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UG Krishnamurti, Gstaad, Switzerland, Chalet Sunbeam terrace 1984

7. The Disillusionment of Oneness

The land where disillusionment is not some disconsolate disappointment but the
very perfection of Reality is a very weird land. One cannot reach it by any good
actions or philosophical effort.

In the years I had known UG, it many times happened that visitors meeting UG
wanted to discuss their experience of Oneness. The following conversation is an
example in which a guy is trying to convince UG of the existence of oneness:

The visitor says: . . . UG, you say you are now without any goal.

UG: No goal: nothing to be achieved; nothing to be accomplished; nothing to be attained.

Yes, but before, in your past, you did have a goal?

UG: Yes, there was a time when I did, I distinctly remember. But the memory of it has no
emotional content anymore. I was like anybody, chasing something, searching for
something, pursuing something, and putting the whole of my being in that search. I had
invested everything in that goal because I wanted to find out for myself that there might
not be anything to be achieved. Then I realized that I had spent all my life searching for
something that didnt exist at all. So this understanding, which is not the result of your
logical thinking or rational thinking or any such thing, suddenly hits you, as if a lightning
hits you. Thats the end of it. You are finished with the whole thing, FOR EVER.

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It was finished for you for good?

UG: For ever, once and for all. So thats something which you cannot make happen
through any effort or will.

Do you think this can happen once and disappear again afterwards?

UG: No, thats why I use the word lightning: when the lightning hits, the whole thing is
burnt to ashes, as it were. Nothing more is left; you cant put it together anymore.

Can you explain your enlightenment?

UG: No, . . . I didn't use the word enlightenment, you are using the word. There is no
such thing as enlightenment, that was the thing that became obvious to me. I realized
that there is no such thing as transformation, no such thing as self-realization. The whole
lot, the whole thing, is just a variation of the same. You replace one with the other. But the
whole pursuit has no meaning. And that realization releases a tremendous energy. All the
energy you always used in that pursuit is suddenly released, and then living becomes very
simple; it has no problems anymore.

So, if someone would say to you that he has been hit once like you said
you had been and that it hasn't lasted for ever, . . .

UG: He doesn't come here.

No I mean, suppose . . .

UG: No suppositions here. I dont want to discuss suppositions.

No, I tell you, I have been hit.

UG: Thats not a fact. You wouldn't be here discussing these things. There would be no
need for you to talk about these things.

But . . .

UG: You wouldnt be here talking about that at all, because there is nothing to talk about.
And comparing notes doesnt exist at all.

No, I am not speaking of that. I said: do you believe that one can be hit
once and then somehow, as it has happened, it disappears?

UG: It cannot disappear.

So it did not disappear for you?

UG: It cannot. The very nature of it makes it impossible. If it is some experience, probably
an extraordinary experience, then yes, it disappears again. Not this. The moment it hits
you, it puts an end to the experiencing structure. It is something that can never, never be
experienced. I was not talking about that state or whatever it may be . . . But when it has
been understood that no matter what the experiencing structure experiences - however
extraordinary it may be - it is worthless, then the question for more and more is absent,
because it has no meaning. The nature of the experiencing structure is that it demands
more and more of one thing and less and less of the other. So I tell you, the demand for
experiencing anything is not there anymore. The demand for permanence and the
demand for things is not there anymore, except the physical needs of food, clothing and
shelter. Even if they are denied, it is not much of a problem for this living organism.

Can I ask another question. . .?

UG: Yes, please.

When this was experienced, this state . . .

UG: You are using the word experience . . .

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Yes, yes, but there was not the feeling at all that it had happened; there
was was only the fact that it had always been there and also that it could never
never leave, because it was one's natural state of oneness. So there was no
idea at all at that moment that something had been achieved, so . . .

UG: Let me interrupt you. The oneness that you are talking about is something which
cannot be experienced at all. That there is an integral relationship with everything is
something which can never, never be experienced by that experiencing structure. So, to
talk of oneness has no meaning.

But dont you feel one with all you see?

