Is There Such a Thing as Selflessness?

UG says man is selfish to the core. In fact, one of the articles written on him many years ago in a Kannada newspaper in Bangalore which he showed to me had the caption of a quote from him, “Only selfishness is real, selflessness is an illusion.” UG always proclaimed that man “is selfish to the core.” My answer to the caption at that time was, “Yes, it’s a selfishness which does away with the very self!.”

The questions of egoism and altruism arise in the context of morality. Any moral theory must reconcile the conflict between self-interest and duty – at least that’s how it is traditionally conceived. Hobbes is a philosopher who claimed that man is like an animal driven only by self-interest, by desire which “only ends in death.” Some theories like that of Hume argue that there is basically no conflict between interest and duty and that if one only looked deeply enough into self-interest one would discover that duty is included in it. Similarly, Joseph Butler’s moral theory claims: “Every particular affection, even the love of our neighbour, is as really our own affection as self-love; and the pleasure arising from its gratification is as much my own pleasure as the pleasure self-love would have from knowing I myself should be happy some time hence would be my own pleasure.”(Quotation from Internet sources.) The extension of this is the modern theory of enlightened self-interest.

Various forms of utilitarianism attempt to reconcile the conflict in different ways with varying degrees of success: a more recent one, proposed by Rawls, includes self-interest in its notion of “acting under the veil of ignorance,” according to which, people when they constitute themselves as a society should opt for such policies of the state that they would accept not knowing which position (high or low) they would be occupying in the society. (Rawls, Theory of Justice) This notion seems like a version of the golden rule: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

The political theory of Adam Smith, the theory of laissez-faire, believes in the Invisible Hand which guarantees that if everyone in a society acts for his own self-interest, the interest of the society is automatically taken care of.

My interest here is really not to address the issue of the conflict between interest and duty, but to inquire into the degree to which man is selfish: particularly to discuss the thesis that no matter what man does is really for his own pleasure (or self-interest). This is the thesis of psychological egoism. There are two problems with this thesis in the realm of morality: one is how is it possible that if by nature one is not endowed with an ability to act sometimes in the interests of other people, which is required by morality. The second problem, which is related to this, is that only one theory of morality becomes possible and that is ethical egoism. Ethical egoism leads to self-contradictions in contexts where two people’s interests conflict and according to the theory they both must be right.

Now, rights and wrongs aside, the question must occur to anyone inquiring into human relations, the question whether other people’s interests have any role to play in our lives except as promoting our own self-interest. Of course, we sometimes act contrary to our own self-interest, particularly when we don’t know what it is – we think it is one thing and it turns out that it is not truly to our self-interest. And we also act for other people’s interests – interests of our friends, relatives or strangers when we act charitably. When we do so we enjoy our action. We find them in some way gratifying or fulfilling.

But can we act selflessly and contrary to our self-interest when the situation (and you might say, morality) demands it? The answer pretty much depends on what we mean by selflessness. Do we mean by it acting contrary to one’s self-interest? If that’s the meaning of selflessness, one might answer that such actions are really born out of our self-interest, because we act charitably (or contrary to our self-interest) only when it suits us, when it gives us pleasure. When we no longer get the pleasure we seek in giving to others or in sacrificing our interests, as for example, when we don’t get the thanks we expected or our actions are not appreciated or when the recipient turns hostile instead of being grateful. The opponent here will constantly seek for the hidden motive of seeking pleasure even when it is not apparent on the surface. Then the thesis that whatever we do is for our self-interest (or pleasure) becomes tautological.

I think this approach (of psychological egoism) probably misses some points. More specifically it ignores the mechanisms of our behavior, particularly our goal-seeking process. Our normal procedure is that we want things (or avoid them) and we direct our actions to achieving what we desire or avoiding what we don’t want. Whatever we desire we desire because we hope it gives us satisfaction or pleasure. If our action gives us the desired result, we feel satisfied. If we perform the action repeatedly and it no longer gives the satisfaction we expect out of it, the action tends to drop off, unless it is a long-standing habit and quitting it seems more painful than keeping it. Masochism, although it seems painful on the surface, is pursued only because for the psychological pleasure we get in physically inflicting pain on ourselves. Here pain is pleasure.

Now, to repeat, my question here is, when we think something is right and it is not really according to our self-interest or gives us pleasure, would we still do it? If we can, then altruism and morality are possible. If not, then only psychological egoism is true and morality is not possible. The answer below explores the psychological process of action, goal-seeking and the self.

It’s the mechanism of thought which has the built in process of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Everything it seeks, including doing good to others, has to fit into this scheme in order for it to be meaningful to us. The values we seek and the things we desire are what give us satisfaction. They enhance our self. The thought process, in other words, is the process of the self. Through desire and fear, the thought process reinforces the self. All actions, even those we intend to help others, must form part of this ‘self (or mental) economy’. Even when the actions we perform don’t seem to give us satisfaction, or only give us pain, we would still do them if they conform to our values or concepts of what we want to achieve. The self, among other things, is a hierarchy of values we have built for ourselves whether consciously, or simply absorbed from the influences around us through osmosis. As values are bound up with our notion of our selves, we would do something painful, because, as a value, it is bound up with the notion of our selves. In other words, we sometimes do things for others even though they are painful, not as much because we gain some hidden pleasure or self-interest, but our very identity may be at stake, and not to pursue that value would amount to loss of self to that extent.

The present pain is tolerated for a future satisfaction of a value or a goal. When even that fails, and the goals or values are not achieved, we quit the whole enterprise, or console ourselves saying that we have tried, or tell ourselves that the goal is not worth it, or that’s not what I really wanted, or that we will try for it another time when conditions are more in our favor, or who needs it anyway and so forth. More often than not, we replace one goal with another. But constant striving for goals we never quit, because we have an underlying belief that our happiness or fulfillment lies in achieving things which are out there, outside of ourselves.

