The Man Who Said Enlightenment Was Horseshit: U.G. Krishnamurti
I discovered U.G. my sophomore year of university in 2006. It was around 3am and I was deep in a Youtube philosophy rabbit hole when I stumbled upon one of his sessions. It was entertaining as hell. This scrawny Indian dude in some random cabin in Switzerland surrounded by a bunch of people who he would get pissed off at. They’d ask him questions seeking wisdom and he’d slap em across the mouth with shit like:
“You are not going to get anything from me!--I have nothing to offer.”
“Thought is your enemy, thinking has led you here!”
“Spiritual enlightenment is a myth!--I am just a dog barking!”
People would travel long distances to ask him questions about meditation, just so he could tell them, “Meditation is bullshit”. Or they’d ask about the meaning of life expecting a spiritual discourse and end up with insults and an intellectual demolition.
Funny enough, at one point, U.G. had everything going for him in the conventional sense. Yet despite being from a wealthy family and highly educated, he eventually just checked out from all his social conditioning, pursuits and personal obligations. (Krishnamurti abandoned his wife and children.) He would go on travelling from country to country, living off the generosity of friends just “being”. U.G. unplugged from the matrix before the matrix was even a thing. No career, no ambition, no pretense. What remained was just a “living organism, nothing else”.
Ironically, at one time U.G. spent years chasing enlightenment with no success until one day in his late forties he experienced what he called a “calamity”. Not some romanticized Kundalini high. Rather, a painful experience that changed him to his core. Afterward, he described his new state:
“There is no center here... the chemistry has changed... there is no continuity of thought... the way the senses are operating now without any coordinator or center.”
Despite accepting invitations to give lectures and host talks, he maintained that the brain was essentially a computer and nothing else. Our physical form, simply a machine. Consciousness? Only an interface, a dashboard. He also said there was no purpose to life, explaining the only thing the human body cared about was “surviving and fucking”. Wild, right!?
In today’s modern age, where people cling to their safety nets, it’s fun to remember the man who ventured into the boundless realm of existence. Not to be edgy or for likes. Not for shock factor, but to be left alone to experience his own “biological mechanism” because as he stated, “the body has its own intelligence”. In 2025, people like to jerk off to the idea of fuck you money, U.G. just wanted to say “fuck you”. And “fuck me” for that matter.
Of course some of the things Krishnamurti said were batshit crazy, but it took balls to say it and backbone to live it. And he maintained his ineffable approach to life until his last breath. All while challenging the rest of the world in the process. U.G. didn’t allow his intellect to rot away in agreeableness or let his bravery wither into dormancy.
I’m sure if U.G. could see me writing right now he’d get annoyed and say something like, “You’re wasting your fucking time! Writing about the ghost of a dog barking!” I’d laugh and respond, “Wrong, old man, you weren’t barking. You were biting off the facade of superficiality. Now with AI we can upload your talks and simulate what it would have been like to talk with you. Just as if you were sitting outside the Swiss Alps or on a couch in Amsterdam. You’re back, not to teach, not to save, but to roast phony armchair philosophers like the cranky old bastard you were.”
Maybe you don’t accept Krishnamurti’s perspective that we are only experiencing a biological process with no understanding or control of the natural laws around us. Still, his memory is an example of what pure freedom of speech looks like and what can happen if you dare to uncover the freedom of being human. As he liked to say, “You cannot light a candle and hide it under the bushel.”
Conversation with AI U.G. coming soon.
