U.G. Krishnamurti 1918-2007

Discussion in 'Eastern Philosophy' started by spidergoat, May 22, 2007.

  1. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    UG did not show the slightest signs of worry or fear about death or concern for his body even at the end of his life. He did not leave any specific instructions as to how to dispose of his dead body. ‘You can throw it on the garbage heap, as far as I am concerned,’ he often would say.

    Responding to questions on death, UG said, ‘Life and death cannot be separated. When what you call clinical death takes place, the body breaks itself into its constituent elements and that provides the basis for the continuity of life. In that sense the body is immortal.’

    ‘After I am dead and gone, nothing of me must remain inside of you or outside of you. I can certainly do a lot to see that no establishment or institution of any kind mushrooms around me whilst I am alive. But how do I stop all you guys from enshrining me in your brains?’
     
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  3. darksidZz Valued Senior Member

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    He was a brilliant man, I am sorry

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    Do you think he could've told me how to find a gf?
     
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    U.G. is notorious for his response to the 60's slogan "Make love, not War". He retorts that making love is war! For U.G., love-making and war-making spring from the same source, the separative structure of thought. They both presuppose a division between the "self" and the "other". This is why U.G. does not take kindly to fashionable talk about "loving relationships". He points out that the search for relationships of any kind springs from a sense of isolation, an isolation created by the separative thought structure. What one wants is to fill the emptiness or void with someone. It is a process of self-fulfillment, self-gratification. But we are not honest enough to acknowledge this sordid truth. Instead, we invent fictions like "love" and "care" to deceive ourselves about the whole affair. When these fictions are blown away, what remains expresses itself in its own way. Then there may not be "others" to love or to be loved by.

    http://www.well.com/user/jct/
     
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  7. Light Travelling It's a girl O lord in a flatbed Ford Registered Senior Member

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    I was not familiar with him, in fact I was thinking of J. Krishnamurti at first but I have now had a read up on him on the net. It sounds like he was quite a troubled man for most of his life, failing to complete a lot of what he started. He studied yoga and quit to go to university, he left that too before finishing, he also ended his marriage early. He also had and off on relationship with J. Krishnamurti.

    Certainly a very interesting man, no doubt he has spoken and found some truths in his later life, though I wouldn’t agree with a lot of what he says. (I guess he wouldn’t want me too either).

    To some of his quotes though;

    This sounds quite Buddhist, when it is said nirvana and samsara are one and the same… or sometimes two ends of the same cord.

    He also seems to be advocating a non-dual approach (which I would agree with).

    There seems to be a conflict here whilst he repeatedly states than one cannot learn enlightenment from another, he continued to teach people and give advice. If he really wanted “stop all you guys from enshrining me in your brains” he could have just disappeared and led a private life…?

    Again this reminds me of Buddhism. Did not Buddha as well say that the only person that could bring us to enlightenment was ourselves and that we should test all his teachings against our own experience before accepting them.

    Whereas certain Hindu schools insist that a guru is needed.


    I cant quit put my finger on why but I like this paragraph… I guess it has a ring of truth to it. (not quite so keen on the machine metaphor though).

    So I guess that even by posting his quotes and discussing them we are contradicting him?

    I would also say - Is there any staement in the world that has not been made before by someone else; if we could only speak truly original words we would spend 99% of our lives in silence.

    Any teacher that says “don’t follow what I taught” sets up a lose / lose situation for his students, as if they follow that statement they are doing what he said if they ignore it and follow what he said they still lose… there’s probably a lesson in that somewhere though.


    OK I know he wasn't strickly speaking a teacher - but he did still teach and advise people.


    Now this one is interesting because he is able to say that after years studying both in an ashram and in university and after attending countless talks and lectures. Now it is impossible for the guy to say that all of this has had no change on him. OK , it may not have brought enlightenment , but no change at all….. I don’t believe it. Lets say for instance he stayed at home, never studied, never read a book etc.. would he have still attained the enlightenment he claimed? or can we at least say he would have been a different person.



    He also talks of escaping culture a lot, maybe as he was heavily embedded in a Hindu culture; studied yoga, married a brahman woman, and a lot of his thoughts tend to be of more Buddhist nature. Maybe that’s why he had such inner conflict in his mid life.??
     
  8. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, but who cares, right? I'm not a follower, just an admirer of his words.

    From what I can see, that's the essence of the Zen "method", place the student in a mental bind until they realize thought cannot help them.

