text:
Mind is a Myth/V

'''Q: I was reading your book the other day, U.G., and I must confess that I ended up with the feeling that all your arguments ultimately lead not towards hope, but the inevitability of human suffering and despair. Am I right? ''' U.G.: Basically, I don't see any future for man. It is not that I am a doomsayer, but rather that anything that is born out of division in men will ultimately destroy him and his kind. So I don't dream or hope for a peaceful world.

'''Q: Is that so because of the inevitability of violence? '''

U.G.: Because the inevitability of war is in you. The military wars out there are the extension of what is going on all the time inside you. Why is there a war waging inside you? Because you search for peace. The instrument you are using in your attempt to be at peace with yourself is war. There is already peace in man. You need not search. The living organism is functioning in an extraordinarily peaceful way. Man's search for truth is born out of this same search for peace. He only ends up disturbing and violating the peace that is already there in the body. So what we are left with is the war within man, and the war without. It's an extension of the same thing. Our search in this world for peace, being based upon warfare, will lead only to war, towards man's damnation.

Q: Many philosophies, including Marxism, say that war and struggle are inevitable.

U.G.: True, they are inevitable. The Marxists and others posit a thesis which, through struggle, becomes an antithesis, and so on. These are philosophical inventions devised to give life some coherence and direction. I, on the other hand, maintain that life may have started arbitrarily, it may have been put together by accident. Man's efforts to give life direction can only meet with frustration, for life has no direction at all. But this does not imply that the missiles are on their way, that doomsday is just around the corner. Man's instinct for survival is very deep-rooted. What I am saying is that all this sweet talk of peace, compassion, and love has not touched man at all. It's rubbish. What keeps people together is terror. The terror of mutual extinction has had a strong and ancient influence upon man. This is, of course, no guarantee. I don't know.

'''Q: Now the problem is greatly increased by the fact that our technologies guarantee the extinction of all life forms, not just man, in the event war breaks out at the higher levels. '''

U.G.: The day man felt this self-consciousness in him, which made him feel superior to every other species on the planet, is the day he set out on the road to complete and total self-destruction. If man is destroyed, probably nothing is lost. Unfortunately, the instruments of destruction he has been able to stockpile over the ages are getting worse and worse, more and more dangerous. He will take everything with him when he goes.

Q: From where does this basic urge to assume mastery over himself and the world arise?

U.G.: Its genesis was in the religious idea that man is at the center of the universe. For example, the Jews and Christians believe that everything is created for the benefit of man. That is why man is no longer a part of nature. He has polluted, destroyed, and killed off everything, all on account of his wanting to be at the center of the universe, of all creation.

'''Q: But man has to belong somewhere, surely, even if it is not at the center of creation. The fall represents the beginning, not the end of man. '''

U.G.: The doctrine of the Fall comes in very handy for Christians, that's all; it doesn't mean a thing. The whole Christian tradition exploits this idea of Original Sin to the hilt, resulting in massacre, bloodshed, and such incredible violence.

Q: Well, Eastern philosophies talk of a "still center" that can be found through meditation ...

U.G.: I question the very existence, the very idea of the self, the mind, or the psyche. If you accept the concept of the self (and it is a concept), you are free to pursue and gain self-knowledge. But we never question the idea of the self, do we?

Q: What is this self you are talking of?

U.G.: You are interested in the self, not I. Whatever it is, it is the most important thing for man as long as he is alive.

'''Q: I exist, therefore, I am. Is that it? Descartes?'''

U.G.: You have never questioned the basic thing assumed here. That is: I think, therefore, I am. If you don't think it never occurs to you that you are alive or dead. Since we think all the time, the very birth of thought creates fear, and it is out of fear that all experience springs. Both "inner" and "outer" worlds proceed from a point of thought. Everything you experience is born out of thought. So, everything you experience, or can experience, is an illusion. The self-absorption in thought creates a self-centeredness in man; that is all that is there. All relationships based upon that will inevitably create misery for man. These are bogus relationships. As far as you are concerned, there is no such thing as a relationship. And yet society demands not just relationships, but permanent relationships.

Q: Would you consider yourself an Existentialist?

U.G.: No, don't think you can put a label on me. The Existentialists talk of despair and absurdity. But they have never really come to grips with despair or absurdity. Despair is an abstraction for them.

'''Q: But what about angst? Naufrage? Nausea? What was Raskalnikov feeling if not despair? '''

U.G.: These are abstract concepts on which they have built a tremendous philosophical structure. That's all there is to it. What I refer to when I talk of self-centered activity is an autonomous, automatic self-perpetuating mechanism, entirely different from what they are theorizing about.

Q: You mean that the self survives mortality?

U.G.: No. There is no question of a self there, so how can the question of immortality, the beyond, arise?

'''Q: What beyond? Is there a beyond? .'''

U.G.: It is mortality that creates immortality. It is the known that creates the unknown. It is time that has created the timeless. It is thought that created the thoughtless

'''Q: Why? '''

U.G.: Because thought in its very nature is short-lived. So every time a thought is born, you are born. But you have added to that the constant demand to experience the same things over and over again, thus giving a false continuity to thought. To experience anything you need knowledge. Knowledge is the entire heritage of man's thoughts, feelings, and experiences, handed on from generation to generation. Just as we all breathe from a common fund of air, we appropriate and use thoughts from the surrounding thought-sphere to function in this world. That's all there is to it. Man's insistence that thought must be continuous denies the nature of thought, which is short-lived. Thought has created for itself a separate destiny. It has been very successful in creating for itself a separate parallel existence. By positing the unknown, the Beyond, the immortal, it has created for itself a way to continue on. There is no timeless, only time. When thought creates time, a space is created there; so thought is also space as well. Thought also creates matter; no thought, no matter. Thought is a manifestation or expression of life, and to make of it a separate thing, impute to it a life of its own, and then allow it to create a future for its own unobstructed continuity, is man's tragedy.

Q: But if thought can create matter, how do you explain phenomena like Sai Baba producing watches out of thin air?

U.G.: It's just not possible. Sai Baba is a magician. He used to produce Swiss watches. But after the Indian government placed an import tax on Swiss watches, he soon began producing Indian-made watches. I saw a man on television the other day, who could make a jet aircraft disappear before your very eyes! Sai Baba conjures up a watch. He gives it to an honored disciple, but he, Sai Baba, receives all the acclaim and applause. It all looks legitimate, but is only a gimmick. I make fun of such things. How can you take them seriously?

'''Q: O.K., then what do you take seriously? Life? Death? Extraterrestrial life?'''

U.G.: I don't think that this kind of life exists anywhere else, on any other planet. I am not saying that there may not be life in other worlds; only that it is not like our existence here. Your ruminations about other forms of life and other worlds is just a wish for unlimited extension into the future and far-off places. Thought is trying to give itself continuity, and speculations about the future and undiscovered worlds is a convenient way to do it! Your thinking determines what you can become conscious of; period.

'''Q: This all comes close to what J. Krishnamurti is saying. He says that the accumulated knowledge of man becomes tradition, assuming a continuity and legitimacy of its own. Don't you believe this? '''

U.G.: No. I don't see how what I am saying is even close to his line of thinking. He talks of "passive awareness," journeys of discovery, psychological transformations, opens schools and launches foundations. These activities do not free you, but perpetuate the movement of thought and tradition.

'''Q: Is there any freedom of thought? ...any freedom for man?'''

U.G.: No, there is no freedom of action for man. I am not talking of some cataclysmic, deterministic philosophy of resignation. But ...

'''Q: There is no way out? Not even by contemplating one's navel? Not even by meditation? Not even by the raising of the kundalini? Not even by the conquest of illusion?'''

U.G.: No. You can try all kinds of things, but it won't help. You will only succeed in creating disturbances within the body, disturbing the harmony that is already there. By bringing about strange hallucinations and unnatural metabolic changes you only harm the body. That's all there is to it. There is nothing you can do to reverse this, to change direction.

'''Q: Not even a radical, even if temporary, break from tradition? If one could divorce one's actions from thought, one might be able to act without guilt, and without worrying about the consequences of one's actions. Action would be freed to do new, creative things perhaps.'''

U.G.: What for? To be able to discover one's subterranean strengths? Thought-induced reality cannot be denied; it is there.

Q: Some savants and seers have insisted that there are subtle energy centers within us that can be released by certain spiritual practices, including the concentration of the mind on precisely nothing.

U.G.: In order to concentrate or focus on one thing you must block out the others. By concentrating upon what you take to be "nothing", you withdraw and separate yourself from the natural flow of life through and around you. You are part of a generalized magnetic field and what separates you from others is thought. You are concerned only with your happiness and unhappiness, the video set you are watching.

'''Q: Isn't this unavoidable in light of the fact that each of us lives in a subjective world, no one seeing the "objective" world as it really is? When each of us looks at, say, that table there, each of us sees something different. So it is with all objects.'''

U.G.: The table is not an object at all. The very fact that you recognize the table as a table is the issue. It does not matter, as the philosophers seem to think, that you and I have slightly different views of the chair and so interpret it differently. Neither does it matter whether the chair is there when I leave the room. The philosophers go on and on about this. It is absurd. You view and experience things from a different viewpoint than others, that's all. You think that you are having a subjective experience of an objective thing. There is nothing there, only your relative, experiential data, your "truth". There is no such thing as objective truth at all. There is nothing which exists "outside" or independent of our minds.

