Selected Correspondence Vineeto

Uppaluri G. Krishnamurti


Maybe actual freedom is only one human being’s luck and it will stay that way?

Ha, it takes a lot of cynicism (or blatant ignorance) to consider an actual freedom from malice and sorrow ‘one human being’s luck’ and the firm conviction that life is fundamentally disappointment and suffering to believe that ‘it will stay that way’. Are you perhaps Buddhist by faith?

No, I’m UG Krishamurtian by faith which I consider worse, hah. It also has the ‘one human’s being luck’ element in it.

Did it ever strike you as odd that someone who considers himself an unrepeatable ‘sport of nature’, who says that he has nothing to offer to advance humankind’s knowledge about itself and who called what happened to him a ‘calamity’ has so many loyal and enthusiastic followers?

I have just finished reading about ¾ of the UGK page with all his books for free. Now, there are some clearly crack-pot things about this man.

  1. after ‘awakening’ to his ‘naturalness’ he became hermaphroditic!
  2. his eyes no longer blink. One can check this out by viewing his videos. (I have paid close enough attention to this – I will later)
  3. he is sometimes unable to recognize objects, like a chair(I’m not sure what example he gave).
  4. he is a very irascible/angry old man – just watch the videos.

And the list could go on, but I think that’s enough. Now, all that being said, his statement that the very search for happiness causes unhappiness seems very sensible.

Apparently those crack-pot things haven’t deterred you from accepting U.G. Krishnamurti’s authority and from thinking that his statement ‘that the very search for happiness causes unhappiness seems very sensible’. I say this because when I began to question my spiritual beliefs I discovered that I had accepted the authority of certain people because they were well-known and famous within the spiritual tradition despite the fact that I knew from observation that their lives weren’t worth emulating.

UGK says nothing has permanence (and this seems true to me also). Would this not make striving (also causing suffering) for happiness impossible and futile? So, I’m having a problem with the ‘happy’ part of being ‘happy and harmless’

The only ‘problem’ you have is that you accepted the widespread belief that one needs permanence in order to be happy. This belief has driven millions upon millions of people to further disidentify from their mortal flesh-and-blood bodies and to further dissociate themselves from the physical ever-changing universe and to search for That-Which-Is-Unchanging – the unchanging, unmoving centre within.

Searching for permanence ‘within’ is a culturally induced aberration that is an utterly selfish obsession and it only serves to increase one’s isolation from the actual world of people, things and events. The very act of retreating inside is an act of retreat from the world of the senses. If one, however, dares to come to one’s senses both figuratively and literally, one finds that what is in fact permanent is this perpetually occurring moment – it is never ever not this moment, nor can it never ever not be this moment. This is the only moment that one can sensately experience – this is the only moment in which the actual experience of being alive can happen.

And while the harmless part seems valid, UGK points out that no one is ever harmless. We kill for our food (even if only a plant) and we of course will defend ourselves for our survival.

Again, you appear to have accepted the authority on the meaning of harmless from a man you describe as ‘a very irascible/angry old man’ – only to end up believing his assertion that no-one can ever be harmless. It is an unavoidable fact of life that life feeds of life and many so-called wise men of the East have used this fact to deduct that the on-going saga of human beings’ aggression towards their fellow human beings is also ineluctable.

The way to become genuinely harmless towards one’s fellow man is to successively free oneself from malice and sorrow – something anybody can do if they are so inclined.

As for ‘we of course will defend ourselves for our survival’ – human beings, like all sentient beings, are born with the instinctual survival passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire but due to the intelligence of human beings that has transformed food scarcity into abundance, basic shelter into places of comfort, the ardours of hunting and gathering into leisurely shopping and so on, the instinctual survival passions have not only become redundant but are in fact now an impediment to the survival of the species.

Richard continues to demonstrate and explain that human beings can not only survive easily and more effectively without the instinctual passions operating but be benign and carefree into the bargain. Additionally, when the separating ‘self’ arising from the instinctual passion ceases to exist, one is the ongoing experience of the impeccable integrity and excellence of the actuality of this physical universe.

UGK also states that any ‘freedom’ is an illusion because something is always conditioning us – this seems obvious also.

These are some questions I have. Thanks

U.G. Krishnamurti’s statement that ‘any ‘freedom’ is an illusion’ is a statement based on his own illusionary freedom and merely goes to show that he has yet to find a non-illusionary actual freedom – a freedom from one’s social conditioning as well as one’s genetically-encoded instinctual passions.

Today, when I read the discussion you are having with Richard about U.G. Krishnamurti, I remembered that some four years ago I had the opportunity to meet the man while he was in Australia. I’ll describe the meeting because it might serve to throw some light on the issue of both the nature and the worth of his teachings.

I met him with a group of six other people and four out of the five hours consisted of a conversation about costs of airplane tickets, Swiss chocolate, someone’s adventures with his motorbike, jokes about disagreements between one of the participants and his girlfriend and the like. U.G. Krishnamurti was clearly disinterested in talking about spiritual matters and unyielding to the fact that everyone had come to see him in order to ask him questions. After about 4 hours, while I was wondering what the heck I was doing there, he conceded that questions might now be asked.

I remember almost nothing of the content of the conversation, except something that struck me as odd (maybe that’s why I still remember it). He said that when a nearby train passes it is to him as if it would pass right through him. It reminded me that a friend reported that U.G. Krishnamurti said to her in one of the meetings with people in Gstad, Switzerland, ‘when you laugh, I laugh, when you cry I cry’. Also, when his late partner Valentine fell and hurt her foot he said to have felt the physical pain that she felt. He explained this process here –

