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Post by Reefs on Aug 16, 2019 21:23:47 GMT -5
The Calamity
Q: This change -- you call it a 'calamity'?
UG: You see, people usually imagine that so-called enlightenment, self-realization, God-realization or what you will (I don't like to use these words) is something ecstatic, that you will be permanently happy, in a blissful state all the time -- these are the images they have of those people. But when this kind of a thing happens to the individual, he realizes that really there is no basis for that kind of thing. So, from the point of view of the man who imagines that that is permanent happiness, permanent bliss, permanent this and permanent that, it is a calamity because he is expecting something whereas what happens is altogether unrelated to that. There's no relationship at all between the image you have of that, and what actually is the situation. So, from the point of view of the man who imagines that to be something permanent, this is a calamity -- it's in that sense I use it. That's why I very often tell people "If I could give you some glimpse of what this is all about, you wouldn't touch this with a barge pole, a ten foot pole." You would run away from this because this is not what you want. What you want does not exist, you see.
So, the next question is: Why did all these sages talk of this as "permanent bliss," "eternal life," this, that and the other? I'm not interested in that at all. But the image you have of that has absolutely no relationship whatsoever to the actual thing that I'm talking about, the natural state. So the question whether somebody else is enlightened or not doesn't interest me, because there is no such thing as enlightenment at all.
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Post by Reefs on Aug 17, 2019 7:16:21 GMT -5
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Post by Reefs on Aug 18, 2019 6:48:23 GMT -5
Now compare this to Mckenna's spiritual autolysis.  |
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Post by Reefs on Aug 31, 2019 11:08:06 GMT -5
Existential Questions (1)
UG: You know, this dialogue is only helpful when we come, both of us, to a point and realize that no dialogue is possible, that no dialogue is necessary. 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.
The questioner has to come to an end. It is the questioner that creates the answer; and the questioner comes into being from the answer, otherwise there is no questioner. I am not trying to play with words. You know the answer, and you want a confirmation from me, or you want some kind of light to be thrown on your problem, or you're curious -- if for any of these reasons you want to carry on a dialogue with me, you are just wasting your time; you'll have to go to a scholar, a pundit, a learned man -- they can throw a lot of light on such questions.
I have no questions here at all. I come and sit here, and it's empty, but not in the sense in which you use the word 'emptiness'. Emptiness and fullness are not two different things; you cannot draw a line of demarcation between the void and the fullness. But there is nothing here -- nothing -- so I don't know what I'll say. I don't come prepared to say something. What you bring out of me is your own affair -- this is yours, not mine -- there is nothing here which I can call my own. This is your property because you have brought out the answer from me -- it's not mine -- I have nothing to do with the answer at all. This is not the answer. I am not giving you any answers at all.
It's like any other reflex action: You ask a question, so something comes out of it. How it is operating, I don't know. It is not a product of any thinking. Whatever comes out of me is not manufactured by thought -- but something is coming out. You are throwing a ball and the ball is bouncing and you are calling that the 'answer'. Actually, what I am doing is only restructuring the question and throwing it back at you.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 3, 2019 10:42:28 GMT -5
Existential Questions (2)
UG: There is no answer to the question, so the question cannot remain there any more. In that sense I have no questions of any kind except the questions I need to function in this world -- I have no other questions.
Q: Your answer is only a reflection of the question?
UG: It is not my answer, because the question does not stay there any more. The question becomes my question, as it were; since it has no answer, it is not waiting for any answers; the question burns itself out, and what is there is energy. You can't go on for nine or ten hours; I can. It is not sapping the energy, but adding to the energy all the time. The talking is energy itself: the talking is the expression of that energy.
Q: Suppose I ask you about quantum mechanics, say?
UG: There, I don't know -- that's my answer -- so the question in any case disappears. Whatever knowledge or information I have about quantum mechanics is there, and it comes out like an arrow, straight. Whatever is put in there comes out. But such questions as "Does God exist?" "Is life mere chance?" "Does perfect justice rule the world?" -- there are no answers to those questions, so the question burns itself out.
You see, the existence of the very thing that is questioning, the questioner, is at stake. That is the trouble: you dare not question that basic thing, because that is going to destroy something there which is very precious to you: the continuity of yourself as you know yourself and as you experience yourself.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 11, 2019 4:59:07 GMT -5
How not to think
UG: Thinking is unnecessary except to communicate with somebody. Why do I have to communicate with myself all the time? What for? "I am happy," "I am unhappy," "I am miserable," "That is a microphone," "This is a man," "He is something" -- you see, why are we doing it? Everybody is talking to himself -- only, when he begins to talk aloud you put him in the mental hospital.
Q: I think you are suggesting -- and I agree with you -- that it is a very tiresome thing to do. It is wearing us out, so naturally we seek methods to end it.
UG: It is wearing you out, and all methods that we use are adding more and more to that, unfortunately. All techniques and systems are adding to that. There is nothing you can do to end thinking.
Q: Alright then, how did you do it?
UG: "How not to think?" is your question. Do you know what that question implies? You want some way, some method, some system, some technique -- and you still continue to think.
Q: I don't want to think. If this question is wrong, perhaps you could suggest a better question.
UG: I am not sure that you do not want to think. You see, you have to come to a point where you say to yourself "I am fed up with this kind of thing!" Nobody can push you there.
Q: So either you can do it, or you can't do it?
UG: Even then you'll find that you can't do it. Thought is there when there is a demand for it. When there is no demand for it you don't know whether it is there or not. I am not concerned whether it is there or not. But when there is a need for it, when there is a demand for it, it is there to guide you and to help you communicate with someone. What decides that demand is not here; it is out there. The situation demands its use; it is not self- initiated.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 17, 2019 6:50:47 GMT -5
Existential Questions (3)
Q: What is life?
