May 16, 1983

It’s impossible to define UG as such and such, or to put his teaching into a mold or fit it within a certain frame.  He is beyond our grasp.  You think you have a hold on him, but he slips away with ease.

As soon as you think “I understand him now,” there is another flash, another lightning or another manifestation quite contrary to what we think we have understood.  ‘Contrary’ doesn’t mean that he denies what he has said before. Rather, the boundaries [of our understanding], the frontiers keep expanding as we listen to him, watch him and absorb what he says in our minds.  Maybe that’s the nature of truth!

“Truth is not something static.  It’s movement.  Truth is a moving target,” says UG.

That’s why we can’t understand UG.  I hesitate to write anything [about him or his teaching] because I fear that after all these years of trying to understand him, I have only gotten tired, and that whatever I say, think or write would only be an insult to him.

I remember reading sometime ago in the Sivaparadha Sutra of a devotee, who, while singing the praise of God, enumerates all his transgressions. He wails: “I committed many unpardonable crimes against you, such as attributing a form to you whereas [in reality] you are formless, giving you a name whereas you are nameless, imagining you being in a specific place whereas you are omnipresent, and worshipping you whereas you are merely a witness.  How can you forgive me?” 

My situation with regard to UG is similar.  Once I look back, I feel that whatever I have written came just from my imagination. 

Rabindranath [Tagore] in one of his poems asks himself, “What is the meaning of the songs in Gitanjali?” and answers briefly, “What do I know about their meaning?  And who indeed knows their meaning?”

Nanduri [Subba Rao], who created an unimaginable empire of love, the vibrations of innocent and lovely hearts echoing in its poetic edifices, having given delicate form to two wonderful lovers, says philosophically:

            When anyone asks “Who is Enki?”

            I point to lights and shadows.

After I have written whatever I have to write, and said whatever I have to say, I feel like saying, “All these are thoughts that have occurred in my head after hearing UG and I wrote them down here.  If you happen to read all this, please don’t circumscribe what I have written here and say this is what UG is or what he says.  He is an eternal riddle.  If you find some answer to the riddle, the question will throw you into tangles and fly away.”

How beautifully Dhurjati has written [in Kalahastiswara Sataka]

            If truth were to be described

            Can poetry contain it?

            Shame on poets like me

            Oh! Lord of Sri Kalahasti!

I don’t even have the confidence which Potana shows when he says: “I shall clarify what I have seen, heard and learned from the wise ones...”

*                                  *                                  *

“I wish I could give you a feel of this...”

August 1, 1983

“I wish I could give you a feel of this.  Then you would never be interested in it.  You wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole,” UG says.  You can’t presume that these words are an exaggeration.  Perhaps they are true.  How could there be any experience when everything we have imagined about that state is turned upside down, when the mind itself disappears along with the image it has built, when our whole existence fizzles out like fog, when the endless flow of our experience comes to a grinding halt, when whatever we thought was unmoving starts trampling around, and when the snow peak of a mountain we approached admiring its beauty all of a sudden cracks down creating tremors in the earth and sky and flows as a stream?  Who can experience it?    When everything burns in that stream like firewood, when the notions of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ rise like sparks in the fire of time for a little while and merge back into that fire, when the inhaled and exhaled breath kindles that fire like air in the bellows, making its flames much brighter, when the series of electrical energy waves radiate with lightning speed vibrating each and every nerve -- who can imagine such a state?  Who can wish for such a state?  Is it some indescribable bliss?  Is it a group of waves in a limitless ocean of peace?  Oh my child, what are you thinking?  What are you imagining?  Are you still dreaming lying on your bed?  When the experience burns away like fuel in fire because there is no one who can recognize it as bliss, who remains to describe that experience, to relish it?  Who is there that thinks that he cannot bear the heat of the flames of that fire?  It wouldn’t leave you even if you don’t want it.  It won’t calm down until it reduces everything to ashes like a wildfire. 

*                                  *                                  *

Fixing one’s mind in meditation...

August 2,1983

My mind has been disappointed because it couldn’t stay in meditation.  In the past, I used to cringe the whole day saying, “Alas, I couldn’t fix my mind.  I have lost the grace of God.”  On the other hand, on days when the mind is able to meditate steadily, I would experience great peace and simple joy.  No matter what I was witnessing, eating or doing, I would be in some transcendental state, as if I was watching things from behind glass mirrors.  Then I would strive to repeat that state and enhance it.  With that endeavor my torture started.  The meditation wouldn’t happen and yet I couldn’t quit it.  What a great help UG gave me when he came into my life.  The first thing he did was to get me away from such childish nonsense. 

“Such amazing experiences are natural.  They come and they go.  You should remain as if you haven’t noticed them.  If you give them any importance, then they make you feel like wanting them again,” UG would say.

“Those who take drugs like LSD have even greater experiences.  Some have curious things happen to them -- they witness many wonderful scenes, visions and mandalas [mystical designs].  Those are all the effects of the chemical changes that occur in their brains.  More than that, there is nothing spiritual about them.  But because of those experiences, they fall into the illusion that they are achieving something spiritual and they sink themselves deeper into spiritual practice.