    What about all the other students? If only one of thousands experiences something profound, those aren't good odds. Who's to say if what he studied caused his experience, or if he only learned those things in order to be able to reject them? The Sixth Patriarch Hui Neung was an uneducated peasant.
     
  9. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    Sound like he was deceiving himself at the very least about what other people were doing. And then hoping to pass this on to others.

    I suppose he never ate food, since this would be reinforcing a separation between himself and nutrition, filling an emptiness inside himself.

    he also spent a tremendous amount of time talking: filling the empty air with a lot of very abstract verbiage. And he knew very well that he people who came to his lectures and read his books were seeking something, but he avoided disuading them of this.

    of course he implied and directly stated in many ways that he really had no existance, but we all know how such assertions can be a form of proud announcement and not one made less but being indirect. He certainly seemed to think that people should be listening to him and that he could judge their actions and desires and was superior to them. (though of course he did not state this latter superiority directly, leaving it implicit.)

    His reflection in the world aroudn this 'not caring' about death, is the tough guy, the alpha soldier (cop, criminal) who gets off on being superior to others through a ritualistic denial.

    I found him unimpressive and simply another - extremely verbal, mental - retake on a lot of Hindu and Buddhist ideas that are used to attack certain portions of the self: emotions, desires, etc.

    If he tried that crap out on the streets, talking to people in the thick of their pain and struggles and yearning and love and passion he would get his ass rightly kicked, eventually. Smug suggestions about disidentification go over well with certain portions of the population, but come off much uglier, or rather, it is easier to see the ugliness of them and the smugness when dealing with people in situ.

    Put a smart moron like Krisnamurti in a battered womens' shelter or a rumanian orphanage or a really hard pressed inner city environment and one of his juicy abstractions will find its just retort and he would learn to shut up. With those who are not so pressed his abstract verbiage is also damaging but can seem sort of cool and give one a new way to torture onself. First by trying to suck meanign out of many of his vaguenesses, second by learning to looking down on one's own feelings and desires (and those of others) as thing or people who just don't get it.

    But in the end his indifference leaves me indifferent.
     
  10. Light Travelling It's a girl O lord in a flatbed Ford Registered Senior Member

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    He did live in a harsh inner city environment. He spent a time homeless and peniless on the streets of London. Read his biography on wikipedia, even if you dont like him, it is interesting.

    I kind of get the same feeling in the end though
     
  11. Light Travelling It's a girl O lord in a flatbed Ford Registered Senior Member

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    Yea.... I think you are probably right there.
     
  12. Light Travelling It's a girl O lord in a flatbed Ford Registered Senior Member

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    I have a translation and commentary on the Diamond Sutra at home it is by Red Pine. His description of Hui Neng is a follows;

    “Hui neng sixth zen patriarch (638-713) and author of one of the most influential commentaries on the diamond sutra. It was upon first hearing this sutra that left home and upon hearing this sutra that he was later enlightened. Although often portrayed as illiterate, he was clearly well read. Most of his diamond sutra commentary has been translated into english by Thomas Cleary.”

    So I do not think he is appropriate to use as an example of how reading or hearing written works don’t change people in any way…
     
  13. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    My impression was that Hui Neung found realization upon overhearing a passage from the Diamond Sutra for the first time.

    Grantywanty, I have found his descriptions anything but abstract. As far as giving comfort to people in financial or other distress, the lies of Christianity do a good job of that, but how is that a measurement of truth? A nice shot of H would also do the trick. People prefer such things.

    UG has long recommended the only solution for such problems, the only thing appropriate, and that's...

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    Dollar dollar bill, y'all. Cash money. IS THAT CONCRETE ENOUGH?

    http://ugmoneymaxims.blogspot.com/
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2007
  14. Light Travelling It's a girl O lord in a flatbed Ford Registered Senior Member

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    Well, whether its the whole sutra, one passage or even two words. It still goes to show that people are changed by the words they read and hear..... no?
     
  15. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    The fucker lived up to 90. What would he worry about?
     
  16. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Sometimes, but with all the knowledge out there, why isn't the world a paradise?
     
  17. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    "If books and talks could change people, this world would become a paradise."
    U.G. Krishnamurti

    Lol, got ya!
     
  18. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    no offence spidergoat, you are right about that you know.
     
  19. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    On his death, I believe he was eaten.
     
  20. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I'm deeply offended at insinuations of my correctness.
     
  21. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    Then you are not correct? :bugeye:
     
  22. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Kidding.
     
  23. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    ditto
     

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