When we become disillusioned with that too, then perhaps not only the striving drops off, along with it our goals, but also the thought process which is geared to achieving them. But that almost never happens in people.

Short of this total collapse of the self, which is perhaps possible in principle, at least temporarily, whatever we do is for gratification, directly or indirectly, of the self. Only when such a collapse occurs, we are truly selfless. But then is there any action? (I am speaking here of action other than automatically satisfying one’s biological needs.) Or would a person’s movements be merely random? If there is action, (I can’t deny there is), it wouldn’t be premeditated, or based on some moral or other rules or laws, but would depend on the situation. It might even seem self-centered to others and no rules can be made out of such actions as they are so specific to a situation.

You might ask, why would one even act in such a circumstance? There is no answer to that question, for an answer presupposes a motive on behalf of the person, and that by definition is precluded in a selfless state. The action is gratuitous. It’s just as if the person had no choice but to act that way. It is as if the action is extracted out of him, forced out of him by the situation.

Why I am a Vegetarian, On Taking Life and Abortion

Why I am a Vegetarian

People always ask me why I am a vegetarian, why I don’t eat meat, fish or eggs, don’t I kill the vegetables I eat, and so on. My answer is the following:

First, yes, I don’t eat meat, fish or eggs. For one thing, I don’t like them – I don’t even like the flavors, smells or taste of any of them. I have tried them both in India and in the US many times. Furthermore, I don’t like to eat meat or fish because I don’t like to kill animals.

I have no quarrel with those who eat meat. Still, I believe that most of those who do eat meat (or even fish) don’t quite realize what they are doing. Of course, a butcher kills animals or at least breaks them up into different parts as a routine to make his living. I don’t really know how many butchers like their jobs or do it as a habit or do it because they have no choice. Most of the rest of us eat meat by killing animals by proxy.

My argument, if you call it one, is not based on religion or morality. I think a person is justified in eating meat if he or she can kill an animal with his own bare hands, dress it, cook it, bring it to the table and eat it with relish repeatedly. As for myself, I can’t do any of them.

I will recount a couple of experiences in this context: One, when I lived in Berkeley, a Jewish girl from New York, her Norwegian boyfriend at that time and I went on a camping trip. When the young man caught an oyster in the water and crushed it in his palm, the girl fainted at the sight of blood in his hand. I won’t forget that scene.

The other is from my own past: once, in 1968, when I was in Waltair (Visakhapatnam), India, I lived in a cabin in the Santi Ashram. The cabin had a patio, a bedroom and a kitchen part of which is also used to take a bath. One night I woke up in the middle of the night to go to pee in the bathroom and I saw a rather long and very-slow-moving snake coming through the drainage hole in the wall. It was moving so slow either because it had eaten a heavy meal or it was hurt. I couldn’t tell which. I first used a broom and then an iron rod to move it forward with a view eventually to get it out of the cabin without harming it. But somehow it managed to get up on the door and hang right on top of the head of my bed. Tense and overcome by fear, I brought it down and beat it to death with the iron rod. Then ants collected around the snake and I called the caretaker of the ashram to come in to take the dead snake out. An elderly man, the caretaker asked me in a voiced mixed with respect, disapproval and pity for the snake, “You killed it, sir?”

The memory of that experience pricks my conscience (if I still have one!) to this day! Although I am not a believer in karma or rebirth, I wonder at times whether my long-standing cancer and other ailments I suffer from are not a result of my own misdeeds.

I can’t make any general rules out of my experience (or any one else’s). I don’t believe much in anything. Yet, I feel a person is justified in eating meat if he or she realizes what they are doing. And of course, in some areas on the globe you just have no choice.

Once a lady colleague who wanted me to give a talk on the subject in her department heard my argument and countered it saying, “You can’t always build a house from the scratch with your own hands in order to live in it.” I said the cases are not analogous (you don’t eat your house!). Of course, she promptly cancelled her invitation!

To be sure, I kill vegetables and fruit to eat them. Some ancient sages in India lived on fallen grain and fruit just for that reason. But I can’t. J. Krishnamurti addressing this question once said, “You have to draw a line somewhere.” Some people don’t draw a line at all, and I draw it at meat, fish and eggs. Why not eat eggs, you might ask. Actually, my family does. I for myself don’t like the flavor or smell or the after taste of eggs. Also, the fact that it is a potential animal. Rarely, I might eat something which has eggs in it when I don’t smell or know that there is an egg in it, and would learn about it later. If ate it inadvertently, I wouldn’t beat myself for doing it.

On Taking Life

Am I opposed to taking life? What would I do if I am attacked; my sister is attacked, etc. Am I a pacifist? How about abortion? How about preventing babies from birth defects to be born?

First, my attitude to killing: I am not a pacifist. Yet, when I became a citizen of this country, I told the Immigration Department that I can’t take an oath that I would defend this country and its constitution by arms if necessary. They asked me to write a statement of my religious faith. I told in it that I consider all men as my brothers and that I can’t bear arms for any country including the United States. They ended up by giving me a special oath which did not involve bearing arms. Thus I became a citizen of the US by being a conscientious objector.

They just can’t make me take a gun and shoot another human being. I would rather go to prison or something. What would I do if someone attacks me and gets ready to kill me? I don’t know. I will find out when I face such a situation. It’s hard to answer hypothetical questions like that.

But there was a time when a student actually assaulted me in my office for calling him stupid (the word just slipped out of my mouth!) in an argument. I complained to the campus police and told them that I just wanted him to get him off my back and that I didn’t want to make any other trouble. His papers were later graded by my colleague. Each situation is resolved in its own fashion. I can’t generalize and make up policies or rules of behavior for myself or for others on the basis of one or more experiences.

