U. Krishnamurti - The Collected Works

So, we went to Saanen. That place has some significance to me. I had been there in '53 while travelling through that area, and when I saw this place, Saanen, something in me said "Get off the train and spend some time here," so I spent one week there. I said to myself "This is the place where I must spend the rest of my life." I had plenty of money then, but my wife didn't want to stay in Switzerland, because of the climate, and so many other things happened, and we went to America. So this unfulfilled dream materialized. We went to Saanen because I had always wanted to live there, so I continue to live there. Then J. Krishnamurti chose Saanen, for some reason or the other, for his meetings every summer — this chap started coming to Saanen. I lived there; I was not interested in Krishnamurti or anything. I was not interested in anything. For example, Valentine lived with me for a few years before my forty-ninth year. She can tell you that I never talked of this at all to her — my interest in truth, reality — nothing .

I never discussed this subject with her at all, nor with anybody else. There was no search in me, no seeking after something, but something funny was going on.

During that time (I call it the 'incubation') all kinds of things were happening to me inside — headaches, constant headaches, terrible pains here in the brain. I swallowed I don't know how many tens of thousands of aspirins. Nothing gave me relief. It was not migraine or any of those known headaches, but tremendous headaches. Those aspirin pills and fifteen to twenty cups of coffee every day to free myself! One day Valentine said "What! You are taking fifteen cups of coffee every day. Do you know what it means in terms of money? It is three or four hundred francs per month. What is this?" Anyway, it was such a terrible thing for me.

All kinds of funny things happened to me. I remember when I rubbed my body like this, there was a sparkle, like a phosphorous glow, on the body. She used to run out of her bedroom to see — she thought there were cars going that way in the middle of the night. Every time I rolled in my bed there was a sparkling of light, (Laughs) and it was so funny for me —"What is this?" It was electricity — that is why I say it is an electromagnetic field. At first I thought it was because of my nylon clothes and static electricity; but then I stopped using nylon. I was a very skeptical heretic, to the tips of my toes; I never believed in anything; even if I saw some miracle happen before me, I didn't accept that at all — such was the make-up of this man. It never occurred to me that anything of that sort was in the making for me.

Very strange things happened to me, but I never related those things to liberation or freedom or moksha, because by that time the whole thing had gone out of my system. I had arrived at a point where I said to myself "Buddha deluded himself and deluded others. All those teachers and saviors of mankind were damned fools — they fooled themselves — so I'm not interested in this kind of thing anymore," so it went out of my system completely. It went on and on in its own way — peculiar things — but never did I say to myself "Well, (Laughs) I am getting there, I am nearer to that." There is no nearness to that, there is no farawayness from that, there is no closeness to that. Nobody is nearer to that because he is different, he is prepared. There's no readiness for that; it just hits you like a ton of bricks.

Then (April 1967) I happened to be in Paris when J. Krishnamurti also happened to be there. Some of my friends suggested "Why don't you go and listen to your old friend? He is here giving a talk." "All right, I haven't heard him for so many years — almost twenty years — let me go and listen." When I got there they demanded two francs from me. I said "I am not ready to pay two francs to listen to J. Krishnamurti. No, come on, let us go and do something foolish. Let's go to a strip-tease joint, the 'Folies Bergere' or the 'Casino de Paris'. Come on, let us go there for twenty francs." So, there we were at the "Casino de Paris" watching the show. I had a very strange experience at that time: I didn't know whether I was the dancer or whether there was some other dancer dancing on the stage. A very strange experience for me: a peculiar kind of movement here, inside of me. (This is now something natural for me.) There was no division: there was nobody who was looking at the dancer. The question of whether I was the dancer, or whether there was a dancer out there on the stage, puzzled me. This kind of peculiar experience of the absence of division between me and the dancer, puzzled me and bothered me for some time — then we came out.

The question "What is that state?" had a tremendous intensity for me — not an emotional intensity — the more I tried to find an answer, the more I failed to find an answer, the more intensity the question had. It's like (I always give this simile) rice chaff. If a heap of rice chaff is ignited, it continues burning inside; you don't see any fire outside, but when you touch it, it burns you of course. In exactly the same way the question was going on and on and on: "What is that state? I want it. Finished. Krishnamurti said "You have no way," but still I want to know what that state is, the state in which Buddha was, Sankara was, and all those teachers were."

Then (July 1967) there arrived another phase. Krishnamurti was again there in Saanen giving talks. My friends dragged me there and said "Now at least it is a free business. Why don't you come and listen?" I said "All right, I'll come and listen." When I Iistened to him, something funny happened to me — a peculiar kind of feeling that he was describing my state and not his state. Why did I want to know his state? He was describing something, some movements, some awareness, some silence — "In that silence there is no mind; there is action" — all kinds of things. So, "I am in that state. What the hell have I been doing these thirty or forty years, listening to all these people and struggling, wanting to understand his state or the state of somebody else, Buddha or Jesus? I am in that state. Now I am in that state." So, then I walked out of the tent and never looked back.

Then — very strange — that question "What is that state?" transformed itself into another question "How do I know that I am in that state, the state of Buddha, the state I very much wanted and demanded from everybody? I am in that state, but how do I know?

The next day (UG's forty-ninth birthday) I was sitting on a bench under a tree overlooking one of the most beautiful spots in the whole world, the seven hills and seven valleys (of Saanenland). I was sitting there. Not that the question was there; the whole of my being was that question: "How do I know that I am in that state? There is some kind of peculiar division inside of me: there is somebody who knows that he is in that state. The knowledge of that state — what I have read, what I have experienced, what they have talked about — it is this knowledge that is looking at that state, so it is only this knowledge that has projected that state." I said to myself "Look here, old chap, after forty years you have not moved one step; you are there in square number one. It is the same knowledge that projected your mind there when you asked this question. You are in the same situation asking the same question, "How do I know?" because it is this knowledge, the description of the state by those people, that has created this state for you. You are kidding yourself. You are a damned fool." So, nothing. But still there was some kind of a peculiar feeling that this was the state.

The second question "How do I know that this is the state?" — I didn't have any answer for that question — it was like a question in a whirlpool — it went on and on and on. Then suddenly the question disappeared. Nothing happened; the question just disappeared. I didn't say to myself "Oh, my God! Now I have found the answer." Even that state disappeared — the state I thought I was in, the state of Buddha, Jesus — even that has disappeared. The question has disappeared. The whole thing is finished for me, and that's all, you see. From then on, never did I say to myself "Now I have the answer to all those questions." That state of which I had said "This is the state" — that state disappeared. The question disappeared. Finished, you see. It is not emptiness, it is not blankness, it is not the void, it is not any of those things; the question disappeared suddenly, and that is all.