UG: Not at all. The separation is not there, but that doesnt mean there is oneness. What
creates the separation is very clear, but what is there when the separation or the division
is not there is something nobody can talk about. The divisive movement that comes into
being is all that you can understand. When that movement is not there, what is happening
in that situation is something that can never be experienced by you; it can never be talked
about. Its not a mysterious, mystifying thing. Dont call it love, compassion and all that
kind of a thing. You cannot talk about it, you cannot experience it, and what it is you will
never know.

When you say that it is something which you cannot experience, do you
mean that it is something which one cannot experience as an individual?

UG: No, the totality of it cannot be experienced. You see, you must have the knowledge
about things to experience them. So when there is no knowledge, how can you
experience? When you are talking of oneness, that oneness is the knowledge.

To me it is just the fact of not knowing, the fact of living integral

knowledge, not the result of any acquired knowledge or information.

UG: There is no experience at all. The oneness is something which cannot be experienced.

Its just a way of speaking.

UG: For all practical purposes, there is no integral relationship and there is no oneness at
all. What is there is only the division.

Well, yes, but one could have some feeling about it?

UG: How can you feel it? Feeling is thought. You have to fix a point; and the moment the
point is fixed thought is there.

That thought is not disturbing the oneness. Why should it disturb that
oneness? It belongs to the oneness.

UG: There is no oneness at all.

You know, it is not something which as an individual I have experienced.

It has nothing to do with that. When the individual, which was believed to
exist, ceased to exist, then . . .

UG: No, no. You see, when the individual ceases to exist, as you put it, the oneness does
not come into being. It is the individual that is projecting the oneness. The integral
relationship, the oneness of things is something which cannot be captured, it cannot be
contained.

I never said it could be captured.

UG: Otherwise, you cant experience it.

Why should you relate experience to capturing?

UG: Both are the same.

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If somehow this hankering after stages disappears totally from you and if
you are no longer projecting any goal to achieve or to attain, if then the
individual which had been created by the goal also disappeares altogether
and you feel a total . . .

UG: Where is the feeling? Where is that feeling if the individual ceases to be?

It is not your feeling; it is the total feeling of everything there is.

UG: Where is that feeling felt?

It is everywhere.

UG: Where?

Everywhere.

UG: There is no point; there must be a point.

Here some illustration might be useful:

Imagine that you are standing between two train rails. Just in front of you the
distance between the rails is about one and a half meter, but near the horizon this
space between them no longer exists: the two rails merge at one point. Now we
start to walk to the spot at that horizon. When we arrive there we'll find out that
the distance between the two rails is the same distance we measured in the first
position. The rails do not meet each other at one point. Of course, nobody is really
surprised because everybody knows something about the effect of perspective.
But even if our eye produces a so-called true to nature image, and although we
dare to travel by train without any fear of derailment, something is wrong. The
image is not true; it is not reality.

Imagine watching rails from different spots at the same moment. How would they
look from such a point of view? Try to imagine you are watching the world from
all spots and places at the same moment. What would you see?

The principle of perspective would disappear; the rails wouldn't seem to meet at
the horizon, because you also are watching from that spot on the horizon.
Moreover, you also watch the rails from below, and then the image of two long
rails doesn't exist at all. If we would watch from everywhere, from every spot on
earth, what would the world look like? Where is the horizon if there is such
watching? Where is any form if this watching occurs both inside a form and on its
surface? Where is there if 'there' this watching is also present? Where is the
other, if your watching is also in him or her? If this watching is truly everywhere,
can there still be any meaning to the word everywhere? If this watching
everywhere is really in operation, is it still possible to speak of watching?
Because if this watching is everywhere - and everywhere is everywhere - so if even
this watching is inside the one who is watching, how can there be watching
anymore? And what things could it possibly see?

Then watching as total watching has to knock itself off because it occupies the
space where the objects of this watching exist. Thus omni- or total-watching in
the final analysis means not watching at all. The normal watching only shows us
our limitedness, narrowness. Beyond this level watching ceases to be . . .

UG says: If this feeling is everywhere, how can you speak of feeling?

It is not your feeling; it is the total feeling of everything there is.

UG: Where is that feeling felt?

It is everywhere.

UG: Where?

Everywhere!

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UG: There is no point; there must be a point!

