The man who refused to be a teacher

Through a dear Facebook friend Frank Noronha, , I recently stumbled upon the name Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti (1918–2007)…here I’ll call him just…. “U.G.”.

U.G. was a man who, apparently, spent most of his life telling people that there’s nothing to learn, nowhere to go, and no one to become.

Well, that immediately caught my attention.

Someone who teaches that there’s no such thing as teaching?

That’s either enlightenment… or comedy gold.

So, I started reading. And oh, what a ride!

U.G. was born in India and for a time was close to another famous Krishnamurti : Jiddu Krishnamurti…though the two later walked very different paths. Or perhaps, in U.G.’s case, no path at all. He declared enlightenment to be “a myth,” and the whole spiritual business to be “just another racket.”

He had no ashram, no disciples, no robes, no rules.

If you called him a guru, he’d probably glare at you until you apologized.

He said things like:

“The moment you make an effort to be natural, you’ve become artificial.”

and

“There is no such thing as enlightenment…it’s a fantasy created by the mind to perpetuate itself.”

You see what I mean? You can’t help but grin.

It’s like hearing the Holy Spirit shout through a megaphone, “Stop taking your illusions so seriously!”

But behind his thunderous honesty lies a deep truth.

U.G. saw that the moment you begin seeking, you’ve already divided yourself in two : the one who seeks and the one who is sought. And that split, he said, is the problem.

Now, A Course in Miracles would nod lovingly and say the same thing, only perhaps in a gentler voice:

“You need do nothing.”

Where U.G. shatters the temple walls with a roar, the Course simply opens the window and lets in the breeze.

Different music, same note.

He once described his own awakening not as bliss or light, but as “The Calamity.” Everything he thought he was…every identity, every ideal…collapsed.

That sounds terrifying, but if you look closer, it’s just the ego losing its script.

The Course would call that forgiveness…the quiet moment when the mind stops arguing with what is.

U.G. refused to guide anyone. He said, “If you understand me, you’re finished.”

I laughed when I read that…it’s exactly what the Holy Spirit might whisper when the student starts over-analyzing: “Sweetheart, if you think you understand this, you’ve missed it.”

Still, for all his clarity, U.G. had a kind of fierce loneliness about him.

He rejected everything so completely that there was hardly room for tenderness.

And perhaps that’s his one blind spot: you can destroy illusions, yes, but Love doesn’t need destruction … it needs recognition.

A Course in Miracles would gently add what U.G. left out:

“Teach only love, for that is what you are.”

You see, even when we unlearn everything, something remains : a Presence, quiet and smiling, that doesn’t care whether you’re a seeker, a skeptic, or a saint.

Call it God, call it Life, call it That-Which-Is…..it doesn’t matter.

It’s there, waiting patiently behind the noise of our heroic efforts to wake up.

So let’s not get too serious about it all.

U.G. might roll his eyes at our Course lessons, but I suspect he’d secretly approve of our laughter. After all, he spent decades telling people there’s nothing to attain and still ended up surrounded by people taking notes.

That’s the divine joke, isn’t it?

Even the man who tried not to be a teacher became one, because truth, no matter how you try to silence it, keeps slipping through the cracks.

And maybe that’s the real enlightenment both U.G. and the Course are pointing to:

The moment you stop searching, stop judging, stop trying to earn Heaven and just sit there, barefoot and slightly amused, realizing that the whole time…

you were already Home.

Second Epilogue – When thunder meets A Course in Miracles.

This second part about U.G. Krishnamurti cannot begin without mentioning the beautiful and profound addition that my FB friend Frank shared under the first post.

His words arrived like a soft echo after thunder…bringing clarity, tenderness, and a reminder that Truth always finds its way, no matter how different the voices that carry it.

I have never met U.G., of course…I’m only beginning to understand him through Frank’s stories and through what I’ve been (and still am) reading here and there on the internet.

So please, Frank, if I get something wrong, you know where to find me.

What I’m beginning to see is how this man answered the world’s endless questions, often by burning the questions themselves!

(He remembers me of Tony Parsons, his only answer was “there is nothing to find”)

From what I’ve gathered so far, U.G. was like a philosopher with lightning in his pocket..unpredictable, honest, and allergic to spiritual fluff.

He left no official book, only conversations recorded by others, raw and full of spark.

Frank helped me see that what looked like fierce loneliness in U.G. was really fierce freedom, Love without an owner, Love that doesn’t try to be loving, because it is Love.

Frank also included, in his message, some of U.G.’s famous thunderbolts.

So, let’s see what happens when thunder meets the Course…

⸻

“Thought is your enemy.”

That sounds like something a warrior monk would shout before breakfast.

But I think U.G. meant that thought isn’t the peaceful companion we imagine it to be.

The Course says it in softer language:

“You think you think apart from God.”

Same idea…..different wardrobe.

I once caught my mind arguing with itself while folding laundry. There were three opinions and none of them useful.

That’s what U.G. probably meant with the words: thought loves its own noise.

The moment you notice it, peace slips back in like a shy cat.

⸻

“Meditation is war.”

I can almost hear him saying it.

He probably saw people fighting their thoughts and calling it spirituality.

The Course would agree, but gently:

Stop fighting, stop fixing…just watch the clouds drift by.

True meditation is not “winning the war,” it’s realizing there never was one.

⸻

“You cannot be permanently happy. It’s a physical impossibility.”

That’s actually quite funny. Try holding your breath from laughing too long, you’ll prove his point.

U.G. was simply saying that the body can’t sustain bliss.

The Course reminds us:

“Happiness cannot be found in what is temporary.”

