Transcribed conversations with U.G. Krishnamurti — not to be confused with Jiddu — collected by his hosts and edited by Rodney Arms. The talks were given in India and Switzerland between 1972 and 1980 and are gathered in four sections: "U.G." (autobiographical material), "The Mystique of Enlightenment," "No Power Outside of Man," and "Betwixt Bewilderment and Understanding." U.G.'s position is total negation: there is no path, no method, no goal; enlightenment is a biological accident with no spiritual content, and almost everything other teachers say is fraud or self-deception.
U.G. claimed his own "calamity" in 1967 — at age 49, in Saanen, Switzerland — had stripped him of every human reference he had: the breakdown of the sense of being a person, of psychological time, of recognition. The book records his refusal of teacher status, his refusal of payment, and his dismissal of the entire spiritual marketplace including the work of his namesake Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom he had previously admired and now described as "archaic hogwash." Sentient Publications issued the widely-circulated 2002 U.S. edition; earlier editions were published in India under the Dinesh Vaghela / Smriti imprint.
First lines
People call me an "enlightened man" — I detest that term — they can't find any other word to describe the way I am functioning. At the same time, I point out that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all. I say that because all my life I've searched and wanted to be an enlightened man, and I discovered that there is no such thing as enlightenment at all, and so the question whether a particular person is enlightened or not doesn't arise.
Contents
U.G.
The Mystique of Enlightenment
No Power Outside of Man
Betwixt Bewilderment and Understanding
Reception
Read inside contemporary non-dual circles as the most extreme statement of the "no-path" position — Tony Parsons's later writing operates in adjacent territory but with less ferocity. U.G.'s public refusal of teacher status, his refusal of payment, and his dismissal of the entire spiritual marketplace gave him a paradoxical authority his readers find unforgeable. Inside academic religious studies he is essentially absent. Mahesh Bhatt's biographical writing on him is the principal secondary source.
Frequently asked
What is The Mystique of Enlightenment about?
It is a compilation of transcribed conversations with U.G. Krishnamurti from talks given in India and Switzerland between 1972 and 1980, edited by Rodney Arms. The four sections — "U.G.", "The Mystique of Enlightenment", "No Power Outside of Man" and "Betwixt Bewilderment and Understanding" — set out U.G.'s position of total negation: there is no path, no method and no goal, and what other traditions call enlightenment is a biological accident with no spiritual content.
How is U.G. Krishnamurti different from Jiddu Krishnamurti?
They are unrelated. Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) was the philosopher associated with the Theosophical Society and later with his own foundations. U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) had been a follower of Jiddu in his early life but in this book describes that teaching as "archaic hogwash" and rejects the spiritual-teacher role outright, refusing payment and refusing to maintain an organisation.
What is the "calamity" U.G. refers to?
The term U.G. used for the physiological and psychological break he reports having undergone in Saanen, Switzerland, on his 49th birthday in 1967 — the collapse of psychological time, the loss of the felt sense of being a person, and a set of bodily changes he refused to interpret as spiritual attainment. In his own framing it is a biological event and explicitly not enlightenment.