UG Krishnamurti - an example of why some people don't deserve brains

[Guest guest]

Krishnamutri and his ideas have simply generated into personality cult...and cult followers are very good at rationalising their beliefs in their cult hero...

 

Gaudiya Vaisnavaism as followed in the West has also generated personality cults....

 

 

[shvu]

 

you reckon UG is a bitter old man who likes to sit on his you-know-what and comment on things that don't concern him.

 

 

Partly true. UG is very old (almost 90) and still alive as far as I know and he does sit on his you-know-what like everyone else.

 

But I have no idea if he is bitter or not and I do not know if he is concerned or not about the things he comments about. And more importantly, I do not care to know as his feeling are of no importance to me or to anyone else. Like I said before, other than the need to question and have one's feet firmly on the ground at all times, I have not found anything of use or interest in his dialogues. He is not a hero or a super natural person to be placed on a pedestal and worshipped like it usually happens with godmen who wear garlands & expect respect. He is just another guy who had a couple of interesting points to make, period. This will be hard to comprehend for people who are into cults centered around Gurus, where the Guru is the next best thing since sliced bread.

 

 

Also, any thoughts on why this guy is desperate to imitate JK?

 

 

Sure. Having read all the 3 parts of Commentaries on Living, Freedom from the Known and a number of other works of JK and also having read a good bit of UG's talks, I can confidently say he is *not* imitating JK. JK like any other Guru has his solution to the problems of mankind. He advocated passive awareness, built schools, foundations and what not. UG has no solution to offer which makes them poles apart. If you still have doubts, I will gladly clear them for you.

 

This inability to understand the position of a critic is similar to the problem many theists have with understanding the position of the atheist. You have to start from first principles and work your way upwards all the time being careful not to get lost in your personal prejudices, which can be particularly hard for anyone. UG is not the first dude to reject basic ideas of religion/spirituality nor will he be the last and he will be forgotten very quickly as this kind of rock hard, no-fluff reality is not what the general public want. It is people like Paul who painted a nice, Technicolor picture of redemption and eternal heaven who will be remembered for ages. Others like Ajita Keshakambalin, Polybius, Seneca, UG and a horde of others who held/hold material views will never win any popular awards.

 

Some extracts which may or may not clarify his position a little better.

 

If you listen to me year after year, you are only clarifying your thoughts. It's useless.

 

I am not here to offer you any new methods, new techniques, or suggest any gimmicks to attain your goal. If other systems, techniques, and gimmicks have failed to help you reach your goal, and if you are looking or shopping around for some newer, better methods here, I am afraid I cannot be of any help to you. If you feel that someone else can help you, good luck to you. But I am compelled, through the lessons of my own experience, to add the rider, "You will get nowhere, you will see."

 

Anything I do to help you would be adding to your misery--that's all. You add one more misery to those you already have by listening to me.

 

Q: If all you say is true, we are in a bad way indeed. We are not in a position to accept or reject what you are saying. Why, then, do you go on talking to us? What meaning can it have?

 

U.G.: This dialogue with you has no meaning at all. You may very well ask why the hell I am talking. I emphatically assure you that, in my case, it is not at all in the nature of self-fulfillment. My motive for talking is quite different from what you think it is. It is not that I am eager to help you understand, or that I feel that I must help you. Not at all. My motive is direct and temporary: you arrive seeking understanding, while I am only interested in making it crystal clear that there is nothing to understand.

 

I have only a few things to say and I go on repeating them again and again and again. There are no questions for me, other than the practical questions for everyday functioning in this world. You, however, have many, many questions.

 

What do you want to get? There is always somebody to help you get what you want, for a price. You have foolishly divided life into higher and lower goals, into material and spiritual paths. In either case great struggle, pain, and effort is involved. I say, on the other hand, that there are no spiritual goals at all; they are simply the extension of material goals into what you imagine to be a higher, loftier plane. You mistakenly believe that by pursuing the spiritual goal you will somehow miraculously make your material goals simple and manageable. Such pursuits are in actuality not possible. You may think that only inferior persons pursue material goals, that material achievements are boring. But in fact the so-called spiritual goals you have put before yourself are exactly the same...If you don't come here, you will go elsewhere in search of answers.

 

Cheers

[Guest guest]

ok wat ever many have said, i ont know how to react to it, but to me he made great sense than any of the other speakers till date. if ever people stil assuse that these swamis are set to make money and do scams, its u r problem, if you want to take him as u r guru, thats 2 u r probelm, if u thing he is god sent its aigain u r problem, the fool will get fooled, again and agian, may be he may not realise it too.....its in u r choise to use u r comoense, and little energy and time, to implement in u r life, and see for u r self.

many in this forum, talk more, or share second hand topics, why not put up u r own version of dishes here? if u think UG is ., wat is the truth u want to offer....? wat is the truth that u blody belive in? bring that on.

