RESPONDENT: There were however purely affectionate, ecstasy or mystical like ones, but somewhere along the path I stumbled upon three milestones to me that is U.G. Krishnamurti, Bernadette Roberts and AF.

RICHARD: As Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti is, basically, still mystico-spiritual (despite sounding like a materialist on occasion), and as Ms. Bernadette Roberts is essentially mystico-religious, then the milestone called ‘AF’ is not to be found on that well-trodden highway to nowhere.

*

RESPONDENT: Here I have to make some digression. [snip digression]. I think though, my present ongoing experience is that of ‘Excellent experience’ or generally as you suggested above virtual freedom.

RICHARD: No, I never suggested (further above) that your present ongoing experience is, generally or otherwise, that of virtual freedom ... on the contrary, I clearly stated that, even though all it takes is about three (3) minutes to locate the passages regarding what Mr. Douglas Harding has to say, which passages are blatantly self-explanatory to one who is virtually free of the human condition, you still had to ask me how I would classify him/his state.

And neither would I suggest your normal state is an on-going excellence experience (the penultimate virtual freedom experience) either ... just to refresh your memory:

• [Mr. Douglas Harding]: ‘Over the past thirty years a truly contemporary and Western way of ‘seeing into one’s Nature’ or ‘Enlightenment’ has been developing. Though *in essence the same as Zen, Sufism, and other spiritual disciplines*, this way proceeds in an unusually down-to-earth fashion. It claims that modern man is more likely to see Who he really is in a minute of active experimentation than in years of reading, lecture-attending, thinking, ritual observances, and passive meditation of the traditional sort’. [emphasis added]. (www.headless.org/English/thw.htm).
• [Mr. Douglas Harding]: ‘The principle of this meditation [‘Unself-conscious Meditation’] is: never lose sight of your Self in any circumstances, and your problems are taken care of – including, strange to say, the problem of self-consciousness. For *finding the Self is losing the self*’. [emphasis added]. (‘The Results of Seeing Who You Really Are’; an article by Douglas Harding from ‘The Toolkit for Testing the Incredible Hypothesis’; www.headless.org/English/reallyr.htm).

And while I am at it:

• [Ms. Bernadette Roberts]: ‘It is quite possible that at some time or other everyone has made contact with the self-as-subject [as distinct from self-as-object]. All that is required for such an encounter is the cessation of the reflexive movement of the mind bending back on itself. Without this reflexive (or pre-reflexive) movement, we are no longer aware of our own awareness, our own feelings and thoughts, and thus we have encountered self-as-subject. But since this subjective self is as nothing to the mind, we cannot stay in this condition for long and soon fall back into self-consciousness or self-as-object. To remain in this un-reflexive condition for any length of time would mean encountering an emptiness, a void, a nothingness that is the subjective self – *which I have called no-self*’. [emphasis added]. (‘Pure Subjectivity’, from the book ‘The Experience of No-Self’, by Bernadette Roberts; 1982; http://norea.net/roberts/pure%20subjectivity.htm).

And:

• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘This individual [referring to himself] is always in a state of meditation. (...) When there is no movement of thought, you don’t know whether it [the outer world] is inside or outside. (...) This absence of the movement of thought which recognises and names things is the state of samadhi, *sahaja (natural) samadhi*. You imagine that samadhi is something he [referring to himself] goes into and comes out of. Not at all; he’s always there’. [emphasis added]. (from Part Four, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992: www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm).

What I would suggest, however, is that your initial LSD trip was an altered state of consciousness (ASC) ... and here is another reason why (from the snipped digression):

• [Respondent]: ‘I saw (...) also beauty of the world around ...’.

Quite simply: beauty is an affective experience – the subjective ‘self’s pathetic imitation of the pristine purity of the actual – and, as you currently have a feeling of weightlessness (aka a lightness of being), I would also suggest your present on-going experience is an after-effect of feeling the same a couple of months ago whilst ingesting psilocybin on a daily basis over a two-week period ... a technique, by the way, almost guaranteed to reduce the effect.

As I have remarked before, by and large, most substance-induced peak experiences are ASC’s, and not PCE’s (else an actual freedom from the human condition would surely have been discovered aeons ago), which is the main reason why I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances. Here is another way I have put it (from my first e-mail to you):

• [Richard]: ‘(...) I never advise or encourage anyone to use psychotropic substances (for obvious reasons). If, however, someone already has done so, and intends to do so again of their own accord and volition anyway, then I would counsel their very careful and considered use *as it is all-too-easy for an altered state of consciousness (ASC) to emerge rather than a pure consciousness experience (PCE)* ... there are many accounts available on the internet and 4 or 5 years ago I browsed through several web pages and never found any description that resembled a PCE. (...)’. [emphasis added].

I do not see how I could have put any more plainly than that.

RICHARD (to Co-Respondent): <snipped> ... you are not the first to be sucked into thinking that Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti is non-spiritual and, presumably, will not be the last.

RESPONDENT: Just what qualifies Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti as ‘spiritual’?

RICHARD: The 521,697 words at the following URL: http://www.well.com/user/jct/index.html

RESPONDENT: Possibly you could define exactly what you mean by the word ‘spiritual’?

RICHARD: There is a simple way to ascertain whether the word means the same, or similar, to you as it does to me ... for example, would you say that Mr. Gaudapada (aka Mr. Gowdapada) qualifies as spiritual?

Here is what the Encyclopaedia Britannica has, in part, to say:

• ‘[Advaita] has its historical beginning with the 7th-century thinker Gaudapada, author of the Mandukya-karika, a commentary in verse form on the late Mandukya Upanisad. Gaudapada builds further on the Mahayana Buddhist philosophy of Sunyava-da (‘Emptiness’). He argues that there is no duality; the mind, awake or dreaming, moves through maya (‘illusion’); and only nonduality (advaita) is the final truth. This truth is concealed by the ignorance of illusion. There is no becoming, either of a thing by itself or of a thing out of some other thing. There is ultimately no individual self or soul (jiva), only the atman (all-soul), in which individuals may be temporarily delineated just as the space in a jar delineates a part of main space: when the jar is broken, the individual space becomes once more part of the main space. (©1994-2002 Encyclopaedia Britannica).

The reason why I provide that example is because of what Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti has to say about him:

• ‘The saints are trying to tell you, so they are always in the field of duality; whereas the sage or seer, or whatever you want to call him, is in the state of undivided consciousness. He does not know that he is a free man, so for him there is no question of trying to free others. He is just there, he talks about it, and then he goes. Gaudapada had no disciples – he refused to teach anybody’. (from Part Four, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992: (www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm).