Real joy isn’t excitement; it’s that quiet hum underneath everything, the peace that doesn’t depend on dessert or daylight.

⸻

“Man has created God out of fear. So the problem is fear, not God.”

Here, he’s almost quoting the Course without realizing it.

We projected our own guilt onto Heaven and called it religion.

The Course says:

“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”

Once fear falls away, God stops being a noun and becomes a feeling…

a warmth without boundaries.

⸻

“In reality, nothing is born and nothing is dead.”

When I read that, I thought, There it is again…pure ACIM poetry hiding in a thunderclap.

“There is no death because the Son of God is free.”

U.G. wasn’t denying loss; he was pointing to what never leaves.

Like waves that rise and fall while the ocean stays still.

⸻

“Don’t follow me, I’m lost.”

My favorite one!

Because that’s the only honest thing a true teacher can say.

The Course agrees:

“When teacher and pupil come together, they are ready to learn of each other.”

No pedestals. No halos. Just humans remembering together.

⸻

“You love your hell.”

That line made me laugh and sigh at the same time.

We all have a few favorite miseries we secretly enjoy polishing.

The Course calls us out lovingly:

“You do not really want the peace of God.”

We say we want peace, but we also like our little dramas…they make great stories.

Until one day, we laugh, drop the script, and realize peace is the simpler plot.

⸻

“Thought is destructive… programmed to protect its own interests.”

The ego could print that on its business card.

It’s like antivirus software that creates viruses to stay useful.

The Course unmasks it with the same clarity:

“The ego’s plan for salvation is attack.”

Both agree : when the mind stops defending itself, love has nothing left to fix.

⸻

“If you can erase everything you remember about me… that’s the best tribute.”

That line stopped me.

A man saying, “Forget me,” instead of “Follow me.”

That’s the highest kind of humility.

It mirrors the Course perfectly:

“Forget this Course. Forget this world. And come with wholly empty hands unto your God.”

When we stop collecting teachings like souvenirs, we finally arrive where no souvenirs are needed.

⸻

So yes, I’m only beginning to understand this fierce and funny man.

But even through secondhand words, I can feel the same message shining through:

You are already what you seek.

U.G. tore away illusions with thunder; the Course lifts them with love.

One blows the house down, the other opens the windows and in both cases,

the Light gets in.

And if I’ve misunderstood him here or there, I trust Frank will smile, shake his head, and forgive me instantly.

Because in the end, as both teachers would agree,

forgiveness is the only real understanding there is.

And again and again : Nothing real can we threatened,

Nothing unreal exists.

Herin lies the peace of God.

Conclusion : The thunder and the whisper

After writing yesterday and this morning the two reflections about U.G. Krishnamurti, and after wandering a bit through the forest of information about him on the internet, I’d like to share here…a little clumsily perhaps, but honestly…what I have come to understand.

U.G. Krishnamurti was, without doubt, a fascinating man. A storm of clarity.

Someone who didn’t just talk about transformation but went through it, cell by cell, in what he called “The Calamity.”

From what I read, his body became a battlefield of burning energy, as if every cell was being rewritten by Truth itself.

The experience sounds both terrifying and holy and maybe both at once.

U.G. was brutally direct. Some said he lacked empathy, compassion, or even love.

But I’m not so sure.

Perhaps his seeming coldness was simply the refusal to feed illusions.

Sometimes Love comes as a soft hand on your shoulder and sometimes it comes as a thunderclap that shakes the dream awake. (It all depends on what you think you need most)

What U.G. really pointed to, in his fierce way, is the same truth the Course sings with such gentleness: this world, this whole story of becoming something, is an illusion.

Separation does not exist.

Every answer we invent within the dream still belongs to the dream.

No wonder people felt uncomfortable.

Who wants to hear, after years of spiritual study, that there’s nothing to learn?

Who enjoys being told that even our sweetest attachments are made of smoke?

We spend so much energy trying to improve ourselves and suddenly he says there’s no self to improve!

It sounds discouraging… until you hear the laughter behind it.

Because what he’s really saying is: You’re already free.

It’s not that your efforts are wrong, only that they were never necessary.

The search itself is part of the illusion, and that’s why the more you search, the further you seem to go.

Like a dog chasing its own tail : dramatic, impressive, and completely circular.

The Course teaches the same truth, but with a different rhythm.

U.G. hurls the stone into the lake…the Course lets it ripple.

He tears away the veil; the Course teaches us to lift it gently, with compassion for those still afraid of the Light.

Both bring us Home, but one shouts, “Wake up!” while the other whispers, “It’s all right, beloved… you were never asleep.”

That’s the beauty I see now.

Even within an illusion, Love finds a way to teach us.

The Course reminds us that the Holy Spirit uses everything the ego made to guide us back to truth….even thunder.

So perhaps U.G.’s apparent harshness was also a form of compassion, the kind that refuses to comfort your dream because it knows you deserve awakening instead.

Still, I’m grateful for the gentle path the Course offers.

Its voice is like a tide …never violent, always steady…carrying us softly toward the shore of remembrance.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t push; He draws us.

He teaches with smiles, forgiveness, and a quiet sense of humor that reminds us not to take even enlightenment too seriously.

So what remains after all this reading, reflection, and thunder?

Just this: both paths point to the same Light.

U.G. stripped away every story until only silence remained.

The Course fills that silence with tenderness and calls it God.

And perhaps they are both right…..

the thunder that shatters the walls

and the whisper that opens the heart.

Because, as the Course starts and ends so simply:

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.

With love and light,

G.