“As a matter of fact, in that state there won’t be anyone to experience anything.  You wouldn’t know whether you have thoughts or not, or what you are experiencing, or whether you are experiencing sorrow or bliss.

“Ultimately, even the experience of God is a worthless experience within the limitless consciousness.  No matter how great the experience is, it’s a contamination in that consciousness.

“Isn’t it foolish to strive to bring it into experience while saying at the same time that it is unreachable by mind or speech and that it is beyond experience?”  UG used to speak to me like this.

Then what must I do now?  When I asked UG this question three years ago in Goa, he said, “You don’t need to do anything.  Those who practice are not really in any higher state than you.”

Just do nothing.  I think it was said well in the Gita that, “atma-samstham manah krtva na kincid api cintayet [the mind should be fixed on the self alone and should think of nothing else].” Dedicate everything to the Lord of All in your heart; and surrender all your thoughts to Him, staying in the thinking, “I am not concerned.  I don’t exist; only you are everything” -- [it doesn’t matter] if there are or not any thoughts, if you are or are not happy, whether you are able to fix your mind in meditation or not. Who am I in the first place that I should do something?

If there is any practice that we can do, only the following seems possible:

            Yato-yato niscarati manascancalam asthiram
            Tatastat -niyamyai tad atmanyeva vasam nayet

[Whenever the unsteady and fickle mind wanders off somewhere, one should bring it back from there by restraint placing it under the control of oneself’.]

For the little while you sit, whenever your mind or thoughts wander off, you must bring them back to yourself and dedicate to them to the Lord of All.  That’s all I can do now.

The mind must come into meditation naturally.  It’s not a practice.  Does the Gayatri meditation happen due to my effort?  The japa indeed starts as though some force unknown to me pushes itself forward.  When I remain alone, even when I am meditating, some thoughts do indeed go on.

            Malato karame phire jib phiremukhamahim
            Manavato dasadasi phire yahto sumiran nahi

says Kabir. [Rosary keeps rotating in the hands/so does the tongue in the mouth (doing japa)/but the mind keeps wandering off in all the directions. /Surely, this is no meditation!] It’s literally true.  Still there is no other choice.  It’s not in my hands.  I don’t know when it [Gayathri japa] will stop.

*                                  *                                  *

UG’s Appearance

As I looked at UG’s photo, I wondered why his hair is so long.  Although not quite as long as the hair which actors in the drama companies grow, UG lets his hair grow down to his neck. “My ears are big.  The hair is helpful in hiding them,” he says when someone asks him why he has that hairstyle.  I don’t know if anyone has asked him, “Why should you hide your ears?  Why can’t they be seen?” 

I think in the Science of the Bodily Signs they had examined the characteristics of the organs of holy men.  They concluded that great teachers and seers in the spiritual path have large ears.  You will understand that if you see the paintings or sculptures of Gautama the Buddha.  ‘Dad’ Chalam also had big ears.  So did Shau [Sowris, Chalam’s daughter, a mystic].  I think that Bhagavan’s ears too were large in size.

In the photographs taken before the Calamity, UG’s hair looks normal.  I have two photos in my album, passport photos – one from three years before the Calamity and the other from three years after it.  It’s strange that there is no resemblance between the two pictures. It’s hard to tell that the two pictures are of the same person.  I don’t understand how there is such a change even in the face.  It’s unimaginable to me that a person who is an adult and has not passed his middle age could still change so much in the span of six years. 

Once I was leafing through the Ayurvedic manual Charaka Samhita in the World Culture Institute Library, and I noticed a mention of how the characteristics of a penis can differ from person to person.  According to the manual, the penises of Jñanis and yogis are soft like jelly.  Later, when Swami Sundarananda explained about the Indrajit Asana and showed me its photograph, I thought that Charaka’s statements were accurate.  “Sex is impossible for a person in this state,” says UG.  Maybe that’s true.  “Not that he becomes impotent or any such thing.  Even an erection may be possible.  But there is no build up, without which sex cannot be achieved,” he adds.

*                                  *                                  *

Brahmacharya

That is why UG maintains that the ancient sages who lived with their families were not real seers.  He asserts that they are the cause of our present [deplorable] state. It is not clear why the term ‘brahmacharya’ came to acquire the meaning of being free from sexual pleasures.  If you look at the meaning of the word in Sanskrit, it means ‘moving in Brahman’ or ‘being devoted to Brahman’ or some such thing.  There is no reference to sexual copulation.  Today, however, people give quite contrary interpretations to the word ‘brahmachari’, namely, ‘he who doesn’t indulge in sexual pleasures’ or ‘an unmarried person.’  Perhaps they noticed that those devoted to Brahman have no sexual desires and so they fell into the misconception that ‘brahmacharya’ means the absence of sexual desires.

Be that as it may, it’s indisputable that in that ‘nondual’ state there is a total absence of bodily concern and craving for sensual enjoyment.  There is no such thing as arriving at that state.