Feelings are not thoughts, not emotions; you feel for somebody. If somebody hurts himself there, that hurt is felt here – not as a pain, but there is a feeling, you see – you automatically say ‘Ah!’ This actually happened to me when I was staying in a coffee plantation: a mother started beating a child, a little child, you know. She was mad, hopping mad, and she hit the child so hard, the child almost turned blue. And somebody asked me ‘Why did you not interfere and stop her?’ I was standing there – I was so puzzled, you see. ‘Who should I take pity on, the mother or the child?’ – that was my answer – ‘Who is responsible?’ Both were in a ridiculous situation: the mother could not control her anger, and the child was so helpless and innocent. This went on – it was moving from one to the other – and then I found all those things (marks) on my back. So I was also part of that. (I am not saying this just to claim something.) That is possible because consciousness cannot be divided. Anything that is happening there is affecting you – this is affection, you understand? There is no question of your sitting in judgement on anybody; the situation happens to be that, so you are affected by that. You are affected by everything that is happening there. U.G. Krishnamurti, The Mystique of Enlightenment, Compiled from conversations in India and Switzerland, 1973 to 1976

From my pure consciousness experiences I know that when one lives in the actual world there is no psychological or psychic identity present within this flesh and blood body who can feel ‘affected by everything that is happening there’ . Empathy requires a feeling being or psychic entity to feel empathic with others. In a pure consciousness experience I am intimate with the people I meet but I do not feel their feelings, be they pleasant or unpleasant, because in a PCE the feeling being, together with the entire affective faculty, is temporarily in abeyance.

I also remember thinking about the meeting with U.G. Krishnamurti afterwards and he did not appear to me as a man who enjoyed life, i.e. someone who had the desirable state of mind, or no-mind or not-no-mind, that I would want to live myself. Personally, he did not strike me as someone whose life was worth emulating – and he says so himself. His casual remarks about his daily life in the meeting gave the impression of someone waiting for his fate to run its course until he physically dies. I sat ‘in the presence’ of several spiritual masters in my 17 years of spiritual search and had felt bliss, inner peace and love but with U.G. Krishnamurti I only felt bewilderment. I was more disorientated and confused by the meeting and had certainly not found the answer I was looking for – what is the best possible way one can experience life?

But meeting U.G. Krishnamurti certainly increased the doubt I had that I would find a satisfying solution at the end of a spiritual path. He says that enlightenment is a myth but the state of consciousness that he had reached he first describes it as a calamity and second that he doesn’t know how it happened anyway. He surely left the feeling of a bit of a gap but there was nothing offered either in his presence or in his words to fill that gap.

I have found the quote where he fully described the experience of this ‘calamity’ that happened to him –

I didn’t feel that I was a new-born baby – no question of enlightenment at all – but the things that had astonished me that week, the changes in taste, seeing and so on, had become permanent fixtures. I call all these events the ‘calamity’. I call it the ‘calamity’ because from the point of view of one who thinks this is something fantastic, blissful, full of beatitude, love, ecstasy and all that kind of a thing, this is physical torture – this is a calamity from that point of view. Not a calamity to me, but a calamity to those who have an image that something marvellous is going to happen. It’s something like: you imagine New York, you dream about it, you want to be there. When you are actually there, nothing of it is there; it is a godforsaken place, and even the devils have probably forsaken that place. It’s not the thing that you had sought after and wanted so much, but totally different. What is there, you really don’t know – you have no way of knowing anything about that – there is no image here. In that sense I can never tell myself or anybody ‘I’m an enlightened man, a liberated man, a free man; I’m going to liberate mankind.’ Free from what? How can I liberate somebody else. There’s no question of liberating anybody. For that, I must have an image that I am a free man, you understand? U.G. Krishnamurti, The Mystique of Enlightenment, Compiled from conversations in India and Switzerland, 1973 to 1976

I agree with him that nobody can liberate anybody but I have experienced glimpses of freedom from the Human Condition in pure consciousness experiences and it is certainly not a ‘godforsaken place’ nor is it ‘physical torture’. Therefore wherever he has reached is not the actual world. My personal theory is that he somehow got stuck on the way shortly before discovering that there is a cornucopia of delights to be experienced when one is fully free from one’s identity and one’s ‘being’.

In actualism I have found a method that facilitates my becoming more and more free from the human condition, which is so successful that I am sometimes thrilled to bits as well as steeped in the sensuous delight of being alive.

… perhaps this will shed some new light on the subject [Richard is doing anything different to UG Krishnamurti]:

No 23: I.e.. when watching the president of the US on TV. Is there an actual intimacy with him?

Richard: Given that you are now talking of a moving photographic image: there is no separation whatsoever from the representation. Richard, List AF, No 18, 20.4.2004

So Vineeto ... does ‘no separation’ = undivided ? Because it sure seems like it means the same thing to me. When in doubt, let’s refer to your Holy Bible:

undivided \Un‘di*vid’ed\, a. 1. Not divided; not separated or disunited; unbroken; whole; continuous; as, plains undivided by rivers or mountains

So according to your Bible, aka, the dictionary, undivided means not separated. Strangely enough, extraordinarily similar to what your God, Richard, says to No 23, a mere mortal. Perhaps Richard and you should rename actualism, ‘Hairsplittingism’ or perhaps ‘Nitpickism’ because undivided and ‘no separation’ are too close to divide or separate if you ask me and probably if you asked any mere mortal or God outside of the Actualism God (Richard), they would agree.

When you ask ‘does ‘no separation’ = undivided’ – it is important to remember where your reference to the word undivided came from and what it refers to –

Respondent: OK, so you are saying that since UG says that Gowdapada can falsify his [UG’s] words, and that he was a ‘great’ sage means that UG is spiritual?

Richard: In the first passage (further above) he clearly says [quote] ‘the sage or seer, or whatever you want to call him, is in *the state of undivided consciousness*’. [emphasis added] ... would you say that Mr. Gowdapada, whom Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti says is ‘a great sage’, was in such a state?

If so it is pertinent to see how Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti describes his own state:

• ‘All these visions and everything were happening for three years after the ‘calamity’. Now the whole thing is finished. The divided state of consciousness cannot function at all any more; it is always in *the undivided state of consciousness* – nothing can touch that. [emphasis added]. (from Part One, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992: www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm).

To not put too fine a point on it: Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti has defined Mr. Gowdapada with the label ‘great sage’ (and others like him with the labels ‘sage’ or ‘seer’) because he – and they – are not in what he calls ‘the field of duality’ but are in what he calls ‘the state of undivided consciousness’ Richard, List AF, No 27, 9.4.2004

So when you ask ‘does no separation = undivided’ you have not only dropped the word ‘state’ from U.G. Krishnamurti’s statement but also the word ‘consciousness’. U.G. Krishnamurti has qualified his *state of consciousness* as undivided, i.e. his state of consciousness is such that he feels his consciousness to be not divided from, or not separate from, an imaginary all-pervading all-encompassing consciousness.