 

think and walk about it wat these ppl are out there...

thnk u

sorry if any got offended

 

[Guest guest]

Is he part of any Sampradaya? If he isn't, then he is just another of those preachers who have no clue about the real science of God. No point wasting time reading their writings.

 

 

[Guest guest]

that troll-clown Shvu to come back. He is a typical confused atheist (I can almost predict him screaming, "I am not atheist, just confused and confusing!) who isn't convinced about his beliefs (again, I can predict the troll screamng that he has no beliefs).

 

Otherwise, why would anyone visit a religious forum every now and then to post loads of info. about their so-called rationalism? It is because they're not convinced about their rationalism, that's why they try to post and preach, perhaps justify it to themselves. A rationalist wouldn't care to visit religious forums and harrass devotees unless he has doubts about his rationalism.

 

OTOH, I see that no one really responds to this clown anymore, thus frustrating him. Yet, he comes back out of sheer desperation. Well, I nearly pity this guy.

[Guest guest]

... with all you said. I don't see any other reason why he would come here and justify his beliefs. It shows a lack of faith in his own beliefs.

 

But having said that, I hope he doesn't go away because in the association (virtual association but association anyways!) of devotees here, there is hope for him.

[Guest guest]

Shvu speaketh:

 

 

He is just another guy who had a couple of interesting points to make, period. This will be hard to comprehend for people who are into cults centered around Gurus, where the Guru is the next best thing since sliced bread.

 

 

Right, unlike the UGK cult, which features a webpage (http://www.ugkrishnamurti.org/) loaded with movie clips and pictures of his every activity, from frying pappads to sitting on his derriere.

 

It never ceases to amaze me, that nihilists will go out of their way to distinguish themselves from cults and godmen, and yet their modus operandi is unmistakeably the same as that of the cultist who specializes in false deification.

 

 

UG is not the first dude to reject basic ideas of religion/spirituality nor will he be the last and he will be forgotten very quickly as this kind of rock hard, no-fluff reality is not what the general public want.

 

 

It's generally the case that people who get up on a pedestal only to say they have nothing to say, will be forgotten very quickly as you have pointed out.

 

That is assuming, of course, that his "we don't believe in guru" followers don't create webpages that essentially elevate him to the status of a guru.

 

 

But I am compelled, through the lessons of my own experience, to add the rider, "You will get nowhere, you will see."

 

 

 

A study where n = 1 is unlikely to have statistical significance.

 

It also goes without saying that if you don't know where it is you are trying to go, then you won't know if you have gotten there.

 

 

U.G.: This dialogue with you has no meaning at all. You may very well ask why the hell I am talking. I emphatically assure you that, in my case, it is not at all in the nature of self-fulfillment. My motive for talking is quite different from what you think it is. It is not that I am eager to help you understand, or that I feel that I must help you. Not at all. My motive is direct and temporary: you arrive seeking understanding, while I am only interested in making it crystal clear that there is nothing to understand.

 

 

If there is "nothing to understand," then does this also include the statement that there is nothing to understand? For if "nothing to understand" is itself not to be understood (including this statement here), then we have the flaw of infinite regress.

 

Mr Krishnamurti, since there is nothing to understand, kindly stop availing yourself of the opportunity to explain that to us. Kindly request your followers not to make a webpage out of it.

 

Stupid hypocrite.

 

 

You have foolishly divided life into higher and lower goals, into material and spiritual paths. In either case great struggle, pain, and effort is involved. I say, on the other hand, that there are no spiritual goals at all; they are simply the extension of material goals into what you imagine to be a higher, loftier plane.

 

 

By this "logic," I can similarly make a philosophy of negation, chosing something we might at most theorize to exist, but which we cannot yet empirically prove to exist.

 

"I say on the other hand, that there are no atoms."

 

"I say on the other hand, that there is no macroevolution."

 

"I say on the other hand, that no one can exceed the speed of sound."

 

"I say on the other hand, that there are no other planets in the galaxy."

 

One wonders how human civilization would have evolved if its thinkers had been shackled by the above examples of complacency and myopic thinking.

 

Perhaps we should similarly strike down every scientific project whose only vice is that it is based on a vision - the search for extraterrestrial life, the space program, etc etc. We might not succeed, but at least we can make a name for ourselves while we're alive (and hopefully get some money too).

