Mind is a myth- Reflections for the young

I remember some years ago, browsing in a bookshop in Katmandu, where I came across a book with a curious title “Mind is a Myth”-conversations with UG Krishnamurti. That was the first time I have heard of that name or the book. I was reluctant initially to pick it up but after walking up and down the alley for some time, I realized I badly wanted to buy it. It was a second hand Book store and this particular volume was priced nominally at fifty Nepali Rupees. Eventually, along with couple of other books I ended up buying this one too.
It is my usual practice to dig into the author’s life before reading his work. After a bit of research I found out the UG Krishnamurti was a contemporary existentialist Philosopher who refuses to call himself so. A seeker of truth from childhood, he had gone through the entire gamut of religious practices offered by our religion but was not satisfied with any of them. After dabbling with many Gurus, eventually he rejected all of them. What follows is interesting. Mahesh Bhatt’s biography of UG tells us that one fine day in Switzerland where UG was staying with his companion, UG underwent a “metamorphosis”-an event that UG describes as “declutched state”. A state in which all the five senses started perceiving undiluted sensations without the intervention of the mind. UG had to learn everything anew. He would eat something and then ask what is it that he had eaten; and so it was with all other perceptions. Slowly he became a functional Human being again, but things were not the same. His search for God and peace ended right there.UG would not entertain any talks on God or enlightenment ever again. He said that he had achieved no particular state except that from that moment when the metamorphosis happened his body worked in a declutched state with no intervention of thought. When there was something to do, he would do it; but beyond that he lived like an organism without the façade of the mind. And since then he has lived as a recluse not entertaining any conversations about religion or spirituality, because according to him the mind is a myth and hence any attempt to eliminate it is futile.
The book that I was holding in my hand was a collection of conservations with the man. It’s a thin volume and it didn’t take me long to finish. As I put the book down I could only feel pity for the conversationalist, because in the fifteen odd conversations that are recorded, UG completely denies that there is something called enlightenment and refuses to get into any arguments about it putting the author in a very embarrassing position. The talks do not reveal much about the man himself, but I guess that’s the way he would have wanted it to be.
Now what stuck me was that UG may be right in what he says. Our scriptures keep iterating the bliss is our natural state; we have somehow drifted away from it. And the cause of our misery is the mind. So if our true nature is untainted then there is no way we could attain it, because we are already that which we want to be- TAT TVAM ASI. Enlightenment or attaining that primordial state should not be esoteric happening. It could not also be something that can be forced. Alan watts beautifully describes this predicament as “trying to lift oneself using one’s shoe strings”. No method or rigor can force this event. It happens or it does not. It is better to let go of extraneous means and start questioning the thought structure which gives rise to these methods. We may have taken for granted something which may be an illusion in the first place. In UG’s case the illusion just snapped. He had nothing to do with it. There was no way he could describe what had happened to him. The world around him did not change. What changed was the way UG looked at it.

Well the book did leave me with a lot of questions? But more importantly it left me a notion that enlightenment does not mean that a thousand suns will rise in you, but could be as simple as snapping of our thought structure.
Cheers!!!!!!!!