Renowned philosopher U G Krishnamurti passes away

Bangalore, Mar 24: Renowned philosopher U G Krishnamurti, popularly known as 'UG', died in Vallecorsia in Italy on March 22.

Eighty nine-year-old UG was staying at a friend's villa in Vallecorsia when the end came, according to reports reaching here.

In accordance with UG's wish, the cremation was performed by filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt without any rituals yesterday at Vallecorsia, the reports said.

UG is survived by a son and two daughters.

According to his friends, seven weeks ago, UG had been injured in a fall and refused medical or other external intervention. He was confined to bed and his consumption of food and water became infrequent and then ceased altogether.

Krishnamurti was born on 9 July 1918, in a Telugu-speaking Brahmin family in Masulipatam, a coastal town in the state of Andhra Pradesh. He lost his mother when he was seven days old and was brought up by his maternal grandfather, a noted lawyer and a prominent member of the Theosophical Society. UG grew up in a peculiar milieu of Theosophy and orthodox Hindu religious beliefs and practices. Even as a boy, he was a rebel yet brutally honest with whatever he did.

He did his schooling in the town of Gudivada and then his B.A.

Honours Course in Philosophy and Psychology at Madras University.

But the study of the various philosophical systems and Western psychology made very little impression on him. 'Where is this mind these chaps have been talking about?' he once asked his Psychology teacher.

Between 14 and 21 years of age, UG spent seven years off and on with Swami Sivananda in Rishikesh practicing yoga and meditation. He had various mystical visions and experiences there, but he questioned their validity as he thought that he could recognise them only on the basis of his prior knowledge.

In 1939, when UG was 21 years of age, he went and met Sri Ramana Maharshi and asked him, 'This thing called moksha, can you give it to me?' Ramana replied, 'I can give it, but can you take it?' This struck him like a 'thunderbolt' and set him up on a relentless search for truth that ended at the age of 49 with a totally unforeseen result.

After leaving the university, UG joined the Theosophical Society as a lecturer and toured the country giving talks on Theosophy. In 1953, he realised what he was doing was not something true to his real self and quit the post in disgust.

After that, he met J. Krishnamurti, who was by then famous as an unconventional spiritual teacher. For two years, he met him frequently but later rejected JK's philosophy, calling it a 'bogus chartered journey'.

In 1972, UG gave his first public speech at the Indian Institute of World Culture. He said he had 'no message for mankind,' yet thousands of people the world over felt otherwise and flocked to see and listen to his 'anti-teaching'.

His first book 'The Mystique of Enlightenment - The unrational ideas of a man called UG' put together by Rodney Arms appeared in 1982.

UG made publishing history by not allowing copyright on any of his books saying, 'My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody.' In the last seven years during his stay in Bangalore, he rarely engaged in serious conversations for he found all questions as variations of basically the same ones revolving around the ideas of 'being' and 'becoming'.

A couple of years back, Mahesh Bhatt had asked him, 'UG, how would you like to be remembered?' UG had said, '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?'

UNI