U. G. Krishnamurti
| Date of Birth | : | 09 Jul, 1918 |
| Date of Death | : | 22 Mar, 2007 |
| Place of Birth | : | Machilipatnam, India |
| Profession | : | Author, Philosopher |
| Nationality | : | Indian |
Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti was a philosopher who questioned the state of spiritual liberation. Having pursued a religious path in his youth and eventually rejecting it, U.G. claimed to have experienced a devastating biological transformation on his 49th birthday, an event he refers to as "the calamity".
Biography
Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti, famous around the world as simply U. G Krishnamurti, gave the world a unique perspective about enlightenment. According to Krishnamurti, there is no such thing as philosophical enlightenment. There are no philosophical questions to be asked and no intellectual answers to be given to those questions.
This enlightenment-negating thinker was born in India, on July 9, 1918. For him, the concept of seeking the ultimate truth is absurd, as he thinks there is nothing to seek. Nature will provide individuals with the solutions of all their problems; one just needs to embrace it in its entirety.
Many people also tried to regard him amongst the ‘enlightened ones’, but he insisted that he simply exists in what he called the ‘natural state’. For him, the puzzling notions and ideas that people involve themselves into in the name of enlightenment are the only hindrance between them and being enlightened-if there is such a thing.
For Krishnamurti, the need to constantly change, to evolve, is not just impossible, but also a futile exercise. He emphasized on the body and the soul being perfect the way they are. To try to alter bodily actions is considered by him as a breach in the purity, peace and harmony of the body.
His concept of the mind and the psyche is only one of a kind. He believed that the psyche, or the mind, does not exist as a being, but rather it is a demand of the self to bring about a change in this world, or in itself. Self-consciousness for Krishnamurthi is a fascist force, one which only emphasizes on its own importance.
According to Krishnamurti, the business of gurus and spiritual healers is booming because of people who are in search of answers to their pseudo questions of enlightenment and salvation. The quest for these answers is instilled into them through an artificially created cultural environment. The culture demands from people to conform while at the same time it asks them to be unique and special in their own way, infusing in people a constant need for so-called enlightenment which would bring out their exclusive character. The gurus take advantage of this situation and promise of a way towards salvation, a journey by the end of which the puzzled individual will find answers to all his spiritual questions, leading him to the ultimate truth.
For him, the goal of enlightenment is unapproachable, and self realization is futile, because there are no goals and there is nothing to discover in the self. Whatever is happening in the world is just happening; there are no divine interventions and spiritual, mysterious connections behind the happenings of the world. He liked to call himself ‘unrational’, as he totally negated the idea of employing rationality to answer questions of enlightenment. He believed that humans are too busy trying to find the meaning behind things when there is none to be found.
With his talks and words, he tried to wipe off from the minds of his followers previous concepts and cherished truths of history and society. He asked them to start anew, forgetting what has been taught to them all their lives. He denied the existence of spirituality in India, or of communism in Russia, or liberty in America. Instead, he asked his fellows to relate nothing to nowhere.
Death
U.G. Krishnamurti died on March 22, 2007. All his life he worked towards completely erasing of the idea of questioning ones’ self, so that nothing stays behind but a smoothly operational biological mechanism, working with all its natural harmony and balance.
Quotes
There is no such thing as permanence at all. Everything is constantly changing. Everything is in a flux. Because you cannot face the impermanence of all relationships, you invent sentiments, romance, and dramatic emotions to give them certainty. Therefore you are always in conflict.
There is no power outside of man. Man has created God out of fear. So the problem is fear and not God.
What is there to understand? The significance of life? How long will it take to understand the significance and the meaning of life? 20 years? 30 years? And the same question will be here in another 20 years, I guarantee you. Until you stop asking that question. When that question is not there, you are there. So that's the reason why you keep asking the question: you do not want the question to come to an end. When that comes to an end, there will not be anybody, left there, to find out the meaning, the purpose and the significance of life.
Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform. It is grotesque.
All I can guarantee you is that as long as you are searching for happiness, you will remain unhappy.
The body is a fortuitous concourse of atoms. There is no death for the body, only an exchange of atoms. Their changing places and taking different forms is what we call 'death.' It's a process which restores the energy level in nature that has gone down. In reality, nothing is born and nothing is dead.
Charity is the filthiest invention of the human mind: first you steal what belongs to everyone; then you use the law and various other means to protect it. You give charity to prevent the have-nots from rebelling against you. It also makes you feel less guilty. All do-gooders feel 'high' when they do good.
I have searched everywhere to find an answer to my question, 'Is there enlightenment?' but have never questioned the search itself. Because I have assumed that goal of enlightenment exists, I have had to search. It is the search itself which has been choking me and keeping me out of my natural state. There is no such thing as spiritual or psychological enlightenment because there is no such thing as spirit or psyche at all. I have been a damn fool all my life, searching for something which does not exist. My search is at an end.
All your experiences, all your meditations, all your prayer, all that you do, is self-centred. It is strengthening the self, adding momentum, gathering momentum, so it is taking you in the opposite direction. Whatever you do to be free from the self also is a self-centred activity.
*Only if you reject all the other paths can you discover your own path.