No, there is no point!

UG: Then there is no feeling.

There is an endless feeling.

UG: You see, these are all words. It cannot be felt. You are talking of feeling; where is that
feeling?

It doesnt belong to someone in particular, because when this is lived, if

you dont like the word feeling or experience, when this is lived, then . . .

UG: What is there to be lived?

That non-separation.

UG: You see, the non-separation you are talking about is a projection of the separate
entity. It projects, it creates. When this entity is absent, the opposite is not in operation
there at all. And what s in operation you will never know, you will never feel.

You know, as long as we are using words, of course we have to use words
which inevitably have opposites.

UG: There is no need for this conversation at all.

If I tell you that I have come here to . . .

UG: No, there is no need to, no!

I have come to you for some reason. My friend brought me here. You are
supposed to speak whenever people ask you a question, as for example,
about the subject we are talking about now. It happened that such an
egoless consciousness was experienced.

UG: I dont know, you see . . . first of all, there is no ego.

Yes, that was experienced; that was evident.

UG: That cannot be a fact.

It was evident at that moment; then it disappeared again.

UG: No, no, this experience of the non-existence of the ego cannot be an experience at all.

Use a different word if you dont like the word.

UG: All right, yes. Use anything: self, psyche or mind, any word you want to use.

I mean, that accumulation which is always trying to achieve something

different from what was there at that moment, that accumulation had
disappeared; the urge to achieve anything at all was no longer there.
There was no enlightenment to achieve, there was no liberation to
achieve, there was nothing to achieve. This was a fact and it was evident
at that moment. So, all that which had been accumulated to achieve some
goal had disappeared at that moment, since there was nothing to be
achieved. There was no need for keeping the individuality which was only
there relative to something to be achieved. Both of these disappeared
simultaneously.

UG: Yes, and along with them the feeling of oneness.

It was not the feeling of being one with something. There was not the
feeling of unity with something in particular. There was just the feeling

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that there was no separation between something and anything else. It was
only the idea of achieving something in particular that had created a
division. As soon as this hankering to achieve something, or the desire to
achieve non-desire, as soon as that had disappeared, there was only . . .

UG: Can that disappearance be experienced? Can that be felt?

Dont use the word . . .

UG: Can that be felt?

Some other visitor, a woman who had known UG for a long time, interrupted the
conversation with a question:

Do you mean, UG, that in that state there is a washout of all

differentiation, a total blank?

UG: No, it is not blank, it is not emptiness, it is not fullness. It is not anyone of those
things.

Well, let's say, it is much more like the sea in the sea, there is only the sea
and nothing else in contradistinction with the sea?

UG: All right, you see, the sea does not know anything about its quality or what it is. We
have hundreds of these metaphors in India. The three different Vedantic philosophical
systems are based upon this metaphor: the raindrop falls into the ocean. And then the
three systems of philosophy say: one system, the system of non-duality, says that the
raindrop falls into the ocean and it loses its identity and has become one with the ocean.
The second system, qualified monism, says it has lost its identity, but its not the same as
the ocean. The third, the dualistic system of philosophy, says the drop emerges and
maintains its individuality. So they go on and on and on, philosophizing about these
raindrops. Let me tell you, all of that is nonsense. All the systems of philosophy are
nonsense.

So you really think that there is no coming back from that state to express
it in words.

UG: Not a word.

And there is nothing to come back from?

UG: No.

And if there is an immersion in something as he might say, and then he

says, I have come out of it. That means . . .

UG: . . . Thank God I have discovered something extraordinary!

Yes, I am not using those words because I know they would be the wrong
words.

UG: Yes, not because they are wrong, but because you cannot say that.

Any sort of coming back is the very mark of the fact that it was just a
dream or an experience?

UG: There is no experiencing at all.

Right, but at what point do you know that there is no experiencing at all?

UG first starts to formulate an answer, and then, with a smile, he says:

UG: Alright, thats very clever of you! I know that, you see: How do you know that there
is nothing to know? That question wouldn't be there if you were lucky enough to be in
that situation. The question which you are throwing at me wouldnt be there. Until then

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you will be asking these questions: How do you know that it is not that? You want to
know, and thats how this tricky thing maintains its continuity.

