- "I am asking

'Whatever

you have, can you give it to me?'" He said, "I can give you, but can

you

take it?" Boy! For the first time this fellow says that he has

something and

that I can't take it. Nobody before had said "I can give you," but

this man

said "I can give you, but can you take it?" Then I said to myself "If

there

is any individual in this world who can take it, it is me, because I

have

done so much sadhana, seven years of sadhana. He can think that I

can't take

it, but I can take it. If I can't take it, who can take it?" -- that

was my

frame of mind at the time -- you know, (laughs) I was so confident of

myself.

I didn't stay with him, I didn't read any of his books, so I asked him

a few

more questions: "Can one be free sometimes and not free sometimes?" He

said

"Either you are free, or you are not free at all." There was another

question which I don't remember. He answered in a very strange way:

"There

are no steps leading you to that." But I ignored all these things.

These

questions didn't matter to me -- the answers didn't interest me at

all.

But this question "Can you take it?" ... "How arrogant he is!" -- that

was

my feeling. "Why can't I take it, whatever it is? What is it that he

has?"

-- that was my question, a natural question. So, the question

formulated

itself: "What is that state that all those people -- Buddha, Jesus and

the

whole gang -- were in? Ramana is in that state -- supposed to be, I

don't

know -- but that chap is like me, a human being. How is he different

from

me? What others say or what he is saying is of no importance to me;

anybody

can do what he is doing. What is there? He can't be very much

different from

me. He was also born from parents. He has his own particular ideas

about the

whole business. Some people say something happened to him, but how is

he

different from me? What is there: What is that state?" -- that was my

fundamental question, the basic question -- that went on and on and

on. "I

must find out what that state is. Nobody can give that state; I am on

my

own. I have to go on this uncharted sea without a compass, without a

boat,

with not even a raft to take me. I am going to find out for myself

what the

state is in which that man is." I wanted that very much, otherwise I

wouldn't have given my life.

 

The_Angry_Sage-

 

 

 

 

 

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