The Teachings of U. G. Krishnamurti. U. G. Krishnamurti

won't take your body. Forget about it," then she went away. And then this whole business of the frightening movement of the life force coming to a point, as it were. I was lying down on the sofa. Her bed was empty, so I moved over to that bed and stretched myself, getting ready. She ignored me and went away. She said "One day you say this thing has changed, another day this thing has changed, a third day this thing has changed. What is this whole business?" She was not interested in any of those things — never was she interested in any of these religious matters — never heard of those things. "You say you are going to die. You are not going to die. You are all right, hale and healthy." She went away. Then I stretched myself, and this was going on and on and on. The whole life energy was moving to some focal point — where it was, I don't know. Then a point arrived where the whole thing looked as if the aperture of a camera was trying to close itself. (It is the only simile that I can think of. The way I am describing this is quite different from the way things happened at that time, because there was nobody there thinking in such terms. All this was part of my experience, otherwise I wouldn't be able to talk about it.) So, the aperture was trying to close itself, and something was there trying to keep it open. Then after a while there was no will to do anything, not even to prevent the aperture closing itself. Suddenly, as it were, it closed. I don't know what happened after that.

      This process lasted for forty-nine minutes — this process of dying. It was like a physical death, you see. Even now it happens to me: the hands and feet become so cold, the body becomes stiff, the heartbeat slows down, the breathing slows down, and then there is a gasping for breath. Up to a point you are there, you breathe your last breath, as it were, and then you are finished. What happens after that, nobody knows.

      When I came out of that, somebody said there was a telephone call for me. I came out and went downstairs to answer it. I was in a daze. I didn't know what had happened. It was a physical death. What brought me back to life, I don't know. How long it lasted, I don't know. I can't say anything about that, because the experiencer was finished: there was nobody to experience that death at all.... So, that was the end of it. I got up.

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      I didn't feel that I was a new-born baby — no question of enlightenment at all — but the things that had astonished me that week, the changes in taste, seeing and so on, had become permanent fixtures. I call all these events the 'calamity'. I call it the 'calamity' because from the point of view of one who thinks this is something fantastic, blissful, full of beatitude, love, ecstasy and all that kind of a thing, this is physical torture — this is a calamity from that point of view. Not a calamity to me, but a calamity to those who have an image that something marvelous is going to happen. It's something like: you imagine New York, you dream about it, you want to be there. When you are actually there, nothing of it is there; it is a godforsaken place, and even the devils have probably forsaken that place. It's not the thing that you had sought after and wanted so much, but totally different. What is there, you really don't know — you have no way of knowing anything about that — there is no image here. In that sense I can never tell myself or anybody "I'm an enlightened man, a liberated man, a free man; I'm going to liberate mankind." Free from what? How can I liberate somebody else. There's no question of liberating anybody. For that, I must have an image that I am a free man, you understand?

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      Then, on the eighth day I was sitting on the sofa and suddenly there was an outburst of tremendous energy — tremendous energy shaking the whole body, and along with the body, the sofa, the chalet and the whole universe, as it were — shaking, vibrating. You can't create that movement at all. It was sudden. Whether it was coming from outside or inside, from below or above, I don't know — I couldn't locate the spot; it was all over. It lasted for hours and hours. I couldn't bear it but there was nothing I could do to stop it; there was a total helplessness. This went on and on, day after day, day after day. Whenever I sat it started — this vibration like an epileptic fit or something. Not even an epileptic fit; it went on for days and days.

      (For three days UG lay on his bed, his body contorted with pain — it was, he says, as if he felt pain in every cell of his body, one after the other. Similar outbursts of energy occurred intermittently throughout the next six months, whenever he lay down or relaxed.)

       The body was not able to.... The body feels the pain. That's a very painful process. Very painful. It is a physical pain because the body has limitations — it has a form, a shape of its own, so when there is an outburst of energy, which is not your energy or my energy or God's (or call it by any name you like), it is like a river in spate. The energy that is operating there does not feel the limitations of the body; it is not interested; it has its own momentum. It is a very painful thing. It is not that ecstatic, blissful beatitude and all that rubbish — stuff and nonsense! — it is really a painful thing. Oh, I suffered for months and months after that; before that too. Everybody has. Even Ramana Maharshi suffered after that.

      A great cascade — not one, but thousands of cascades — it went on and on and on for months and months. It's a very painful experience — painful in the sense that the energy has a peculiar operation of its own. H'm, you know, you have at the airport a Wills cigarette advertisement. There is an atom: lines going like that. (UG demonstrates.) It is clockwise, anticockwise, and then it is this way and then this way and then this way. Like an atom it moves inside — not in one part of your body; the whole body. it is as if a wet towel were being wrung to get rid of the water — it is like that, the whole of our body — it's such a painful thing. It goes on even now. You can't invite it; you can't ask it to come; you can't do anything. It gives you the feeling that it is enveloping you, that it is descending on you. Descending from where? Where is it coming from? How is it coming? Every time it is new — very strange — every time it comes in a different way, so you don't know what is happening. You lie down on your bed, and suddenly it begins — it begins to move slowly like ants. I'd think there were bugs in my bed, jump out, look — (Laughs) no bugs — then I'd go back — then again.... The hairs are electrified, so it slowly moves.

      There were pains all over the body. Thought has controlled this body to such an extent that when that loosens, the whole metabolism is agog. The whole thing was changing in its own way without my doing anything. And then the movement of the hands changed. Usually your hands turn this way. (UG demonstrates.) Here, this wrist joint had terrible pains for six months until it turned itself, and all the movements are now like this. That is why they say my movements are mudras (mystical gestures). The movements of the hands are quite different now than before. Then there were pains in the marrow of the bones. Every cell started changing, and it went on and on for six months.

       And then the sex hormones started changing. I didn't know whether I was a man or a woman — What is this business?" — suddenly there was a breast on the left-hand side. All kinds of things — I don't want to go into details — there is a complete record of all these things. It went on and on and on. It took three years for this body to fall into a new rhythm of its own.

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       Q: Can we understand how it happened to you?

      UG: No.

       Q: Can we understand what happened?

      UG: You can read a description of the events of my life, that's all. One day, around my forty- ninth birthday something stopped; another day another sense changed; the third day something else changed.... There is a record of the way the things happened tome. What value has that to you? It has no value at all. On the other hand it's very dangerous because you try to simulate the outward manifestations. People simulate these things and believe that something is happening — that's what these people do. I behaved normally. I didn't know what was happening. It was a strange situation. there is no point in leaving any record — people will only simulate these things. The state is something natural.

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      (Up and down his torso, neck and head, at those points which Indian holy men call chakras, his friends observed swellings of various shapes and colors, which came and went at intervals. On his lower abdomen the swellings were horizontal, cigar-shaped bands. Above the