And:

• ‘You must challenge what I am saying without the help of your so-called authorities. You just don’t have the guts to do that because you are relying upon the Gita, not upon yourself. That is why you will never be able to do it. If you have that courage, you are the only person who can falsify what I am saying. A great sage like Gowdapada can do it, but he is not here. You are merely repeating what Gowdapada and others have said. It is a worthless statement as far as you are concerned. If there were a living Gowdapada sitting here, he would be able to blast what I am saying, but not you’. (from Chapter Four, ‘Mind Is A Myth’; Published by: Dinesh Publications, Goa, 403 101 INDIA. 1988: www.well.com/user/jct/cover.html).

RESPONDENT: I did look up the word in the actualist glossary and found a few noteworthy statements: ‘As this is being written, only a handful of people have managed to become free of the Human Condition ...’. As it has recently been established that the number is 1 – that hardly constitutes a ‘handful’. Also, ‘... everyone – and I do mean everyone – has a spiritual outlook on life’. I’m curious what definition of ‘spiritual’ you are working with, Richard. Do you include all of ‘humanity’ as having a ‘spiritual’ outlook on life? So that even if someone says they are a ‘materialist’ or ‘atheist’ – they are actually ‘spiritualists’ in disguise?

RICHARD: As I did not write the glossary article you are referring to – unless otherwise notated only the web pages with my name in the URL are written by me – your comment and queries would be better directed to Peter.

RESPONDENT: Also, specifically why do you say that No 53 is ‘spiritual?’

RICHARD: Mainly because he will not ... the most recent ‘advaita shuffle’ being but the latest demonstration.

*

RESPONDENT: Just what qualifies Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti as ‘spiritual’?

RICHARD: The 521,697 words at the following URL: http://www.well.com/user/jct/index.html.

RESPONDENT: Yes, I have read many of those words – yet am still not convinced that UG is clearly ‘spiritual’. He certainly does have affinities with ‘spiritual’ teachings – non-duality, the ‘search’ is the problem, ‘thought’ is your enemy, etc. Yet it is not clear at all that he believes in an individual soul or universal soul in any sense whatsoever. So – on the one hand he definitely has affinities with some teachings of ‘spiritualists’ – yet it isn’t clear there is any ‘spirit’ in or behind it all.

RICHARD: Are you familiar with the term ‘Sahaja Samadhi’ (in Sanskrit ‘together-born’ and ‘placed-together’) which is used to designate the natural state of non-duality/ union?

If so, the following will be of interest:

• Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti: ‘For hours and hours I can sit here and watch the clock pendulum moving there – I can’t be bored – I really don’t know what it is. The pendulum is moving there – the whole of my being is that movement. For hours and hours I can sit here and look at it. You are not interested in that thing; you are interested in something else, some meditation. This individual is always in a state of meditation. ‘Where is that movement?’ I am wondering – that is the meditation that is going on. Not that I am wondering in the usual sense of the word; this individual remains in a state of wonder for the rest of his life. ‘Outside’ and ‘inside’ are created by thought. When there is no movement of thought, you don’t know whether it is inside or outside. This is just like a mirror. This is a live mirror reflecting things exactly as they are. There is nobody here: I don’t see anything; the whole of my body is reflecting things exactly the way they are out there.
The recognising and naming mechanism is in the background except when there is a need for it. This absence of the movement of thought which recognises and names things is the state of samadhi, sahaja (natural) samadhi. You imagine that samadhi is something he goes into and comes out of. Not at all; he’s always there. Whether the eyes of such a man are open or closed, he does not know what he is looking at.
A person who has come into such a state of samadhi is like a madman and a child rolled into one. Madcaps function in exactly the same way – the thoughts are disconnected, disjointed things, and so the actions are also disconnected, the feelings are also disconnected. But their thoughts are accompanied by hallucinations, mental images, seeing something that isn’t there – that’s the only difference. This state is always a state of wonder; he doesn’t know what he is looking at, he doesn’t know what he is smelling, and yet his senses are working at their peak capacities, extraordinarily sensitive, taking in everything. (from Part Four, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992: (www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm).

*

RESPONDENT: And that little paragraph defines him as spiritual?

RICHARD: I did preface it with ‘are you familiar with the term ‘Sahaja Samadhi’’ ... for those who are then Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti’s report/description speaks for itself.

RESPONDENT: You’ll have to explain that one.

RICHARD: To an eastern ear the term ‘sahaja samadhi’ conveys something different from what the translation ‘natural state’ can convey to the western ear (which can create the impression that Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti is non-spiritual) as what is conveyed is deeply embedded in the spiritual heritage of India.

In other words, as no materialist in India would ever say they have come into a state of sahaja samadhi (just as no materialist in the west would say ‘I am God’) it is implicit in such a statement that the stater is spiritual to the hilt.

To not put too fine a point on it: sahaja samadhi is generally held to be superior to nirvikalpa samadhi.

CO-RESPONDENT: Just what qualifies Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti as ‘spiritual’?

RICHARD: Are you familiar with the term ‘Sahaja Samadhi’ (in Sanskrit ‘together-born’ and ‘placed-together’) which is used to designate the natural state of non-duality/ union? If so, the following will be of interest: [snip quote, book reference, and URL].

RESPONDENT: And that little paragraph defines him as spiritual?

RICHARD: I did preface it with ‘are you familiar with the term ‘Sahaja Samadhi’’ ... for those who are then Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti’s report/description speaks for itself.

RESPONDENT: You’ll have to explain that one.

RICHARD: To an eastern ear the term ‘sahaja samadhi’ conveys something different from what the translation ‘natural state’ can convey to the western ear (which can create the impression that Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti is non-spiritual) as what is conveyed is deeply embedded in the spiritual heritage of India. In other words, as no materialist in India would ever say they have come into a state of sahaja samadhi (just as no materialist in the west would say ‘I am God’) it is implicit in such a statement that the stater is spiritual to the hilt. To not put too fine a point on it: sahaja samadhi is generally held to be superior to nirvikalpa samadhi.

RESPONDENT: So because he uses certain words and phrases that are part of his culture, like meditation, sahaja samadhi, that makes him spiritual?

RICHARD: I presume you are referring to this section of the (now snipped) passage:

• ‘The pendulum is moving there – the whole of my being is that movement. For hours and hours I can sit here and look at it. You are not interested in that thing; you are interested in something else, some meditation. This individual is always in a state of meditation. ‘Where is that movement?’ I am wondering – that is the meditation that is going on’. [endquote].

And this section:

• ‘There is nobody here: I don’t see anything; the whole of my body is reflecting things exactly the way they are out there. The recognising and naming mechanism is in the background except when there is a need for it. This absence of the movement of thought which recognises and names things is the state of samadhi, sahaja (natural) samadhi. You imagine that samadhi is something he goes into and comes out of. Not at all; he’s always there. Whether the eyes of such a man are open or closed, he does not know what he is looking at. A person who has come into such a state of samadhi is like a madman and a child rolled into one’. [endquote].

