Get Lost and Stay Lost
On the Road with UG Krishnamurti
by Julie Thayer
On the Road with UG Krishnamurti
by Julie Thayer
Julie Thayer traveled extensively with UG from 1989 till his passing in 2007, through many of those years she kept a vigilant Journal giving Insight to the extraordinary state of UG Krishnamurti and the powerful changes affecting those he came in contact with.
Preface
I met U.G. Krishnamurti in California in 1989. By happenstance, a book by U.G., or rather a book about him, Mind is a Myth, was in the window of a Carmel bookstore, Pilgrim's Way, the very day I went looking for a copy of The Mystique of Enlightenment, an earlier collection of U.G.’s conversations, a book I had come across and been astonished by a few months earlier.
I raced into the store, opened Mind is a Myth, and found a card tucked into it, as if a bookmark. It was a note by Dr. Narayana Moorty, a philosophy professor from Monterey Community College. He gave his telephone number in case the reader was interested in knowing more about U.G.
I called Dr. Moorty right away, and he invited me over to his house to talk and to borrow some audio tapes. U.G., he said, might appear in Seaside any day and he would let me know if he heard from him.
Sure enough, the next day the phone rang and Moorty told me U.G. had called from Mill Valley. He had just arrived in the Bay Area, and he would be in Seaside in ten days time for a "flying visit."
Moorty asked me if I would like to meet U.G.; without hesitation, I said yes! And so it came to pass that on April 30, 1989 I went to lunch at Moorty's house in Seaside, California along with ten or fifteen others, and made the acquaintance of the man who was to play the most remarkable role in my life from that moment on.
My first impression of U.G. was of a small catlike man with a completely disarming way about him, utterly lacking in pretension or guile. And yet a power emanated from him that turned my brain to slush. As he talked I heard him as from a great distance, as though my mind was operating in slow motion. The only thing I could remember thinking was "I want to spend more time with him."
He told me, when I said I was from New York, that it was his favorite city, that he particularly liked the intense energy around Times Square. I went to see him a few times in Mill Valley and broke all ties with my spiritual teacher after the first visit. When U.G. said surrendering to a teacher was surrendering your self-reliance, and that not one of them had anything to give, it resonated.
I returned to the East Coast and spent the summer in Maine; from there I phoned U.G. in Switzerland and offered him the use of my apartment in New York if he should come in the fall.
At first he said no thank you. But on his arrival in New York in September, amazingly enough, his rented apartment having fallen through, he took me up on the offer, insisting only that I not move out (which I had intended to do), and that I give him the maid's room (my office) to sleep in as he only felt comfortable in small spaces.
It was my 49th birthday. Strangely, it did not strike me as unusual that he would arrive at my door with his small bag and minimal possessions and simply move in with someone he barely knew. In fact there was something about him that made me feel I had known him for a long time.
I began keeping a journal from the first day. Somehow I felt his visit was going to be interesting, epic, and I wanted to remember details as they presented themselves.
I met U.G. Krishnamurti in California in 1989. By happenstance, a book by U.G., or rather a book about him, Mind is a Myth, was in the window of a Carmel bookstore, Pilgrim's Way, the very day I went looking for a copy of The Mystique of Enlightenment, an earlier collection of U.G.’s conversations, a book I had come across and been astonished by a few months earlier.
I raced into the store, opened Mind is a Myth, and found a card tucked into it, as if a bookmark. It was a note by Dr. Narayana Moorty, a philosophy professor from Monterey Community College. He gave his telephone number in case the reader was interested in knowing more about U.G.
I called Dr. Moorty right away, and he invited me over to his house to talk and to borrow some audio tapes. U.G., he said, might appear in Seaside any day and he would let me know if he heard from him.
Sure enough, the next day the phone rang and Moorty told me U.G. had called from Mill Valley. He had just arrived in the Bay Area, and he would be in Seaside in ten days time for a "flying visit."
Moorty asked me if I would like to meet U.G.; without hesitation, I said yes! And so it came to pass that on April 30, 1989 I went to lunch at Moorty's house in Seaside, California along with ten or fifteen others, and made the acquaintance of the man who was to play the most remarkable role in my life from that moment on.