[Guest guest]

you have provided excellent points. Keep it up.

[Guest guest]

Shvu states that UGK is a critic of various religious, pointing out their "flaws," and that for this reason he is villified because he teaches us to think. Please...

 

Let us start with Shvu's point that UGK exposes the alleged flaws in various religions. For starters, this is absurd. UGK has not spent any time studying or dissecting any of the Vedantic religious traditions. His criticisms are more of the concept of religion in general.

 

Shvu's claims are akin to one saying that a person is a movie critic even though he watches no movies. If a person criticizes the idea of seeing movies, does that make him a movie critic? Apparently Shvu thinks so.

 

Let us start with honesty as a basic standard for this discussion. UGK is not in a position to pontificate on the alleged flaws of any religious tradition he has not studied. Similarly, to use Shvu's example, one cannot criticize a movie he has never seen.

 

Common sense, I realize. But sometimes it needs to be stated. In Shvu's zeal to point fingers at the iskcon types on this forum, he sometimes has to take a bit of his own medicine. Yes sir, thinking is a virtue, and we require it of our critics as well.

 

Now as for the position that UGK forces us to think:

 

Traditionally, Vedanta students are trained to question, challenge, and subject everything to nit-picking analysis. Compared to, say, the works of Ananda Tirtha or Ramanuja, there is simply no intellectual equivalent in the negationist world. Atheists like to criticize religion not by having dialog with their intellectual counterparts in the Maths (which would be honest) but rather by poking fun at the contemporary followers who are obviously not well schooled in the rigors of their respective philosophical doctrines. This is something akin to me claiming that Tattvavada is the correct doctrine because most of its opponents are brainless and immoral indulgers in bacchanalian pleasures who could not come up with a single, cogent statement of philosophical rebuttal if their lives depended on it. The drunks are too absorbed in gratifying their genitals to say anything which seriously challenges Madhva's philosophical proofs.. QED atheists do not like Madhva because he teaches them to think.

 

Simply claiming that lack of perception proves lack of existence does not constitute intelligence. Many of UGK's claims are based on this flawed premise. Logically, one cannot conclusively deduce existence or non-existence of an entity he cannot perceive. Vaishnavas who are properly schooled in their respective traditions will not claim that God must exist because his being invisible makes him hidden, or some such thing. That logic is necessarily circular. Nor does the need for a God prove that God exists, anymore than being thirsty proves that water really is nearby. The unfortunate reality is that both atheists and religionists have too many followers who believe in what they believe for all the wrong reasons. Nevertheless, this does not excuse the deliberate attempts by some negationists to keep the dialog as assymetrical as possible.

 

In ancient India, there was a principle in warfare that directed warriors to engage in battle only those who were their equals in the opposing army. Thus, foot soldiers would fight other foot soldiers, while heroic kings would seek to engage other heroic kings, etc.

 

You don't score points for firing brahma-astras at foot soldiers, anymore than you could impress us by seeking philosphical debate with a sentimentalist. If you want us to respect him, then let UGK engage in debate with the current representatives of the Vaishnava Maths.

 

But then, that would take courage, as well as the humility to admit when you are defeated.

 

I stand by my view that people like UGK are not the intellectual equivalents of the Vaishnava commentators, based on my readings of both. Nevertheless, UGK and others of his ilk are among the philosophical representatives of their line of thinking (whether he admits it or not), and thus they should seek out confrontation only with the intellectuals of the traditions they claim to criticize.

 

Then we can truly see who has the goods.

[gregwilson]

I came across U.G.'s books around 1986. For some reason I was instantly taken with them (the bookseller was not). I even laughed at U.G.'s harsh and abrasive language. Although I lived nearby, I never met U.G. I would have enjoyed the verbal shredding he dished out. His dialogs highlighted some of the confusion I had regarding my religious and cultural conditioning. There was nothing conceptual about U.G.'s natural state. Others have written that it is the senses and body that are immortal. It could be. A friend wrote that the senses are much maligned. Perhaps an unconditioned child is in the natural state before it becomes adulterated. What could be more natural than an unconditioned child.

[ryochan]

Have anyone read the novel A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell ?

The "UG affair" seems a mix of what occured to Dorothy and Mr. Warburton's philosophy of life ...

[VibhutiGanesh]

Excluding some expressions like ".....Shvu's zeal to point fingers at the iskcon types on this forum, he sometimes has to take a bit of his own medicine."....

I enjoyed the counter attack..!!

 

Keep it up, may be in a more decent tone..!

[feelyoga]

 

There was a nice story the other day I told you that a sage is giving different kinds of blessings to different types of persons.