As no materialist in India would ever say they are always in a state of meditation (just as no materialist in the west would ever say they are always in a state of grace) and, as no materialist in India would ever say they have come into the state of sahaja samadhi (just as no materialist in the west would ever say ‘I am God’), it is implicit in such statements that Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti is spiritual to the hilt.

RESPONDENT: Perhaps he is speaking with someone who understands the meaning of these words ...

RICHARD: The book which the quote came from does not specify whether the person or persons he is speaking with understands the meaning of those words or not.

RESPONDENT: You are just jumping into the middle of some conversation ...

RICHARD: I read the entire transcript – from beginning to end – and did not gain the impression the editor was only publishing the middle of some conversation.

RESPONDENT: ... taking it out of context ...

RICHARD: What context would that be, then?

RESPONDENT: ... editing it for your own purposes ...

RICHARD: I copy-pasted it as-is ... I neither added nor deleted a single word.

RESPONDENT: ... and extracting your point of view that he is spiritual.

RICHARD: I did no such thing ... all I did was preface the passage with the Sanskrit meaning of the term ‘sahaja samadhi’ which is used to designate the natural state of non-duality/union.

RESPONDENT: Were you there when that conversation took place?

RICHARD: If physical attendance were the criteria for comprehending what Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti has to say then he would not have permitted (a) having the conversation taped ... and (b) having the transcript published.

RESPONDENT: Why don’t you go face him yourself ...

RICHARD: I have far better things to do with my time ... such as sitting with my feet up on the coffee-table watching comedies on television.

RICHARD: In regards to someone saying they are a materialist or atheist actually being spiritualists in disguise: I am not aware that Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti has ever said he is a materialist or an atheist ... as we have discussed before. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘U.G. is an atheist.
• [Richard]: ‘I sent the search function of this computer through the data-base of all his published words ... and quickly found this quote:

Q: Are you a materialist?
U.G.: I don’t know. People call me a materialist. People even go to the extent of calling me an atheist just because I say that God is irrelevant. But that does not mean that I am an atheist.  (‘Thought Is Your Enemy’; Chapter Seven’; published by Sowmya Publishers; 31, Ahmed Sait Road, Fraser Town, Bangalore 560 005 (Second Edition 1991): http://www.well.com/user/jct/enemy0.htm).

It would appear that he does not want to be labelled. Here is another in this non-labelling vein:

[Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘... these labels that I am a pessimist and others are optimists do not really mean anything. They have put me into the framework of a pessimist, a nihilist, an atheist, and many others. How can you, for instance, call me a god-man when I sometimes go to the extent of saying that God is irrelevant? If I make a statement like that, I don’t mean that I am questioning the existence of God’. (‘No Way Out’, Chapter Three; Originally Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1991: http://www.well.com/user/jct/noway.htm).

Anybody that avoids labelling themselves end up, by default, leaving it to others to make their own appraisal (just as you did with ‘atheist’ and I did with ‘spiritual’). Speaking personally I find it much clearer, more up-front and honest to label myself so as to leave no need for speculative discussions, such as this one, when other peoples come across my writings. I like my fellow human being and have no wish to make something simple into something complex.

RESPONDENT: Right, and it’s still not clear to me exactly where UG ‘stands’ – if he ‘stands’ anywhere at all.

RICHARD: As he is talking from the very state he refers to it is not a stand – in the typical connotation of that word – but rather a description/explanation of that state, as it is happening, then it is the nature, or character, of that state which is still not clear to you ... and not whether he is in a state at all.

Or is it that it is still not clear to you if he is in a state at all?

RESPONDENT: I do recall bringing some information outside of his texts to them when I first read them – that was that I met of of UG’s friends on a weekend retreat about 4 years ago with Bernadette Roberts. UG’s friend (if my memory is correct) stated pretty strongly that UG is an atheist, so it is entirely possible that I read his words with that in mind.

RICHARD: It could be possible that the person who stated it strongly may have meant ‘atheist’ in the same way that those of a certain buddhistic persuasion (as described further above) mean it ... whatever the case may be it certainly does look like that is where you gained that impression from because it is not borne out anywhere in what he has to describe/explain about himself.

RESPONDENT: What I am mainly uncertain of is whether his references to not questioning the existence of God and reticence at accepting the label of an atheist is due to not wanting to be labelled, or rather as it sometimes seems that maybe he is agnostic – or even spiritual as you say.

RICHARD: Perhaps this may be of some assistance:

• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘... You see, if there is no answer, the question can’t stay there. You are waiting for an answer either from outside or from inside. When both these areas prove to be of no use at all, what happens to that question? The rejection is not because I don’t agree with the statements or experiences of others, but because they are not valid as far as I am concerned. So, it may be true, but it is not valid, so I reject them all. (from Part Four, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992: www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm).

What he is explaining, both before and after that passage, is that the questioner has to come to an end – that it is the questioner who creates the answer, and the questioner comes into being from the answer, otherwise there is no questioner – therefore he rejects all questions/answers whether he agrees with the statements or experiences of others or not ... not because they are not true but because they are not valid, as far as he is concerned.

He gives a very faithful description/explanation of this process, in regards a clock pendulum, in the longer quote I posted recently in another thread ... perhaps if you were to re-read it bearing in mind what he says above it may become more clear.

And this should help as well:

• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘... When I say ‘understanding’, ‘seeing’, they mean something different to me. Understanding is *a state of being* where the question isn’t there any more; there is nothing there that says ‘now I understand!’ – that’s the basic difficulty between us. By understanding what I am saying, you are not going to get anywhere. [emphasis added]. (from Part Four, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992: www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm).

*

RESPONDENT: Let me rephrase my query: Do you agree with the entry that everyone on the planet (excepting actualists) are ‘spiritualists?’

RICHARD: In order to understand what Peter is referring to it is essential to comprehend that he is using the word ‘spiritual’ as a catch-all word to describe that which is not material – the primary antonym for the word ‘spiritual’ in a dictionary is the word ‘material’ – and is best explained by his observation in his journal (page 86) that, when he met me, he realised that [quote] ‘Richard was the only atheist I had met and seemingly the only one that has ever been’ [endquote]. It is the same for a person who does not believe in the spiritualist’s soul, either (and no materialist does believe in one): not believing in a soul does not mean that ‘me’ as soul (aka ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself) has become extinct ... and that includes an actualist on the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom from the human condition. And as Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti has made it abundantly clear on many an occasion that the instinctual passions are still operating then so too is ‘being’ itself still extant.

RESPONDENT: I am getting a much better idea why you call UG ‘spiritual’. Not only does he share some ideas with ‘spiritualists’ like thought is the enemy, the ‘search’ is the problem, Buddha was in a state of undivided awareness, etc. – but ‘being’ is still operating, which means that his experience is still metaphysical – not actual – thus in some sense ‘spiritual’.

RICHARD: Exactly ... and, as he says in the latter quote I posted (further above), that his understanding, his seeing, is a state of being (and thus not intellectual/cognitive but affective/intuitive) it can only be some variation of an altered state of consciousness (ASC).

