Ram Dass Meets U.G. Krishnamurti | Mark Whitwell
Mark Whitwell | Heart of Yoga
U.G. Krishnamurti was a very interesting personality that is hard to understand. If you look on YouTube and in the few videos that are there he seems like an angry bastard, who is dissing everything spiritual.
U.G. would say things like,
“There are no steps to be taken, we are life itself. I am the power of the cosmos and so are you. If you think you have to take a step to realize it, you are only creating thought structures in your mind, and these thought structures have been used by people in power to manipulate humanity, the gullibility of the public, forever.”
Just before his fiftieth birthday, something happened in U.G.’s life that was extraordinary. One day, all obstruction left his body and mind and he started raging against the imposition of society,
“This is bullshit!”
And as he got older and a little elderly it was a little scary.
Ram Dass Meets U.G.
I remember once Ram Dass, the great baba Ram Dass who died the other day, visited U.G. Ram Dass used to travel around and visit all the saints and sages. It was his pastime and he loved doing it. The story was recounted to me in a lot of detail where Ram Dass met with U.G. and he would make propositions to him about the spiritual path, about attainments on the spiritual journey. And Ram Dass had a lot of stories and a lot of methodologies that he had collected in his spiritual life from people like Muktananda and Neem Karoli Baba, and the whole Indian tradition of spirituality.
But whatever Ram Dass would offer up, U.G. would blast it down.
“What a lot of crap,” he’d say, “Truth is a pathless land. If you are on a journey, if your trying to get to truth, then you are denying truth. If you are trying to get to God, you are denying God. The seeking for God is the active denial of God because here is God” (waves hand).
So Ram Dass says to U.G.,
“Whatever I propose you shoot down like skate shooting.”
And he demonstrated: the skate goes up in the air and boom. U.G. would shoot down every spiritual proposal. And then Ram Dass added,
“But I feel like you wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
This was often the atmosphere that was felt around U.G. Despite the ferocity of U.G.’s criticism of male authority and teachers of every kind there was a gentleness there. It’s why I loved him so much. He had a special power or siddhi to pull out the rug from under a person’s spiritual illusion, their spiritual ego.
I would see people come into a room with U.G. and they would offer him their spiritual proposition and he would reply:
“There’s no way you are going to get enlightened, you are not qualified to get enlightened, just forget it!”
It was shocking to people. The paradox was that in that moment of U.G. pulling the rug out from under the spiritual ego there was relaxation. In that moment, you stop seeking. And that is enlightenment. Where there is no movement in the mind for future ideals, none. There is peace.
Sharing Yoga with Ram Dass
A year or two ago I met with Ram Dass on Maui and I reminded him of this story of him and U.G. And as he sat there remembering his presence, his eyes began to tear up.
Later on in that same meeting, Ram Dass started weeping a lot.
“Baba what it is, what is it? What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Mark,” he said. “I was a leader in the U.S. of eastern thought, of eastern spirituality, but in my leadership I never brought in Yoga to the people. I could never really understand what is Yoga.”
“Why was that?” I asked.
“All my yoga teachers in my early life were show-offs. They would do amazing things with their body’s and I couldn’t do it so I gave up.”
After his stroke, I taught Ram Dass some moving and breathing in his wheel chair. He would do a little asana practice with assisted movement. Afterwards, he would sit there peacefully with his chest rising and falling in a spontaneous pranayama. I knew it had been very helpful to him.
So he did get it finally late in his life. But he wept, because he felt like he hadn’t been given the information he needed and therefore couldn’t pass it on because of the fanaticism around Yoga.
What’s Wrong With Modern Yoga
Ram Dass’ story is so common. The public has been blinded to real Yoga. There is an obsessed interest among a certain small demographic of 17 million athletic-type lifestyle people in the U.S. And there’s a lot of money involved in 17 million people spending a thousand dollars a month, a year, on Yoga. If you get a slice of that market, then you’re okay.
But the rest of the public they are sort of intimated by this athletic obsession. And the spiritual types, the people with a little bit of refinement whether through Vedanta or Buddhist research, they look at the yoga studios and they see Lulu lemon and the exaggerations and they say this has nothing to do with my spiritual purpose.
It is sad because asana and pranayama, in the wisdom tradition brought forth by Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, is your first spiritual priority. It is direct intimacy with reality itself. It is the practical means to actualize the ideals of language and sacred text. This need for an actual asana practice is profound in the traditions but very little of it is taught.
The misogyny, the exaggeration, and the transformation of Yoga into branding and product by male authorities has set us back. It is hiding actual Yoga from the public. Some complain about the misogyny of the pioneers and so they should. But they are still carrying on teaching what they taught.
We can restore Yoga for the public with the principles from Krishnamacharya that he rescued from the Tantras.
They are:
1) The body movement is the breath movement they are one and the same.
2) The inhale is from above as receptivity, the exhale is from below as strength.
3) The breath envelops the movement, you put the body in an envelope of the breath
4) Asana creates bandha, the intelligence cooperation of muscle groups in the polarity of strength-receiving.
5) And most profoundly, asana, pranayama, meditation, and life are a seamless process. Where meditation is not something that can be practice but meditation arises as a gift, clarity of mind comes from asana and pranayama in a way that is right for you.
*Learn an actual, no-bull Yoga practice that does not put you on a spiritual self-improvement program, that is not a gymnastic workout, but is simply your direct participation in the beauty and power of your life as it is, already.
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