So to a king's son, a prince, he blessed, Raja-putra Chiran Jiva: "You are a king's son, a prince. You live forever." And Muni-putra, the son of a saintly person, he blessed him, Ma jiva. Ma Jiva.."You don't live." Raja Putra Chiran Jiva Muni-putra Ma Jiva". And Saadhu, devotees, he blessed him, Jivo Va Maro Va: "Either you live or you die, as you like." And there was a butcher; he blessed him, Ma Jiva Ma Mara: "You don't die, don't live."



So these words are very significant. That I have already explained, still I am explaining. A prince, he's enjoying sense, that's all. He has got enough facility for sense enjoyment. So his next life is hellish.Because if you indulge in sex life, then Krishna will give you facility to have sex life three times in an hour, just like the pigeons, the monkeys, the sparrows, they are very sexually strong. You have seen it. So the facility is given. So princely order, they are after sense enjoyment. So he's blessed that "Better you live forever, because after your death, you do not know what is going to happen to you. You are going to get a hellish life. Better you live for some time. Go on with your enjoyment."



And Muni-putra Ma Jiva. Brahmachari working under the guidance under strict disciplinary guidance, of a spiritual master, he is blessed, Ma Jiva, "You better die. Because you are so trained to enter into the kingdom of God, so why should you take so much trouble? Better you die and go back to Godhead." Ma Jiva".


And a devotee he blessed, Jivo va Maro va: "My dear devotee, either you live or die, the same thing."

[Iam You]

It is obvious that he is clear on the truth and his message is a simple one. His message is that the ONLY true guru is the guru within.

 

The universe appears in God, and for a time God confuses itself with an appearance in itself, and then God alone sees through the illusion. No illusion appearing in God can be God's guru. God alone is the only guru.

 

He speaks the truth when he says that he has nothing to teach, and that there is no "method" of reaching enlightenment. And he speaks the truth when he says that enlightenment is not a "state".

 

How can there be a "method"? If there was a method it would imply that by following the "method" You will realise the truth at some stage in the future. You can never realise the truth at some stage in the future when you are always here in the now.

 

And enlightenment is not a "state". All "states" are simply appearances in awareness/God. So when UG says that enlightenment does not exist he means that it never exists for a person, it only ever appears in God, and when it appears in God it is clear that the truth was never not known, so nothing really happened.

[VibhutiGanesh]

I have gone through UG's book 'the Natural State'and there he mentions :

 

"...I was brought up in a very religious atmosphere. My grandfather was a very cultured man. Heknew Blavatsky [the founder of the Theosophical Society] and Olcott, and then, later on, the

second and third generations of Theosophists. They all visited our house. He was a great lawyer, a

very rich man, a very cultured man and, very strangely, a very orthodox man. He was a sort of

mixed-up kid: orthodoxy, tradition on one side and then the opposite, Theosophy and the whole

thing on the other side. He failed to establish a balance. That was the beginning of my problem.

 

U.G. was often told that his mother had said, just before she died, that he "was born to a destiny

immeasurably high." His grandfather took this very seriously and gave up his law practice to

devote himself to U.G.'s upbringing and education. His grandparents and their friends were

convinced that he was a yoga bhrashta, one who had come within inches of enlightenment in his

past life.]

 

He had learned men on his payroll and he dedicated himself for some reason—I don't want to go

into the whole business—to create a profound atmosphere for me and to educate me in the right

way, inspired by the Theosophists and the whole lot. And so, every morning those fellows would

come and read the Upanishads, Panchadasi, Nyshkarmya Siddhi, the commentaries, the

commentaries on commentaries, the whole lot, from four o'clock to six o'clock, and this little boy

of five, six or seven years—I don't know—had to listen to all that crap. So much so that by the time

I reached my seventh year I could repeat most of those things, the passages from the Panchadasi,

Nyshkarmya Siddhi and this, that and the other.

So many holy men visited my house—the Ramakrishna Order and the others; you name it, and

those fellows had somehow visited that house—that was an open house for every holy man. So,

one thing I discovered when I was quite young was that they were all hypocrites: they said

something, they believed something, and their lives were shallow, nothing. 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—revulsion against everything sacred and everything holy—

crept into my system and threw everything out...."

 

 

 

So he had access to Hindu Vedantic Literature.

[Guest Anadananandanandanadanda]

All his life UG wanted to know if there was anything to this thing called "enlightenment". This desire destroyed his life, he separated from his two sons and his wife who comitted suicide and UG himself wandered the streets of european towns as a bum.