RESPONDENT: You have said the current software needs deleting and your method is the anti-virus software necessary to do the job, so to speak.

RICHARD: As what you say I call ‘the current’ software is not only as old as humankind itself, but even predating the first humanoid, you are way, way off the mark as to what manner of deletion my discovery entails and, if I may make the observation, typical of what was made fashionable by none other than Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti. And this is because nowhere does he come even anywhere near comprehending that the root cause of all the misery and mayhem which epitomises the human condition is genetically-encoded ... rather than being caused by the conditioning (be it societal, familial, or peer-group conditioning) which he sought to remedy by starting his own religiously-orientated schools.

RESPONDENT: I believe UGK said something along those lines of ‘genetically encoded’. Did you say that first or did he?

RICHARD: Neither. I am not the first to say that the instinctual passions are biologically inherited and neither is Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti ... it has been public knowledge for at least 145 years (since 1858 when Mr. Charles Darwin and Mr. A. R. Wallace agreed to simultaneously publish their discoveries regarding evolution). Mr. Charles Darwin went on to publish a book expressly on that subject in 1899 entitled ‘The Expression Of The Emotions In Man And Animals’.

In the topic under discussion (the deletion of the human condition itself and not just the deletion of the human conditioning instilled so as to keep it somewhat under control) it is what somebody does with that public knowledge which is what is important ... and the following is fairly representative of what Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti is on about (that is, if anything he has to say can be):

• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘I want to emphasise that what we call identity, the ‘I’, the ‘me’, the ‘you’, the ‘centre’, the ‘psyche’, is artificially created. It does not exist at all (...) *it has been culturally created*’ [emphasis added]. (from Chapter 11,‘U.G. Krishnamurti: A Life’, copyright Mahesh Bhatt, published as a Viking book by Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., 1992; www.well.com/user/jct/ugbio/ugbtitle.htm).

And this:

• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘The problem lies in our psyche. We function in a thought-sphere and not in our *biology*’. [emphasis added]. (from Chapter 11,‘U.G. Krishnamurti: A Life’, copyright Mahesh Bhatt, published as a Viking book by Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., 1992; www.well.com/user/jct/ugbio/ugbtitle.htm).

Which is why he would say this:

• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘That somebody, that artificial, illusory identity is finished. Then, you see, and even now, there is nobody who is feeling the *feelings* there’. [emphasis added]. (from Part Three, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992; www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm).

And this:

• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘It is not that I am indifferent to the suffering man. I *suffer* with the suffering man ...’. [emphasis added]. (from Chapter 11,‘U.G. Krishnamurti: A Life’, copyright Mahesh Bhatt, published as a Viking book by Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., 1992; www.well.com/user/jct/ugbio/ugbtitle.htm).

And this:

• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘The personality does not change when you come into this [natural] state (...) The personality will remain the same. Don’t expect such a man to become free from *anger* ...’. [emphasis added]. (from Part Two, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992; www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm).

And this:

• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘As long as there is a living body, there will be *desire*. It is natural’. [emphasis added]. (from Chapter One, ‘Mind Is A Myth’; Published by: Dinesh Publications, Goa, 403 101 INDIA.1988; www.well.com/user/jct/cover.html).

I watched a video of his in 1997, in which he was being interviewed by a South American television station, and in response to the interviewer’s direct question ‘do you experience fear’ (always a hot topic) he answered her question by saying that it is the body which does ... as I did not transcribe that video-tape this is the nearest print-published quote to that answer I have been able to locate:

• [Question]: ‘If somebody hit you, would you feel afraid?’
• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘There is such a thing as physical *fear* ...’. [emphasis added]. (from Part Four, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992; www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm).

He may have done a lot of things ... but the deletion of the genetically-inherited instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, is most certainly not one of them. On the contrary, he stresses their importance ... as well as the anger (aka aggression) and the empathetic suffering (aka nurture) already quoted above he has this to say about desire and fear:

• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘I can assure you that when you have no *desire* you will be carried as a corpse to the burial ground’. (...) If *desire* dies, you die. The black van comes and carts you away, that’s it!’ [emphasis added]. (from Chapters Three and Four, ‘Mind Is A Myth’; Published by: Dinesh Publications, Goa, 403 101 INDIA. 1988; www.well.com/user/jct/cover.html).

And:

• [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti]: ‘... *fear* is essential for the protection of the human organism – it is very important. The physical organism knows what to do in a particular situation, so you don’t have to think about it’. [emphasis added]. (from Part Four, ‘The Mystique Of Enlightenment’; Second Edition; Published by: Akshaya Publications, Bangalore, INDIA. 1992; www.well.com/user/jct/moetitle.htm).

Lastly, and because he says in that latter quote ‘you don’t have to think about it’, this next quote goes some way towards demonstrating what he means by ‘you’ in that sentence. Vis.:

• Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti: ‘If there is no thinker, there are no thoughts at all. You cannot say there is only thought and there is no thinker. (from Chapter One, ‘Thought Is Your Enemy’; published by Sowmya Publishers; 31, Ahmed Sait Road, Fraser Town, Bangalore 560 005 (Second Edition 1991); www.well.com/user/jct/enemy0.htm).

This one is a doozie:

• Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti: ‘Human thinking is born out of some sort of neurological defect in the human body. (from Chapter One, ‘Thought Is Your Enemy’; published by Sowmya Publishers; 31, Ahmed Sait Road, Fraser Town, Bangalore 560 005 (Second Edition 1991); www.well.com/user/jct/enemy0.htm).

In effect he is saying that, as thought itself is the problem, all you have to do live your life in a thoughtless state ... and the instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, will take care of everything else.

RESPONDENT: You have said that UGK has come the closest to what you report; then what condition is he in?

RICHARD: Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti is in a rather odd position inasmuch his words do indicate a dichotomous nature (sometimes he speaks materialistically and at other times he speaks spiritualistically) yet, whilst denying/ decrying much of what spirituality has to offer, he is still basically spiritual.

I read all that is on offer by him and by others associated with him when I first came on the internet in 1997 with rapidly diminishing interest. Something fundamental had happened to him that I could 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.

Of course, I am in accord with his oft-repeated statements about 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 at 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 an apperceptive human being; to be able to fully appreciate the infinitude of this physical universe by being alive as this flesh and blood body ... and so on.

In fact he called what happened to him a ‘calamity’ ... and has this to say about his ‘natural state’:

• Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti: ‘Do not translate what I am saying here as ‘bliss’, ‘beatitude’, or ‘enlightenment’. It is actually a frightening, bewildering situation’. (from Chapter Six, ‘Mind Is A Myth’; Published by: Dinesh Publications, Goa, 403 101 INDIA. 1988; www.well.com/user/jct/cover.html).

