Introduction and Conclusion to my book "Being"

I am positing in the following two posts the introduction and conclusion to my book "Being". If you have the electronic copy of the book you can append these pages to it. Anyway, you have the whole stuff. I am adding about 40 photos to the book as well as a cover page my wife has designed. Of course, I am looking for a publisher. If any of you know of someone who might be interested in publishing it, please drop a note.

Introduction

I have always thought a photograph reveals the photographer more than it does the subject. In that sense the following writing is rather autobiographical.

My association with UG, which started in 1981, has been long. He visited me practically once every year since then, till the beginning of 2006, after which time he stopped visiting the US. This book not only tells about my acquaintance and association with UG, but also how he affected me in person, and in my thought and my life in general. It’s hard to pinpoint these things and say definitely this is where UG’s influence stops and my own thinking and life start.

The other influences in my life have been Gora, Chalam and J. Krishnamurti. Yet, there has been a certain ongoing inquiry in my mind ever since I was conscious, namely, “Who am I?” You can say it is that which gave me a core identity and drove my thinking. It is what made me interested in all these people in the first place. After all is said and done, if there is anything called the "I" remaining, it is that which makes me question everything and everyone I have been exposed to, including UG. In my investigations in this book, I combine my skepticism with the critical and analytical skills I have acquired in my study of philosophy.

UG never minded my critical remarks in my essays on him. Once, he read my Introduction in the book No Way Out. When we were talking about it, he asked if I was rethinking my (critical) comments on him. I said, “No, I am not taking any of it back.” Then I remember him saying, “That’s the only way to write.” He did not want people to merely repeat what he said: “What hasn’t helped you can’t help others.” The essays in this book, although they tell of my acquaintance and relationship with UG, do not merely rehash what UG says, nor are they merely an interpretation of UG’s teachings. Even when I am open to someone’s ideas, I always question and test them and add my own investigations to them. It is in that spirit that I hope the reader will look at the following essays.

Almost all the chapters included here are essays I have posted on my blog site http://moortysblogpage.blogspot.com) for almost two years. For the sake of completion, I have added my paper “Science and Spirituality.” There is a little history behind this essay which was initially read at the Krishnamurti Centenary Conference in Oxford, Ohio. When the organizer of the conference, my friend Professor Rama Rao Pappu, asked me to write about J. Krishnamurti, I told him that I had already written an article about J. Krishnamurti , I would rather write about UG. After some hesitation, he agreed to my proposal.

When I was visiting UG in Corte Madera, California in the beginning of 1995, I mentioned to him that it was possible to put up one of his books on the Internet. Mario Viggiano and Julie Thayer were also present on the occasion. Mario immediately jumped on the idea and said, “Let’s do it!” Thus the UG website was set up in Julie’s www.well.com and UG’s Mind is a Myth with a picture of his taken by Julie in New Zealand were put up. UG, who had by then read my article “Science and Spirituality,” insisted that it also be put up. Later, I had seen him handing a copy of this article to a visitor or two.

Part 1 of this book consists of articles about how I met UG and an account of some of my meetings with him. I have deliberately avoided giving biographical details about UG as they have been frequently mentioned in books like The Mystique of Enlightenment, UG Krishnamurti, A Life, by Mahesh Bhatt, and The Other Side of Belief by Mukunda Rao. Part 2 of the book comprises a set of articles about UG’s teachings (Chapter 7) as well as his teaching process. Part 3 contains my ruminations about thinking, the self and mental states. Part 4 deals with a couple of academic issues, viz., the mind-body problem and the problem of other minds, as well as my views about meditation, morality and a few moral issues. I can’t say the articles in parts 3 and 4 are all inspired by UG’s teachings, but in some fashion or other, they all have some relationship to them. Only the essays on the mind-body relationship and other minds may be a little abstract to the reader. All others, though they might require careful reading, should be fairly accessible.

My philosophical essays may not impress the professional philosopher and may not seem to advance any current discussion of specific philosophical problems. They certainly are by no means scholarly. I didn’t even provide extensive documentation in my essays. My interest here is to tackle a couple of these problems from a rather commonsense point of view, mostly starting from my own experience. Of course, what I have learned from both Western and Eastern philosophy, as well as what I have learned from UG, does come into play in my explorations. I hope my suggestions to solve those problems are interesting to the professional philosopher as well as to the layman.

Needless to say, I have to use my thinking and logical skills to present my understanding of the issues presented here. I don’t know if it is possible to arrive at a totally consistent theory about them or fit them into a coherent and meaningful picture. Indeed, the reader may find that in several places my conclusions are hesitant and tentative. I may seem to be expressing doubts about my own previous conclusions or debating with myself. That’s why I would like to call this book a “work in progress.”

My aim in this book is to approach some issues without presupposing any religious or spiritual beliefs, taking a commonsense point of view and remaining always within the sphere of the known. The book should also demonstrate how I have translated, as best as I can, what I have understood or learned from UG into my own life. Standing on such a ground of experience I have tried to chip away, as it were, bit by bit, at some of the concepts in understanding oneself (contrary to UG’s rejection of the very idea of understanding oneself). Of course, you can never know the unknown. But what has been considered mystical or mysterious before could, at least to a minor degree, be unraveled. In my opinion, that was indeed what UG was trying to achieve as well, as the title of the book Mystique of Enlightenment indicates.

You may find it difficult to draw a clear line separating between what UG said from my own analysis and investigation. That’s in the nature of things. I never separated myself from UG. Just like in life, I consider my work as an extension of his teachings.

My central concern when I discuss moral issues is always to find out how I can relate to these subjects and what difference they would make in my life or my reader’s life.

Thanks to Wendy Moorty for her meticulous editorial help for both the text and the photographs. She has also designed the cover page.

Several photographs from the collections of Wendy Moorty, Lisa Toronto and Julie Thayer have been used in this book. My thanks to all three for letting me include them here.


Narayana Moorty


Seaside, California
September, 2009