'''Q: Even for the other fellow? Is his existence dependent only upon my mental activity? Is your wife or neighbor just an infra-psychic phenomenon? '''

U.G.: Since I assume that "I" exist, he also exists. But I am questioning this. Do I have any way of experiencing the fact of my existence? I really have no way of finding out whether I am alive or dead. I could go to a doctor who will examine me, take my temperature, my pulse, my blood pressure, and he will tell me everything is normal. In this sense you're a living, animate being in contradistinction to the inanimate objects around you. But you have actually no way of experiencing for yourself and by yourself the fact that you are a living being.

'''Q: Of course you can: you cut yourself, you bleed and experience pain; if you marry you suffer [laughs]... '''

U.G.: Yes, but there are two things. There is the body which feels the pain and the knowledge telling you, "This is blood," "This is pain," "This is the cessation of pain." There is pain, but there is no one there who feels the pain. There is nobody who is talking now. I am not making a mystical statement when I say such a thing. Talking is a mechanical thing, like a tape recorder. Your questions draw out certain responses automatically. Whatever that is here comes out, that's all. Because you are asking questions, the answers are already there.

Q: What about love, deep abiding feelings, and profound responses to the beauty of nature?

U.G.: Ha! All that typical romantic stuff. Pure poetry! Not that I have any bone to pick with romanticism or poetry. Not at all. It just doesn't mean anything. You actually have no way of looking at the sunset because you are not separate from the sunset, much less writing poetry about it. The experience you have, the extraordinary experience you have when looking at a sunset you want to share. Using poetry, music, or painting as a medium, you attempt to share your experience with another person. That's all there is to it. The actual sunset is beyond your experiencing structure to capture. The observer is the observed. You cannot separate yourself from what you see. The moment you separate yourself from the sunset, the poet in you comes out. Out of that separation poets and painters have tried to express themselves, to share their experiences with others. All that is culture. Culture induces its own responses. There is nothing more to it.

'''Q: What happens to an aboriginal, who is untouched by civilization, with no exposure to complex culture, as you and I know it, and responds to a beautiful sunset. How do you explain that?'''

U.G.: You see, it all depends on what we mean by culture. That part of culture that promises you peace, bliss, heaven, moksha, and selflessness is the problem. To separate the rest of culture—how you entertain yourself, how you eat, your work habits, and language—from this counter-reality created by culture is a mistake. The so-called savages are functioning in exactly the same way we are functioning today. Basically, there is no difference. In either the primitive or modern cultures there is no peace.

'''Q: So your message is that man cannot be at peace with himself. Is that what you want to say? '''

U.G.: No. Man is already at peace with himself. The idea that there is peace somewhere else, sometime in the future, is causing the problem. All these religious experiences like compassion, bliss, and love are part of the craving for a nonexistent peace, which is destructive to the natural peace already there in the body.

'''Q: No peace. No religion. No compassion. No hope. What does that leave us with U.G.? '''

U.G.: Nothing. I am questioning the whole spiritual experience. That's what I am trying to rip apart.

'''Q: What about the beautiful, ancient, and elaborate rituals that make up such a large part of our religious experience? Do they have any meaning or relevance to our lives?'''

U.G.: Man has always wanted to entertain himself with something or the other. The rituals have provided him with the necessary entertainment over the years, and now they have been replaced by movies, videos, television, circuses, J. Krishnamurti talks, and the whole lot. There are many of them, you see. Each one is trying to sell his own particular brand of cigarettes, his own particular commodity. We want them. There is a market for these spiritual commodities. That is why someone is selling them. Nobody can sell me that kind of stuff because I'm not interested in it. Others may be.

'''Q: Yes, but what are you interested in? What makes you want to carry on living?'''

U.G.: Whatever is there. Whatever is happening at the moment is all that there is for me.

'''Q: Come on. You're a here-and-now person, is that it? '''

U.G.: No. To explain it that way is very misleading. I don't know how to explain it. Look, I read science-fiction books. Why? Because there is action there. I am not interested in the outcome at all, only the ongoing action. It is like a striptease. It is the stripping I find interesting, not the ending. Who cares about endings? Similarly, all your yesterdays, all your knowledge, and your very sense of self are dead things of the past. These memories have a great deal of emotional content for you, but not for me. I am only interested in what is actually happening now, not tomorrow or yesterday.

Q: Without the emotionally-charged memories of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow, there is little room for hope, is there?

U.G.: To me there is no present either, much less the future. What is there is only the past, nothing else. So your phrase "the here-and-now" means nothing to me. At this moment there is only the past in operation. I don't know if I make myself clear. If I recognize you and we carry on a conversation, it is only the past that is in operation. I am looking at things. If I recognize and name those things, the past is in operation. It is projecting what it knows. The future, although indeterminate, is a modified continuity of the past. So what is this "now" you are talking about? There is no such thing as this moment. This moment is not a thing that can be captured, experienced, or given expression to. The moment you capture what you think of "this moment" you have already made it part of the past. All this implies that we can never touch the same place at the same time and place. It is like two tape recording machines in a room playing old tapes to each other. You have no way of communicating anything to anybody. There is no communication at all. And when this is understood very clearly there is no need for communication at all.

'''Q: Which means that man's attempt to predict or preempt the future is condemned from the start, does it not? All this talk of communicating information, sharing knowledge, and interfacing is sheer bunk?'''

U.G.: Yes, it is. For this reason man is denied any real freedom of action. You may prefer one kind of music or food over another, but that only reflects your own background and culture.

Q: If what you are saying is true, the no one has any freedom of action, for everything one does has a cause, and all causes have a final cause.

U.G.: Aha! Why do you assume that everything must have a beginning, an ultimate cause? Cause-and-effect may be just a casual thing. Events may just occur, just happen. The whole process of evolution may be just another happening, a causeless event. Why must you insist that everything must have a creator, that the whole thing must have sprung from some ultimate cause?

'''Q: The most recent scientific evidence suggests that it all began with a Big Bang. Even explosions have a flash point. Things don't just go "bang"... '''

U.G.: That is your assumption. There may not be any such thing as the Big Bang. They use that term in contradistinction to the concept of creation in steady state. So these are two theories trying to establish themselves as truth. Each competes with the other, trying to present itself as the more plausible of the two.

'''Q: But surely this is the way new ideas are born and tested within a rational community. It is a healthy thing, not a pathological thing, to seek truth and knowledge. It is a good thing in and of itself. '''

U.G.: I am not against the scientific method per se. What I am pointing out is the fact that there is no such thing as a "pure" search for knowledge, or knowledge for its own sake. It is not so innocent. Knowledge is sought, scientifically or otherwise, because it gives power. Love is an invention of the moment, used to replace power. Since you have failed in every other way, through every other channel, to acquire that all-powerful state of being, you have invented what you call love.

'''Q: So love is just another name for the power game? Is that what you want us to believe?'''

U.G.: Exactly.

'''Q: What about the kind of love Mother Teresa practices? What about compassion?'''

U.G.: They are all born out of the divisive consciousness in man. Ultimately they will end up defeating the very cause they are working and dying for. The people around Mother Teresa are capitalizing on her fame. All they are interested in now is money, you know, to carry on her work. Why should all these things be institutionalized?` You see someone in pain, hungry. You respond to him. That's all there is to it. So, why should that be institutionalized? You corrupt that feeling, the immediate response, which is not just a thought or petty emotion, when you attempt to institutionalize generosity and empathy. It is the immediate response to the situation that counts.

'''Q: Institutionalization is the attempt to take a one-time situation and a one-time response and make out of them a continuous, predictable response. A single act of a good Samaritan becomes a way of looking at and doing things generally. Loving thy neighbor becomes a fact when everyone is doing it as a matter of course, not as a result of isolated acts of compassion.'''

U.G.: I don't see that as compassion. That's the only thing you can do in a given situation, and that's the end of it. Animals are helpful to one another to a surprising degree. Human beings are naturally helpful to each other. When institutionalization dulls that natural sensitivity, I say it is not compassion. All events in my life are independent of all other events. There is nothing there lining them up or institutionalizing them.

Q: Is this why you have steadfastly refused to allow your views to be propagated?

U.G.: First of all, I have no views at all. You see, they wanted me to go on television in the United States. They have a program called, "Point of View." I told them "I have no point of view." I have no particular message for mankind, nor do I have any of the missionary zeal in me. I am not a savior of mankind, or any such thing. People come here. Why they come is not my concern. They come out of their own free will and volition because they have heard of me or out of sheer curiosity. It doesn't matter. A person may come here out of any one of a number of reasons. He finds me somehow different, a rare bird, and cannot figure me out or fit me into any framework he knows. He tells his friends, and soon they arrive at the door. I can't tell them to get lost. I invite them in, knowing very well that there is nothing I can do for them. What can I do for you? "Come in, sit down, make yourself comfortable," is all I can say. Some people make tape recordings of our conversations together. It is their concern, not mine. It is their property first of all, not mine. I have no interest in asking the questions you are interested in. I have no questions of any kind, except those which help me to function in daily living: "What time is it?" "Where is the bus stop?" That is all. These are the simple questions that are necessary to function in an organized society. Otherwise, I never ask any questions.

Q: Do you think this society is really organized?

U.G.: This is a jungle we have created. You can't survive in this world. Even if you try to pluck a fruit from a tree, the tree belongs to someone or to society. So you have to become a part of society. That's why I always say that the world does not owe a living to me. If I wish to enjoy the benefits of organized society, I must contribute something to it. This society has created us all. Society is always interested in the status quo, in maintaining its own continuity.

'''Q: Society has not created me. A simple act of lust created me.'''