RESPONDENT: Virtual freedom?

RICHARD: No.

RESPONDENT: He says there is no self, spirit, soul or mind. And if he is not in actual freedom, what is left there? From the U.G. book: ‘Thought is Your Enemy’:

U.G.: There is no self, there is no I, there is no spirit, there is no soul, and there is no mind. That knocks off the whole list, and you have no way of finding out what you are left with. You may very well ask me the question, ‘Why do you go on telling people about the way you are functioning?’ It is only to emphasize that we have been for centuries using some instrument, that is, thinking or mind, or whatever you want to call it, to free ourselves from the whole of what you call the ‘I’ or the ‘self’, and all kinds of things. That is what the whole quest of spirit is all about. But once it dawns on you that there is nothing to be free from, then these questions don’t arise at all. How that dawned on me, I have no way of finding out for myself.
Q: Ordinary human beings like me would like to know if you could find answers for us.
U.G.: The answers I give are only to emphasize that what we are left with is the functioning of the living organism. How it is functioning is all that I am trying to put across, emphasize, and overemphasize all the time. My interest is to somehow make you see that the whole attempt on your part to understand what you are left with is a lost battle.
Q: What you are trying to say is that there is only the physical body and nothing else. Is that it?
U.G.: Even that statement cannot be experienced by what is left there. When once the whole thing is flushed out of your system, the statement – ‘We are left with only the physical body and the universe’ – that statement also cannot stand any more’. [endquote].

Richard, is that correct, that ‘that statement also cannot stand any more’?

RICHARD: For him ... yes. Vis.:

• Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti: ‘There is no such thing as a direct sense-experience’. (from Chapter 11,’U.G. Krishnamurti: A Life’, copyright Mahesh Bhatt, published as a Viking book by Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., 1992; www.well.com/user/jct/ugbio/ugbtitle.htm).

RESPONDENT: Is that at odds with your statement that ‘I am the universe experiencing itself as a human being’?

RICHARD: It is indeed.

RESPONDENT: You sound like you’ve read a lot of U.G. Krishnamurti, the famous debunker of J. Krishnamurti. Perhaps not.

RICHARD: 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.

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 at 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.

RESPONDENT: Richard, a question came to me this evening while watching a video of U.G. Krishnamurti. He stated that for him, perception has no ‘depth’. In some sense, everything seen is ‘flat’. This seems to relate specifically to his claim that ‘thought’ is what gives rise to ‘self’. The reason I say this is that it seems that he is saying that his perception has had any mental content stripped away – some sort of pure perception. Of course, I know your position differs with his account on this.

If I’m correct that your experience is drastically different from U.G.’s in this respect ... do you have any idea at all what might have happened to U.G. that at least partially nullified the working of thought, meaning, mind, etc in his ‘experience?’ Whatever it was seems to be repeated to some degree in Bernadette Roberts.

RICHARD: First and foremost: as the physical world is a three-dimensional world, as evidenced by bodily locomotion, three-dimensional perception (stereoscopic vision) is in accord with actuality – whereas two-dimensional perception (flat vision) is not – and even a blind person knows that a tree is round by running their hands around it (perceiving tactually rather than visually).

One way to comprehend what flat vision is like is to cover one eye and observe what happens when stereoscopic vision is no longer operating ... which is a device I learned at art college when beginning to draw and paint and initially had difficulty in transcribing the three-dimensionality of objects in the physical world into the two-dimensionality of objects in the representational world of paper or canvas. It will be seen that the depth of stereoscopic vision (depth of field) vanishes and everything is reduced to overlapping two-dimensional planes (as on paper or canvas) with size (near or distant) and chiaroscuro (light and shadow) and distinction (clear or hazy) being the main characteristics of one-eyed visual depth.

As to why the people you refer to see the world in a one-eyed way I could speculate that it may be nothing more than an involuntary outcome of dissociation: as the physical world is unreal to a dissociated mind (Mr Uppaluri Krishnamurti claims that thought creates time and space and matter) the resultant object estrangement can render everything two-dimensional visually – in a cardboard cut-out dream-like way – even though such a person still behaves in a three-dimensional manner (such as walking around in their visually flat world) ... which should bodily demonstrate to them that their vision is playing tricks upon them. And I only say this because I can recall seeing everything in a cardboard cut-out dream-like way myself, when in a solipsistic state many years ago, where everything was as if it were stage-prop scenery ... as in painted back-drops.

Locomotion soon disabused me of this notion, however.

I would suggest taking Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti’s ruminations on the subject of visual perception (as in a flat perception somehow being a pure perception) with a grain of salt ... as I would suggest doing with virtually all his explanations. For example, as he claims that thought creates the tree referred to (a tree is matter located in space and existing in time) it follows that when thought is not operating there would be no tree at all – a non-dimensional tree as it were – yet it turns out that there is a tree after all ... albeit a two-dimensional tree.

O what a tangled web they weave when first they practice to deceive.

Put simply: stereoscopic vision has nothing to with whether there is an identity present inside the body or not and has everything to do with two side-by-side eyes x-distance apart being able to converge on the same thing simultaneously – in contrast to those animals with eyes on either side of their head being unable to converge – which provides for depth of field vision. This is born out by aerial mapping where two cameras mounted under each wing provide photographs in relief as contrasted to a single camera providing photographs without relief.

Lastly, my experience is that, irregardless of whether thought is happening or not, stereoscopic vision operates anyway.

KONRAD: This brings me to U.G. U.G. did not have ‘the process’. Something else has happened to him. He has taken over the ‘Self’ of J. Krishnamurti. Not only that, he has brought it to its logical extreme and final conclusion, something J. Krishnamurti did not do, because he could, from ‘the process’ see the functioning of his ‘Self’. J. Krishnamurti restricted his ‘actions’ to the description of that what was happening inside of him. In other words, although you can take the descriptions of J. Krishnamurti, and change them into an ideology, this is not what J. Krishnamurti did. But U.G., not being ‘hindered’ by a process, went to a conversion, and his ‘Self’ became identical with that of J. Krishnamurti, but then without ‘the process’ being part of it.

I found this interesting, although I know that you will not ‘accept anything’ of what I say here. Therefore this is an exercise in futility.

RICHARD: You should find the following quotes self-explanatory:

• [Mr. Mohan Rajneesh]: ‘... since that night [the night of his enlightenment] I have never been in the body. I am hovering around it. (...) I have never been in the body again, I am just hovering around the body’. (‘The Discipline of Transcendence’, Vol 2, Chapter 1: Spiritual Enlightenment).
• [Mr. Mohan Rajneesh]: ‘... you will become just a spirit that is hovering. Your body will be left far behind; you will have forgotten it completely. It will be no more. You will not be part of the material world, you will have become immaterial’. (‘Vigyan Bhairav Tantra’, Vol 1, Chapter 2: Surrendering to a Master).

• Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti: ‘Time and space, apart from the ideas of ‘time’ and ‘space’, do not exist at all’. (from Chapter Six, ‘Mind Is A Myth’; Published by: Dinesh Publications, Goa, 403 101 INDIA. 1988).
• Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti: ‘There is no such thing as a direct sense-experience’. (from Chapter 11,‘U.G. Krishnamurti: A Life’, copyright Mahesh Bhatt, published as a Viking book by Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., 1992).

• [Richard]: ‘It is the belief in ‘me’, the identity as Self or Soul or Spirit, as being what I actually am which is at fault. I am not an identity ... I am me as this flesh and blood body only’. (Article 10,‘I am not an identity ... I am me’; page 72, ‘Richard’s Journal’ © The Actual Freedom Trust 1997).
• [Richard]: ‘The rudimentary self, transformed into an identity, must be extinguished in order for one to be here, in this actual world of the senses, bereft of this pernicious entity ... as this flesh and blood body only I am living in the paradisiacal garden that this verdant planet earth is’. (Article 35, ‘This actual world is an ambrosial paradise’; page 234, ‘Richard’s Journal’ © The Actual Freedom Trust 1997).

Comparing me to either Mr. Mohan Rajneesh or Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti is indeed an exercise in futility.

*

I provided the quotes because you had first likened me to Mr. Mohan Rajneesh and then to Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti in your original e-mail: the quotes from Mr. Mohan Rajneesh clearly show that for him he was a spiritual entity (‘a spirit’) hovering around the body whereas the quotes from me clearly show that I am this flesh and blood body only ... and the quotes from Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti clearly show that for him flesh and blood bodies do not exist (apart from ideas that they do). Here is another one that unambiguously drives the point home:

• Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti: ‘Thought also creates matter; no thought, no matter’. (from Chapter Five, ‘Mind Is A Myth’; Published by: Dinesh Publications, Goa, 403 101 India. 1988).

Basically he is saying that time and space and matter (hence flesh and blood bodies) are the product of thought and/or ideas. This, and  Mr. Mohan Rajneesh’s depiction of himself as being a spiritual entity hovering around the body, is why I said that comparing me to either Mr. Mohan Rajneesh or Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti was indeed an exercise in futility ... but your response shows that you are apparently unable to grasp this simple fact and instead choose to introduce all manner of things extraneous to the subject at hand and wax eloquent about them as if it were meaningful to do so.

Of course, if you wish to continue to invent things about me – and then criticise your own inventions as if you are in fact criticising me – then that is your business.

I would like to make it clear, however, that I decline to be drawn into your fantasy world.

KONRAD: Richard, you say: ‘Basically he [Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti] is saying that time and space and matter (hence flesh and blood bodies) are the product of thought and/or ideas’.

I ignored this, because an analysis of this statement would require a deep understanding of how, exactly, ideas and reality are related. To mention just a few problems. How, exactly, is it possible that mathematics gives us the ability to make computers, houses, bridges, planes etc? These are questions you do not ask yourself, because you are not a mathematician and physics professional, as I am. So any response of me would be beyond your ability to grasp. <snip>

RICHARD: Regarding what you have to say about Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti: as palaeontology evidences that time and space and matter existed long before human beings arrived on the scene one does not have to be a genius to suss out that Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti is being solipsistic (which is typical of eastern spirituality in general) when he says that time and space and matter are the product of thought and/or ideas.

It is extremely self-centred for a person to say that their thoughts and ideas create the world of this body and that body and every body; the world of the mountains and the streams; the world of the trees and the flowers; the world of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum. So Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti denies that they are his thoughts and/or ideas and says that they come from a thought-sphere (which thought-sphere can only be located outside of time and space and matter since he says that thoughts and/or ideas create time and space and matter). Vis.:

• Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti: ‘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’. (from Chapter Three, ‘Mind Is A Myth’; Published by: Dinesh Publications, Goa, 403 101 India. 1988).

As it is typical of eastern spirituality in general to propose that the world is a thought and/or an idea in the mind of a god it is indeed an exercise in futility to liken me to Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti.

RESPONDENT: Richard, you remind me of U.G. Krishnamurti in many ways (note: not J. Krishnamurti). You’re not a disciple of his by any chance?

RICHARD: No, I am not a disciple of Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti ... I only came across him a couple of months ago via your article about him. I had typed ‘Atheist’ into a search engine (I am new to computers and the Internet – only started this year) and, among other titles, the ‘Atheist Society Newsletter’ came up. This led me to your article and thus to this mailing list. Along the way I accessed the Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti page 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. Of course, I am in accord with his oft-repeated statements about Spiritual Enlightenment, 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 at 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 infinite nature of being alive ... and so on. In short, what I read sounded existentialist and nihilistic and negative.

Since this E-Mail of yours arrived in my Mailer, I asked around among my friends for any videos of him and I was able to watch three of them last night. I stopped watching half-way through the third one as I had had enough and it was getting late. He acknowledges that there are still emotions ... but that it is the body that is having them ... fear and anger were two that I heard him say. I can not relate to this at all. 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 on his own in it. I would guess – and this is only my opinion – that the reason that he goes around the world talking to people is that he can thus experience himself as being alive by the feed-back ... and maybe because he has nothing else to do with his life.

In a way it is all a bit dismal.

RESPONDENT: Like you, U.G. Krishnamurti did the following things: (1) He claims he underwent a transformation experience, which even changed his cellular structure, during which he totally lost his ‘self’. From that moment on, he claims, he lived in total perfection, without any kind of ego at all.

RICHARD: Yes, I have totally lost ‘self’ – ego, soul, spirit, atman, skandhas, Self, whatever ... plus any sense of identity at all. Without an ‘I’ there is no past or future – nor a present, which was but a psychological reality sandwiched betwixt the two. That leaves this moment in time bare of any periodicity. It is always this moment: it is never not this moment ... and the perfection of the infinity of the universe is apparent only at this moment. Thus I am ‘living in total perfection’ as is stated by Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti. I do not claim a change in cellular structure, although there was a physiological – that is, structural – change in the brain-stem, just under the base of the brain. With the aid of my extensive medical reading after the event, I propose that this change, which I experienced as a physical ‘turning over’, happened in what is known as the Substantia Nigra – held by some to be the organ of consciousness – which is located in the Reticular Activating System. However I am willing to be wrong in this as the emotions and passions disappeared also, which scientific research suggests being located in what is popularly known as the ‘Lizard Brain’.

RESPONDENT: (2) He dismisses all the wise men and gurus of history as total frauds, claiming they were little more than snake-oil salesmen.

RICHARD: I have been known to use the expression ‘snake-oil’ ... it is irresistible as it is so expressive! However, when questioned sincerely, I say they were well-meaning but misguided ... which is the facts of the matter. Thus I never say they were total frauds, but victims of the culture that nurtured them ... except those that are total frauds, like Mr. Sai Baba.