“This is not a thing to be attained.  It is not a state which you enter at one time and come out at another.  It’s always there.... there is no such thing as a ‘fall’ from that state...”

The state of a ‘yoga bhrashtha’ [one who has fallen from yoga] is nothing but a bizarre and abnormal aberration before reaching that state.

*                                  *                                  *

August 5, 1983

When Arjuna asks:

sthita-prajñasya kā bhāṣā
samādhi-sthasya keśava
sthita-dhīḥ kiḿ prabhāṣeta
kim āsīta vrajeta kim

[What are the characteristics of the one who is established in wisdom and absorbed in samadhi, Krishna? How does a person of steady wisdom speak and what is his language? How does he sit and how does he walk?]

Krishna doesn’t answer Arjuna directly, but he enumerates the characteristics of an enlightened man and describes his state.  Perhaps Arjuna wonders how a man devoted to Brahman conducts his affairs in the world.  How can a man who always stays in Samadhi carry on his practical life?

How can a yogi who sports in a state devoid of volition be capable of performing the duties that he has to carry on? 

prajahati yada kaman
sarvan partha mano-gatan
atmany evatmana tustah
sthita-prajnas tadocyate

[When a person renounces all the desires that arise in the mind, Partha, and finds contentment within his self, then he is said to be established in wisdom.]

“How can such a man carry on his worldly affairs?” is Arjuna’s question.  The mind and the desires arising from it are indeed the basis and primary motivation for activities. Krishna himself admits this at some place:

“What does UG say?...’

April 1, 1986

Two nights ago, when I went into the hall, it was filled with people: Shanta’s friend Pushpa and Pushpa’s husband and the friends who are usually there.  I sat in a corner next to the stairs going to the second floor.  Pushpa’s husband seemed to be middle aged. Apparently, he has a job in the Indian Institute of Science. Subbanna as usual sat leaning against the wall, with stretched legs, dozing off. 

“Come, Valentine, come and sit in this chair,” UG said and showed her the chair.  She climbed down three steps slowly and sat in the chair.

“Chandrasekhar, suppose somebody asks you ‘What does UG say?’ how would you answer in brief?” asked UG suddenly.

That’s a question which UG routinely asks.  He is curious to hear how one elaborates on it.  As I couldn’t think of anything, I didn’t answer.  UG repeated his question; so I attempted a reply:

“Everyone is seeking something or the other, as he is not satisfied with what he is.  You point out through your discussions or conversations the futility of this search and you knock out all the goals created by the society and culture …….  You explain that anything that is experienced, however profound the nature of that experience may be, is worthless, because it is born out of the knowledge one already has about it.  There is no such thing as a new experience at all.  Knowledge creates the experience and the experience further strengthens the knowledge, which is a vicious circle.  You show that one is helpless in a given situation, but one doesn’t want to accept that situation.  We constantly wants to do something with that which is creating misery and conflict,” I tried to summarize thus but UG appeared unimpressed.

“Why do you all come here day after day?  Why?  I don’t offer you anything!  I haven’t invited any of you.  So why do you come?  Haven’t some of you been coming for 15 or 16 years?  Why?  What do you want?” UG was hammering the assembly with his questions.

Yes, this question intrigues me too.  Why do they come?  Why do I go to UG?  What do I want? 

“There’s a lot of entertainment here.  Why not leave it at that?” Venkatramayya said laughingly.

“What entertainment?  I have no objection, but there are better entertainments elsewhere.  Why come here?  Why are you interested in this kind of a thing?” said UG.

In the meantime the Australians came up with their usual air of extreme reverence towards UG and settled down on the floor.

UG noticed a plastic bag in their hands. “I think you should stop bringing all these things to us,” UG admonished.  Max giggled.

‘May I ask you one thing?’ said UG. “Why do you come here day after day? Why? What do you want?”

Max was speechless for sometime. Perhaps they were not prepared for such a question that would hit them directly.

“You are like a magnet UG! You draw us all to you irresistibly,” said Max with folded hands.

“No, I don’t think so.  I really want to understand why you all come here. Please don’t get me wrong. If nobody is here it’s just fine with me.  It’s not a motiveless thing.  When you come and throw questions at me you are creating a motive in me.  Otherwise, I just sit here — I can sit and talk for 24 hours. It never exhausts me.  But this talking is not a self-fulfilling thing to me.  Obviously you want some thing.  You imagine that I am some kind of god-knows-what.  But actually and factually, you have no way of knowing anything about me, and much less about yourself.  You project your ideas on me and hope to get something.  Basically you are interested in changing yourself.  But my question is why that change should be only in the future – tomorrow -- but not today, right here and now. Why? You hope to be something, whatever you want to be, only tomorrow. So, it is the hope that keeps you going.”

Suddenly Mr. Sivaraman, the lawyer, butted in and said, “According to law, once we make a contract we are always bound by that. There is no way of breaking the contract. That is why we are all here.” Everybody in the assembly burst into laughter, including UG.