U.G.: That is true. But lust is born out of the thought of that individual who is part and parcel of society. The actual genetic information, probably residing in each cell of the body, is also passed on, and constitutes the basis of consciousness. What society is interested in is that we all contribute to the continuity of society, that we all perpetuate the status quo. Society will of course permit some slight modifications, but no more. So, what does a man like me contribute to society. Nothing. So how can I expect anything from society? Society does not owe a living to me at all. On the other hand, what I am saying is a threat to society as it is presently organized. The way I am thinking, functioning, and operating is a threat to the present society. If I become a threat, this society will liquidate me. I am not interested in becoming a martyr or anything. That doesn't interest me at all. So, if they say, "Don't talk," fine, I don't have to talk.

'''Q: So you don't have faith in man, like J. Krishnamurti does? '''

U.G.: No, no. Not at all, not at all. If they expect me to be a martyr so as to revitalize their faith in themselves, they will be sadly disappointed. It is their problem, not mine. If they find me a menace to society, what can they do? They may torture me, as they do in the communist countries. So what? Would I continue to speak against the state then? I really don't know what I would do. I do not indulge in hypothetical situations.

'''Q: Would you have any political views? Do you have any political views about this society here? Do you believe in a specific form of government, taking sides on political issues? '''

U.G.: I have views on every damned thing from disease to divinity because I have acquired all this knowledge through studies, travel, experience, and the like. But my views are of no more importance than those of the maid cleaning and cooking there. WHY should any importance be given to my views and opinions? You may say that I am a well-read man, and that, as a result of my reading, my travels, and my conversations with intellectuals, scientists, and philosophers, I have a right to express my views on everything. But nothing I say or believe is important. Do you understand that? All I am trying to point out is that all this knowledge you are so proud of flaunting isn't worth a tinker's damn.

'''Q: Why has knowledge taken on such importance to us? '''

U.G.: Because it gives you power. As I said at the very beginning, knowledge is power. I know, you don't know. I have religious experience and you don't have it. So it's all one-upmanship, showing off.

'''Q: Does your past with the Theosophical Society contribute in any way to the sum total of your understanding of life? You know, all this astral business, Blavatsky's hocus-pocus, Leadbeater's buggery, the usual mumbo-jumbo of the Theosophical circus ...'''

U.G.: Whatever happened to me happened not because of, but in spite of that. And that's a miracle. I really don't know. I am not a man of humility or any such thing. Looking back on the situation, I really have no way of telling you what it was all about. All I know is that I am free from my past, and thank heaven for that.

Q: Tell us, what do you think of `the sage who walks alone', J. Krishnamurti, the man you had the `falling out' with.

U.G.: I think he is a tremendous hoax. That's what I have against J. Krishnamurti. He has never come out clean. If you ask him why not [come out clean], his argument would be that anything he says will become an authority for or against him. But that's a political position he has taken. In fact, he has already become an authority figure for hundreds and thousands of people.

Q: And that's something you don't want to become ...?

U.G.: No. I don't want to be that. Never. To me, the whole thing stinks.

Q: But the chance to influence men, to change history ...

U.G.: No, never. That's what I am saying ...

Q: Is it that you reject using your power now that you have it, or is it that you reject the idea, the very principle of power over others ...?

U.G.: It is the understanding; it is the knowledge which has dawned upon me. I cannot communicate it, much less recommend it to others.

'''Q: Naturally. But if one wants to operate outside the whole corrupt field of power games, mustn't one be truly humble ...?'''

U.G.: No. Humility is an art that one practices. There is no such thing as humility. As long as you know, there is no humility there. The known and humility cannot coexist. In saying this I am not giving you a new definition of humility. I believe there is no such thing as humility at all. I'm just not in conflict with society. So, to create the opposite of the brutality in the world—humility—does not occur to me. Society cannot be anything other than what it is. So, since there is no demand to bring about a change in me, there is no corresponding demand to change society. I am not a reformer. I am not a revolutionary either. In fact, there is no such thing as revolution. All that is bogus. It is another commodity to be sold in the marketplace, to hoodwink gullible people.

Q: In other words, there is no difference between the world of Gandhi and the world of Ho Chi Minh, or between the values Christ propagated and those Lenin fought for?

U.G.: That's right. No difference at all.

'''Q: Tell me something. J. Krishnamurti told me during a conversation that his entire worldview survives because he looks at life from a detached viewpoint. He is not the first one to say this. Many great men of religion and art have said the same thing. Do you agree that he sees most clearly who stands apart?'''

U.G.: Did Krishnamurti say this, or did his followers say this?

Q: He claims to have no followers.

U.G.: First of all, I have no worldview, no structure of thought that can help you.

Q: But you have perhaps created a structure of thought which helps you.

U.G.: Nothing helps me. This certainty I have is something that cannot be transmitted to anyone else. And yet this certainty has no value at all.

Q: How did you arrive at this certainty?

U.G.: I stumbled upon it. You see, my grounding was in Madras, in the same kind of environment that produced J. Krishnamurti. I was surrounded by religious people, all kinds of strange people. I realized early on that they were all fakes whose lives and preachings were miles apart. So it [the environment] wasn't worth anything, as far as I was concerned. I know all about these saviors, saints, and sages. They have all cheated themselves and fooled everybody. But you may be sure that I am not going to be fooled by anybody. I am in a position to say they are ALL wrong. The "change', if that is the word you want to use, that occurred to me is a purely physiological event, with no mystical or spiritual overtones at all. Anybody who gives a religious slant to any physical happening like this is kidding himself and is kidding the whole of mankind. The more clever and cunning you are, the more successful you will be in persuading people. So you acquire power from people, then project it upon others. You get tremendous power from your followers, then project it back on them. So it gives you the illusion that it is affecting everyone around you. You then come out with some ridiculous statement that this has affected the whole of human consciousness. Actually, it has no psychological or social content at all. It is not that I am antisocial. As I have said, I am not in conflict with society at all. I am not going to destroy all the temples or churches, or burn any books. No such thing. Man cannot be anything other than what he is. Whatever he is, he will create a society that mirrors him.

'''Q: Yes, but how did you stumble upon such wisdom? '''

U.G.: Aha! That's the question!

'''Q: You obviously don't get it by sitting under a tree in the moonlight ... '''

U.G.: No, there is nothing to get ...

'''Q: I refer not to some romantic achievement, but to that certainty you possess. You have a certainty, that's all. I feel that I and others don't have it. Neither do I know how to get it. '''

U.G.: You must find your basic question. My basic question was: "Is there anything behind the abstractions the holy men are throwing at me? Is there really anything like enlightenment or self-realization?" I didn't want the question. I just had it. So naturally I had to experiment. I tried so many things, this, that, and the other for a while. Then you find out one day that there is nothing to find out at all! You reject them completely and totally. This rejection is not a movement of thought at all, not a superficial denial. It is not done to attain or achieve something.

'''Q: ... like the need to get something spiritual ...? '''

U.G.: There is nothing to get. There is nothing to find or to find out. The understanding that there is nothing to understand is all there is. Even that is an inferential statement. In other words, there is nothing to understand.

'''Q: The fact that there is nothing to understand is a certainty for you, but not me. '''

U.G.: First of all, you see, you don't have the hunger, the thirst to find out the answer to that. So you can't do a thing about it. Anything you do perpetuates that, keeps your hunger at bay. What seems to have happened to me is not that my hunger has been satisfied either with bread crumbs or a whole loaf of bread, but that the hunger found no satisfactory answer and burned itself out. All these thirst-quenchers haven't helped to quench my thirst. But somehow in my case the thirst burned itself out. I am a burnt-out case—but not in the sense in which you use that term. It's an entirely different kind of being burnt out. What is there now is something living. There is no need for communication, No communication is possible on that level. The demand to know, to be certain, is not there at all.

'''Q: I don't understand ... '''

U.G.: It's just like the tree out there. What do you want to do with the trees? They are not even self-conscious that they are useful to other forms of life, providing shade.... Like the tree, I am never conscious that I can be of service to anyone.

'''Q: Don't you have any simple honorable sentiments like affection for another, love, or even lust? Haven't you ever seen a beautiful woman and wanted to make love to her?'''

U.G.: The movement of desire is so fast that it doesn't stop there. There is something—I wouldn't say it's more interesting or more attractive—but it changes that movement and demands your complete attention. Everything happening at that moment demands your complete and total attention. In that state there are no longer two things—lover and beloved, pursuer and pursued. What you call "a beautiful woman"—which is an idea—gives way to something else. And there comes a time when you can't love her in the old way any more.

'''Q: You mean when you see a beautiful woman you are totally involved without having to get involved? '''

U.G.: The thought that she's a woman isn't there. Then you see what a beautiful woman can give you. "What can I get from this woman", is not there. Everything is constantly moving. There is no religious content to this at all.

'''Q: Forget about religion. We are talking about beautiful women. They affect you in a different way, you say. You don't exhibit the obsession with sex which so many of us do when in the company of beautiful women. Yet you are affected. I am obsessed with beautiful women and sex, and want to reduce the impact they have on me. How can I get some objectivity on the matter, as you seem to have? '''

U.G.: It's too much of a hassle to bother about that. Please remember that....

'''Q: Don't you think that an individual who has seen the light should lighten the way for others? Don't you feel some sense of responsibility for your fellow beings? Isn't it incumbent upon you to share with the world the truth you have "stumbled upon"?'''

U.G.: No. I have no way of transmitting it and you have no way of knowing it.

'''Q: Yes, but don't you want to inspire the world around you? ''' U.G.: Inspiration is a meaningless thing. So many things and people inspire us, but the actions born out of inspiration are meaningless. Lost, desperate people create a market for inspiration. So, I am not interested in inspiring anybody. All inspired action will eventually destroy you and your kind. That's a fact!