In contrast, Richard reports that the separative ‘self’ born from the instinctual passions no longer exist in his flesh-and-blood-body. The separative identity is what separates every ‘self’ from every other ‘self’ and from the magnificence of the actual world, and when this separative identity died, an actual intimacy with everyone (every other flesh and blood body) and everything (trees, rocks, rivers, computer keyboards, televisions and images on television screens) became apparent.

In other words, U.G. Krishnamurti is not separate from the imaginary universal Consciousness, whereas Richard, having no sperate psychological identity and no ‘non-separate’ psychic identity whatsoever, is a flesh and blood body only – not separate from flesh-and-blood human beings and from the material universe – these are not the same things but in fact 180 degrees opposite.

To answer your query I have no need to ask God, Richard or anyone else because I have experienced both opposites myself – an altered state of consciousness whereby ‘I’ was one with an imaginary universal consciousness and many pure consciousness experiences where ‘I’ temporarily did not exist and where I experienced an actual intimacy with the actual world of plants, stars, birds, man-made things and fellow human beings.

So when you ask ‘does no separation = undivided’ you have not only dropped the word ‘state’ from U.G. Krishnamurti’s statement but also the word ‘consciousness’. U.G. Krishnamurti has qualified his *state of consciousness* as undivided, i.e. his state of consciousness is such that he feels his consciousness to be not divided from, or not separate from, an imaginary all-pervading all-encompassing consciousness.

Where the hell do you get ‘an imaginary all-pervading all-encompassing consciousness’?? Do you just make stuff up to justify your point of view? Where did UG say that?

I don’t have to ‘make stuff up’ to know what U.G. Krishnamurti means by his ‘state of undivided consciousness’ – I have an intimate knowledge of what he is talking about from having had a few temporary experiences of such a state of undivided consciousness myself.

Your so-called intimate knowledge is not only an exaggeration but a boastful macho testosterone laden joke.

For someone who says about himself ‘I am not a student of states of consciousness’ (UG’s imagination, 4.5.2004) you have, by your own statement, no reference point from which to make this unsubstantiated allegation. I was a ‘student of states of consciousness’ for 17 years, I met several enlightened masters and a few self-realized teachers and I can also compare my own experiences of altered states of consciousness with enlightenment and ‘self’-realization descriptions of these people. I intimately know of what U.G. Krishnamurti is talking about.

*

This is how U.G. Krishnamurti describes his state of undivided consciousness –

They called it ‘cit’. ‘The consciousness I am talking about, is a state where there is no division which says that you are asleep, that you are awake, that you are dreaming .... There is no division at all. I don’t even know if I am alive or dead. This is my state. I have no way of knowing for myself. U.G. Krishnamurti First and Last Public Talk

The knowledge I have about things is in the background, but it is not operating. So am I awake or asleep? I have no way of knowing it for myself. That is why I say that in this consciousness there is no such division as jagratta, swapna and sushupti – aren’t those the words for wakeful, dream and deep sleep states? A total absence of this division in your consciousness into wakeful, dream and sleep states may be called ‘turiya’ – not transcending these things but a total absence of this division. So you are always – to use your Sanskrit phrase – in the turiya state. U.G. Krishnamurti First and Last Public Talk

And how exactly do you get ‘an imaginary all-pervading all-encompassing consciousness’ out of that? He says nothing about any all pervading, all-encompassing consciousness, much less imaginary which you insert to add an exclamation point to your point.

Given that you were not interested in taking into account what the Encyclopaedia Britannica has to say about ‘the turiya state’

(turiya), which is the consciousness of man’s pure self-existence or being.

The identification of the absolute reality underlying the universe with the innermost being within the human person

what is your understanding of the state that U.G. Krishnamurti calls ‘turiya’? Can you explain in what way ‘turiya’ is not ‘an imaginary all-pervading all-encompassing consciousness’?

I never heard of turiya before and am clueless on its definition and what UG means when he uses it.

So when you say ‘he says nothing about any all pervading, all-encompassing consciousness, much less imaginary’ you are, by your own admission, expressing your cluelessness. Further, by your own words, you are not only clueless about what UG means when he uses the term ‘turiya’, you also persistently refuse to inform yourself on the meaning of the term even when it is presented in this very correspondence. Apparently your approach to enquiring into the facts of the matter is to adopt the ‘submerge one’s cranium in grains of silica’ method.

UG grew up in a religious atmosphere, studied religions, philosophy and theosophy, so he may use all these words as expressions that you and Richard are so quick to jump all over and label him this or that. Certain words, phrases or expressions make an easy mark for you and makes you feel good that you can label your competitors spiritual or solipsistic.

I don’t perceive U.G. Krishnamurti as a competitor at all – he simply got trapped in his spiritual and religious conditioning like millions of others, so much so that he, like a few others, ended up entrapped within the ‘turiya’ state.

The reason I call a spade a spade when it comes to people teaching spiritual enlightenment is that others who are seeking freedom from the grim reality of the human condition may recognize the trap of delusion before they fall into it themselves.

Lucky for you, since you are unable to ask UG what he meant by that word, that he defines it for you above: as ‘A total absence of this division in your consciousness into wakeful, dream and sleep states may be called ‘turiya’ – not transcending these things but a total absence of this division.’ But still, how you are able to infer ‘an imaginary all-pervading all-encompassing consciousness’ from that, has not only got me beat but stumped and aghast at the fertility of your virile virulent imagination.