*                                  *                                  *

April 5, 1986 (Saturday)

Mahesh is expected tomorrow morning.  Dinesh is also coming from Goa.  Last night, UG was reading out a few excerpts from the manuscript prepared by Mahesh – the article to be published in the Illustrated Weekly next month – “UG and JK”.  Mahesh has a writing style of his own which is indeed fascinating. 

Tonight there were not many in the hall.  About 8 pm, Mr. Harish Singh of Ooty suddenly showed up with a person in an ochre robe whom he introduced to UG as his elder brother.  Harish is a teacher in the Blue Mountain School in Ooty.  He had worked earlier in the Rishi Valley School of JK and, after meeting UG in Bombay three years ago, left it.

“We’ve arrived just now, at 7 pm, on our way to Madras.  My brother wanted to see you and I thought we could spend a couple of hours with you,” said Harish to UG.

The brother was evidently a follower of Rajneesh; he was stroking the mala on his neck with his fingers.

“When are you going to Madras?” UG asked Harish.

“This very night.  Tomorrow, I’ll put my brother on the train to Calcutta and I’ll go back to Ooty.  I’m planning to come again to Bangalore at the end of this month or early next month.”

“We’re moving into a new house soon, a bigger place,” UG told him.

Harish looked surprised. “This month? Is the place far off? How can I find it when I come next?”

“It’s not very far.  Just ten minutes by walk from here.  If you come back here, you can get the directions from someone here.  That’s no problem.”

“So, UG, you’re going to have a bigger place.  Are you also planning to have a secretary, intermediaries and all that, too?” Harish was trying to have a dig.

“Why? Do you want to apply for his secretary’s job?” I countered Harish on UG’s behalf.

Harish smiled.  “I may not mind being his secretary, but I don’t think we two would get on well,” he said. 

UG nodded and said, “That’s true, especially not after what you wrote all that on education in that Blue Print. [UG was referring to the editorial written by Harish in their in-house magazine, a copy of which he had sent to UG earlier.] How can you write all that? ‘Education is the only panacea for all the evils that the society is a prey to….”-- you wrote something to that effect.’

“Why not, UG?” recoiled Harish, “You feel that way because you are not an educationalist. What’s wrong with my statement?”

“Why do you want to use poor children for your own self-aggrandizement? They don’t need all that.  I don’t think environment plays any role in shaping the individual,” UG remarked, “Now they say we’re all genetically controlled.  Two students go to the same school, to the same teacher and receive the same kind of instruction, but each comes out differently.  How do you explain that?”

He said further, “Now it has become a fashion to start new schools.  With all these spiritual and religious organizations, Ramakrishna Mission, even Chinmayananda – everyone is bent on educating the children in his or her particular school of thinking.  Why brainwash poor helpless children?  What’s so marvelous about your particular method of schooling?  How is it distinct and different from the regular schools?”

Harish moved uneasily on the carpet. “It’s distinct and different in the sense that we don’t force and punish the children.  We try to create an [open] atmosphere.”

“That’s all the more wrong. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child.’  What’s wrong in punishing?  When I was a boy, I was hit with a pencil on my finger by my teacher and was given ‘imposition’ because I spelled the word ‘February’ wrong – I had to write that word in the sand twenty times.  Of course, I had no courage to hit my teacher back.  I attended very ordinary schools.  What’s wrong with me? There’s cut-throat competition everywhere; yet you teach the children not to compete.  The atmosphere you’re trying to create is false.  It doesn’t exist.  You’re only making them misfits in the world.”

“But I earn my bread working there….”

“That’s all right; that’s acceptable to me.  You may very well work there and earn more.  There are people in this world with more money than sense.  It’s a status symbol to send their children to private schools spending thousands.  That’s all right.  But I’m questioning the usefulness of such schools. What’s the result?   Show me one individual – a leader – who is a perfect product of these schools?

“Krishnamurti and I had the same argument.  He wanted me to go and teach in Rishi Valley School and admit my children there.  I told him, “That’s the last thing I will ever do.  What’s so marvelous about your school?  Why force those children to wear uniforms and watch sunsets from a hilltop?  ‘Astachal’ they call the hill.  You force your ideas on them.  Actually, they live in their own world.  I think it was Newman who said, ‘Universities polish pebbles and dim diamonds.’” 

Suddenly UG remembered something. “Is it true that in the Rajghat School, students are beating their teachers?”

“Yes, it’s very much true,” said Harish, nodding his head.

“That must have shattered the Old Man,” said UG referring to JK.

*                                  *                                  *

UG was narrating about his earlier days in Banaras.

“Every year I used to spend three months in Banaras -- for seven years in a row.  I was lecturing.  I learned more from my grandmother about Vedanta than from my professor.  The fakirs on the banks of Ganges in Banaras – they taught me more.

“I was a National Lecturer of the Theosophical Society.  I used to visit North India, keeping my headquarters in Banaras.”

“Did you pick up quite a bit of Hindi while you were there?”