'''Q: Is there any way of preventing that? Is not life the only cure-all? '''

U.G.: What do you want to prevent? In you love and hate are born. I don't like to put it that way because love and hate are not opposite ends of the same spectrum; they are one and the same thing. They are much closer than kissing cousins. If you don't get what you expect out of the so-called love, what is there is hate. You may not like me to use the word "hate", but it is apathy and indifference to others. I believe love and hate are the same thing. I tell this to people wherever I go, all over the world.

'''Q: Every year you spend four months in America, four months in India, and four months in Switzerland. That is dangerously close to the usual travel plans of J. Krishnamurti, isn't it? He covers an almost identical route year after year. '''

U.G.: I don't know why he is doing that. It is the weather that is responsible for my movements. When it is hot in India, I go to Switzerland. When it gets too cold in Switzerland, I move to California, then back to India again. This whole J. Krishnamurti thing no longer interests me.

'''Q: Perhaps. But you must have observed the entire thing very carefully because you were a part of it for a long while. Everyone knows of your past interest in J. Krishnamurti, and the fact that you eventually broke with him.'''

U.G.: In the early days he didn't have a huge organization like he has today. It was a small simple organization publishing a few books, that was all. He did a little traveling and public talking, organized informally by some friends. That was it. But now it is a limited concern, a growth industry like any other business. This kind of organization he has now, with worldwide real estate holdings, boards of trustees, vaults of insured tape recordings, millions of dollars, all runs counter to his basic teaching, which is that you can't organize truth. He shouldn't be building an empire in the name of spirituality.

'''Q: Have you ever met any of the "God-men" of India? You know, the famous ones making a fast buck in the holy business.'''

U.G.: No, I've never been a shopper. I've encountered a few of them for a few minutes in my travels, that's all. What I am was born out of my own struggle. I learned everything about myself by myself. Both the secular and the spiritual schools of thought irritate me. The gurus and God-men are, therefore, of no interest to me at all. We have exported them to the United States and Europe. They have their own too ...

'''Q: Yes. The Reverend Moon, Jim Jones, scoundrels galore ...'''

U.G.: And now there is another Jones: Da Jones, "the one who gives" in Sanskrit. Any holy scam is welcome there, whether from Indonesia, Japan, India, or from Nepal. If they get popular enough in the West, make enough of a splash, we bring them back to India. It is similar to how Indian women bring back saris from the West to wear here. They pay three times the price there!

'''Q: Have you ever met Maharshi Yogi in Switzerland? '''

U.G.: No, never. I don't go out of my room, so I can't say. I'm not in touch with what's going on here in India. I don't care for the newspapers here, so I don't read them. Indian current events don't interest me, you see, because whatever happens here has no real effect on the world. India is not in a position to affect the world. Although there is no sure way to divide up opinions into spiritual, political, or otherwise. You may call this a political opinion. How can India give direction to or influence the world? India has neither the power nor the moral status. The spirituality you claim does not actually work in the life of the country. You have to show the world that the oneness of life you have preached for centuries operates in the daily life of this country, as well as in the lives of individuals. That is difficult. No one is interested in what India says or does. It doesn't have the necessary stature to affect world events. The only thing about India that interests the rest of the world is the question, "What will happen to her millions and millions of people? In which direction, towards what camp, is she going to move?" Nothing else.

'''Q: Does a religion like Marxism help? It has a spiritual content, after its own fashion. It seems to look at a broader, less archaic frame of reference. '''

U.G.: Marxism as a religion has failed. Even Maoism is dead. Even the Marxist countries are looking for a new God now. They have lost faith in man and are once again looking for a new God, new Church, new Bible, and a new priest. The search is on for a different kind of freedom.

'''Q: But Hinduism allows a great deal of freedom. It was never a conservative religion, like Christianity, Islam, or Marxism.'''

U.G.: The only difference between the East and the West is the difference in our religions. Christianity has not produced such weird characters as we have in this country. Here religion is an individual affair. Each one has set up his own shop and is selling his particular wares. That's why we have the variety here, which is lacking in the West. This variety is the most attractive part of our so-called heritage. Hinduism is not a religion. It is a combination and confusion of many things. The actual word "Hindu" comes from a lost non-Sanskrit word no longer in use. You wouldn't know anything about it. The invading Aryans who set up the Brahmanic social structure found the native Indians to have a dark complexion and called their religion the religion of the blacks—the "Hindus". The scholars and pundits may not like my interpretation, but it is correct and historical. Again, I repeat, Hinduism is not a religion in the usual sense; it is like a street with hundreds of shops.

'''Q: You mean Rajneesh's sex shop next to J. Krishnamurti's awareness shop, which is next to Maharshi's meditation shop, which is next door to Sai Baba's magic shop, which is next to.... '''

U.G.: Basically they are all the same, exactly the same. Each claims that his wares are the best to be found in the market. Some products, like Pears Soap, have been in the market so long that people have come to know, depend upon them, and consider them superior to others. The durability of a particular product doesn't mean very much.

'''Q: What is your opinion of the Indian entertainment business? They say most of your following comes from this industry. '''

U.G.: Everything in this country is entertainment. The politicians thrive on the gullibility of men. Religions thrive on the credulity of others. Well, we are damn fools, you see. That's all there is to it.

'''Q: With such an opinion of mankind, you must not have any high hopes for the future of the race ... '''

U.G.: I don't think anything better will happen to man, or for man.

Q: But surely the incredible progress of technology, especially in the West, in the last hundred years, bodes well for man.

U.G.: That is true. But that is because of the industrial revolution. Nations like Russia, America, and other Western nations have taken advantage of the industrial revolution to push technology ahead.

Q: Man seems to have made more progress in the last one hundred years than he did in the previous four billions years.

U.G.: That's exactly what I am saying. It is because of the industrial revolution that far-reaching changes are sweeping the world. How effective these changes will be is anybody's guess. The regime of science and technology is already slipping ... '''Q: Where do you think all this will take us? '''

U.G.: Why should it take us anywhere? Why? What for? "Progress" means "to advance into enemy territory". You are hopeful that unbridled progress will bring a solution to our problems. If it was that clear-cut, we might as well program the computers and see what they have to say regarding our future and our destinies.

Q: But if we are nothing more than the sum total of our past, the prediction becomes easy and accurate ...

U.G.: This will give us no guarantee as to where the future will lead.

Q: No, we have control over our futures.

U.G.: Something unexpected and unpredictable happens and the whole course is suddenly changed. We take it for granted that we can channel life in the direction we want, but there is no guarantee we will succeed. Events are really independent of one another. We create and put them together. We have created the philosophical structure of thought, but that does not mean that there is a pattern or purpose for everything. Nor does it mean that everything is predetermined.

'''Q: But what about hope? Surely man lives by hope.'''

U.G.: Man has always lived in hope and will probably die in hope. In the light of the tremendous destructive power he now has at his command, he will probably take every other form of life with him when he goes. This is not my doomsday song, but when you look realistically at our situation this seems to be the lot of us all, like it or not. You are mistaken if you think or hope that we can put the whole momentum of human history on a different track. We need to be saved from those saviors who promise the millennium just around the corner.

'''Q: How can you help it? '''

U.G.: The "how" creates another savior.

Q: Yes, but is there any other way of changing course than the spiritual?

U.G.: First of all, you see, to divide life into the material and the spiritual has absolutely no meaning to me. All this hogwash about spiritual life is born out of the assumption that there is a spirit which has an independent existence of its own. The assumption makes no sense.

'''Q: What about the notion that the body is destroyed, but the spirit lives on ...? '''

U.G.: It's just a belief. It doesn't mean anything at all. I have no way of transmitting this certainty to you. There is nothing that will rise or reincarnate itself after I die. For you to speculate on the beyond has no meaning.

'''Q: The body itself seems to seek a kind of immortality through procreation. '''

U.G.: That is the nature of life. The demand for survival and the need to reproduce oneself is inherent in the nature of life. Your sexuality, your progeny, your family structure, and so much more is an extension of this basic natural drive to survive and procreate.

'''Q: So when you die you are finished ...? '''

U.G.: If, when this body is buried, the memories people have of me are buried along with it, that will be the end of me.

'''Q: Some of your followers want to scatter your ashes... '''

U.G.: What for? Very often people ask me, "Are you not going to leave any instructions on how we should dispose of your dead body?" What the hell! Who wants to leave any instruction? It will begin to smell and become a nuisance to society ... It's not my problem, but society's. I am already in hell. There is no need for me to die to reach there.

'''Q: You have a family somewhere, don't you? '''

U.G.: My daughters, two of them, are in Hyderabad. One of my sons, Vasant, died recently of cancer. The other fellow, Kumar, is younger and was born in America. He is an electronics engineer there now. I see him occasionally when I visit the U.S.A. I don't have much contact with my family. They come and visit me sometimes. That's all. I have no emotional links with them, or with anybody for that matter. Not even with Valentine, the old Swiss lady I have been with for the last twenty years. I don't think I have any emotional links with anybody.

'''Q: Have you ever had any emotional links with anybody? '''

U.G.: I don't know. I probably did not, even with my wife with whom I lived for twenty years. I really don't know what kind of links one should have.

'''Q: You've never had any overwhelming feelings towards another person, man or woman? '''

U.G.: What obsessed me most was to find out the answer to my question. It was the one overriding thing for me. What was behind the abstractions these people, including J. Krishnamurti, were throwing at me? If there is nothing there, how could they have created all this mischief in the world? I understood that you could kid yourself and others; but I wanted an answer. I never got an answer. The question just burnt itself out. That does not mean that I am enlightened, or that I know the Truth. Those who have claimed such things have fooled themselves and others. All of them are wrong. Not that I am superior to them or any such thing; it is just that they are making claims that have no real basis at all. That was and is my certainty. There is no power in the world that can make me accept anything. So I am not in conflict with the power structure. I am not interested in taking anything away from anybody.