Yes, but in you how does the idea that There is neither a knower nor
knowing arise?

UG: It arises in response to your question. You are asking the question. They are
not my questions, How do I know that it is not there? or How do I know that this is not
also an illusion? It is a question that has no answer. You see, that question cannot be
there at all.

The first questioner resumes his conversation now:

But are you not in some way limiting the possibility of this, whatever
name you give to it? If you say: To me there was no entering, so how
could there be any going into or coming back out of that state? Arent you
limiting this thing? Because the fact now is that to me it seems that today
I am living in total illusion; that I am living in a different state, a different
awareness or consciousness than in that state of oneness. And if you
say . . .

UG: You are . . .

No, please let me finish my question . . . If you say, that it is impossible to

come back from that, then somehow, according to me, you are limiting
something. Because you are saying that it is impossible and I say it is
possible.

UG: You say it is possible and I say it is not possible, yes. Thats the end of our
conversation. There is no such thing as before the wash and after the wash. My shirt is
hanging there. So, you are comparing these two points: it was a soiled clothing before and
now, after washing, it is a clean clothing. But here there is no before and no after. The
line of demarcation between the two is not there anymore.

You are lucky enough to live it; so there is no feeling that is has happened
and also there is no feeling of coming back from it; therefore, it is not
going to vanish.

UG: Listen, since I have not achieved anything, gained anything, I cannot lose anything.

Exactly. And this is what has brought me here, because this I have lived,
and while living this state there was the full evidence that it was
something that I had not achieved; it had always been there and it will
always be there. What I felt at that time was . . .

UG: No, I think it wasn't there at all. What was there?

You may say that, but this idea of achieving anything had disappeared
altogether. That which was there at that moment was not corresponding
to any achievement at all.

UG: What was there was this movement in the direction of achieving something; that was
all that was there. So, then what is there is something which you cant say. It is something
which cannot be experienced, something which cannot be communicated, something
which cannot be talked about.

I agree with that.

UG: Then . . .?

My question is . . .

UG: No, if, as you say, you agree with me, then there is no place for this dialogue. Im
sorry to say this. You and I wouldnt be sitting here and talking about that; there is no
need to talk about it. None of those questions would be there.

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I was lucky enough then, but there was nobody to be lucky at that time to
share that. I was first surprised that somehow this state was evident for a
long time at a stretch and then somehow it disappeared again. In those
days, it was evident that everything appeared to me as just a game: people
hankering after a goal to achieve, although they were fully bathing in that
consciousness or non-experience or non-knowledge or whatever you like
to call it. It was crystal clear. And then, suddenly as miraculously as it had
happened, it disappeared and I found myself back again with the same
fear, the same feeling of separation. Then the goal of trying to experience
or to live again that state which was absent before now began to show up
again.

UG: Wanting that experience again . . .

Yes, or maybe it is more correct just to say that the proces of experiencing
appeared again.

UG: It was there all the time!

It was not there.

UG: It was there; otherwise it wouldnt demand anything. I would humbly submit that it
was very much there. You see, this experience strengthened and fortified that. It was very
much there. That is the trickiest of all the things. It has millions and millions of years of
momentum. It knows all the tricks in the world. It was very much there.

But there was no experience there and there was no experiencer!

UG: You can never say that the experiencer was absent; that cannot be an experience. He
was very much there. And the silence you experienced was . . .

It was not silence. You see, thoughts were there, speaking was there, not
speaking was there, sleeping was there and not sleeping was there. No
separation between all of them. Nothing was rejected and nothing was
accepted.

UG: There was no separation' -tht was the experience. The fact of non-separation is
something which cannot be experienced. Separation can be experienced. You see, when I
am talking, there is a separation here.

From my point of view, yes.

UG: From my point of view too. This conversation between us is possible only when there
is a separation there.

Yes, I am now feeling that there is a separation. Do you also feel like that?

UG: Listen: how this conversation and your questions are creating the division here, that
is all that I am talking about. Even if it is possible for you to be in that undivided state of
consciousness or whatever you want to call it, every question you throw in here creates a
division at that particular moment. Then it bounces back into its undivided state or
whatever you want to call it.