“Hindi?” UG laughed and exclaimed, “Down with Hindi! Down with North Indian music, too.  I don’t like them.  My Hindi stopped with Pahli, Dusri and Tisri standard books.” 

*                                  *                                  *

“You must have had many experiences, spiritual experiences in those days.”

“Oh, yes, all kinds of experiences -- samadhi states, you name it.  But I soon realized that there is nothing to all those experiences.”

“You once said you had a great mystical experience after listening to Krishnamurti.  Was it after you said goodbye to him in Bombay?”

“No, it was much earlier, when I was attending his talks in Madras at Vasanta Vihar.  I had a death experience.”

“You said that you could have easily started a huge organization drawing from the strength of that experience.”

“Yes, that’s true.  In Madras, around 1953, I asked Krishnamurti the question, ‘What kick do you get, sir, from all these discourses?’  Later, Krishnamurti, during one of his talks, suddenly asked, ‘What do you have to say, sir?’ pointing to me.  I thought he was asking the man sitting in front of me.  When that man rose to speak, Krishnamurti said, ‘Not you, sir, the young man sitting behind you.’ From then on we both got involved in heated discussions.  Krishnamurti never allowed others to interfere with us.  ‘No, sir, we have to thrash out the whole thing,’ he would say.  One day, he was talking about the subconscious, unconscious and all that stuff.  I asked him, ‘I don’t see any subconscious in me.  Why are you talking about the subconscious?’ He said, ‘Sir, for you and me, there is no such thing as the subconscious.  But I am talking to these people about that.’ Then I thought, ‘You are using me as a sounding board to reach these people. Then I am not interested in this game.  I’m off,’ and stopped discussing with him.  During those days we were mostly discussing death and the death experience.  One day, I suddenly felt that I was dying.”

“Was that while listening to Krishnamurti?”

“Yes, it was right in the hall.  In those days, he had smaller gatherings of 100 or 150 people.  I felt that something like a vacuum pump was sucking the life out me.  I felt a terrible fear of dying.”

“Did you tell Krishnamurti about that experience?”

“Yes.  I talked to him about it at great length.  He listened to me patiently for half-an-hour.  At the end, he said, ‘If there is anything to that, sir, it will certainly express itself in its own way.  Otherwise, it will fade out.’  It did fade out after some time.”

“How did you get to feel that you could start a huge organization on the strength of that experience?”

“You see, I was able to see Krishnamurti’s teaching with more clarity in the light of that experience.  But I had to fall back on him for that clarity.  That dependence created a revolt in me.  Finally, I stopped going to his talks.”

*                                  *                                  *

Powers

“You were saying that you had acquired some powers as a result of that experience.  What were those powers?”

“Yes, I had all those powers.  By looking at a person I could tell his past, present and future.  Sometimes, I did tell people what I saw.  But soon I realized that telling them about their futures created more trouble for them.”

“Do you remember any such instance?”

“Once, Mr. Olivetti, an Italian business magnate, came to me.  Looking at him, I told him he had cancer.  He was startled.  His doctors had just recently assured him, after several tests, that he had no cancer.  But my observation created a doubt in him.  He rushed to his doctors and they confirmed that he had cancer.  He died of it soon after.”

“But such flashes are not uncommon, at least to a few.”

“This is nothing marvelous -- that’s what I maintain.  There is no power outside of man, and there is nothing to supernatural powers.  Everybody has them. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t -- fifty-fifty percent. After the Calamity or whatever had happened to me, the first thing I said to Valentine was ‘I have lost all my powers.’”

“How did you know that you had lost them?”

“...because nothing was coming to my head. Now I know that whatever comes in here [pointing to his head] must be true.  It cannot be false. But I have no use of those thoughts.  There is nobody to translate them.  So, they get burnt there.  That’s the energy, sir, not the frictional energy created by thought.

“Here, this is like a drum -- a perfectly tuned instrument.  You come here and play it.  The lyric is yours, the tune is yours and the beat is yours.  The drum has nothing to do with what melodies you produce.  It’s not interested,” said UG, referring to himself.

*                                  *                                  *

‘Here and now’

“’Here and now’ has no meaning. ‘Here’ is space and ‘now’ is time.  Thought creates the space and the time because thought is space and thought is time.  So, nothing can happen in the ‘here and now’.  Anything that is captured and projected by thought is worthless.  How can thought, which is born in space and time, end itself in space and time?

“It’s always tomorrow.  When tomorrow arrives it [thought] pushes it further.  So, nothing can happen here and now – ‘the eternal present’.  All that is nonsense.

“What is there to happen?  There’s nothing to happen.”

*                                  *                                  *

“The goal creates its opposite...”

“The root cause of corruption lies in the religious thinking of man.  Religion is responsible for the corruption, crime and selfishness that we see around us.  It’s the goal that creates its opposite.  As long as love is there, so long will there be hate.  It’s love that creates hate; it’s selflessness that creates selfishness.  When the goal [to be selfless] goes, with that selfishness also goes.  But you don’t seem to understand that the goal is not different from you; you are the goal.  You are the selfishness.  It’s not in your interest to end yourself.  So, the logical structure evolves more logic around this argument and continues.  Otherwise, it collapses.”