'''Q: We sense a kind of remoteness or disinterestedness in you. Haven't you ever been carried away by anything, say, a beautiful woman, a beautiful sunset, or a beautiful piece of music? Has nothing ever totally swamped you and made you want to go away from everything, I don't know where to...? '''

U.G. Whatever else I may or may not have been, I've never been a romantic in that sense. All that is romanticism for me. Romanticism is not my reality. Nothing has ever, or will ever, sweep me off my feet. It is not that I am the opposite of that, a man of reason. It is the element of reason in me that revolted against itself. I am not anti-rational or arational, just unrational. You may infer a rational meaning in what I say or do, but it is your doing, not mine. I am not interested in anyone's search for happiness, romance, or escape ...

'''Q: It could be more than mere romanticism. It could be a self-abandonment, a crazy, frenzied, or a terrifying, magnificent, spiritual or sexual experience. '''

U.G.: There is no experience here. So, how can there be these dramatic, crazy experiences? I have no way of separating myself from events; the event and I are one and the same. I'm sure you don't want me to say any crude things as far as sex is concerned. It's just a release of tension. I don't romanticize at all about this kind of stuff. As I once told my wife, "Don't talk of love and intimacy to me; what keeps us together is sex. The problem is that I for some reason cannot have sex with another woman. That is my problem. I have no way of freeing myself from this problem." I don't know if all this makes any sense to you. All this talk of love never meant anything to me. That's the end of this obsession with sex.

'''Q: But at one stage you did make love with another woman ... '''

U.G.: Yes, but that was a situation not of my own making. I won't say I was seduced. It doesn't matter whether one seduces another or is himself seduced. The fact is you did it. It was not that person who was responsible. I myself was responsible. It was a peculiar kind of auto-eroticism that was involved in this case.

'''Q: How can you say that? '''

U.G.: I was using that person. It is a terrible thing to use somebody to get pleasure. Whether you use an idea, a concept, a drug, or a person, or anything else, you cannot have pleasure without using something. This revolted me. What are you laughing about? This is my life, take it or leave it. I am not interested in using, influencing, or changing anybody. This is a statement on what I am, how I lived, nothing more. This will not be of any tremendous value for mankind and should not be preserved for posterity. I don't believe in posterity. I have no teaching. There is nothing to preserve. Teaching implies something that can be used to bring about change. Sorry... There is no teaching here, just disjointed, disconnected sentences. What is there is only your interpretation of either the written or spoken word, nothing else. The answers you get are yours. They are your property, not mine. For this reason there is not now, nor will there ever be, any kind of copyright for whatever I am saying. I have no claims.

'''Q: Tell me, U.G., what was your childhood like? '''

U.G.: My mother died when I was seven days old. My maternal grandparents took care of me. My grandfather was a Theosophist. He was a wealthy man and instilled a strong religious atmosphere around the house. So, in that sense, J. Krishnamurti was also part of my background. They had his picture on every wall; I could not avoid him. I did not go to him in search of anything. He was just part of my background. It would have been remarkable had I never gone to see him. My problem was to free myself from the whole background that was strangling me. That's all.

'''Q: Where did you grow up? '''

U.G.: Mostly in Madras, in the Theosophical Society. I went to the University of Madras. I lived most of my formative years with and amongst the Theosophists.

'''Q: Did they repel you from the very beginning? '''

U.G.: From the very beginning, in a way. But I continued to fend for myself. I wanted so much to free myself from my past. I tried so hard. After J. Krishnamurti walked out on the whole thing I eventually broke from them [the Theosophists] also.

'''Q: Do you have memories of Annie Besant? '''

U.G.: Oh, yes! She was a remarkable woman. I met her when I was fourteen. I remember her oratory. My grandfather was very close to Annie Besant. She was an institution. I think India has every reason to be thankful to her, in more respects than one. But the modern generation doesn't know a thing about her. Neither do they know much of Gandhi. It is difficult to say how much people now remember about him. This new film on him will probably spark some interest in his life. '''Q: What do you think of Gandhi's beliefs? '''

U.G.: You want my opinion. I will freely give it. For some reason or other I never liked him. Perhaps it was my Theosophical background. Above all, he was a mixture of a saint and a politician. I think he was the only man amongst the whole lot who really tried to model his life after what he professed to believe in. He may have failed—he has failed in my opinion—but the fact that he tried to live according to the model he had before him, made him an interesting chap. Many others besides him were instrumental in gaining India's freedom. What he has left this country is nothing. It is a sentimental thing to give lectures on him every year on his birthday. He and his followers talked everlastingly, but, as the new film shows, he used violence from start to finish.

'''Q: But you can also say that of Christ, Buddha, and Mohammed. It is those who come after a great teacher that misapply his teachings ... '''

U.G.: You cannot exonerate the founders and leaders of religions. The teachings of all those teachers and saviors of mankind have resulted in only violence. Everybody talked of peace and love, while their followers practiced violence. There is something funny about the whole business. It was this gap between word and deed that signaled to me early on that something was very wrong. I felt that the teachings were wrong, but I lacked certainty. I had no way of brushing them aside, putting them entirely out of my consciousness. I was not ready to accept any of them on sentimental grounds. Even when my efforts to be rid of them resulted in episodes of Christ and Buddha consciousness, still I was discontent. I knew that there must be something wrong somewhere. This was really my problem, you know.

'''Q: You reject things on both sentimental and rational grounds. What is left? '''

U.G.: It is like the man who is riding a tiger and is thrown off. The tiger, maintaining its own momentum, continues on—it's gone. That's all there is to it. You cannot do anything with the tiger anymore. So you never again have the fear of encountering or riding the tiger. It is finished. It has gone. So I think there is little point in my doing anything in society—it has its own momentum. Anything you try to do will engulf you and add to that momentum.` Who has given the mandate to all these people to save mankind? Compassion and love are two of their gimmicks.

'''Q: Did you ever meet that strange old Theosophist called Leadbeater during your Theosophical days? ''' U.G.: Yes, I met him. He was also part of my background. He never impressed me very much. I am aware that there were rumors that he was a homosexual. It doesn't matter to me. Sex is a part of life. Homosexuality, lesbianism, heterosexuality, it's all the same. I don't have any moral position. Society, which has created all these sociopaths, has invented morality to protect itself from them. Count me out. Society has created the "saints" and "sinners". I don't accept them as such. There can be error, mistakes, weakness, but no sin for me. I personally see no reason why we should bother with the Bible, the Koran, the Gita, or the Dhammapada. We have a political body with its civil and criminal codes. That should be sufficient to handle the problem.

title: Mind is a Myth/V


text:
Mind is a Myth/VI

U.G.: You are operating under a great many assumptions. The first assumption is that you think all human beings are exactly the same. I maintain that no two individuals are the same. Your attempt to arrive at the greatest common denominator is self-defeating.

'''Q: As scientists we want to find out if there is a uniqueness behind the apparent similarities in people. We are interested in human dissimilarities and exceptions. The yogins and religious leaders seem to offer us cases of really exceptional and unique persons. We want to study them, and you. '''

U.G.: Don't you have any other way of finding out than going to these yogins and claimants who are peddling their wares in the marketplace? The second-raters may submit to your scrutiny, but the real McCoy, if there is one, will never submit to your tests. This will be a very big problem for you. You can't get a J. Krishnamurti, a Sai Baba, or a Muktananda to cooperate. Those you can get to act as guinea pigs are cheaper by the dozen.

'''Q: But then how are we to go about finding the basis of inner transformation? '''

U.G.: I don't now. I would suggest, however, that you give no credence to the claims these people make. Everything must be tested.

Q: That is the whole point: we are trying to find a way to test their credibility on a scientific basis. U.G.: I am afraid that you are making a horrendous mistake by even toying with the idea of giving any consideration to the claims that these people make. Everything must be tested.

Q: The only thing we have to work with is the statistics and data of what we call "normalcy", nothing more. U.G.: The answers to this problem, as all your problems, have to come from you, not from these yogins and meditators. You may be making a tremendous mistake. This is what I tell the Western psychologists also. You have no objective relationship with the data and knowledge you collect. Your constant interpretation of data means that you are involved in what you are studying; there is no separate entity. It is the interpreter that is of the greatest importance.

Q: But, of course, it's possible and necessary to study man ... U.G.: He has to understand himself first. Are the data and knowledge--and the theories you derive from them--going to help in this regard? From the point of view of knowledge, there is no way of understanding yourself. The computer machine never asks itself, "How am I functioning?" Really understanding yourself demands not the mere accumulation of data, but a quantum jump. I like to use the example of Newtonian physics. Within the Newtonian framework, things work in a certain way. Another scientist eventually comes along who is able to drop the Newtonian assumptions and thereby is able to perceive a whole new dimension of physics. Just as Newtonian principles eventually became a strait-jacket strangling creative thought, so your data about human uniqueness bars your looking at things, including yourself, anew. I like to use the example of Picasso. He had the same problem: he wanted to break new ground, find new techniques. He achieved a breakthrough and eventually became a model for others. Very cheap artists are now imitating his style. So, one day, Einsteinian physics will have to step aside for a fresh system of knowledge. I submit that nature is attempting to create a unique individual every time something is created. Nature does not seem to use anything as a model. When once it has perfected a unique individual, that individual is thrown off the evolutionary process and is of no further interest to nature. This is why whatever I am, whatever I say, cannot be duplicated by another. Therefore, being incapable of transmission, it has no social value. Nature has no use for me, and neither has society. By using the models of Jesus, Buddha, or Krishna we have destroyed the possibility of nature throwing up unique individuals. Those who recommend that you forget your own natural uniqueness and be like someone else, no matter how saintly that person may be, is putting you on the wrong track. It is like the blind leading the blind. When dealing with these yogins and holy men the first wrong turn you take is in trying to relate the way they are functioning with the way you are functioning. What they are describing may not be related to the way you are functioning at all. Uniqueness is not something which can be turned out in a factory. Society is interested only in the status quo and has provided all these so-called special individuals so that you'll have models to follow. You want to be like that fellow--the saint, the savior, or the revolutionary--but it is an impossibility. Your society, which is only interested in turning out copies of acceptable models, is threatened by real individuality because it [individuality] threatens its continuity. A truly unique person, having no cultural reference point, would never know that he is unique.