RESPONDENT: (3) He lived with a female companion for many years (and possibly still does) yet claimed he was totally unattached to her. I don’t know if ever experimented in group sex, but no doubt he would have been above it all if he had.

RICHARD: He did, but he does not any more as she is dead now. I have no idea about his ‘group sex’ but on one of the videos he said that he had not had sex for the last seventeen years as ‘Sex is pleasure’ and that he ‘Wouldn’t use another person for gratification’. I thoroughly enjoy physical – sensual – pleasure and mutual pleasure is a delight. We ‘use’ each other by agreement ... after all, our parts fit together so well ... and so deliciously.

RESPONDENT: (4) He too stood on his soap-box and preached against the preachers. He taught that he had nothing to teach and that all teachers were charlatans. Unfortunately, he was happy enough to have disciples looking after him.

RICHARD: I do not experience myself as ‘standing on a soap-box preaching against the preachers’ . The way I see it I wrote elsewhere: ‘We are all fellow human beings who find ourselves here in the world as it was when we were born. We find war, murder, torture, rape, domestic violence and corruption to be endemic ... we notice that it is intrinsic to the human condition ... we set out to discover why this is so. We find sadness, loneliness, sorrow, grief, depression and suicide to be a global incidence ... and we gather that it is also inherent to the human condition ... and we want to know why. We all report to each other as to the nature of our discoveries for we are all well-meaning and seek to find a way out of this mess that we have landed in. Whether one believes in re-incarnation or not, we are all living this particular life for the very first time, and we wish to make sense of it. It is a challenge and the adventure of a life-time to enquire and to uncover, to seek and to find, to explore and to discover. All this being alive business is actually happening and we are totally involved in living it out ... whether we take the back seat or not, we are all still doing it’.

No disciples are looking after me ... I have a hard-won pension to meet my few needs.

RESPONDENT: To my mind, the most revealing thing about U.G. Krishnamurti, and about you, is his broad-sweeping dismissal of all the great sages of the past. When a person attains to true wisdom, he can readily recognise the wisdom of others. Jesus, Hakuin, Kierkegaard, Lao Tzu, and a good many others, embodied the highest wisdom to a very large degree and this is reflected in many of the writings which were either from their own hand or which were about their own lives. To simply dismiss them all as a bunch of frauds indicates a deep insecurity and a desperate need to validate the significance of one’s ‘I’.

RICHARD: ‘When a person attains to true wisdom, he can readily recognise the wisdom of others.’ Right on! I do not claim ‘True Wisdom’ ... I am only interested in facts and actuality. I have not discovered ‘The Truth’ (which is where ‘true wisdom’ comes out of), therefore, of course I do not give any credence to the wisdom of others at all. To me, ‘The Truth’ is but a fantasy spun out of a delusion born out of an illusion. Therefore any ‘True Wisdom’ is spurious and detrimental to the well-being of humankind. It is why there is so much warfare that is religiously and spiritually based.

I cannot agree with your diagnosis that I am suffering from ‘a deep insecurity and a desperate need to validate the significance of one’s ‘I’. Anyone can find out about security and insecurity, as an actuality, by triggering off a peak experience. I have written elsewhere: ‘When one learns the trick of having peak experiences, what one discovers, time and again, is that the personal boundaries that ‘I’, the psychological entity, feel so safely protected by, are made up of ‘my’ accrued beliefs as to who ‘I’ am. This is ‘my’ outline, as it were, shaped by other people’s description of ‘me’ – a construct which gives ‘me’ asylum in each different group into which ‘I’ wish to enter. Yet the outline of this construct creates, simultaneously, an enormous distance between ‘me’ and the world outside. At those times of peak experience, the distance disappears all of a sudden as ‘I’ vanish and this world is right here, so close that there is no distance any more. This is closer than any intimacy ‘I’ have ever longed for. This is a direct experience of actuality ... and I have always been here like this ... so safely here. The outline, the boundary that created the distance, was all in ‘my’ reality. ‘I’ created a substitute security for this original safety – a safety which has never known any threat, nor ever will. This genuine safety has no need for precautions’.

As any ‘I’ whatsoever has entirely vanished, I hardly see how I could have a ‘desperate need to validate the significance of one’s ‘I’.’ How on earth would going public with a statement like ‘There is no ‘I’ whatsoever in this body’ validate one’s ‘I’? I am saying: I am not ‘only ‘human’’, I am the perfection of the stillness of infinitude personified. I know, from personal experience, that it is possible to change ... and change radically, fundamentally, completely and utterly. I have been without an ego since 1981 and without a soul since 1992. So I know what I talk of: it is not theoretical idealism ... actual freedom is no ‘pie in the sky’. It is possible for one human being to state, honestly and factually, that perfection is not only highly desirable but it is essential. This is not an idle claim, nor is it a vain boast ... who would be so silly as to do such a thing? I would be found out in a very short time and exposed for being a stupid charlatan. I consider it would, rather, invalidate ‘one’s ‘I’’, would it not?

It is impossible to fake perfection, for my behaviour, my attitude, my responses, my general demeanour, is impeccable at all times, both easy and trying. I do not have a ‘dark side’ ... nor do I have a ‘good side’. There is no battle betwixt ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ raging inside this body, for there is simply purity abounding in all directions. The ego that died all those years ago has never reappeared and the extirpation of the soul that persisted for another eleven years after that event, made the extinction of the identity final. I have never been here before, I am perpetually new. I appear as this moment appears. As each moment is fresh, new, so too am I novel, artless and innocent. I can never gather dust, as it were, for I cast no shadow. I have no ‘presence’, no ‘being’, no ‘spirit’. I do not exist, psychologically or psychically speaking. With no entities within to mess things up, I am actually living pure perfection through no effort at all. I can take no credit for my unimpeachable character, it all happens of itself as the universe intends it to.

RICHARD: What is the adhesive, the bonding agent, which is innate in both the 0 year-old ‘me’ and the 45 year-old ‘me’ that these events latch on to?

RESPONDENT: My existence, my being. I have existed for 45 years, I exist now, will exist for another xxx years. And that’s the summum-bonum of existence. The most that I can do to make my own existence painless is the best that I can do for anyone. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – that anyone can do for anyone else.

RICHARD: May I ask? Why are you writing to this Mailing List and not to one set up under the aegis of Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti?

RESPONDENT: I don’t even know about a Mailing List of UK. Can a person speak only certain kinds of truths on this list? That would be kind of devotional, isn’t it?

RICHARD: Yes ... I agree completely: that was an ill-considered response of mine. Because I certainly do appreciate this Mailing List for its openness to any aspect of any topic related to human suffering. And, as I was wanting to convey that your ‘there is nothing – absolutely nothing – that anyone can do for anyone else’ ... um ... ‘truth’ is the same-same wisdom that Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti proposes I would have been much better off writing something like: ‘have you been reading Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti lately’?