* * *

For similar reasons, I also don’t sit on a jury bench. Of course, I am called once every couple of years (because of my driver’s license) to jury duty. So far, I have managed to avoid it. A couple of times I was selected to be on the jury. The first time, I was a bit disturbed and talked to a lawyer (a freebee from my credit union! I don’t see lawyers otherwise.) He said, after consulting another lawyer, that I had to appear before the judge and if called to be on the jury, I could explain to the judge why I wouldn’t want to be on the jury. Something like that happened and when I sat on the jury bench, the judge asked if anyone had objections to serving on the jury. I raised my hand. He asked, “What!” I answered, “My conscience does not permit me to sit in judgment on my fellow human beings.” He said, “You are excused!” I left the courtroom in great relief.

The second time, when I was selected again, they asked me along with others to answer a questionnaire in answering which I had an opportunity to express my objection again. And that evening I was excused again.

The lawyer I consulted the first time asked me why I was opposed to being on the jury. I gave him my answer. He is a reputed lawyer who represented Cesar Chavez and others. I could see Mother Teresa’s picture hanging in his office. He said, “There are a lot of evil guys out there.” I answered him, “I can’t deny that. But, as a philosopher, I can’t be part of a system which only punishes people for their acts without considering their side of the picture and seeing what could be done to help or prevent it.”

* * *

Abortion

This is one of the knotty issues that troubles people all over the world. Of course, an embryo is not a full-fledged life. But the issue of abortion is not so simple. Read on:

Many years ago, my then girl-friend became pregnant. I told her that she wasn’t in a position to raise a child and maybe she should get an abortion. She was adamant and wanted the baby. I said, “As a woman, you have every right to have a baby. If you insist on carrying the pregnancy to full-term and have the baby, I will be with you (at that time, there was some question of my being with her) and help you raise the baby until you are ready to take care of it yourself.”

And she did give birth to a child and she asked me as soon as she was born, “Now that she is born, what do I do with it?” I said, “Raise it!”

I did stay with her for another three and-a-half years. My girl-friend, whom I later married, was now ready to leave me and leave the child with me. I had to get the help of a past student to live with me and take care of the child. Later, my current wife came into the picture and took care of her.

But the real reason for the above story is that when the child was about four and-a-half or five (or may be a bit older than that, I can’t remember the exact time), came into the bathroom where I was on the toilet and asked me, “Daddy, you wanted to get rid of me when I was in my mom’s belly, did you?” By now I knew that she heard (it doesn’t matter from whom) the news of what had happened. I had to collect my wits quickly and come up with a satisfactory answer or I would be my daughter’s enemy for life. I said, “I didn’t know it was you, if I did, why would I want to get rid of you?” Lucky for me, the answer pacified her and she never raised the question again. In fact, I recalled that story to her when she was grown up and she listened to it with amusement.

My ex-wife did go through an abortion (of a baby from someone else) and I know the depression, guilt, anxiety and nightmares she had had from that abortion. I know several other women who had the same response. In many cases, it doesn’t hit until after the abortion. For men, it’s more a matter of convenience, economics, etc. I remember, in the case of both my children, it’s the sight of them and my holding them physically that bonded me to them. But the issue is a lot deeper for women. They know the baby that was aborted, even though it was mere flesh, came from their womb and they are deeply affected by the experience.

Now would I say I am opposed to abortion; of course not. Am I then in favor of it. That’s where what I said above should come into play. How do you feel about it? Can you live with that decision? I can sermonize all I want, but if you feel so burdened by the baby and don’t event want the stigma or the travail of carrying the pregnancy to completion, and you feel your life would be ruined by it, who can blame you for aborting? But do consider how you would feel if you did abort and see if you can live with that decision. Talk to people who have had an abortion.

I see part of the problem that is generated in the controversy between the advocates of abortion (or right to decide about your own body) and pro-life people has to do with receiving government support. There indeed are poor people who probably can’t afford the funds to carry on an abortion. And the pro-life proponents don’t want the tax-payer’s money spent on causes they don’t approve. The question then becomes political and I have no answer to that.

Whither Morality?

What is morality? It is not the following of enjoined rules of conduct. It is not a question of standing above temptations, or of conquering hate, anger, greed, lust and violence. Questioning your actions before and after creates the moral problem. What is responsible for this situation is the faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong and influencing your actions accordingly.

Life is action. Unquestioned action is morality. Questioning your actions is destroying the expression of life. A person who lets life act in its own way without the protective movement of thought has no self to defend. What need will he have to lie or cheat or pretend or to commit any other act which his society considers immoral? -- U.G. in Mystique of Enlightenment.

We do question our actions before and after, whether we like it or not. For one thing, we are worried about the consequences of our actions, whether they will be just as we expect them, or they are liable to cause harm to ourselves or others, or what will happen to us if certain consequences follow our actions, and so on. We also feel guilty if the current action goes against our own previously accepted norms of right and wrong, loss or gain and good and bad.

I am not as much concerned here with which theory of morality (and moral judgments) is correct, whether utilitarianism is better than deontology or vice-versa, for instance, or whether we should opt for egoism or hedonism, and so on. My issue with morality is that even if we agree on which moral standards we use in our judgments, we are still left with a major problem.

The main problem with morality is not even that we worry about whether our actions may turn out to be wrong, but it is that more often than not we don’t act according what we ourselves admit is the right thing to do. It was Aristotle who first grappled with the problem of incontinence. The problem became translated in Christianity as the problem of the weakness of the will – “the spirit is willing but the flesh does not obey.” Socrates, followed by Plato, always taught that if only a person knew what is good, he would automatically be good and therefore act accordingly. So the ultimate evil is really ignorance. Plato’s Republic is an attempt to connect knowledge of the good with a person’s (and by extension with the state’s) happiness, thus ensuring the moral conduct of the individual (and by extension of the society).

