No Way Out. U. G. Krishnamurti
the "other". This is why U.G. does not take kindly to fashionable talk about "loving relationships". He points out that the search for relationships of any kind springs from a sense of isolation, an isolation created by the separative thought structure. What one wants is to fill the emptiness or void with someone. It is a process of self-fulfillment, self-gratification. But we are not honest enough to acknowledge this sordid truth. Instead, we invent fictions like "love" and "care" to deceive ourselves about the whole affair. When these fictions are blown away, what remains expresses itself in its own way. Then there may not be "others" to love or to be loved by.
There is more than a touch of advaita in all this. I use "advaita" in its etymological sense, meaning non-division or non-duality, and not to refer to the philosophical system of Shankara. U.G.'s philosophy has little in common with Shankara's system. U.G. rejects the authority of the shruti (he says that the Vedas were the creations of acid-heads!), repudiates the assumption of Brahman, and dismisses the doctrine of the illusoriness of the world. There is no place for any kind of "consciousness" in U.G.'s philosophy, not to speak of "pure consciousness" or "witness-consciousness". And yet I use the word "advaita" because U.G.'s philosophy is permeated by a spirit of negation of all division and fragmentation. It is an interesting and original form of advaita, one that is based on a physical and physiological mode of description. For instance, U.G. claims that nature is a single unit and that the body cannot be separated from the totality of nature. There are actually no separate individual bodies. This is a form of advaita or non-dualism. It is a naturalistic or physicalistic advaita in contrast to Shankara's metaphysical or transcendental Advaita.
In U.G.'s account, all forms of destruction, disorder, and suffering flow from the division between the self and the world or nature. This divisive movement of thought came into operation with the birth of self-consciousness somewhere in the process of the evolution of mankind and marks the beginning of the end of this species. "The instrument that we think places us at the pinnacle of creation is the very thing that will lead to the destruction of not only the human species but all forms of life on this planet," declares U.G. He is thus no starry-eyed utopian or millenarian. There is no "kingdom of heaven" around any of the corners of time. On the contrary, it is the apocalypse that awaits us. This is not because of any religious or supernatural factor — U.G. maintains that there is no power outside of man — but because of the very nature of the instrument of thought on which human civilization is based.
U.G. thus ends up with a subjective explanation of the human condition. This is quite in the line of the Indian, or rather, the Eastern approach. It is not specific external, social or socioeconomic factors that are responsible, e.g., class divisions, or the military-industrial establishment, but internal factors, the separative movement of the thought mechanism, the "ego structure", the "separative self-consciousness", the "nature of the mind", and so on. This approach, however, has its limitations.
U.G. sometimes talks as if the problem is biological, or more specifically, genetic. Genetic factors, he seems to suggest, are the ultimate determinants of the human predicament. He observes in passing that explanations referring to karma are obsolete hogwash in the face of genetic science. Deformities have genetic causes and can be handled by the science of genetics. We don't need to explain them by reference to sins committed in a previous life. In an interview with Michael Toms for "New Dimensions" p33pP U.G. holds culture responsible. Culture, he seems to suggest, with its value-system, its models of perfect individuals, and its attempt to fit individuals into a common mold, has distorted our natural mode of existence. But, on the other hand, U.G. also claims that we are a function of our genes. Perhaps, he would allow for some sort of an interaction between culture and our genetic structure. If he would, then genetic engineering alone cannot deliver the goods. We might also need cultural engineering, a change in culture.
U.G.'s critique of culture also raises problems. "Culture" could mean different things, a manner of greeting, or a system of religious and political values, or the art and literature of a society. By "culture" U.G. means the value system, the normative structure of human communities. There is a difference between the talk about culture and the talk about cultures. U.G. is not referring to any particular culture. He thinks that there is not much to choose between different cultures. All cultures are variations on a common theme, the perpetuation of a social order by fitting individuals into a common value system. This is the reason why U.G. does not discriminate between Eastern and Western cultures. Nor does he advocate a return to our primitive past as a solution. The problems would still be there albeit on a less complex scale. U.G. remarks that "The hydrogen bomb had its origin in the jawbone of an ass which the cave man used to kill his neighbor." Thus it is not a question of a specific culture or a specific epoch of cultural evolution. Culture itself is the problem.
The significance of U.G. lies in his radical and original critique of tradition, particularly the religious and spiritual tradition. His most important contribution is that, for the first time in history, the essence of what would be considered as "spiritual experience" is expressed in physical and physiological terms, in terms of the functioning of the body. This opens a new perspective on human potential. Whatever may be said about the merits and demerits of U.G.'s approach, it is undeniable that it has the power of an uncontaminated simplicity which because of its very nature is also deeply enigmatic.
Chapter 2.
Nothing to be transformed
Happy Accident No one is there to put it all together. All the king's horses all the king's men can never put U.G. back together again.
Q-1: Is there any such thing as your own experience?
UG: Whatever you experience has already been experienced by someone else. Your telling yourself, "Ah! I am in a blissful state," means that someone else before you has experienced that and has passed it on to you. Whatever may be the nature of the medium through which you experience, it is a second-hand, third-hand, and last-hand experience. It is not yours. There is no such thing as your own experience. Such experiences, however extraordinary, aren't worth a thing.
Q-1: But we get caught up with that idea.
UG: The experience is you.
Q-2: We want to know what truth is. We want to know what enlightenment is.
UG: You already know it. Don't tell me that you don't. There is no such thing as truth at all.
Q-1: I don't know.
UG: You can only say that there is a logically ascertained premise called truth and you can write a book, "My Quest for Truth," like your ex-president Radhakrishnan.
Q-2: But you had this search. Was it real? You also didn't know what it was about.
UG: My case was quite different.
Q-1: How is that?
UG: I was thrown into that environment. I was surrounded by all those religious people. I had spent all my formative years in the milieu of the Theosophical Society. I didn't have anything to do with my own blood relatives. The only people that I knew were the leaders of the Theosophical society. The old man Mr. J.Krishnamurti was part of my background. I did not go to him. In every room of our house we had photos of J.Krishnamurti, beginning from his ninth or tenth year till he was, I don't know how old. I disliked the photos of all the gods and goddesses.
Q-1: You mean that was the background which made you what you are today?
UG: No, no. I am saying that despite all that, whatever happened to me has happened. It seems a miracle. That is the reason why I emphasize without a shadow of doubt, that whatever has happened to me can happen to a con man, to a rapist, to a murderer, or to a thief. All of them have as much a chance as, if not a better one than, all these spiritual people put