'''Q: But isn't it possible that the very presence of a unique person, a fully flowered individual, can be of some help to others, not in the sense of providing a model, but in possibly triggering change and uniqueness in others? '''

U.G. I say no. Because the unique individual cannot reproduce himself either physically or spiritually, nature discards him as useless. Nature is only interested in reproducing, and from time to time throwing out a "sport" or unique specimen. This specimen, not able to reproduce itself, is finished with evolution, and is not interested in making of itself a model for others. That is all I am saying.

'''Q: Don't you feel that that throwing up of uniqueness by nature is the flowering of uniqueness for the individual? ''' U.G.: That is bound to happen in individuals who, through some chance or accident, manage to free themselves from the burden of the entire past. If the entire collective knowledge and experience of man is thrown out, what is left is a primordial and primeval state without the primitiveness. That kind of individual is of no use to society at all. Like a shady tree, this individual may provide shade, but can never be conscious of his doing so. If you sit under the tree, a coconut may fall on your head; there is a danger involved. For this reason society may feel threatened by this individual. This society, structured the way it is, can make no use of such a person. I don't believe in "lokasamgraha", the helping of mankind, compassion for the suffering world, lifting a little of the heavy karma of the world, and all that kind of thing. No one appointed me savior to mankind.

'''Q: So, you are saying, are you not, that no scientific approach, yogic approach, or meditative approach, can have any relationship to the uniqueness and freedom you are talking of, is that it? '''

U.G.: I will tell you a story about that. When I was young I did Yoga in the Himalayas for seven years with Sivananda Saraswati. It didn't help, so I dropped it. After my "calamity" in 1967 I felt that my body could not endure the tremendous outbursts of energy taking place there. So I conferred with a friend, Sri Desikachar, who was a yoga teacher. He said, "I don't know if I can be of any help. Perhaps my father (Dr. Krishnamacharya of Madras) may be able to help you." So I practiced some yoga techniques for a second time. But I soon found for myself that the whole yoga business runs counter to the natural way the body is functioning. I tried to discuss it with them. But what I said did not fit into Patanjali's "Yoga Sutras", so we could not communicate. Eventually, I announced to them that I was dropping my yoga practice. When once the organism has freed itself from the stranglehold of thought, anything you do to try to bring about peace and harmony there only creates disharmony and violence. It is like using war to create peace in a peaceful world. When the search itself comes to an end, it comes to an end with a big bang, as it were. Then peace is something that cannot be practiced or taught.

'''Q: I don't think that we are really interested in any such big bang. We want some wisdom, some serenity. '''

U.G.: So, a hungry man is satisfied with some crumbs thrown at him. Soon he wants a full loaf and is promised such by the holy purveyors in the marketplace. It is not a question of satisfying hunger. Hunger must burn itself out without knowing satisfaction. The hunger, and the search it entails, is the problem. If you drop the fictitious models of the saint and holy man, you are left with the natural biological arrangement. The separative structure of thought, which was introduced into the consciousness of man long ago, has created the violent world, and will probably push man and the rest of life on this planet to the brink of extinction. But biologically each cell has the wisdom to avoid models and promises, and simply, out of sheer survival motives, cooperates with the cell next to it. Out of the terror of annihilation, man, like the cells of his body, will learn to cooperate, but not out of love or compassion.

'''Q: Behind this biological cooperation and the flowering of individuality is there not some transcendental thing trying to come out ...? '''

U.G.: I don't think so. It is highly individualistic, not in the usual sense as defined by culture, but in a different way. The control of the body through thought has destroyed the possibility of humans growing into complete humans, that's all. You may dispense with the notion, so prevalent now, that awareness can help bring about any qualitative change in you. Nature is trying to create a unique individual there. The potential is already there in you. But somewhere along the line mankind got off on the wrong track and there seems to be no way out.

Q: In relation to the flowering of individuality, the question that keeps arising is, "Why not me?" U.G.: Just forget it, you haven't got a chance. There is nothing you can do. I don't know what to advise you to do. You are stuck. Perhaps the geneticists and microbiologists will come up with the answers.. I can assure you that the holy business won't help you one bit. Further, if the state gets a hold of the means to do genetic engineering, they will use it to take away the last vestiges of man's freedom. Then that will really be the end of it. It is possible to use, again, the simile of the computer. They, the computers, have become so sophisticated now that they are thinking and self-correcting themselves. We may, someday, just have to plug them in and then follow their advice. If you could let your body function like a computer you would have it. The extraordinary intelligence of the biological organism is all that is necessary for good living, but we are all the time interfering with its natural operation through the medium of thought. Your "natural" bodily computer is already programmed, pressed, and plugged in! You don't have to do a thing! We are a very long way from this primal condition. Somehow, you see, something hits you like lightning and burns the whole thing there. This man then is neither sinner nor saint; he is far outside the framework of society.

'''Q: So, all we can practice, if that is the word, is non-interference? '''

U.G.: Trying to stay out of the way implies that you are waiting for something marvelous to happen. Such waiting prevents the possibility of anything happening. I am telling you all this from my own experience. For forty-nine years I searched for a man called "U.G." The whole culture put me on the wrong track. I tried the dead gurus as well as the living gurus. Eventually, I realized that the search was useless, that the "enemy was me". Now the entire knowledge, and the search it engendered, has been thrown out of my system completely.

Q: And you feel no obligation to help others to understand this thing ...? U.G.: It isn't a marketable commodity, sir! It is simply the absence of a false demand which has been put in there by society and culture. The demand to change one's self and the demand to change the world go out of the system together. I am neither antisocial nor thankful to society. I don't feel any bounden duty to play any part or to help my fellow men. All this kind of thing is balderdash.

'''Q: So wanting to change the world, no matter how noble one may feel about it, is a self-centered, egotistic activity. Is that what you are saying? '''

U.G.: The man who is trying to free himself from the world, or from what he calls "evil" is actually the most egotistical of men. The shattering perception that finally dawns on you is that there is no such thing as "ego" at all! This insight blows everything apart with a tremendous force when it hits you. It is not an experience that can be shared with another. It is not an experience at all. It is a calamity in which both experience and the experiencer come to an end. A man in such a state does not escape reality and has no romantic tendencies. He harbors no humanistic notions about saving the world, for he knows that anything that is done to save it only adds momentum to it. He knows that there is nothing you can do..

'''Q: But we must go on living and acting. How can we conceive of action that does not add momentum to the chaos of society? '''

U.G.: That's just another concept. Your actions and the consequences of those actions form one single event. It is the logical, cause-and-effect thinking that imposes a sequence to events. The sudden evidence of light and the throwing of the light switch which "preceded" it are actually one thing, not two. They appear to you as two or more events only because time has created a space between. But time and space, apart from the ideas of "time" and "space", do not exist at all. Creation and destruction are going on simultaneously. The birth and death of thought happen simultaneously. That is why I insist that there is no such thing as death at all. Even the body does not die; it can change form but does not cease altogether. Because death really does not exist, it is impossible for you to experience it. What you do experience is the void or emptiness you feel upon the disappearance of someone's ("dead") body. Death can never be experienced, and neither can birth for that matter. In your natural state, where the body is allowed to function without the interference of thought, birth and death are going on all the time.

'''Q: In this natural state you are talking of, are there any psychological entities, any personalities, egos, self, or identity at all? '''

U.G.: There are no persons, and no space within to create a self. What is left, after the continuity of thought is blown away, is one disjointed and independent series of interactions. What happens in the environment around me, happens in here. There is no division. When the armor you are wearing around you is stripped away, you find an extraordinary sensitivity of the senses that responds to the phases of the moon, the passage of the seasons, and the movements of the other planets. There is simply no isolated, separate existence of its own here, only the throb of life, like a jellyfish.