*                                  *                                  *

Peace of Mind

“There is no such thing as peace of mind.  As long as you think you have what you call ‘mind’, so long will you be restless.  Restlessness is the nature of the mind.

“Peace of mind will blow your mind!  You can’t ask for it, because.... How can you ask for something the nature of which you have no idea?

“Your wanting to be ‘peaceful’ is creating the restlessness.  Otherwise, there is perfect peace in that organism.  There is no need to do anything.  The body is very peaceful.

“What they are offering in the marketplace are just the pain-killers.  There is no such thing as a cure anywhere.  If you want those temporary pain-killers, go jolly well to those [who sell them] in the marketplace.  Don’t come here and ask for ‘peace of mind’.  Whatever peace of mind is left there will also be lost!”

*                                  *                                  *

“First you master the art of sleeping while standing....”

April 19, 1991

Sleep, deep sleep and waking states have always interested Vedantam Satyanarayana.  He somehow managed to bring those subjects into his conversation with UG this evening. We were all sitting on the terrace trying to avoid the sweltering heat in the glass room.  As soon as I returned from my work, Frank began describing the harrowing experience of jealousy that was burning inside him.  UG kept the flame burning purposely by his ‘educated guesses’ about Frank’s sordid state of affairs.

“The Observer video tape has arrived at last!” said UG as we were sitting on the mats.  The courier who had brought it had trouble locating our house because he was told that the house number was 10 instead of the correct number 40. Vedantam Satyanarayana gave the courier the wrong number.  “He is so much preoccupied with Ultimate Reality that he never noticed the number of the house painted in large figures on the gate,” someone said.

Radhakishan remarked, “Sir, how can you know Brahman when you don’t know the number of the house which you visit every day, both morning and evening?”  We all laughed.

The subject of sleep kept even the sleeping Subbanna awake.  “First, how do you know that you are awake?” asked UG, “You have been told that...  it’s only knowledge.”

“I don’t accept that knowledge is coming in between the sensory perceptions...” asserted Vedantam.

At last, UG said, “Look at the tree.  Why do you say it’s green?”

“Because it is green.”

“It’s not because it is green.  You really don’t know what it is.  You’ve been taught that it is green.  That is knowledge.  In exactly the same way, you know that you are awake, asleep or dreaming.  There is no such thing as reality.  I don’t know whether I’m awake or asleep.”

Subbanna got interested in the talk of sleep.  He told us he was practicing sleeping while standing in the city bus.

He wanted UG to teach him how to sleep with his eyes wide open.  “First you master the art of sleeping while standing; then we’ll see about the other sleep,” replied UG.

“If the great heritage of your country has produced persons like you, then I don’t see any reason to feel proud about this culture.” -- This was the last line in the nine-and-a-half minute video we watched of the dialogue between UG and Mahesh which will be marketed by the Observer in New Delhi.  Who were the others interviewed in the tape?  Maybe L. K. Advani, Rajiv Gandhi and such other personalities.

“So you come between two politicians [in the video]?” quipped Vedantam Satyanarayana.

“That’s better.  JK’s talks were shown in the United States between two hardcore sex shows.   Otherwise, who would be interested?”

*                                  *                                  *

Energy Movements....

August 25, 1991, Sunday

It was in the afternoon, around 4:30 pm.  I suddenly felt an urge to meet Vedam Satyanarayana.  I wasn’t sure whether he would be home; so I rang up his number.  He answered the phone and said he was not well.  He had been seriously ill for quite some time during the past month -- he contracted typhoid and had been recovering slowly.  I decided that Suguna and I must go and see him; and in spite of the overcast sky which was threatening to rain, we reached his house by 5:30 pm.

He looked very weak and obviously had lost a lot of weight. He said he was on leave till the end of this month.  Then he started talking about many matters including money and Suguna’s health. 

I want to record here his account of a dream he had had while he was ill.  When he was having a high temperature and his body was dehydrated, he noticed peculiar feelings of energy movements.  Satyanarayana feels that this was not a hallucination.

“I suddenly felt an electrical current passing through my ankles and bursting through my hips.  It all happened so suddenly that I don’t know what exactly had happened.  It occurred a few times and then suddenly the electrical discharge started in my head and like a wave filled my entire body and got discharged through my penis.  Again, it lasted only a fraction of a second and the discharge left a feeling of irritation at the tip of my penis.  There was no semen or fluid but just this sudden discharge of electrical energy with great force.  It was so severe that the irritation lasted till the next morning.