Whether we approach the problem as one of ignorance or as one of the weakness of the will, the problem of the gap between one’s beliefs and intentions and one’s actions remains. As a consequence, no matter what our ideas of right and wrong are, most of us say or believe in one thing and act in another way. Our desires and passions, or our ‘self-protectiveness’, as UG said in the above passage, are the impediments to morality.

Once we act, publicly we tend to justify our actions or defend them, although, internally we may regret or feel guilty. We learn to lead double lives – in public we appear to be virtuous and in private we constantly plot against other people and try to get our way. No wonder morality becomes a farce.

As I used to say in the very first class of my Moral Issues class, “Morality is for other people only!” We are quick to judge other people’s actions as good or bad, right or wrong, using the judgments, more often than not, to bolster our own egos, to feel superior to others or to feel that we are on a higher moral ground than them.

People always look for policies of living, for a policy which will make them permanently happy and be in harmony with the rest of the society. Unfortunately, even if they found one, I can hardly think of a single individual who doesn’t violate his own policies (or moral standards) at the next turn.

Then why this sham? Why morality at all? Why the standards of right and wrong (and of good and bad which are supposed to be their basis)?

I have thought for a long time that morality in these terms has really no place in our lives. Don’t get me wrong: I am not advocating ‘immoral behavior’ such as murder, rape, violence, lying or stealing, or acting on impulse or passion without regard to consequences. (The above passage of UG might tempt you to think that he may be advocating this; but that’s far from the truth).

UG talks about acting with the self-protectiveness of thought. Unfortunately, we do think, and more often than we are self-protective. To me, it’s interesting to see how in fact we act in concrete situations: we have desires, some of which conflict with one another. And we have fears. In the face of any given situation, we consider the conflicts and act in a way constant with the equilibrium of our mental economy. I think that’s most assurance we could have for moral behavior. Consider the following possibility:

Take, for instance, a young woman who comes to me for advice regarding an unwanted pregnancy. I could take a moralist pro-life position and tell her that she should carry the pregnancy to a full-term, give birth to the child, and if she has problems raising the child, give it for adoption to another couple. Or, I could take the pro-choice position and tell her to go ahead and get an abortion. (I actually did advice someone to do this once, but I had a vested interest in giving that advice, leaving alone the main consideration of whether it is good for the mother or the unborn child.) But what my advice ignores is so many other factors the lady has to consider in making her decision, such as not just her economic plight after the baby is born, the social stigma or disapproval of relatives, but more importantly, her having to deal with her loneliness, feelings of guilt, feeling of being betrayed and so forth. Were I to not take these under consideration in advising her, I might be missing the point and only imposing on her an advice from outside, thereby putting only more pressure on her instead of helping her solve her problem. Is my position that of a moral judge or a friend and advisor? (In fact, even using of terms such as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and ‘good’ and ‘bad’ would only exacerbate the matter.) Where do I stand in this matter?

If I were to adviser her on this situation, my advise is first, not to tell her what to do, and second, to tell her that the issue is not one of right or wrong, that she has to make up her own mind, listening to her feelings about the situation and considering how she would feel about the possible consequences. I tell her that after considering all these she should come up with a decision which she could live with, and if she can’t come up with a decision right away, she should keep working at it until she can come up with a solution, i.e. ‘sit’ on the problem. I also tell her that when she finds the right solution to her satisfaction, her mental turmoil would diminish and she could live peacefully. She would then know that as far she is concerned that’s the ‘right’ answer. If she finds later that she was mistaken in her previous decision, then again she gives herself a chance to rethink the matter until she comes up with a more satisfactory solution. And unfortunately, there are no rules for this. Of course, she knows that whichever way she decides, she has to face the moral judgments of other people, and that she has to live not with herself, but with society, and more especially with the law.

I think this approach to the dilemmas we face bypasses the whole issue of rights and wrongs and goods and bads. (One might say, by taking consequences into consideration, she is adopting utilitarian approach. But I think it’s much more than that.) It’s not that I provide any specific rules or guidelines for acting. But I think this approach more or less approximates actually the way we in fact act and I also think that by broadening this approach (which aims at a state of equilibrium in our mental economy) has a significantly better chance of bridging the gap between our professions and our actions. I know this is no easy solution to our problems, but I don’t know of any easy ones.

By ‘to live with oneself’ I mean that you work at a problem in a situation you confront until it is resolved in your mind and that it’s no longer a problem to you; I mean to resolve a conflict, until you can live in peace with yourself. And, of course, only you can be the judge of that.

One might ask the question, what if I lie or cheat or dig the ground under someone’s feet, and still live in peace with myself, because I feel that I am justified, or that I did it because someone else did something else, and so on. The answer to the question, of course, varies with the situation:

For one thing, I have to live in fear of consequences: (of course, I could just be paranoid and live in fear of unreal, non-existent possibilities). I remember that once, a long time ago, after trying to smoke pot a couple of times, I refused to do it again, not just because I didn’t like the taste of it, but I didn’t think the possible consequences of getting arrested or going to jail were not worth it.

For another, if my lying or cheating does cause a problem to another person, and there indeed are consequences as a result of that, then I still have a problem on my hand. I have to work to resolve that.

If, on the other hand, what I do causes no problem to someone else or to myself, then why should I bother even to think about it?

One advantage of thinking in these terms is that such thinking provides a tool of self-knowledge and a way to free oneself from all kinds of ‘unnecessary’ goals, fears and worries, which will hopefully ultimately lead to a life without self-protectiveness. Another advantage is, I am not quick in judging other people’s behavior.

This thinking is not really Fletcher’s situationism. There is no talk here of God or love. And of course, it would be subject, nevertheless, to charges of moral relativism, which was leveled again situationism. But my thinking in a given situation is relative not just to the situation but also to myself, because my reaction or response to a situation is a complex result of what I see as the situation and of all the factors that go to make up myself including my background, conditioning, personality traits and psychological complexes and so forth. It is that complex which determines my response to the situation.