UG: You will never know what life is. Nobody can say anything about life. You can give definitions, but those definitions have no meaning. You can theorize about life, but that is a thing which is not of any value to you -- it cannot help you to understand anything. So you don't ask questions like "What is life?" you know. "What is life?" -- there is no answer to that question, so the question cannot stay there any longer. You really don't know, so the question disappears. You don't let that happen there, because you think there must be an answer. If you don't know the answer, you think there may be somebody in this world who can give an answer to that question. "What is life?"-- nobody can give an answer to that question -- we really don't know.
So the question cannot stay there; the question burns itself out. The question is born out of thought, so when it burns itself out, what is there is energy. There's a combustion: thought burns itself out and gives physical energy. In the same way, when the question is burnt, along with it goes the questioner also. The question and the questioner are not two different things. When the question burns itself out, what is there is energy. You can't say anything about that energy -- it is already manifesting itself, expressing itself in a boundless way; it has no limitations, no boundaries. It is not yours, not mine; it belongs to everybody. You are part of that. You are an expression of that. Just as the flower is an expression of life, you are another expression of life. What is behind all this is life. What it is, you will never know.
You are not different from the animal -- you don't want to accept that fact. The only difference is that you think. Thinking is there in the animal also, but it has become very complex in the case of man -- that's the difference. Don't tell me that animals do not think; they do think. But in man it has become a very complex structure, and the problem is how to free yourself from this structure and use it only as an instrument to function in this world -- it has no other use at all -- it has only a contingent value, to communicate something, to function in the workaday world -- "Where is the railway station? Where can I get tomatoes? Where is the market?" -- that's all. Not philosophical concepts -- that has no meaning at all. Wanting anything other than the basic needs -- food, clothing and shelter -- that is where your self-deception begins, and there is no end to your self-deception there. So all this thinking has no meaning at all; it is just wearing you out.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 28, 2019 8:10:08 GMT -5
I cannot help you (1)
Q: If you were to sum up your teaching in one phrase, what would it be?
UG: The phrase would be "I cannot help you."
Q: Still, people do come to see you. You must help them in some way, or they must think you help them in some way, otherwise they wouldn't come.
UG: Some come out of curiosity. But to those who come because they seriously wish to understand me, all I can say is I have nothing to say. I cannot help anyone at all, and neither can anyone else. You do not need help; on the contrary, you need to be totally helpless -- and if you seek to achieve this helplessness through my help, you are lost.
I have nothing to offer. All I can offer is the assurance that all inquiry, like all philosophical discussion, is useless, that no dialogue is possible, and that your questions, like everyone else's, serve no purpose whatsoever. Understanding, in the sense in which I mean it, is that state of being where the questions aren't there any more.
Q: You mean it is a state of not thinking?
UG: It is a state where thinking and life are not two things, but one thing. It is not an intellectual state; it is more like a state of feeling (although I use the word 'feeling' in a different sense than that in which you use the word). It is a state of not seeking. Man is always seeking something -- money, power, sex, love, mystical experience, truth, enlightenment -- and it is this seeking which keeps him out of his natural state. And although I am in a natural state, I cannot help someone else, because it is my natural state, not his.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 28, 2019 8:14:47 GMT -5
Bingo!
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Post by satchitananda on Sept 28, 2019 8:22:56 GMT -5
Being in the natural state doesn't automatically confer great teaching skills upon you. |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 28, 2019 10:24:58 GMT -5
Being in the natural state doesn't automatically confer great teaching skills upon you. Great teaching skills for teaching what? The natural state? That can't be done as UG keeps pointing out. How can you teach what's natural? |
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Post by satchitananda on Sept 28, 2019 10:35:27 GMT -5
Being in the natural state doesn't automatically confer great teaching skills upon you. Great teaching skills for teaching what? The natural state? That can't be done as UG keeps pointing out. How can you teach what's natural? Clearly there are teachers. The list is endless and you will have heard of them all. It's just that UG wasn't and there's nothing wrong with that. He didn't come from a lineage or tradition which could explain why he had nothing to teach, but then again neither did someone like Ramana Maharshi, but he had lots to teach. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 28, 2019 10:43:53 GMT -5
But this last line here, it's easily misinterpreted by a people-peep as implying that "the natural state" is personal, and subjective. As far as teaching and teachers go, generally, perhaps a better paraphrase of the cliche might be that "when the seeker is sincere, the catalyst appears". For some seekers the catalyst might appear as a "teacher", but I'd opine that genuine sincerity can't last long. |
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Post by satchitananda on Sept 28, 2019 11:04:53 GMT -5
But this last line here, it's easily misinterpreted by a people-peep as implying that "the natural state" is personal, and subjective. As far as teaching and teachers go, generally, perhaps a better paraphrase of the cliche might be that "when the seeker is sincere, the catalyst appears". For some seekers the catalyst might appear as a "teacher", but I'd opine that genuine sincerity can't last long. UG says that he is in the natural state and moreover it is his natural state and not someone else's. How much more subjective can you get than that? |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 28, 2019 11:35:49 GMT -5
Great teaching skills for teaching what? The natural state? That can't be done as UG keeps pointing out. How can you teach what's natural? Clearly there are teachers. The list is endless and you will have heard of them all. It's just that UG wasn't and there's nothing wrong with that. He didn't come from a lineage or tradition which could explain why he had nothing to teach, but then again neither did someone like Ramana Maharshi, but he had lots to teach. Well, in case we are still talking about the natural state, teaching by instruction as well as practice can't touch this. Which basically just leaves teaching by example. And in that sense, Ramana and UG or any other sage can't teach you more than a flower in your garden or a bird in a tree or a raindrop on your skin could teach you. You are what you are after all. |
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