“Then some sort of fear gripped me every time I lay down.  The energy would start with wave-like movements.  So I would get up and then they would stop.  I tried to sit up the whole night, knowing that the energy would hit me again if I lay down.  During that time I had a vivid dream:  UG was lying flat on a cot with closed eyes.  I was gripped with the fear of death while I looked at him.  He spread both his palms open and I understood that he wanted my palms to be placed on them.  When I did that, he clasped them tight.  I thought he was going to transmit some of his energy.  Suddenly he started mumbling something to himself.  I thought he was saying some prayers and I was curious to know what he was murmuring.  When I listened closely, to my utter astonishment, I heard his usual pet lines which he often repeats during his talks.  Immediately, I recalled in the dream that Sri Aurobindo used to advise his followers to read his words or some passages at random from his books. He believed that just those sounds have a tremendous effect on the human body. 

“After that, the dream ended and I suddenly felt very ecstatic and came back to normal.”

This shows how UG’s words and deeds which are charged with great power can help certain people.  Satyanarayana, having felt he was on the brink of death, suddenly regained his vitality after this dream.

*                                  *                                  *

“Peanuts activate sex glands...”

Major is experimenting with natural foods.  He now survives on sprouted legumes, fruits, and so on.  “If you eat banana peels, the chemical substance in them is said to give some ‘kick’; and if you eat bananas you will go ‘bananas’,” comments UG, "Don’t eat peanuts.  They are supposed to activate the sex glands.  That’s what they have found after experimenting with peanut butter.” 

Major’s new problem seems to be that he gets aggravated.  UG, on his part, has strong opinions about ‘natural’ diet. He never misses a chance to take a dig at those who religiously pursue dietary discipline for their spiritual goals.  “You can gobble up the newborn baby next door to you and still be spiritual,” is more his line of thinking.  UG’s food habits hardly fit into any natural diet regimen, yet he is seventy four years-old.  “I take a pint of cream every day and what’s wrong with me?  I have no problem of cholesterol.  Shoot at sight and on sight all those bastards who talk of natural diet!” UG responds.  For seventy four years he has maintained good health.

*                                  *                                  *

“Being reborn as a cockroach is better...”

Vedantam Satyanarayana enters the garden looking well-fed and chewing betel leaves.  UG makes room for him next to him on the swing, “Come, sir, sit here.”

Satyanarayana half-seriously and half-jokingly enquires, “What’s the current status of enlightenment, sir?”

“Same as yesterday; and it’s going to be the same tomorrow too,” replies UG without a moment’s pause.  Everyone laughs.  UG asks Satyanarayana, “Sir, what will you do with enlightenment, assuming for a moment you get it?  What will you do? ...”

“The trouble is that you want to know you are in your natural state.  There is no knowing,” UG adds.

“If we don’t attain enlightenment, who knows, we may have to be born again as a cat or a dog...,” Satyanarayana replies.

“That’s better,” said UG, “a cockroach is even better.  You will survive the nuclear holocaust.  How old are you, sir?”

“Sixty seven,” said Satyanarayana.

“You’re a kid compared to me.  I am seventy-four,” UG said mockingly.

*                                  *                                  *

i.  ‘Poor Indian...’

Events from February 8, 1992. 

This year, UG has asked Suguna and me to travel with him to Singapore via Hong Kong.  On this day we two (Suguna and I) had walked around the streets of Singapore and were very tired.  All of us had walked around a shopping mall called Dynasty on Orchard Street, and around many other shopping malls.  Finally, wanting to head back to the hotel, we hailed a taxi.  The taxi driver asked us where we wanted to go.  When we mentioned our destination, his facial expressed changed.  “You can walk there in five minutes.  You call a taxi for that?” he asked us mockingly.  “What do you have to lose?  We’ve been walking around for five hours and are tired.  Let’s go,” we said and collapsed into the taxi, all four of us (including Julie).  While driving the taxi, that Chinese man looked at UG and asked his age.  He continued, “My father is older than you and walks for miles and miles everyday.  The ladies in Singapore are lazy. They are too lazy to walk.” “We are just poor Indians visiting here,” UG said.  When he heard ‘poor Indians’, the cab driver turned around, squinted his eyes and said, “What, you think you are poor Indians after flying here in an airplane for such a distance and staying in an expensive hotel to have fun? I can’t even afford to own a car.  No matter how many years I work, I can never take a vacation.  If I don’t work I don’t eat.  What about people like me?” the Chinese man retorted.  He said driving one’s own car or owning a taxi is a complicated affair in Singapore. “There are car companies.  I rent a taxi from one of them and drive it.  This taxi is not my own,” he said.  When UG repeatedly went on about ‘poor Indians’, he said angrily, “I don’t want to hear that word.  You talk poor but you are rich.”  “I’ll take you to a shortcut to the hotel nearby.  Don’t call a taxi the next time you go for such a short distance,” he advised, stopping near the hotel.  When UG placed an ample reward in his hands for his generosity and advice, his face showed that he was mighty pleased.

*                                  *                                  *

ii. Singapore chat....