But the response is not a fixed response which can be judged as right or wrong instantaneously. Of course, other people would judge it as such. But as far as I am concerned, at any given moment, it is either satisfactory or it is not. If it is satisfactory now, it may cease to be so when other factors come into the picture, and I may find another response more satisfactory and modify my previous one accordingly. If I can’t change my response, of course, I am willing to suffer the consequences.

A nun, we have heard, for instance, made a decision to carry her ‘unwanted’ pregnancy to full term and give birth to the child. She was willing to face the consequences of her action, including becoming a lay woman, finding a job to support herself and her child, face social disapprobation and so forth. In other circumstances, the consequences I am willing to face may include physical punishment, prison or even death. But that’s my choice and that’s the way I have decided to live. If I become chicken and change my mind, I have to face my fickleness too and that in turn becomes part of my situation I have to resolve.

And it goes on and on.

Notice here, that there are no objective standards such as right and wrong or good bad that I use to judge my actions. (If others judge my actions with those standards, I, of course, have to face those judgments.) I can only talk about the responses I can live with and are satisfactory to me, and those I can’t live with or have problems with.

Another objection that could be raised against this approach is that the approach is purely psychological and has nothing to do with moral issues of actions being right or wrong and that it would take away the most powerful element in our thinking about actions and moral education.

I was saying above that we use morality as a tool not merely judge other people’s actions, but to build our own self worth through those judgments, to feel righteous and morally or otherwise superior to other people. The one big problem I see in our society is that we are so quick to judge others (say politicians about their sexual morals, for instance), knowing full well that we are not really much different from them and that under similar circumstances, we would act the same way or worse. Then I ask why play this game of morality?

How could it help educating our children if what we are showing them in our lives is different from the way we actually live?

What about situations like war? Don’t I take away the powerful tool of moral judgment, i.e., my ability to say that such and such a war, for instance, is morally wrong? My answer is the following: by criticizing either side in situations of war, we tend to polarize the situation further instead of resolving it. Instead of solving the problem of war, we perpetuate it by taking one side or the other. I remember the times when I was demonstrating against the War in Vietnam in the downtown mall in Riverside, California (as I also did earlier in Berkeley). While I was standing there in the mall holding hands with others in protest, I could see the animosity I was causing by my mere standing there -- people’s hostile looks and angry debates and so forth. I asked myself, “What am I doing standing here? Instead of solving the conflict in Vietnam, I am adding further conflict to it.”

My reflections drove me to consider the sources of war and violence in general, and discover to my utter chagrin that I myself was not free from intolerance, greed, aggression, violence, search for domination and glory, which I saw as the sources of war. I similarly saw that the problem of hunger and poverty the world over have also roots in the ways of my (and others’) living: my self-protective self-interest, my urge to amass wealth beyond my need, and so on.

How can I save myself and others from such problems? Then I look for possibilities of change in my ways of living (before I can even possible contemplate changing others’ ways of living or making quick judgments about them.) I think this sort of approach is more helpful than moral judgments. It in fact helps people see things more clearly and perhaps help us solve problems better in the long run.

Of course, the same goes with educating children. If you could show a child that hitting another child hurts the child (once I demonstrated this to my daughter by actually snapping sharply on her forearm just once and telling her, “this is how it feels to her, don’t do it!”– and I never had do it again), then that’s the best education you could give her. Of course, nothing I do might change her dislike for the other child, but at least I provided an awareness of a problem (at least she had to deal with me!) To be sure, she might do it later stealthily, or she might like being violent for just the kicks of it, and so on and on ... but I don’t need to dwell on the point. Of course, the need to educate my child may be my own need (I wouldn’t say moral need, but her behavior toward other kids did present a problem for me that I had to deal with.)

The problem with the traditional moralistic approach is that it doesn’t address the gap between our professions and our actions: it ignores our desires, feelings and passions and our make-up in general. As long as we have our desires, there is bound to be a gap between what we ought to do and what we end up doing. My question behind my approach is, how do we bridge that gap?

You might say that I am removing morality from the objective realm to the subjective realm, thereby making it in accessible to any public discussion. This is much the same as saying that you can’t morally judge someone’s actions as right or wrong, we can’t a point a finger at the action of a person, however horrible it is, and say it is wrong, we can’t publicly discuss such actions, and therefore, we can’t praise or blame them. That implies we can’t change people’s anti-social behavior. While this all may be true, much of what we do in the public realm can be transferred, practically in tact, into the realm of problem-solving and in fact make better progress that way.

You might also ask the question, suppose someone does make a moral judgment, would I say that such making a judgment is morally wrong? I say it’s neither, as far as I am concerned. I might find a problem with it, and in fact even feel guilty because of someone pointing out a problem with my behavior (as it might have gone contrary to my own standards about myself) and I would deal with the judgement in those terms.

What about feeling guilty then? Is that not a moral issue? (This is the crux of the objections to my approach.) Guilt and guilty conscience are expressions of conflict within a person of what he feels he ought to have done and what he in fact has done. The question of ‘ought’ is not necessarily a moral ‘ought’. It could just be a possible action which the individual finds more according to his beliefs about how he should live or behave toward other people. That may or may not include moral standards.

One more remark about conscience: one might say my approach is akin to appeal to one’s conscience in order to decide whether or not to act in a given fashion. This remark is only partially true as ‘conscience’ normally presupposes an inner moral voice with its dictates, whereas the problem-solving approach includes the ‘moral’ as well as other considerations such as one’s interests and passions and so forth.