You better sit down on a chair whilst reading as your protestations have, by your own admission, no leg to stand on. Given that you said of the state of ‘turiya’ that you are ‘clueless on its definition and what UG means when he uses it’ and that you ignored the explanation from the Encyclopaedia Britannica that I previously posted, here is an explanation of what ‘turiya’ means from a different source –

The link that developed during the Upanisads between tapas and achieving unity is turiya. As we will see in the Mandukya and Maitri Upanisads, four levels of consciousness are delineated: waking, sleeping, dreaming, and ‘the fourth’, (turiya) which is ‘ungraspable, having no distinctive mark, non-thinkable, that cannot be designated, the essence of the assurance of which is the state of being one with the Self.’ (Mand 7) Deussen writes that the ‘suppression of consciousness of objects and union with the eternal knowing subject which is brought about by the yoga and is coincident with absolute wakefulness is designated as the ‘fourth’ state of the atman by the side of waking, dreaming and deep sleep.’ (Paul Deussen, The Philosophy of the Upanishads, New York, Dover Publ. 1966, pg 310). Radhakrishnan adds that turiya is ‘symbolized by the Aumkara, with its parts of A-U-M, the waking, the dreaming and the sleeping states. It is not the exclusive self but the common ground of all, their basis of identity.’ (S. Radhakrishnan, trans. and ed. The Principal Upanisads (India: Harper Collings, 1996) pg 37)

Eliade believes that the relationship between turiya, the fourth state of consciousness, and Om, as implied by Madukya 12, is the link between us as humans and our realization of Brahman. He writes, ‘Total reintegration – that is return to unity – is, for Indian thought, the supreme goal of every responsible life.’ (Eliade, Yoga, Immortality and Freedom, pg 118) Feuerstein echoes this in his discussion of the Mandukya when he says that ‘What this Yoga stands for is the radical nondualist practice in or as the Self, without contact or contamination by the so-called objective world’ (Georg Feuerstein, the Yoga Tradition, Arizona Hohn Press, 1998, pg 278) He goes on to say that turiya ‘can be attained in every moment that the mind is obliged to relinquish the illusion that there is a world of multiplicity outside itself and, instead, is brought to rest in the native state of Selfhood.’ [emphasis added] (Feuerstein, pg 278)

Thus we can understand how the Vedic five rituals became internalized in the Principal Upanisads as the yoga practices of breathing exercises, meditation on Om, that generated heat (tapas) and led to the fourth state of consciousness (turiya) which dissolved the illusion between individual self and Atman/Brahman.

All quotes from http://www.geocities.com/ra_sully66/yoga.pdf

Why you go to the dictionary when he tells you exactly what he means is part of your game.

On the one hand you say ‘he tells you exactly what he means’ yet on the other hand you say ‘I am clueless on its definition and what UG means when he uses it’. I am left wondering how someone can manage to balance two contradictory statements whilst having his cranium firmly immersed in grains of silica – not to mention not having a leg to stand on.

If you want to keep repeating U.G. Krishnamurti quotes it would be sensible to at least try to understand what they mean before you send them – unless you are wanting others to do your thinking for you, that is.

*

As for your ‘A little UG blurb for you proud atheists’ 1.5.2004 – U.G. Krishnamurti, along with all the other Eastern gurus, long ceased to be an authority as to how I should live my life. When I had a pure consciousness experience I knew that the actuality experienced when the ‘self’ does not interfere beats any spiritual state by a country mile. U.G. Krishnamurti is, by his own description, neither happy nor harmless. He terms his transformation as a calamity and describes himself as a never to be repeated sport of nature. The only thing that he, along with all the other Eastern gurus, taught me is what not to do.

Thanks for your insights regarding UG. I am in agreement with you that UG. does not seem to me like someone to emulate. I am unable to understand his ‘predicament.’ Yet fascinated at the same time. I plan on steering my current investigations more toward the method of actualism. I want to know the sensuous delight of being alive in this moment. I am most pleased to have found a method ‘that delivers the goods.’

Yes, U.G. Krishnamurti fascinated me for a while until I wondered what possible use his ‘mystery’ could have for my own life. Even if I was able to understand his ‘predicament’, it was clearly not worth living it. But there is something of this ‘predicament’ that is useful to investigate. You said in your post to Richard –

I don’t think UG can be easily assumed to be ‘spiritual.’

No, it cannot be ‘easily assumed’ and my emphasis is on ‘easily’. For me, it has been of vital importance to understand, and I mean experientially understand, the complexity of the word ‘spiritual’ – for in life actual and spiritual exclude each other, just as sensate and spiritual exclude each other as an experience.

When I first came across actualism I had a great reluctance to question my spiritual pursuit. At first, I did not quite understand how being spiritual could be considered a hindrance to being an actualist. I thought it over for days and weeks and it was a real nut to crack. Not only was being spiritual my main identity but I also had to wash my brain from 17 years of Rajneesh conditioning. Learning to think sensibly was like learning to walk after years of being bed-ridden because I had been focused on no-mind-feeling states rather than practical thought.

However, as more and more common sense began to prevail and living in the ‘outer’ – as opposed to my spiritual ‘inner’ – world started becoming more sensible and delightful, I also came to understand that the meaning of the word ‘spiritual’ included much more than I had assumed. I had used the specifically customized definition of the word from Rajneesh’s teachings – spiritual as opposed to religious, Godliness as opposed to a monotheistic God, Essence or Energy as opposed to a white bearded God sitting on a throne. I eagerly believed him when he said that living a spiritual life was far superior to pursuing a professional carrier or motherhood in the normal world.

I remember one day I suddenly said to Peter – ‘now I understand what you mean by spiritual!’ At that moment I could for the first time see that being spiritual means being ‘inside my head’, focused on my ideas, my ideals, my imagination and my feelings, chasing a chimera of an elusive inner state, not interested in what is going on right here, right now. In fact, being spiritual is the very pinnacle of being ‘self’-centred. This first break-through in understanding what I am doing when I am being spiritual was to open the door for a pure consciousness experience that followed soon after. (You can find the description in A Bit of Vineeto)

In short, contemplating upon the discussion about U.G. Krishnamurti’s outlook on life may help you understand the variety of spiritual connotations that exist. However, if you are interested in actualism you will find yourself vitally interested in discovering your own spiritual-ness and all it entails, for becoming aware of one’s spirituality and its wide-ranging implications is the very key to removing what prevents you from directly experiencing ‘the sensuous delight of being alive’.