Yes, from your point of view, but from my point of view . . .

UG: From your point of view also. Your question has created a division here; otherwise,
how can any answer come? It is a reflection of the thing; it is bouncing back. Bouncing
back implies that there are two. What this (UG is pointing at himself) is pointing all the
time, is Dont ask those questions, because those questions have no meaning at all. The
very question creates division there. Whether it is temporary or permanent, it doesn't
matter at all.

But does this questioning create a division there?

UG: When there is a bouncing back of your question, there is a division. Otherwise how
can there be two things? Dont mystify the whole thing. It comes and goes, comes and

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goes. Otherwise this would be a corpse! It is responding to the stimuli. But what I am
trying to say is that it is a unitary movement: there are no two separate things. The
stimulus and the response are one unitary movement. So when there is a question like
that, it creates a counter-thought here, it creates a division, a temporary division, and
then it bounces back into one unitary movement. To imagine that it will be a continuous
absence of something has no meaning to me.

To imagine what?

UG: . . . That it is finished once and for all: the division is there; and then, the division is
not there. When it is not there, you wouldn't know, you cannot know. You have no way of
knowing whether the division is there or not. And so, the unitary movement is something
which cannot be experienced. You cant talk about that at all. How this division is created
-- thats all you can say.

You are not tired?

UG: I am not tired, no. Please go on.

Let us take it from an other aspect. At one moment, there was the desire
to achieve something, and then, for some reason, somehow, that desire to
achieve something was not there anymore. There were no more desires to
achieve anything. Well, this lasted for quiet some time, a few days. There
was just perfect enjoyment or whatever at the moment when it was
happening - just responding to the situation, rather, the situation
responding to itself. There was just the simple joy of being, nothing more.

UG: How do you experience the joy?

Because there was nothing to achieve, the joy was flowing naturally.

UG: You see, the joy you experienced is related to something. It cannot exist in a vacuum.
The feeling that you are finished with your search . . . means that the search has not left. It
hasn't. If this search really has gone, then there is no joy there, there is no pain, nothing.
What is there you will never know. Not only then; from then on you will never know
anything. The joy is the knowledge, dont you see?

It is just the simple joy of not knowing anything. There was no

knowledge; there was no knowing. It just was the perfect mystery which
had not to be understood but which one was. One was not to unravel the
mystery but had become the mystery. That was all. One was not
hankering after any answer.

UG: It was not what you are saying it is.

How strange it is: somehow you are refusing to admit that it could exist.

UG: No, it is for you to see, not for me. Im not blaming you or any such thing. But it is for
you to see. If it were as you are saying it was, it would operate now in you. The fact that
you are sitting here and asking these questions means that it was nothing. Im sorry to say
that, but you will have something more extraordinary than this petty little experience if
you can let go that one as a petty little worthless experience as any other experience is.

(Long, deadly silence . . .)

You see, it will be something new. I put in the word new because you dont know what it
is. It will be yours; it will not be any one of those things; it will be something which you
cannot describe it at all. It is an irreversible thing.

And that was the end of this conversation. Indeed, it is the end of any
conversation, an irreversible end.

The visitor stands up, smiles and leaves.

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UG: Yes, that experience was very important to him: 'Nothing to reach at, nothing to
achieve; well, what's the point in going on with this? He himself admits that he is back
again. The oneness he experienced, oneness of life; ridiculous!

But is it possible to experience the oneness? asks the friend of raindrops.

UG: Yes, it is possible, but its an experience. And through that it gathers momentum.

Why dont you accept the fact that there are levels in experience?

UG: There are no levels.

No, not in the field of absolutes, but in the field of experience.

UG: No, the gurus feed you on that kind of a thing. So the hierarchy is there: slowly, step
by step and so on. But there are no levels in consciousness.

Well, not really, but . . .

UG: No; not really means: how can there be levels?

That night, just before I fell asleep, a brilliant poem of the mystical poet Kabir
whirled through the darkness of my lodging place:

He is the true guru,

who reveals the form of the formless,
to the vision of these eyes . . .

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