The fact of the matter is that we do have moral standards about ourselves as we do about other people and other groups or nations. We have acquired those standards from our society and use them to beat ourselves or approve ourselves. Of course, we believe in them. What my approach does is to bring them under the head of ‘feeling’. We feel that such and such should be done or ought not to be done. Right and wrong are just expressions of those feelings. There is nothing very objective about them, although we might believe that they are.

You might ask then whether those feelings are just what I think, or are they according to me what ought in fact to be the case. This is really the charge of subjectivism. My answer is that from my point of view there is no difference between them and that I claim they are merely part of my mental economy.

It might be claimed that this approach is not basically different from that of any moral theory where an attempt is made to reconcile between one’s interest and one’s duties, taking into consideration how one’s interests must take into consideration other people’s interests in order to secure a moral society. To that degree, it might also be asserted, this theory is similar to the utilitarian or deontological ethics whose primary interest is to safeguard the welfare of the society as a whole.

My answer is that the claim is essentially true except for this basic difference that it doesn’t lay an unnecessary burden of rights and wrongs on the individual and secondly, it allows the integration of a person’s interests and feelings better within the context of a situation and finally, it tends to diminish the gap, for the above reasons, between one’s interests and one’s duties.

One final remark: again, one might claim that this is not very different from Hume’s theory of morality or a modern version of it such as an ‘enlightened self-interest’ which is a form of egoism. Here one might say that I am advocating an individual’s happiness (in my terms an ‘equilibrium in one’s mental economy’) as the ultimate good and all actions are judged as good or bad or right or wrong according to this norm. My answer is, once again, that it may very well sound like that, except that my approach tends to include moral psychology in the picture which moral theories generally do not.

How I Met UG

First Introduction: The first time I heard about UG was with Terry Newland (then Agnew). I knew Terry in Berkeley around 1969 when I was living in Berkeley. I once saw an announcement in the campus newspaper that there was going to be a J. Krishnamurti discussion group meeting in the Student Union Building on campus. I went there mainly out of curiosity (and perhaps also out a ‘need’ to belong to a group). Terry was conducting the meeting. It seemed like an organizational meeting. After the meeting we became friends.

It must have been some months later in the same year. Terry took a fancy to me and invited me to Sonoma State for a philosophy talk in a professor’s class. He also asked me to talk to a student group. Then I visited an elementary school where Terry was teaching at the time. He asked me to speak to the kids there and then showed me his yoga class. About that time he had a fall out with the Krishnamurti people, particularly in Switzerland. Terry was duly kicked out of the Krishnamurti circle. Earlier, he was specially invited to go to Switzerland to meet and spend time with Krishnamurti. At the same time, he was also listening to UG.

Later, Terry invited me and three of my friends to spend the night in his place in Sebastapol on our way to Carson City where we were also going to visit another friend who was teaching in the Indian Reservation School at that time. Early in the morning, I got to watch Terry do yoga. He looked like the image of health – sounds of breath coming out of his nostrils like steam from pipes and perfectly precise and graceful asanas, all done seemingly effortlessly with a robust and statuesque body.

That morning Terry gave us a breakfast of musilex. He also showed me a picture of UG and referred to him as an enlightened man. Terry had heard him speak in Switzerland. He told me later how UG took him out for a coffee and talked to him about himself.

UG had invited him to spend three months in India (in Bangalore) with him and write his biography. Terry described how UG’s physical features had changed because of the transformation he had undergone: ashes falling out of his forehead, arms being turned backward, glands swelling, eyes not blinking, and so on.[1]

Terry was obviously quite touched by the attention UG showered on him. Apparently, UG would get up early in the morning before Terry and arrange for his hot water for his bath![2] The biography he was supposed to write, for which purpose he took a typewriter with him, never came about. I heard several such accounts about UG from Terry and simply stored them away in memory without doing much about them.

Second Introduction: The next occasion I heard about UG was when I was in Hawaii with Terry. Around 1971, my then-partner Linda and I went on a trip to Hawaii on a special invitation from Terry to spend a month with him and learn Yoga. Soon after we got to his cabin in Molakai, there was an accident while he was lighting a stove to make dinner for us and the whole cabin burned down to ashes. We escaped with a few belongings, but lost our air tickets to the fire. We spent the night in Terry’s friends’ house and the next day moved to another friend’s rather large house miles away. There Linda and I stayed for a week and learned some yoga from Terry anyway. We came to the main island of Oahu after that, got replacement airline tickets and headed back to the mainland.

A day or two after the cabin was burned down, I went with Linda and Terri to one of his lady friends’ place. It was a lone house amid fields and pineapple plantations. There he played a tape of UG speaking. Again, I felt no reaction. I remember UG’s voice in the tape being somewhat shriek.

Third Introduction: Linda, to whom I now was married, our daughter Bujji and I went to India in the summer of 1975. Just that past year, I began teaching in the Monterey Peninsula College. We spent a few days in Madras and then went to Tiruvannamalai, visiting my old friend, the famous writer Chalam. Just as I entered Chalam’s front yard (across the street from Ramanashram), and was approaching the main house, I heard UG’s audio cassette being played. I distinctly remember him in the tape saying something about the space between two thoughts. At that time, I was suffering from a bout of the flu. I went upstairs in a few minutes, as the talk didn’t make much impression on me. Some kind of Vedanta, I thought. I also saw a picture of UG on a wall in Chalam’s house for the first time. Sowris, Chalam’s daughter and a mystic, said that UG was her distant cousin. I later learned from Chandrasekhar that a few years before I went there, he told them about UG and showed them a picture of him.[3] Then Sowris recognized him as the one to whom she could have been married when she was young, except that UG wasn’t interested. Chalam and his family met UG through Chandrasekhar.

Sowris, Chalam and Sowris’s ‘gang’ used to visit UG in Bangalore. Apparently, after the initial visits, UG, in his usual fashion, started tightening screws on Sowris and bluntly told her that if she wanted to see him, she should come without all her followers. He also forbade her singing in his presence (singing was one of her attachments!). Later, when Chalam, being already on a wheelchair, was having trouble visiting him in Bangalore, UG said, “Why should that old man come here all the way? I will go and visit him myself,” and went there to visit.