As for a ‘Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti Mailing List’, I wandered to the official Web Page just now to see what I could find ... and found the following:

• Question: ‘You are ruthlessly condemning whatever people have said so far. You may, in time, also be condemned and blasted for what you are saying’.

• Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti: ‘If you have the guts, I will be the very first to salute you. But you must not rely on your holy books – the Bhagavad Gita or Upanishads. You must challenge what I am saying without the help of your so-called authorities. You just don’t have the guts to do that because you are relying upon the Gita, not upon yourself. That is why you will never be able to do it. If you have that courage, you are the only person who can falsify what I am saying. A great sage like Gowdapada can do it, but he is not here. You are merely repeating what Gowdapada and others have said. It is a worthless statement as far as you are concerned. If there were a living Gowdapada sitting here, he would be able to blast what I am saying, but not you. So don’t escape into meaningless generalisations. You must have the guts to disprove what I am saying on your own. What I am saying must be false for you. You can only agree or disagree with what I am saying according to what some joker has told you. That is not the way to go about it’. (from Chapter Four, ‘Mind Is A Myth’; Published by: Dinesh Publications, Goa, 403 101 INDIA. 1988: www.well.com/user/jct/cover.html).

• A NOTE ON CORRESPONDENCE: U.G. thinks that in these pages he has said what he has to say and the reader is not in a position to either agree or disagree with what he says. For that reason, no correspondence will be entertained on this site. (www.well.com/user/jct/index.html).

Thus any discussion forum would not get of the ground even ... I see that ‘the reader is not in a position to either agree or disagree with what he says’ .

RESPONDENT: I am growing weary of the research involved to continue U.G. discussion – so I would just like to summarize my conclusions. I don’t think U.G. can be easily assumed to be ‘spiritual.’ On the issue of the existence of a ‘thought sphere’ and ‘space,’ ‘time,’ and ‘matter,’ he is either contradictory, ambiguous, nonsensical, or plain wrong.

Richard’s experience seems to contradict U.G.’s central thesis that ‘direct sense experience’ is impossible. This stipulation by U.G. that all ‘experience’ involves thought and knowledge seems untenable.

There are many other indicators that other than the disappearance of the psyche, Richard’s and U.G.’s state may be worlds apart.

RICHARD: Yes, 180 degrees in the opposite direction in fact ... Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti has it that nothing exists outside of his mind (consciousness gives rise to the universe) whereas the on-going experiencing for this flesh and blood body is that the mind does not exist outside of time and space and matter (the universe gives rise to consciousness).

The actualism method (‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’) is a method specifically designed to bring about a direct experience of the actual ... the question is asked, each moment again, until it becomes an automatic approach to life or a wordless attitude to living. Initially it will be seen that how one is experiencing this moment is usually via a feeling or a belief (sometimes cunningly disguised as a ‘truth’) – and a belief is an emotion-backed thought anyway – thus effectively blocking the ‘direct sense experience’. And for as long as one is experiencing this moment through a feeling – no matter how deep or profound the feeling may be – one is cutting oneself off from the splendour of the actual.

There is an unimaginable and inconceivable purity right here at this place in infinite space just now at this moment in eternal time which far exceeds the most deepest, the most profound feeling of beauty (or love) – the actual is magnificent beyond ‘my’ wildest dreams and schemes – and this moment and this place is an ever-present ‘jumping-in’ point, as it were ... however it does mean the end of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself).

This is because ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings’ are ‘me’.

RICHARD: Perhaps the following dialogue might throw some light on the relevance of the quote that started this thread for anyone who would like to begin a genuine discussion – a discussion free of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s influence – for the very first time.

[quote] Q: That thing that has to be discovered each by himself is God or enlightenment, is it not?
[quote] U.G.: No. God is the ultimate pleasure, uninterrupted happiness. No such thing exists. Your wanting something that does not exist is the root of your problem. Transformation, Moksha, Liberation, and all that stuff are just variations on the same theme: permanent happiness. The body cannot take that. The pleasure of sex, for instance, is by nature temporary. The body can’t take uninterrupted pleasure for long, it would be destroyed. Wanting to impose a fictitious, permanent state of happiness on the body is a serious neurological problem.
[quote] Q: But the religions warn against pleasure-seeking. Through prayer, meditation, and various practices one is encouraged to transcend mere pleasure.
[quote] U.G.: They sell you spiritual pathedrins, spiritual morphine. You take that drug and go to sleep. Now the scientists have perfected pleasure drugs, it is much easier to take. It never strikes you that the enlightenment and God you are after is just the ultimate pleasure, a pleasure moreover, which you have invented to be free from the painful state you are always in. Your painful, neurotic state is caused by wanting two contradictory things at the same time’. (‘Mind is a Myth’. (Disquieting Conversations with the Man called U.G.) Edited talks between U.G. Krishnamurti and various questioners in India, Switzerland and California in 1983 and 1984).

RESPONDENT: The interesting thing about U.G. is that Krishnamurti was the centre of most of U.G.’s adult life. Far from being ‘free of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s influence’ his entire position seems to be a rather extreme reaction to ‘Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s influence’.

RICHARD: And so pontificates No. 5 ... I never said he was ‘free of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s influence’ ... you just assumed that I did. I basically said that if you lot could see in the following dialogue ‘the relevance of the quote that started this thread’, then it might be possible ‘for anyone who would like to begin a genuine discussion – a discussion free of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s influence – for the very first time’ to have one.

Apparently not, as you still do not get it ... even when something is pointed out.

RESPONDENT: One item of guru gossip (to be taken with a massive chunk of salt) is that U.G. embarked on his odd quasi-guru ship after Krishnamurti refused to acknowledge U.G.’s self-assessed enlightened state. Apparently U.G. had in mind to be K’s designated successor in a typical Indian-style lineage and Krishnamurti would have none of it. U.G.’s adherents (two of them were on the list for a short while a couple of years back) tend to be a rather morose and unpleasant lot, that much I do remember. You’ve picked one of his more coherent assertions, one that doesn’t in essence actually contradict Krishnamurti

RICHARD: I am sure that, by now, even you are beginning to become dimly aware that I did not pick the Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti quote – I am about as enamoured of his pronouncements as I am of those of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti – but that No. 14 did the picking. I was simply correcting an error.

RESPONDENT: Are not normal, abnormal, and ?????? simply different states of the same thing?

RICHARD: No ... thus far in human history one has had only two choices: being human (normal) or being divine (abnormal). Now there is a third alternative ... and it outstrips any altered state of consciousness.

RESPONDENT: Your words imply that no one before you has accomplished what you have done.

RICHARD: No one else, as far as I have been able to ascertain in eighteen years of scouring the books and travelling overseas, has accomplished what I have done. The only person who comes close is Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti whom I found out about last year when I first came onto the Internet. 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.