Thanks to Goofy for bringing this to our attention.
Thinker, philosopher UG Krishnamurti dead.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
BANGALORE: Thinker and philosopher UG Krishnamurti has died at Vallecrossia in Italy aged 89.
Krishnamurti, lovingly called UG by his friends and admirers, had slipped and injured himself seven weeks ago and was bedridden, his friends said.
UG’s longtime friends filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, Larry and Susan Morris and a few other friends were by his side when he died two days ago.
Krishnamurti, who had moved to Italy in January, suffered from “cardio spasm” for many years which became quite severe in the last days of his life.
As per his advice, no rituals or funeral rites were conducted, and he did not leave instructions on how to dispose of his body, his friend and admirer AP Frank Noronha said.
The cremation was carried out by Mahesh Bhatt on Friday.
UG is survived by two daughters and a son.
You can read more about UG on Wikipedia. I love these stories:
From 1947 to 1953, U.G. regularly attended talks given by Jiddu Krishnamurti in Madras, finally beginning a direct dialogue with J. Krishnamurti in 1953. U.G. describes one of their meetings as follows:
“We really didn’t get along well. Whenever we met we locked horns over some issue or other. For instance, I never shared his concern for the world, or his belief that his teaching would profoundly affect the thoughts and actions of mankind for the next five hundred years–a fantasy of the Theosophist occultists. In one of our meetings I told Krishnamurti, ‘I am not called upon to save the world.’ He asked, ‘The house is on fire–what will you do?’ ‘Pour more gasoline on it and maybe something will rise from the ashes,’ I remarked. Krishnamurti said, ‘You are absolutely impossible.’ Then I said, ‘You are still a Theosophist. You have never freed yourself from the World Teacher role. There is a story in the Avadhuta Gita which talks of the avadhut who stopped at a wayside inn and was asked by the innkeeper, “What is your teaching?” He replied, “There is no teacher, no teaching and no one taught.” And then he walked away. You too repeat these phrases and yet you are so concerned with preserving your teaching for posterity in its pristine purity.’”
— (Krishnamurti, U.G.; Arms, Rodney, Ed. [Third Edition, 2001]. Mystique of Enlightenment. Part One. from [2])
Their dialogues continued, but finally came to a halt. U.G. describes the final discussion as follows:
“Again I asked him if there was anything behind the abstractions he was throwing at me, ‘Come clean for once.’ Then he said with great force, ‘You have no way of knowing it!’ Then I said, ‘If I have no way of knowing it and you have no way of communicating it, what the hell have we been doing! I have wasted seven years listening to you. You can give your precious time to somebody else. I am leaving for New York tomorrow.’”
— (Krishnamurti, U.G.; Arms, Rodney, Ed. [Third Edition, 2001]. Mystique of Enlightenment. Part One. from [3])
After the break with J .Krishnamurti, U.G. went to the United States seeking medical treatment for his son, and stayed there for 5 years.
Which reminds me… Bob doesn’t have a profile on Wikipedia. How about we submit one?
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