My First Meeting with UG: Then, some years later, early in 1981, I got a letter from Nartaki, the lady who lived in Chalam’s family for much of her life.[4] She said that UG was coming to the U.S. and suggested that I should go and visit him. (I don’t remember if she gave me an address or a phone number.) I, of course, promptly ignored the letter.

At about the same time, Terry also called from Mill Valley saying that UG was in town and was asking about me (“Where is this Dr. Narayana Moorty?”). Apparently, Nartaki had given him my phone number and address which he promptly lost. She later told me that she said to him, “You go and see everyone everywhere; why don’t you go see this man also?” Terry asked me if I wanted to come and visit UG in Mill Valley. I replied that I was too old to go see ‘teachers’ (I was already burned out with J. Krishnamurti), and if he was passing through here in Seaside, he would be welcome here. So, I didn’t go then.

It must have been about a month or so later: one morning (this must be in 1981, around October), I got a phone call from Ramesh Ganerwala, an engineer who worked for the California Energy Commission, from Carmel. He was driving UG and Valentine from San Louis Obispo after visiting James Brodsky (later Jane) or some other person. He said that UG and Valentine were with him and that UG wanted to know if they could come and visit. I said they would be most welcome and that they could have lunch at my place as well.

I had a large quantity of upma made for my in-laws who were visiting me that morning. After breakfast they had all gone out with my wife, Wendy. I was home alone. The time was about noon. Ramesh drove UG and Valentine in his small old beat-up BMW. I watched through the living room window UG getting out of the car and walking on the pavement toward my house. With his arms hanging loose, he had the gait of a zombie. His face was expressionless and he looked like a man on the death row.

Valentine and Ramesh as well as UG, all came in. I greeted them, led them into the kitchen and seated them at the kitchen table. UG sat next to the wall in the kitchen and I sat across the table from him. I served lunch to everyone. UG was praising my upma to Ramesh saying that it was the ‘authentic stuff’. UG started talking mostly about himself. During the conversation he and I exchanged notes about our backgrounds -- he coming from Gudivada and I from Vijayawada, both towns in Andhra Pradesh, just twenty miles apart -- and about the people we had known in common. He went to Madras University for his Honors studies and had known T.M.P. Mahadevan who was also my thesis supervisor. We both also knew my Sanskrit lecturer in S.R.R. & C.V.R. College, Vijayawada, and a few others. Apparently he dropped out of his Philosophy Honors in Madras University, not having taken the final examinations.

During the conversation, UG joked about Satya Sai Baba, saying how he used to materialize Swiss watches before, but how he materialized only Hindustan watches now, after Indira Gandhi imposed an import restriction on Swiss watches.

They stayed for about two hours. As they were leaving, I tried to put my arm around UG’s shoulder as a gesture of affection, but he quickly moved away. I realized that he was not open to such physical contact. In the living room, as he was leaving, I shook his hand to say goodbye, addressing him as ‘Mr. Krishnamurti.’ He said that I could just as well call him ‘number 69,’ like a jail convict, and that people called him ‘UG.’

It was a pleasant experience meeting UG. I had the strange feeling as we were standing at the kitchen door and holding each other’s hands, that he was so similar to me in many ways, and that I was meeting myself. The feeling was one of closeness. I was already bonded with UG!

As he left, he invited me to visit him in Mill Valley. I thought that it was merely a formal invitation. I said, “OK, thank you,” and didn’t take the invitation seriously.

First Visit to UG: I think UG came a second time, when Elena, a Russian young lady, was also present.[5] It must be about a month or so after his first visit. I can’t remember much about this visit except that this time he invited both Elena and me to visit him. Again, I didn’t respond except saying “OK, thank you.” But the night before Thanksgiving that year, I got another phone call from Ramesh in Mill Valley saying that UG would like to see me, could I come? Earlier, I had built all kinds of excuses in my mind not to go to see UG in Mill Valley, that the invitation was only a formality and he wasn’t probably very serious about it; that I didn’t like driving long distances; that my old AMC car wouldn’t make it that far; and that I didn’t like traveling -- to mention a few. But all those excuses had evaporated now, as the invitation this time was so specific and I couldn’t as well turn it down. Also, Kodvatiganti Subbarao, an engineer from Berkeley who worked for the FEMA and was visiting us for Thanksgiving, was leaving on Thanksgiving Day and was willing to give me and Elena a ride to Mill Valley. So, we all three drove to Mill Valley.

We arrived at UG’s house in Mill Valley around 5 in the afternoon. Subbarao and UG quickly got into an argument on the subject of the Bhagavad Gita. The argument got nowhere and Subbarao left after about an hour.

Julie Wellings, whom I had met long before (in 1975) in Tiruvannamalai, where she was living in Chalam’s household and learning Telugu from Sowris, was also visiting UG. She brought her own beer that night and drank it, to my surprise[6]. The next day a few pictures were taken.

UG gave me a room upstairs with a big (soft) bed and some sheets. Not much else. I couldn’t sleep very well. I was there a couple of nights. The next day in the kitchen, UG asked me if I could “look into” the cooking which Kim was doing. I put a few spices like cumin (or anything suitable I could find on the shelf) in the food.

On the second day I was there, Ramesh was also there. Then UG went on talking hours on end about his past life, his wife, family and so on. Then a young man visited UG. He sat at the table and they talked about Zen. UG challenged the man, holding a cup in his hand, “Tell me what this is.” “Do you really see this? What do you really see here?” And he kept repeating the questions. Soon he enlisted my help. I remember saying, “There is something funny about Zen. How can anyone certify that someone had satori or enlightenment and to what degree?” UG appeared to agree with me.