He eventually asked himself "is there any problems to be solved?". Or does the problems arise when I want to become something I'm not?

He realized that "when the movement in the direction of becoming something other than what you are isn't there any more, you are not in conflict with yourself."

That realisation pretty much knocks off all meditation, all searching and all trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

His state was the same as anybodys state that's not trying to become something they are not, just that his state had become permanent, the self-supporting structure of becoming, the "I" had collapsed on itself. It was gone.

He never wrote any books, all "his" books are interviews by others.

When people wants what he "have" of course he must respond "I don't have anything to teach you, there is nothing to understand, all "gurus" in the holy-business are fooling themselves and fooling you" etc.

You are brainwashed by your culture to believe there is a higher state, something more meaningful than mere existence over there, in the future. There's not. There's only conflicts and more conflicts, inwardly and outwardly. This is our history, present and our future. "Is there a way out" someone asked UG.

"There is no way out".

[Guest Rey]

Thank you guest above me, that sounds more like the "UG" I translated to be. I want to know more about neuroscience and maybe eventually be a Doctor. Last year I started listing to UG and i thought the guy was crazy. I look up to the idealistic views of Americas Fore Fathers and Abraham Lincoln. Just the hope that I could be anything like them or even better, model after Jesus. I wanted to be smart and educated at the same time spiritual nothing less then perfect. Deep down I know that I will never reach perfection but I told myself that the journey there will be as satisfying. After 6 months of listing to UG I was more confuse so I put him down. He said that what he had I did not want and that it will not fit in my social structure and he was right. I continue to go to collage, working out and having lots of fun. However I was still looking for happiness and in America money buys stability perfect grounds for my desired goals. Sadly I felt like in the movie I Just watch this weekend 

"Divergent" Why must I fit a model why can I do anything I want. As always It comes down to money and stability. When I walk or drive my car I feel like I live a great life. However the instant I need money everyone want to know who I am, what degrees I have, copies of my resume and  credit check. I finally picked up UG again after not being able to force my self into an engineering degree due to lack of money to support extra semesters and I was only after the stability engineering jobs provide. I've been listing to him for the past four months and everything came clear to me what he says about the "singular pronoun" I also when he talks about the body only being interested in surviving and reproducing. My body is not interested in anything that I am and I finally I understood why I was so unhappy and the futility of asking unpractical question just to maintain the I's continuity. Thank you UG and we part ways until I can move to a country in witch I can die like a dog with out having to accept the social demands. That is why I  cannot accept complete everything he says because if I do the whole thing is finish and Like he says I do not wanted to end. 

[Guest JC]

"For example, he says he is not enlightened, yet he says there is no such thing as enlightenment (how would he know if he admits to not being enlightened?)
He says there is "nothing to understand," yet that does not stop him from pontificating on any number of subjects."

Non-sequitur.


"It seems like his popularity is based on knocking down any idea that is not easy to prove based on empirical evidence. Big deal, anyone can do that. If you restrict yourself to tangible evidence as proof (in contrast to most religions which resort to some kind of texual authority), then you can debunk almost anything spiritual and appear as if you know something. But in reality this man has nothing to offer anyone. And yet, it does not stop his followers from creating websites to worship him."

Yet another non-sequitur

" He builds a cult following based on admitting he has nothing to offer, while Sai Baba builds a cult following based on the blatant lie that he is God, he is enlightened, etc. But in both cases their followers receive nothing in the way of wisdom or practical information on how to make their lives meaningful, yet they worship their respective gurus thinking they are in the presence of someone great."

The third non-sequitur in a row.

"although it certainly takes quite a bit of hypocrisy to criticize God worship and instead allow oneself to be the center of attention for anyone (his website features 10 albums worth of pictures of, guess who?"

UG had NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT WEBSITE OR 'HIS' BOOKS. His books were transcripts. UG has NOTHING to do with any of that. He told everyone that anything that comes from him is not copyrighted and can be altered in any way and distributed freely, because he didn't care. He himself considers his own words a "dead thing", because words are thought and thought can never touch anything living. U.G. didn't take anything from anyone. He wasn't collecting anything from those that followed him and received no proceeds from those that transcribed his audio words into a book. He tells people to throw those books away because they can't help them.


"I guess UGK and Sai Baba prove that there is more than one way to become God. I can't imagine that any intelligent person would follow this crackpot."


UG would agree with you 100%. His message is that once you allow that living organism to express itself with intelligently from moment to moment, you will not seek him out and you would not seek any 'spiritual leader' out for any reason ever again.

You really have no idea about UG. You should not comment on the intelligence of others when his so-called simple message goes mostly right over your head.