'''Q: Can you describe a little of this recurring death process you go through. '''

U.G.: It, of course, defies description. But I can mention that in this death state, the ordinary breath stops entirely, and the body is able to "breathe" through other physiological means. Among the many doctors I have discussed this strange phenomena with, only Dr. Leboyer, an expert in childbirth, gave me a sort of explanation. He says that newborn babies have a similar way breathing. This is probably what the original word pranayama meant. This body goes through the death process on a daily basis, so often that, in fact, every time it renews itself it is given a longer lease. When, one day, it cannot renew itself, it is finished and carted off to the ash heap. This death process is yoga, not the hundreds of postures and breathing exercises. When the thought process stops splitting itself in two, the body goes through a clinical death. First the death must take place, then yoga begins. Yoga is actually the body's skill in bringing itself back from the state of clinical death. This is supposed to have happened to a few people, like Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Ramana Maharshi. I wasn't there and have no interest or resources to find out if this is so. This yoga of renewal is an extraordinary thing. If you observe a newborn baby, you will have observed the way it moves and articulates its whole body, all in a natural rhythm. After the breath and heartbeat come to almost a complete stop, somehow the body begins to "come back". The corpse-like appearance of the body--the stiffness, coldness, and ash covering--begin to disappear. The body warms up and begins to move, and the metabolism, including the pulse, picks up. If you, out of scientific curiosity, wish to test me, I am not interested. I am simply making a statement, not selling a product. So, it is much more like the Chinese Tai-Chi than classical Yoga asanas". The movements and postures that the body performs when breaking down the stiffness left over from the death process are beautiful, graceful movements, like those of a newborn baby. Yogins now prescribe savasana, the corpse posture, after the performance of any moving postures. This is backward. You start yoga as a dead stiff body, then the body is renewed through natural rhythmic movements. Probably there was some guru who went through this natural death process and his disciples, watching him return to life, tried to duplicate this death process though breathing and posture techniques. They got it backward. First, you must die, then, there is yoga. This whole process of dying and being renewed, although it happens to me many times a day, and always without my volition, remains very intriguing to me. It just happens out of nowhere. Even the thought of the self or ego has been annihilated. Still there is something there experiencing this death. Otherwise, I would not be able to describe it here. With the absence of any demand to repeat or use this death process, the senses are given a field day. The breath, no longer under the domination of the separative thought structure, can respond fully to the physical environment. Upon seeing a beautiful mountain or sunset, the breath is suddenly drawn out of you, then back in, all in a natural rhythm. This is where the expression "breathtaking beauty" probably comes from. The only way you become conscious of things happening round you is through subtle changes in breathing patterns. It is a tremendous mechanism, and in it there are no persons, no things ...

Q: So this non-lung breathing is epiphenomenal to the death process, a side show as it were ...?

U.G.: Not necessarily. Sometimes you are just sitting there and you suddenly feel a shortness of breath, almost a gasping for air. It is something like a second wind. The yogins are trying to achieve this second wind through the practice of various techniques. So do the athletic runners. If you watch the runners you will see that they have to pass a "wall" of exhaustion and shortness of breath. Once through the "wall" they are running on a second wind. It is something like that for me. But even this passes, and finally breathing stops altogether and the body bypasses the lungs, breathing with the pulse of the body alone. Sometimes, when there is nobody to talk to, I sit and allow all these strange things to happen.

Q: Haven't western doctors attempted to describe the glandular changes that accompany this death process? U.G.: Yes, but there is little understanding of this kind of thing in the annals of Western medicine. One paper, done by Dr. Paul Lynn of the United States, stresses the difference in the way my thymus gland functions. But there are other glands that are affected also---the pineal, the pituitary, and others. The pineal gland, which controls the whole movement, breathing, and coordination of the body, is greatly affected. When the separative thought structure dies, these glands and nerve plexuses take over the functioning of the organism. It is a painful process, for the hold of thought over the glands and plexuses is strong and has to be "burnt" off. This can be experienced by an individual. The burning or "ionization" needs energy and space to take place. For this reason the limits of the body are reached, with energy lashing out in all directions. The body's containment of that energy in its limited form brings pain, even though there is no experiencer of pain there. This painful death process is something nobody--not even the most ardent religious practitioners and yogins--wants. It is a very painful thing. It is not the result of will, but is the result of a fortuitous concourse of atoms. How all this fits into your scientific structure, I do not know. Scientists doing work in this field are interested in these changes, if they are described in physiological rather than mystical terms. These scientists envisage this kind of man as representing the end product of biological evolution, not the science-fiction superman or super spiritual beings. Nature is only interested in creating an organism that can respond fully and intelligently to stimuli and reproduce itself. That's all. This body is capable of extraordinary perceptions and sensations. It is a marvel. I don't know who created it. Scientists in the field of evolution now think that the present breed of humans we have on this planet probably evolved out of a degenerated species. The mutation that carried on the self-consciousness must have taken place in a degenerate species. That is why we have messed everything up. It is anybody's guess as to whether anyone can change the whole thing.

'''Q: Is it possible that a survivor of this total death process, a mutant of some sort, could change the course of human destiny, so to speak? '''

U.G.: The claims they make have really no basis at all, for they speak of affecting the whole of human consciousness. I think that human consciousness in its totality is a tremendously powerful thing, with a strong momentum of its own. I don't think they realize what they are talking about. The whole of human consciousness is a very formidable thing. The only consciousness they know of is that created by thought. The thinking consciousness of man can only be affected by propaganda, persuasion, or drugs. Any change from these sources is only within the old framework, and, therefore, useless. What can we change? Is change necessary? What for? I don't know.

'''Q: It sounds as if a certain soil is needed to grow the kind of mutants you describe. We are all brought up in barren, mediocre, and unnourishing soil. Will not some other soil help? '''

U.G.: The sensitivity is still there, despite the poor soil. The whole blueprint is there, like in the plant sitting over there. If you don't water and nourish it, it dies. Nothing is lost for mankind. Don't attempt to develop new soil compositions. That is what we have done with the trees and plants, and we are now polluting the whole planet. The same would happen with trying to cultivate a better strain of mankind.

'''Q: From the way you describe it, there must be a radical change in the source of one's identity after the collapse of the separative structure. Is there a self that remains after the "explosion"? Is the "I" only in the brain? '''

U.G.: There is no "I". "I" is only a first person singular pronoun. The totality of the thoughts, feelings, experiences, and hopes of mankind constitute the "I". It is a product of the past. That "I" is a symbol of the totality of man's consciousness. Actually, there is no separate, discreet psychological entity there, only the word "I". Similarly, there is only the word "mind", but no such thing as your mind and my mind. So the word "mind" has created us all for the simple reason that it needs each of us to maintain its continuity. The separative structure of what we call "the mind" vitiated the natural survival mechanism of the body to the extent that our society has pushed it to the limits of tolerance. The H-Bomb is an extension of the policeman there hired to protect me and my property. It is no longer possible to draw a line between the two. But the survival of the separative structure guarantees the eventual destruction of the physical organism.

'''Q: Why is it that your words do not trigger some radical action in us ...? '''

U.G.: What opportunity that might have been there is already lost because whatever has been said here has already been appropriated by and become part of your old framework. Your so-called sensitivity to what has been said does not go very deep. Everything that was standing as an obstacle before is still there. In fact, it has been strengthened by this conversation. The self will use anything to perpetuate itself; nothing is sacred. If you do try to go deep and demolish what is there, it is only with the idea and purpose of constructing a new superstructure.

'''Q: Why do you assume that? '''

U.G.: Because that's the way it works.

'''Q: Suppose I am serious about it and somehow find out.... '''

U.G.: No suppositions, please! What happened to me was acausal; it just happened. In spite of all my efforts, struggles, and intentions, this thing happened to me, and that is the miracle of miracles. You cannot make this happen. It is not subject to duplication because when it hits you, it hits you at a time and place never before touched by life. It is not an experience at all, and, therefore, cannot be communicated or transmitted. It is not something you share. It is a rare bird, that's all. All you can do is to put it in a museum and look at it, but you can never duplicate or share it.

'''Q: It is frightening to think of living without a center, a self, a reference point.... '''

U.G.: The reference point, the "I", cannot be eliminated through any volition on your part. In the final analysis, it is your genetically predetermined program, your "script". To be free of that miserable genetic destiny, to throw away the "script", demands tremendous courage. You have to brush everything aside to find out. Your problem is not how to get something from somebody, but how to reject everything that is offered by anybody. There is, in fact, no "how" to it. This demands a valor that comes before courage, for its existence implies the occurrence of something great -- the impossible. No amount of cultivation, of either meekness or courage, will be of any help whatsoever. There is not a thing you can do, for this thing is of one's entire being, and anything you do is fragmentary, partial. You must be helpless ... When I sit here and my eyes are open, the whole of my being is the eyes. It is a tremendous "vista-vision", with everything passing through you. Your looking is so intense and undistracted that the eyes never blink and there is no room left for an "I" that is looking. Everything looks at me, not vice versa. As it is with the eyes, so it is with the other senses, each having an independent career of its own. The sensual response, which is all that is there, is not modified, censored, or coordinated, but left alone to vibrate in the body. There is a sort of coordination that arises when the organism must function for survival and smooth mechanical operation. Only enough coordination is allowed which is essential to respond to a given situation. Then things lapse back into their independent, disjointed rhythm. Do not translate what I am saying here as "bliss", "beatitude", or "enlightenment". It is actually a frightening, bewildering situation. It has nothing to do with so-called mystical or transcendental experiences. I see absolutely no reason why a religious or spiritual slant should be given to it at all. I am describing nothing more than a simple physiological functioning of the human organism. Although all this is not apart from nature, it will never fit into any nature study or scientific form of knowledge.

'''Q: So you have to reject everything? '''

U.G.: Not reject. The thing you are rejecting, and the rejection itself, have no relevance to the actual way your organism is now functioning. When that is seen clearly, there remains nothing to reject or renounce. You are prepared to reject so that you can get, that's all. Your Upanishads say that it must be the object of your fondest and highest desires. But I emphasize, on the contrary, that the desire itself must come to an end. It is the search itself, no matter how noble you may think it to be, that is disturbing you. Forget about the petty little desires you have been advised to control. When the desire of desires is dispensed with, the others are of no importance.

