U. G. Krishnamurti

Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti (9 July 1918 – 22 March 2007) was a philosopher who questioned the state of spiritual liberation.

U.G. was born on 9 July 1918 in Machilipatnam, a town in coastal Andhra Pradesh, India, and raised in the nearby town of Gudivada.

His mother died seven days after he was born, and he was brought up by his maternal grandfather, a wealthy Brahmin lawyer, who was also involved in the Theosophical Society.

U.G. also became a member of the Theosophical Society during his teenage years and mentions having "inherited" his association with the Theosophical Society from his grandfather.

South Indian actresses Gautami and Soumya Bollapragada are his very close relatives.

During the same period of his life, U.G. reportedly practised various austerities and sought moksha or liberation.

To that end, between the ages of 14 and 21, he undertook a variety of spiritual exercises, determined to find out whether moksha was possible.

Wanting to achieve that state, he had also resolved to prove that if there were people who have thus "realized" themselves, they could not be hypocritical.

As part of this endeavour, he searched for a person who was an embodiment of such "realization".

He spent seven summers in the Himalayas with Swami Sivananda studying yoga and practising meditation.

During his 20s, U.G. began attending the University of Madras, studying psychology, philosophy, mysticism, and the sciences.

He dropped out of the Master's program with the idea that the answers of the West – to what he considered were essential questions – were no better than those of the East.

In 1939, at age 21, U.G. met with known spiritual teacher Ramana Maharshi.

U.G. related that he asked Ramana, "This thing called moksha, can you give it to me?"

– to which Ramana Maharshi replied, "I can give it, but can you take it?".

This answer completely altered U.G.'s perceptions of the "spiritual path" and its practitioners.

Later, U.G. would say that Maharshi's answer – which he perceived as "arrogant" – put him "back on track".

In 1941, he began working for the Theosophical Society, in C.W. Leadbeater's library.

Shortly after, he began an international lecture tour on behalf of the Society, visiting Norway, Belgium, Germany and the United States.

Returning to India, he married a Brahmin woman named Kusuma Kumari in 1943, at age 25.

From 1947 to 1953, U.G. regularly attended talks given by Jiddu Krishnamurti in Madras, India, beginning a direct dialogue with him in 1953.

U.G. related that the two had almost daily discussions for a while, which he asserted were not providing satisfactory answers to his questions.

Finally, their meetings came to a halt.

He described part of the final discussion:

"And then, towards the end, I insisted, 'Come on, is there anything behind the abstractions you are throwing at me?' And that chappie said, 'You have no way of knowing it for yourself'. Finish – that was the end of our relationship, you see – 'If I have no way of knowing it, you have no way of communicating it. What the hell are we doing? I've wasted seven years. Goodbye, I don't want to see you again'. Then I walked out."

After the break-up with Jiddu Krishnamurti, U.G. continued travelling, still lecturing.

At about the same time he claims to have been "puzzled" by the continuing appearance of certain psychic powers.

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".

He emphasized that this transformation back to "the natural state" is a rare, acausal, biological occurrence with no religious context.

Because of this, he discouraged people from pursuing the "natural state" as a spiritual goal.

He rejected the basis of thought and in doing so negated all systems of thought and knowledge.

Hence he explained his assertions were experiential and not speculative – "Tell them that there is nothing to understand."

He was unrelated to his contemporary Jiddu Krishnamurti, although the two men had a number of meetings because of their association with the Theosophical Society and U.G. has, at times, referred to him as "[his] teacher" in spite of having ultimately rejected said teachings as well as the idea that anything could or should be taught in any spiritual context.

In 1955, U.G. and his family went to the United States to seek medical treatment for his eldest son, and stayed there for five years.

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He separated from his family and went to live in London.

While sitting one day in Hyde Park, he was confronted by a police officer who threatened to lock him up if he didn't leave the park.

Down to his last five pence, he made his way to the Ramakrishna Mission of London where the residing Swami gave him money for a hotel room for the night.

The following day, U.G. began working for the Ramakrishna Mission, an arrangement that lasted for three months.

Before leaving the mission he left a letter for the residing Swamiji telling him that he had become a new man.