My first impression of U.G. was of a small catlike man with a completely disarming way about him, utterly lacking in pretension or guile. And yet a power emanated from him that turned my brain to slush. As he talked I heard him as from a great distance, as though my mind was operating in slow motion. The only thing I could remember thinking was "I want to spend more time with him."
He told me, when I said I was from New York, that it was his favorite city, that he particularly liked the intense energy around Times Square. I went to see him a few times in Mill Valley and broke all ties with my spiritual teacher after the first visit. When U.G. said surrendering to a teacher was surrendering your self-reliance, and that not one of them had anything to give, it resonated.
I returned to the East Coast and spent the summer in Maine; from there I phoned U.G. in Switzerland and offered him the use of my apartment in New York if he should come in the fall.
At first he said no thank you. But on his arrival in New York in September, amazingly enough, his rented apartment having fallen through, he took me up on the offer, insisting only that I not move out (which I had intended to do), and that I give him the maid's room (my office) to sleep in as he only felt comfortable in small spaces.
It was my 49th birthday. Strangely, it did not strike me as unusual that he would arrive at my door with his small bag and minimal possessions and simply move in with someone he barely knew. In fact there was something about him that made me feel I had known him for a long time.
I began keeping a journal from the first day. Somehow I felt his visit was going to be interesting, epic, and I wanted to remember details as they presented themselves.
Excerpt from Travels with UG Journal ONE:
New York
September 18, 1989
The first thing U.G. said when he entered my apartment in New York was that he had come to stay for forty days and forty nights. (It had been raining heavily for several days and the air is still humid and overcast.)
~ ~
U.G. told me that he had been pickpocketed outside his hotel and someone took $95 out of his front pocket. He didn't seem upset, only impressed by the finesse of the thief, he wondered if the thief had x-ray eyes to see where the money was. He said it was the oddest sensation to feel a hand in his pocket, then look down at his own two hands and ask himself whose hand was in his pocket. He said the thief needed the money more than he did and he wished he could have taken him to lunch at a five-star restaurant to express his admiration. He said he likes people to use their talents and that the thief was a master at thieving and deserved what he got.
U.G. says, "Steal, but don't get caught!"
~ ~
U.G. asked me about the noise he had heard from his room and I said it was the air-conditioner across the courtyard. I asked if its intermittent going off and on bothered him and he said not at all. All sound is the same for him. For U.G., the droning of the air-conditioner is the same as Beethoven's "Ninth." Sound is not outside of him, but within.
At night he curls up in a fetal position and goes into a deep sleep, and then awakens a few minutes later; this pattern repeats itself all night. He sleeps very little and goes into a deep deathlike state once a day,
which is particularly intense on the full and new moon.
He went on to say there would be no starvation in the world if people who had money only kept what they needed and didn't hoard the rest.
To Read or Download the entire version of Journal ONE Click HERE
To Read or Download the UG Cookbook Click HERE
New York
September 18, 1989
The first thing U.G. said when he entered my apartment in New York was that he had come to stay for forty days and forty nights. (It had been raining heavily for several days and the air is still humid and overcast.)
~ ~
U.G. told me that he had been pickpocketed outside his hotel and someone took $95 out of his front pocket. He didn't seem upset, only impressed by the finesse of the thief, he wondered if the thief had x-ray eyes to see where the money was. He said it was the oddest sensation to feel a hand in his pocket, then look down at his own two hands and ask himself whose hand was in his pocket. He said the thief needed the money more than he did and he wished he could have taken him to lunch at a five-star restaurant to express his admiration. He said he likes people to use their talents and that the thief was a master at thieving and deserved what he got.
U.G. says, "Steal, but don't get caught!"
~ ~
U.G. asked me about the noise he had heard from his room and I said it was the air-conditioner across the courtyard. I asked if its intermittent going off and on bothered him and he said not at all. All sound is the same for him. For U.G., the droning of the air-conditioner is the same as Beethoven's "Ninth." Sound is not outside of him, but within.
At night he curls up in a fetal position and goes into a deep sleep, and then awakens a few minutes later; this pattern repeats itself all night. He sleeps very little and goes into a deep deathlike state once a day,
which is particularly intense on the full and new moon.
He went on to say there would be no starvation in the world if people who had money only kept what they needed and didn't hoard the rest.
To Read or Download the entire version of Journal ONE Click HERE
To Read or Download the UG Cookbook Click HERE