About The Courage to Stand Alone
What your message for mankind on this Teacher s Day U.G.?" I hollered on the overseas phone-call preparing myself for a very subversive answer from the man from whom I have learnt the most important lessons of my life. A brief silence echoed over the phone-static: it was late night in New York and I had pulled U.G. out of bed. "All teachers should be de-stroyed!" he pronounced "It is they who are responsible for the mess you find yourselves in. I m not a teacher and have never been one but don t you see what a mess the messiahs have left the world in?" "Yes U.G." I whispered "Thank you and goodbye." He laughed as he hung up the phone knowing very well what a shattering impact what he had just said would have on me.
Here was a man who I had always framed in my mind as the greatest teacher I ve ever known dismissing the very awe with which I held him. What was this man I wondered. After knowing him for twenty years here I was still struggling to define him.
I remember the time when a friend of mine in fact the person who had introduced me to U.G. out of frustration from not being able to answer this question put the query "What is U G Krishnamurthy?" to the Chinese I-Ching He received the follow-ing answer: "He s not a guru not a priest not a savant and certainly not a teacher. He has no interest in enlightening you and in fact does not intend to do anything. He burns with passion and without purpose. He s as lost without you as you re without him.