I also remember thinking about the meeting with U.G. Krishnamurti afterwards and he did not appear to me as a man who enjoyed life, i.e. someone who had the desirable state of mind, or no-mind or not-no-mind, that I would want to live myself. Personally, he did not strike me as someone whose life was worth emulating – and he says so himself. His casual remarks about his daily life in the meeting gave the impression of someone waiting for his fate to run its course until he physically dies. I sat ‘in the presence’ of several spiritual masters in my 17 years of spiritual search and had felt bliss, inner peace and love but with U.G. Krishnamurti I only felt bewilderment. I was more disorientated and confused by the meeting and had certainly not found the answer I was looking for – what is the best possible way one can experience life? <snip>

I have found the quote where he fully described the experience of this ‘calamity’ that happened to him – <snipped>

I agree with him that nobody can liberate anybody but I have experienced glimpses of freedom from the Human Condition in pure consciousness experiences and it is certainly not a ‘godforsaken place’ nor is it ‘physical torture’ . Therefore wherever he has reached is not the actual world. My personal theory is that he somehow got stuck on the way shortly before discovering that there is a cornucopia of delights to be experienced when one is fully free from one’s identity and one’s ‘being’. In actualism I have found a method that facilitates my becoming more and more free from the human condition, which is so successful that I am sometimes thrilled to bits as well as steeped in the sensuous delight of being alive.

What appealed to me about U.G.’s position was his adamant statement that essentially we are animal beings, running the genetic programs that are intended only to ensure the survival and perpetuation of the species.

Anything beyond that is fabrication, window dressing. While that struck me as fundamentally true, it did seem rather nihilistic from a practical POV: OK, now that I’ve begat my progeny, what should I do... roll over and die?

Yes, he made that statement many times and he was just as adamant about that one cannot do anything about one’s genetic program. Vis –

Q: It is frightening to think of living without a centre, a self, a reference point...

U.G.: The reference point, the ‘I’, cannot be eliminated through any volition on your part. In the final analysis, it is your genetically predetermined program, your ‘script’. Mind is a Myth

*

U.G.: But the experiencing structure is genetic in its origin and in its expression. Everything is genetically controlled. If we really want to change individuals, the only way we can do it is not by changing the environment, not through changing the cultural input, but by trying to understand what really is the part that genes play in us. Maybe through some kind of genetic engineering we can create perfect human beings. Thought is Your Enemy

Further, U.G Krishnamurti clearly remained stuck in his cultural Indian heritage in that he upheld the typical Eastern notion that thought is the primary problem within the human condition and that feelings are merely by-products of thoughts. Vis –

Thought is a self-protective mechanism. So anything that is born out of thought is destructive – whether it is religious thought or scientific thought or political thought – all of them are destructive. But we are not ready to accept that it is thought that is our enemy. Thought is Your Enemy

Feeling is also thought. We want to feel that feelings are more important than thoughts, but there is no way you can experience a feeling without translating that within the framework of the knowledge that you have. Thought is Your Enemy

By maintaining this conviction he paints himself into a corner making it then impossible to investigate the deeper feelings and genetic instinctual passions, which automatically arise before thought even has a chance to operate. LeDoux and others have done extensive empirical research that shows that the sensory input stream to the amygdala – which produces the feeling response – takes only 12 milliseconds as opposed to the 25 millisecond that it takes to reach the neo-cortex – which then produces the thought response.

In order to know that one can indeed change human nature it is essential to become aware of and examine one’s emotions and instinctual passions as they arise prior to thoughts. U.G. Krishnamurti apparently never conducted such an investigation because he has left much of his social/spiritual conditioning unexamined. Even if someone is entrapped within some form of altered state of consciousness it is still possible to continue investigating one’s psyche in action, which is precisely what Richard did in his 11 years of Enlightenment. The major obstacles to keep going is a tendency to rest on one’s laurels and think one has arrived, which is why it is doubtful that any of those who have succumbed to a permanent altered state of consciousness will have the necessary impetus to become actually free.

Enter AF, presenting an opportunity to undo most or all of the programs, including the hard-wired ones. What bothers me a bit is that ‘live happy and harmless’ could be construed to be just another program, albeit a more desirable one. Timothy Leary said ‘As long as we create our own reality, we might as well make it a good one’.

And Timothy Leary, like so many of his generation, chose a drug-induced greater reality. He believed his ‘soul’ was located in his brain and he even arranged after his death for his head to be cut off and frozen in order that his ‘soul-brain’ could be revived at some future date. His ‘own reality’ certainly included some kind of an afterlife.

Actuality is not your own reality, on the contrary, actuality only becomes apparent when your own reality disappears. Therefore you ‘undo most or all of the programs, including the hard-wired ones’ and don’t create another program otherwise it’s not an undoing.

So my question is, how do AF adherents know they have turned off the programs, and not simply replace them with a more pleasing variety? This question is posed from curiosity, not criticism, as either response is a not bad way to live.

In a pure consciousness experience (PCE) you know by direct experience that the believer, feeler and passionate ‘self’ is absent and does not interfere with your direct sensate awareness of what is happening. A PCE gives you a glimpse of the actuality that is always here and that only becomes apparent when ‘I’ the believer and ‘me’, the ‘feeler’ are temporarily in abeyance.

The writings of actualists can provide you with sufficient information for you to establish a prima facie case that what is on offer is genuine and makes sense. If this is the case, you can then begin your own investigation into your psyche with the pure intent to eliminate malice and sorrow in your life. In this way you keep your wits about you, you can crank up your naiveté while avoiding being gullible and you can confidently abandon all belief and simply go with what works.

Of course, if you are looking for a shortcut and consider turning actualism into your latest belief to file it with the rest of the passionate fairy-tales of human imagination, then you would be missing the point entirely. Actualism is not a belief or the imagination that one feels happy and harmless, but it is a proven method that, when applied with diligence, determination and pure intent, makes you tangibly and noticeably happy and harmless. The method of actualism is designed to discover, investigate and eventually eliminate the believer and that includes the believer in any system that one may have concocted out of the actualist writings.

As for the empathy issue that you mentioned in your letter to Gary –

The empathy issue is one of the nubs, for myself. I have an internal resistance to AF because it feels like I would be failing my fellow human beings.