Another incident from Singapore: I wrote about a taxi driver before.  This is another one.  He was a Tamil Muslim.  Ismail was his name.  When he spoke in Tamil, UG became tremendously affectionate toward him.  To add to it, when he learned that he was a Muslim, he grew even fonder of him.  After sitting in the taxi, he asked him, “Do you know where Hotel Metropole is?” in Tamil. The driver replied with a serious face, “You shouldn’t ask a Singapore driver if he knows where a certain place is.  You should just tell him to go there,” trying to teach us a lesson.  Then he talked like a chatter box for the length of time he drove the taxi.  He poured abuse on Bangarappa, the chief minister of Karnataka.  He cursed the Tamils from Sri Lanka for not speaking in their mother tongue.  He praised UG to the skies for speaking good Tamil.  “How long have you lived here?” UG asked him.  Apparently, he had come in 1953.  And he was quite happy here.  Still, he wanted to go back to India.  “No matter how long you live here, this is a foreign country.  It’s comfortable here.  But living in our country is different from making a living here,” said the taxi man with a feeling.

*                                  *                                  *

iii. The movie star Sridevi with UG…

That day it was February 10, 1992.  It was rather cold in Hong Kong.  There were Valentine’s Day banners everywhere.  It was also the time for the Chinese New Year -- there were Chinese banners everywhere, and screens with ‘Kung Hu Hoch Hi’ (Happy New Year) in Chinese written on them.   Mahesh was shooting the movie Gumrah in Hong Kong.  He rented big suites in the Empress Hotel.  That morning we went to the place where Mahesh was shooting his movie.  He was shooting on the terrace of Ocean Terminus, in a wide open space.  As soon as we arrived on the terrace, a beautiful girl in full makeup came running to us.  Someone was calling out, “Sridevi, Sridevi.”  Then we understood.  She was the famous movie actress Sridevi.  She came to UG and was saying something to him with folded hands, “It’s all right, it’s all right,” UG was reassuring her.  A year ago, that movie star had promised to fix a place in Chennai for UG to stay and then forgot to do it.  That caused a lot of hardship for UG.  Mahesh probably came to know of it and scolded her.  Meanwhile, she realized that her forgetfulness had caused a man like UG many hardships and had been dreading to face UG all this time.  Today, she apologized to UG with folded hands for what had happened.  She wouldn’t quit apologizing no matter how much UG tried to calm her down.  Mahesh finally succeeded.  In a little while, the shooting began.  Sridevi hopped and danced with the ‘horse-mouth’ Sanjay Dutt.  We watched their running and hopping for about an hour and left the place.  We went to the Swinden Bookshop.  Henry was its manager.  We all had a group photo taken with UG on the terrace of Ocean Terminus with the background of the Hong Kong Skyline.  It was quite a chore to get copies made of that photo.  It was included in the photos of the book Natural Man.

*                                  *                                  *

In those days, UG was keeping Julie at a distance.  That means, the torturing of Julie had already begun.  If Julie wanted to stay with him any longer in Hong Kong, Singapore or Tokyo, UG demanded that she must pay him $10,000 per day.  She agreed to this condition in everyone’s presence.  Then she was to pay interest on top of that; and she was also to bear the expenses of us both in Hong Kong.  To satisfy the conditions of the agreement, she transferred more than $100,000 to UG’s account.  Since then, he doubled it, saved her from spending it, and then returned it to her.

*                                  *                                  *

It was October 7, 1992, the day UG’s camp in Yercaud began.  That afternoon, the sun was not very hot, and we sat under a tree in the mild sun.  The cottage was all wet due to the previous rain.  UG was speaking to us about the intelligence of the body.

“The body has no death at all.  When once the separateness is gone, the body doesn’t belong to you.  It’s no more your body.  It’s everybody’s. First of all, where is the body?  There are only certain points of contact.  But I cannot complete the picture of my body inside of me by connecting these contact points.  So, I have no way of knowing the body,” said UG.  He waved his hand in the air: “Whose hand is that?  Where is the movement?  There is no division at all.  There is no division such as waking and sleeping.  And I don’t have dreams.”

We finished our lunch sitting under the tree.  UG ate a bit of the potato curry – leftover in the refrigerator from yesterday.  He also ate a small bowl of masur dahl soup that I had prepared.  Major ate his sprouts. 

Birds were chirping on the tree.  Woodpeckers’ rhythmic sounds were heard in a distance.  UG was silent. No one spoke.  I broke the silence and asked him: “They say that there is some sort of energy concentration in geometric shapes and forms like pyramids and pagodas.  What is your experience, UG?”  He didn’t reply.  He was looking at his palm and the lines on it.  Suddenly he said, “All the lines in the palm are converging at the Jupiter mount.  The heart line, the head line and the life line – all the three are going into the index finger.  There are stars coming up on all the mounts.  This fellow has a long life line.  He is going to live for a long time.  He is not going to die in the place of his birth.”

*                                  *                                  *

Exorcising spirits...

On October 14, I finished the registration of the Trust and arrived in Yercaud from Bangalore.  My old friend Rajaram came with me.  He had been suffering from an illness for a long time.  He maintained that some ‘spirit’ had been tormenting him.  He had had this problem ever since he was with Purnananda Swami