The Penguin U.G. Krishnamurti Reader

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My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody. Thus spoke U.G. Krishnamurti in his uniquely iconoclastic way, distancing himself from gurus and spiritual advisers. His only advice was for people to discard their crutches and liberate themselves from cultural conditioning. Born on 9 July 1918 in Masulipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, he passed away on 22 March 2007 in Vallecrosia, Italy. The impact he had on his admirers is profound and difficult to articulate. With his flowing silvery hair and deep-set eyes, he was described as a wild flower of the earth, a bird in constant flight, an anti-guru, and a cosmic Naxalite. UG did not give lectures or belong to any organization; instead, he traveled the world to connect with those drawn to his anti-teaching. His language was simple and unadorned, with an informal and intimate conversational style. This reader, edited by long-time friend Mukunda Rao, compiles UG's radical utterances and ideas. He persistently questioned and dismantled the foundations of human thought, leaving behind a sense of freedom from illusory goals and the constraints of knowledge, beauty, goodness, truth, and God.