U.G. Krishnamurti gave an excellent example that even the feeling of ‘true’ empathy does nothing to alleviate another’s pain and discomfort and he explains how this feeling prevented him from responding in a sensible manner to a situation –

This actually happened to me when I was staying in a coffee plantation: a mother started beating a child, a little child, you know. She was mad, hopping mad, and she hit the child so hard, the child almost turned blue. And somebody asked me ‘Why did you not interfere and stop her?’ I was standing there – I was so puzzled, you see. ‘Who should I take pity on, the mother or the child?’ – that was my answer – ‘Who is responsible?’ Both were in a ridiculous situation: the mother could not control her anger, and the child was so helpless and innocent. This went on – it was moving from one to the other – and then I found all those things (marks) on my back. So I was also part of that. (I am not saying this just to claim something.) That is possible because consciousness cannot be divided. Anything that is happening there is affecting you – this is affection, you understand? There is no question of your sitting in judgement on anybody; the situation happens to be that, so you are affected by that. You are affected by everything that is happening there. The Mystique of Enlightenment

If one believes, as U.G. Krishnamurti does, that ‘consciousness cannot be divided’, then this means one believes there is no way out of the collective mess that is humanity.

I found that the best I can do for my fellow human beings is to relieve them from my malice and my sorrow – this way, not only do I stop bludgeoning and burdening everyone I come in contact with but I actually reduce the amount of malice and sorrow in the world in the only person I can change – myself.

As for ‘failing my fellow human beings’ – yes, I have become a traitor to the ‘real’ world as well as to the spiritual world, giving up finding solutions and admitting to failure. But it is important to note that an actualist fails humanity and not his or her fellow human beings. Given that an instinct-driven humanity is, always has been and always will be, a failed institution, it makes eminent sense to bail out, as it were. The only way out of the madness of the ‘real’ world is to get out and that means that I stubbornly and persistently decline to play the game of passionate survival that everyone else is playing. I am abandoning humanity and humanity’s problems and, as such leaving my ‘self’ behind.

U.G.: Where is this conditioning you talk of ...? Where are the thoughts located?

They are not in the brain. Thoughts are not manufactured by the brain. It is, rather, that the brain is like an antenna, picking up thoughts on a common wavelength, a common thought-sphere. Mind is a Myth, chap. 3, UG Krishnamurti

Does anyone understand what he is saying here? Theories and opinions are also ok. Maybe we can come up with something. If anyone out there does understand this I would appreciate it if you would tell me about it. I am listening.

In my experience, what UG Krishnamurti is talking about is that there is a psychic web, consisting of the thoughts, feelings and passions of all human beings. Some people are more sensitive to picking up these types of feelings than others, be they euphoria, excitement, empathy, sadness, anger, revenge or fear, but everyone does this automatically to some extent.

Although it is common belief, particularly on this list, that it is thoughts and conditioning which are the cause of the problems in the world, there is overwhelming anecdotal, empirical and personal observational evidence that it is the genetically-encoded instinctual passions that produce feelings, i.e. emotions-backed thoughts, of fear and aggression in each and every human being. Therefore, this ‘common thought-sphere’ that U.G. Krishnamurti speaks of is, in fact, a collective feeling-sphere.

All sentient beings, to a greater or lesser extent, are connected via this feeling-sphere or psychic web ... a network of energies or currents that range from ‘good’ to ‘bad’ and from the Divine to the Diabolical. When ‘you’, the ‘self’, actively practice expanding from a personal consciousness into the collective consciousness, those vibes, energies or currents are more clearly and distinctly noticed and the instinctual battle for survival is then fought on another, ‘higher’ and grander scale.

With apperception, the brain’s ability of being aware of being conscious, one becomes aware of the folly of this collective consciousness and one becomes aware of the psychic powers and grand feelings that are wielded by the gurus as part and parcel of this collective consciousness. In that clear awareness of the nature of collective consciousness itself one is then able to step outside of this psychic web, outside of humanity. Only by stepping outside of the psychic web or the common feeling-sphere is there complete freedom from emotion-backed thoughts.

*

He may be talking about psychic thoughts although he didn't make that distinction. I guess that would explain his statement.

Yes, he used the term ‘common thought-sphere’ because he, like all other Eastern spiritual teachers, derives his wisdom from the philosophical tradition of Eastern teachings which fails to make the distinction between thinking and feeling.

I offered a different experience, a fresh viewpoint to the Eastern belief, which proposes it is thought only that is supposedly responsible for human misery and anguish, aggression and fear. In fact, the psychic world is a web of psychic feelings, not thoughts. What U.G. Krishnamurti is talking about is picking up psychic fear, psychic anger and collective euphoria, and this is most evident when a large group of people gather together. Mass hysteria, mass grief, mob riots, national fervour or patriotism, sporting crowds, religious/spiritual gatherings, etc., all attest to the overwhelming power of these common psychic feelings.

*

UG may not have been making a distinction between thinking and feeling. He is far from like all other Eastern spiritual teachers. He is not a spiritual teacher at all. K makes a definite distinction between thinking and feeling (which he calls psychological thoughts).

What a fascinating interpretation. So J. Krishnamurti was all along talking about observing one’s feelings – psychological thoughts – and nobody has listened? I have not seen much discussion about observing and becoming aware of one’s own feelings on this list so far. Did Krishnamurti also talk about the instinctual passions that underlie our feelings and emotions?