It was during this visit that Terry brought mimeographed copies of conversations with UG (later to become part of The Mystique of Enlightenment) and distributed them to people around. He collected five dollars per copy for the cost of mimeographing. I got a copy for myself.

That was where Elena met Krim, a young American of Russian origin, who had known UG in Switzerland and in the US for a number of years. I remember going out for a short walk with them. Apparently, UG cautioned to Krim as we were leaving, “Make it, short—kurtz promenade!” That was the beginning of the disastrous relationship between Krim and Elena which ended a few years later. UG repeatedly mentioned how he warned him. I wonder if he knew what was to come.[7]

That afternoon, an elderly man and a young couple, all Americans, came to visit UG. I was told that they were friends of Alan Watts. UG received them cordially and soon got involved in a discussion with them. At one stage, I interjected saying something trying to help the discussion and UG immediately interrupted me saying, “I want to stop him right there.” I got the message and shut up.

I was ready to leave after two days. Kim was driving Ramesh’s BMW car for UG in those days. On the third day, sometime in the afternoon, Kim was ready to drive me to the Bus Depot in San Francisco. (I was going to take a bus, but UG would have none of that.) I remember giving a hug to Ramesh and whoever before I left. UG decided to drive with us to the bus depot. I felt flattered. At the bus depot, he got out of the car and bid me farewell. I felt so special that he came to see me off there. I bought myself a ticket, got on the bus and returned to Monterey.

---

[1] Till his final days, on special occasions, especially on full moon days, UG demonstrated the swollen glands to people around him.

[2] I know that treatment: there were times when I slept in UG’s living rooms. He would come early in the morning at 6 or 7 am, stand by my side and say in a feeble and gentle voice: “It’s 7 o’clock now, will you try to get up?”

[3] Chandrasekhar was a frequent visitor to Chalam’s house and regarded Chalam as his ‘father’ besides being devoted to Sowris.

[4] Having been a widow and had no place to go, she took shelter in Chalam’s place and became part of the household.

[5] She had lived with us for about a month. I think she just got out of living with a Russian old lady in Monterey. She was separated from her husband Ian and apparently they had both met UG once before in India).

[6] I thought people didn’t drink or smoke in front of spiritual people like UG.

[7] He did make a few futile attempts later [sometimes with me helping him] to break up the relationship. They ended up having a child and then separating.

Additions to "Teaching" Post

I have added the following three pieces to my "Being with UG: His Teaching Process" post, as I felt they are important to understanding UG and his teaching process:

1) Being Around UG: To be around UG can be quite a challenge. UG always maintained that wanting permanent happiness without a moment of unhappiness is the source of our misery. In his own life, things constantly changed. If you spend a whole day around UG and go along with all the changes he goes through or puts you through, you will leave totally exhausted and wiped out. You wonder how anyone could live through so much change in a day without ever looking back. I have not seen another person like UG who could do that! Being around UG and moving with him were in themselves a great learning experience.

2) Power: Few knew the role of power in human relationships as well as UG. He pointed out how relationships are mostly based on each person getting his or her way. Many times he himself was an absolute monarch, but only when he had a say or choice in the matter. (He had that manner of a prince dealing with his subjects. That was so evident when he gave gifts to people -- children or adults.) Even then, he would sometimes yield to people's desires and pressures and some other times would be as friendly as anyone could possibly be. It all depended. Often he pointed out how if you don't care about what the other person (or authority) could give you or do to you, you could not only be fearless, but free to do precisely whatever you wanted to do. He always dictated his terms and encouraged friends to do the same, of course, depending on what they wanted.

One good reason why he stayed away from institutions, governments and people who held high offices was that he kept his freedom and didn't have to compromise with their rules and regulations. But there was another: institutions bred power and power-mongering. He did not let any institutions to be built around him just for that reason. (No one then could claim exclusive rights over his teachings!) He did not subject himself to any scientific research done on him because he bemoaned the fact that the results of that research would only be exploited by businesses and governments for money and power purposes. The Internet served as a suitable medium for publishing books on him or reports of his dialogs, because they were released free of copyright and other commercial strings. He never voted. His argument , if I remember right, was, "I don't have to choose between two evils." In fact, he never paid taxes, as he didn't stay in any country long enough to establish residency. His passport was Indian, and of course, he had to have to it to be able to travel.

UG's own 'energy' was such that you could never take him or your relationship with him for granted. When he (or IT) was dealing with you, he (IT) knew nothing personal. (And as I said, there is no 'person' there in UG.) He could attack you wildly or even throw you out!

3) It must be mentioned here that UG had a way of making everyone around him feel special. That's a unique experience people had when they tried to relate to UG.

The Self is a Set of Habits

A habit is no habit without continuity. You break up the continuity; then you break the habit. The self is such a habit. Habits have a momentum. The momentum of a habit forces your consciousness to go back to a certain experience in the past and get repeated, or to seek a pleasurable experience, a novelty, an excitement, something interesting and so forth. If you catch the urge as it arises, there is no need to ‘go’ anywhere or ‘seek’ anything. By interspersing the continuity with your consciousness, you ‘pulverize’ the continuity of the habit into pieces. Then the habit loses its force.

You can say the force of habit is what they traditionally called in Indian philosophy vasanas and samskaras. I think it is that accounts for what there is such an instability in consciousness when it doesn’t have to think about anything. There is a constant urge to go out and seek something, as if without that something you are groundless and unfulfilled. This can especially be noticed when we sit for a while doing nothing and feel jittery.

That which you seek of course is pleasure. You think, naturally, only of what gave you pleasure in the past. The thinking of it gives you pleasure once again right now and that pleasure creates the further urge to seek some more of the same or a similar pleasure. The self is nothing but this habitual seeking for pleasure which creates its own continuity.