Q: You are not saying that because what happened to you cannot be scientifically appreciated in all its fullness, that ordinary events, things, and people cannot be appreciated fully, are you? U.G.: Certainly not. Within that framework everything is valid, relatively valid. But the "reality" you want to study is put together by the psyche or self, and I emphatically deny both. Therefore your search for reality, psychological authenticity, and self-realization is meaningless to me. They are the products of frightened people. The scientific procedure, not the self, gives you a reference point so that you may measure the truth or falseness of what I am saying. Look, I tried everything to find an answer to my burning obsession: "Is there such a thing as enlightenment at all, or have we all been fooled by abstractions?" That utter frustration and complete failure to answer that question created an intensity. The first third of my life was spent in India around Theosophists, J. Krishnamurti, yogins, holy men, sages, Ramana Maharshi, the Ramakrishna Order -- in short, all the associations that could benefit a person interested in spiritual matters. I found out for myself that it was all bogus, there was nothing to it at all. Totally disillusioned with the whole religious tradition of both the East and the West, I plunged myself into modern psychology, science and, whatever the material world could give me. I found out for myself that the whole idea of spirit or psyche was false. When I experimented with and studied the material world, I was surprised to find that there was no such thing as matter at all. Denying the spiritual and material basis of things, I was left with nowhere to turn. I began drifting on my own, unable to find an answer from any source. Then one day the futility of what I was doing dawned upon me, and the question which had obsessed me for almost my entire life got burnt, then disappeared. After that there were no more questions. The thirst burned itself out without ever satisfying itself. Not answers, but the ending of questions, is the important thing. Even though everything got burnt there, still embers remain to express themselves in a natural rhythm. What impacts this expression may have on the society around me is not my concern.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Mind is a Myth/VI


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Mind is a Myth/Glossary

Ahimsa: Non-violence. Asana: Lit. Seat. A physical posture. One of the eight "limbs" of Patanjali's yoga. Ashrama: A spiritual retreat. Atma: Lit. The self. The interior self as distinguished from the empirical self which one experiences in everyday life. In the Upanishads and Advaita Vedanta, Atman is believed to be non-different from Brahman, the ultimate reality of the universe. Avatara: Sanskrit term for a savior or sage. Bhagavan: Lit. God. Also a form of addressing a liberated person, as such persons are believed to attained divinity. Chakras: The nerve plexuses or centers along the spine and in the head through which the Kundalini (see below) energy is led. Guru: A teacher, particularly of the spiritual kind. Japa: Lit. Muttering or whispering. A muttered prayer consisting of reciting (and repeating) passages from scriptures, spells or names of a deity.

Jivanmukti: Liberation during one's lifetime. Karma: The effects of a person's past actions on his or her present and future state. Kundalini: A form of yoga practiced in India, primarily in the school of Tantra. The term means "serpent power", the energy which is believed to lie dormant in the human being and which through breath control and other means is made to travel through various chakras (see above) along the spine to be ultimately united with universal energy or Godhead in the Sahasrara chakra (the thousand-petaled lotus) located in the top of the head. Lokasamgraha: Lit. Welfare of the world. Also the act of saving the world. Mahatma: Lit. A great soul. The title of a spiritually enlightened person. Moksha: Sanskrit term for liberation. Mukti: Lit. Release. Liberation. Murti: Lit. Form, shape. An idol in a temple. Also a suffix for some given names in the South of India. Nirvana: Lit. Blown out. Buddhist term for explosion in consciousness leading to enlightenment. Pranayama: Breath control. One of the eight "limbs" of Patanjali's yoga. Consists of controlled inhalation, retention, and exhalation of air. Puja: Devotional ritual and prayer. Pundit: A learned man. Also used as an honorary title. Ram nam: A mantra ("the name of Rama") the repetition of which is used as part of meditation. Sadhana: Spiritual practice. Samadhi: Deep meditative trance state. Samskara: Psychological conditioning or memory. Sanskrit: The classical language of India in which most religious and spiritual literature was composed. Savasana: The "corpse" posture--one of the asanas (see above) consisting of lying on the back and relaxing all limbs. Swami: Lit. Master or lord. A form of addressing spiritual teachers or one's favorite deity. Vedanta: A system of Hindu monistic or pantheistic philosophy based on the Vedas. Yoga: Lit. Joining or union. In general, a path of liberation. More specifically, the system of physical and mental discipline propounded by Patanjali, the practice of which is believed to lead to "isolation" or liberation.

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2 about it. I make but little reference to that stock of information; not at all regarding it as a necessary consequence of my having had recourse to the storehouse for my own benefit, that I should reproduce its easily accessible contents before the eyes of my readers.

Neither will there be found, in these pages, any grave examination into the government or misgovernment of any portion of the country. No visiter of that beautiful land can fail to have a strong conviction on the subject; but as I chose when residing there, a Foreigner, to abstain from the discussion of any such questions with any order of Italians, so I would rather not enter on the inquiry now. During my twelve months' occupation of a house at Genoa, I never found that authorities constitutionally jealous, were distrustful of me; and I should be sorry to give them occasion to regret their free courtesy, either to myself or any of my countrymen.

There is, probably, not a famous Picture or Statue in all Italy, but could be easily buried under a mountain of printed paper devoted to dissertations on it. I do not, therefore, though an earnest admirer of Painting and Sculpture, expatiate at any length on famous Pictures and Statues. This Book is a series of faint reflections—mere shadows in the water—of places to which the imaginations of most people are attracted in a greater or less degree, on which mine had dwelt for years, and which have some interest for all. The greater part of the descriptions were written on the spot, and sent home, from time to time, in private letters. I do not

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Rh mention the circumstance as an excuse for any defects they may present, for it would be none; but as a guarantee to the Reader that they were at least penned in the fulness of the subject, and with the liveliest impressions of novelty and freshness. If they have ever a fanciful and idle air, perhaps the reader will suppose them written in the shade of a Sunny Day, in the midst of the objects of which they treat, and will like them none the worse for having such influences of the country upon them. I hope I am not likely to be misunderstood by Professors of the Roman Catholic faith, on account of anything contained in these pages. I have done my best, in one of my former productions, to do justice to them; and I trust, in this, they will do justice to me. When I mention any exhibition that impressed me as absurd or disagreeable, I do not seek to connect it, or recognise it as necessarily connected, with, any essentials of their creed. When I treat of the ceremonies of the Holy Week, I merely treat of their effect, and do not challenge the good and learned Dr. Wiseman's interpretation of their meaning. When I hint a dislike of nunneries for young girls who abjure the world before they have ever proved or known it; or doubt the ex officio sanctity of all Priests and Friars; I do no more than many conscientious Catholics both abroad and at home.

I have likened these Pictures to shadows in the water, and would fain hope that I have, nowhere, stirred the water so roughly, as to mar the shadows. I could

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Rh At this moment the most stable Government in the world is our own, and it is solely because, in its real essence, it is the most free, in the only sense in which Freedom really exists; where men can act at their own free discretion, restrained only by the necessities of Justice. If the spirit of the Constitution is to be observed, that great instrument is always self-preserving. It needs only to be followed to be safeguarded. To the present time, the great fundamental principles which it buttresses have never been departed from. The wealth producing doctrines of free competition and an unhampered play of the law of supply and demand (as stated in the Patten case ) have ever been adequately protected by the Supreme Court of the United States. That great tribunal, however difficult its task, has on the one hand defended men from the pernicious taxing power of monopoly, whilst, on the other, it has as certainly defended our citizens in their rights both freely "to pursue happiness," through all that is necessary to preserve untrammeled competition in commodities, and freedom from threat or danger of persecution. It has always shown a consciousness that excess profits are, of necessity, the result of excess needs, but their only permanent cure. Whilst Governmental necessity has unfortunately resulted in such profits being, in greater part, diverted to Governmental needs, and thus inevitably delaying the cure, it is mere folly to imagine that a complete prevention of this only effective restorative to business could be other than disastrous in the extreme. It must result in the development of all essential industries by our foreign competitors and by the destruction of our own productive enterprises unless the Government


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154 soon relinquishes or lessens its exactions. At the present moment we see all other Governments engaged in fostering the development of their competitive power, with the single exception of Russia; so that there has been no time in history when it could be more dangerous further to harass and penalize those of our citizens engaged in industry. We have already, particularly in the Public Service utilities, too many dangerous and disturbing factors. Unnecessarily to extend such dangers to the whole trade of the United States, and to enforce regulations difficult of application to the merchandising of commodities, under conditions that can never receive adequate judicial consideration, or be workable upon a business basis, must, inevitably, bring on financial depression with all its consequent ills. These causes have often proved the death of Liberty, not only in trade, but in the broader meaning.


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 refuge in the desert, where they perished with hunger and thirst. In the year 1525, another caravan assembled at Hamazen, consisting of 336 friars and priests, and fifteen nuns. They set out from Hamazen on the 12th day after leaving this place, travelling slowly; and, being loaded with provisions and water, they were attacked by the Moors of that district, and utterly defeated and robbed. Of the pilgrims taken prisoners, all the old men were put to the sword, and the young were sold for slaves; so that of 336 persons fifteen only escaped, but three of which lived to return to Shoa at the time the ambassador was there. This was the first vengeance the Moors to the northward had yet taken for the alliance made with the Portuguese; and, from this time, the communication with Cairo through the desert ceased as to the Christians, and was carried on by Mahometans only.

the time of Peter Covillan's arrival in Abyssinia, the views of all parties had very much changed. The Portuguese at first coveted the friendship of Abyssinia, for the sake of obtaining through it a communication with India. But they now became indifferent about that intercourse, since they had settled in India itself, and found the convenience of the passage of the Cape of Good Hope. David, freed from his fears of the Moors of Adel, whom he had defeated, and seeing the great power of the Turks, so much apprehended after the conquest of Egypt, disappointed in India in all their attempts against the Portuguese settlements there; being, moreover, displeased with the abrupt behaviour of the ambassador Don Roderigo, and the promises the empress Helena had made by Matthew without his knowledge, he wished no further connexion with the