As for U.G. Krishnamurti – he was like every other Eastern teacher in that he purely talked about stopping thought in order to reach ‘our natural state’ and not about thoroughly investigating our instinctual passions in operation. This aim of reaching one’s natural state presupposed that human beings are born innocent and only became ‘corrupted’ as a product of their cultural upbringing. His teachings do not consider that, as the latest scientific research clearly proves, all human beings are born with instinctual animal passions namely fear, aggression, nurture and desire. Vis:

But, how can one understand the limitations of thought? Naturally, the only instrument we have is the instrument of thought. But what is thought? I can give you a lot of definitions, and you know a lot of definitions about thought. I can say that thought is just matter; thought is vibration; and we are all functioning in this sphere of thought. And we pick up these thoughts because this human organism is an electro-magnetic field. And this electro-magnetic field is the product of culture. It may sound very inappropriate on this occasion to say that in order to be in your natural state, all that man has thought and felt before you must be swept aside and must be brushed aside. And that means the culture in which you are brought up must go down the drain or out of the window. Is it possible? It is possible. But, at the same time, it is so difficult, because you are the product of that culture and you are that. You are not different from that. You cannot separate yourself from that culture. And yet, this culture is the stumbling block for us to be in our natural state. First and Last Public Talk of U.G. after his Calamity

You commented on something I wrote to No 60 –

Over the years there have been many correspondents to this mailing list who consider their particular spiritual teaching as non-spiritual, thus making a nonsense of the meaning of the word non-spiritual. Only lately one correspondent announced that he practiced Byron Katie’s methods and believed in the Advaita Vedanta teachings and yet had no reservations about labelling himself as being non-spiritual. Yet another correspondent is convinced that UG Krishnamurti is non-spiritual despite the fact that he is living in a state of undivided consciousness.

Yo, you lying bitch.... where did I ever say that UGK is non-spiritual? Go ahead and dig through your archives. If you find something, I will take back that ‘you lying bitch’ comment... maybe. Perhaps you are assuming because I ask what makes you say he is spiritual?, this is the same as saying he is non-spiritual. How convenient, how very convenient. Have any of you bone-headed spiritual accusation hurlers defined undivided consciousness yet or asked UG what he means by it? You continually put words in his mouth like you know what he’s talking about.

Ah yes, I forgot, you play the game that you learnt from U.G. Krishnamurti, which is not to label things or people. Obviously your practice of ‘not labelling’, first made popular in the West by the spiritual teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, doesn’t apply when you go about pasting explicit labels on me.

And you consistently miss my point that you draw whatever meaning from certain words to further your proselytising mission to spread actualism and point out how it is 180 degrees opposite from anything else, just like a good cultist would do. Just like cults have been doing since the first cult. You think you are so different, yet you share the same motto as has every single other cult since the birth of cults...’We are 180 degrees opposite from anything else out there and everyone has got it wrong but us’. That refrain is as old as them thar hills.

To suggest that I am proselytising actualism to a group of people who have all voluntarily subscribed to an un-moderated Actual Freedom mailing list does nothing but yet again demonstrate the lack of both substance and sense in any of your comments to this mailing list thus far. Put simply, if you don’t like reading about actualism then simply don’t read what actualists write.

The remainder of your indurate protestations are so hackneyed as to be psittacine.

*

This correspondent further believes that U.G. Krishnamurti’s state is synonymous with Actual Freedom and complains that we are hung up on the words ‘undivided consciousness’.

Ok you lying kunt ... where did I say that UGK’s term of a ‘natural state’ is synonymous with the state/condition of actual freedom?

Here –

No 37 to Richard: This last quote prompted me to go back and read part of ‘The Mystique of Enlightenment.’ There are places where he discounts any talk of Atman or Brahman, but I think you have aided me in understanding better what he is getting at. He is like J Krishnamurti in many, many ways (though there are marked differences as well). He is like him in the sense that he discounts religious belief held by anybody with an ‘I’ still outstanding, but then gives them a new meaning or attempts to go back to the ‘original’ meaning as born in his experience – rather than belief.

And you think Richard is doing anything different? He is doing the exact same thing as you pointed out above. He discounts everything that anyone has done before him and comes up with his own baby – actualism, with some new words, descriptions and phrases. It’s the same old same old. And the next guy after Richard will do the same. [emphases added] Re ‘Spiritual’, 9.4.2004

I was making a point about different terms ‘perhaps’ pointing to the same thing.

When I read the above, I don’t see any perhaps in it at all. What I read is ‘he is doing the exact same thing’.

The very next day you again said –

UG tosses out ‘undivided consciousness’, Richard uses ‘actuality’, you use ‘absolute’. They all may or may not be one and the same, as far as I’m concerned. You all can quibble over the proper usage and definitions to claim some originality or to further refine a conversation, but all these words, including ‘God’, which is loaded with cultural/religious tones, are all an effort to point to the same thing. [emphases added] Re ‘Spiritual’, 10.4.2004

Again no perhaps in it all.

Or do you want to change tack, follow the current fashion and quibble that the word ‘synonymous’ does not mean the same as ‘the same thing’?

*

If I remember correctly, UG’s natural state refers to the body and its senses only. IOW your precious ‘flesh and blood body’.

Given that you have thus far misunderstood both U.G. Krishnamurti and actualism, relying on the accuracy of your memory is somewhat questionable. Of course a referenced quote from U.G. Krishnamurti would help to give credence to the accuracy of your claim.

*

This technique of re-labelling one’s beliefs as non-spiritual is akin to driving a Ford with a Rolls-Royce emblem mounted at the front and a Rolls-Royce nametag stuck at the back. I understand the reason why people try the technique of getting rid of their spiritual beliefs by labelling them as non-spiritual – whilst they find something attractive in actualism they are loath to give up what they believe because what they believe is an integral part of ‘who’ they think and feel they are. Re-labelling one’s spiritual beliefs to be non-spiritual or watering down the word non-spiritual to include things that are spiritual is but to shoot oneself in the foot because this ‘trick’ only makes the process of uncovering one’s beliefs an impossibility – it is impossible to be aware of something whilst one is busy denying it exists.

You are obsessed with labels. Everyone has a different obsession but doesn’t go around trying to spread their obsession like it is some necessity in life like food, money, shelter, clothing. You really should see a shrink about your obsessions.

Of course, to someone who has taken on board the doctrine that labelling is evil, clear communication and sticking to the commonly agreed upon meaning of words must appear like an obsession. It must be difficult for you in everyday life when you go shopping and have to point at everything you want instead of giving it a name, when you hop on a bus or a train and say ‘I’d like to go to uhhhhmm please’ or when someone asks what your nationality is or what political party you favour?

I can only assume that devout followers of U.G. Krishnamurti had to learn to use sign language in order to avoid being labelled as being obsessed with labelling by other devout followers of U.G. Krishnamurti.

I spent several hours with U. G. Krishnamurti once in Australia and I have studied most of his books. I know what he teaches and what he doesn’t teach. Out of this understanding I am attempting to contact him through you.

18 month ago I met a man called Richard who has been enlightened for 11 years until he has seen through the delusion it was. He has freed himself from enlightenment and devised a method to become actually free. I have experimented with this method with overwhelming success.

Should you or U.G. be interested – because I see some common ground between him and Richard – this is the web address of Richard, his writings and correspondence: The Actual Freedom Trust, http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/index.htm

go figure! I too want to be freed from this terrible burden of enlightenment!!! HELP ME RICHARD!!!

Is this a NO?

I don’t know if that is a yes or a no. What are you selling?

Goodness me ... nothing needs to be purchased unless one wants to. Over 250,000 words are being given away for free at the following URL:

  • http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/index.htm

What is being offered is what the 521,697 words at the U. G. Krishnamurti Web-Site cannot ever offer: A clear and unambiguous explanation of where a human being is coming from; where a human being is currently at ... and where a human being can get to and how.

I have experimented for 18 months now with Richard’s methods, checking myself out and cleaning myself up first from my social conditioning, then the beliefs and emotions, and now the instincts and the psychic world, overlaying the actual physical world-as-is. The outcome is phenomenal. I live with Peter 24 h a day in complete peace and harmony, haven’t had a ‘grumpy’ day or a disagreement for over a year, and now I am hurtling in breath-taking speed towards total extinction of the self. This journey has taken me through experiences of universal sorrow, of compassion and bliss similar to enlightenment in its convincing power, of dread as abysmal as hell and back again into the magic of the actual world...

If that is not enough to interest you, here is a response that Richard wrote answering a question from a correspondent late last year (Richard has read all that is on offer at the U. G. Krishnamurti Web-Site):

No one else, as far as I have been able to ascertain in eighteen years of scouring the books and travelling overseas, is able to see things clearly. The only person who comes close is Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti. But he does not know what happened to him and has no solutions to offer. He is simply a curiosity to those who go to see him. He states that he is a ‘never to be repeated sport of nature’. Whereas I know where I came from and where I am at and how I got here.

From what I have read his condition is the same as what I experience in that he has no psyche at all. But there the similarity ends. I first heard of him when I bought a computer and gained access to the Internet in February 1997. I located the Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti web page via another article and read all the information with rapidly diminishing interest. Something fundamental happened to him that I can relate to – the total annihilation of any psychological entity whatsoever – but he clearly states that he himself does not know what it was that happened, unfortunately. He makes it clear that he has nothing to offer to advance humankind’s knowledge about itself, which makes his a hapless condition. He makes no bones about considering himself as being a ‘sport of nature’, which is not about to be repeated, so therefore he concludes that no good will be obtained by talking with him.

To paraphrase what someone else has written, ‘Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti does not regard his state as a new way of living for any other person. He has no basic survival or reproductive objectives for himself or others. He says that as all desires have disappeared in him, any psychological and spiritual wants are without any foundation. He states that there is no message he can give or help he can offer. He says has no disciples, no teachings, and no practices. His ‘message’ is that he has no message for humankind. He cannot save humans from their basic dilemma or from their self-deception. Yet, being typically paradoxical, he says: ‘If I cannot help you, no one can’.

‘Of course, I am in accord with his oft-repeated statements about Spiritual Enlightenment being a waste of time, but it is one thing to speak out against something – whilst offering nothing in its place – and another thing entirely to propose a viable, liveable and delightful alternative to what one is knocking down. I did not read him saying anything about how deliciously enjoyable it is to be finally free of the Human Condition; what a pleasure it is to be alive in this moment in time; how life is an adventure in itself by the simple fact of being here; what a felicitous experience it is to be the universe’s experience of itself as a human being; to be able to fully appreciate the infinitude of this physical universe by being alive ... and so on. In short, what I read sounded existentialist and nihilistic and negative.

I asked around for any videos of him and I was able to watch three of them. I stopped watching half-way through the third one as I had had enough. He acknowledges that there are still emotions ... but that it is the body that is having them ... fear was one that I heard him talk about on the video. The writings about him talk of him getting angry at people who come to see him ... he tells them to go away in no uncertain terms. I can not relate to this at all as I experience no feelings – emotions and passions – whatsoever.. Also, on one video, he says that he looks at a clock and wonders what it is; someone asks him what the time is and he answers ‘A quarter past three’ – or whatever – and then falls back into wondering what it is that he is looking at. I know perfectly well what a clock is. Apparently he has to knock his head against a wall to know that he is here; he slams kitchen doors shut for the same reason; he goes to a doctor who examines him and says that he is indeed alive ... whereas I know that I am alive and well and thoroughly enjoying myself ... and will continue to do so for the term of my natural life. It is a strange situation he is in and he seems to be very much alone in it.

In a way it is all a bit of a dismal story. Richard, List B, No 4, 20.11.1998

Wonder what you make of it...

U.G. said in his interview with Professor HSK (Mystique of Enlightenment, Part 3):

So the individual is the only hope. And the individual also seems to be totally helpless because he has to free himself from the burden of the past, the entire heritage, not only of India, but of the whole world. So is it possible for man to free himself from the burden? Individually, he doesn’t seem to have any freedom at all. You see, he has no freedom of action – that is the crux of the whole problem. But yet the hope is in the individual – if through some luck, some strange chance... U.G. Mystique of Enlightenment, Part 3

Well, I know from my own experience that it is possible to break free ‘from the burden of the past, the entire heritage’ of mankind, because I broke free from 90% of it. Richard has discovered this freedom and taken the luck out of it, he has delivered the method as well.

I am surprised that you are a friend of U.G. and yet you so easily discard of the option for freedom, a new, non-spiritual, down-to-earth freedom. I do not understand what it is then that you are learning from him, if not how to be free?

Truly wondering.

*

How about you? Have you already given up on the sparkle that you may have felt when first coming across a man like U.G.?

U.G. considers himself a ‘never to be repeated sport of nature’, but that is not the case. There is now a possibility to become free, there exists a map and method to freedom and, above all, it is a wide and wondrous path all the way. How can you be contented with boredom?

 

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