U.G. Krishnamurti Shares His Experiences Of His visit with Ramana

That man [Ramana] was sitting there. From his very presence I felt "What! This man -- how can he help me? This fellow who is reading comic strips,cutting vegetables, playing with this, that or the other -- how can this man help me? He can't help me." Anyway, I sat there.

Nothing happened; I looked at him, and he looked at me. "In his presence you feel silent, your questions disappear, his look changes you" -- all that remained a story,fancy stuff to me. I sat there. There were a lot of questions inside, silly questions -- so, "The questions have not disappeared.

I have been sitting here for two hours, and the questions are still there. All right, let me ask him some questions" -- because at that time I very much wanted moksha.

This part of my background, moksha, I wanted. "You are supposed to be a liberated man" -- I didn't say that. "Can you give me what you have?" -- I asked him this question, but that man didn't answer, so after some lapse of time I repeated that question -- "I am asking 'Whatever you have, can you give it to me?'"

He said, "I can give you, but can you take it?" Boy! For the first time this fellow says that he has something and that I can't take it.Nobody before had said "I can give you," but this man said "I can give you, but can you take it?"

Then I said to myself "If there is any individual in this world who can take it, it is me, because I have done so much sadhana, seven years of sadhana. He can think that I can't take it, but I can take it. If I can't take it, who can take it?" - -- that was my frame of mind at the time -- you know, (Laughs) I was so confident of myself.

I didn't stay with him, I didn't read any of his books, so I asked him a few more questions: "Can one be free sometimes and not free sometimes?" He said "Either you are free, or you are not free at all." There was another question which I don't remember.

He answered in a very strange way:

"There are no steps leading you to that." But I ignored all these things.These questions didn't matter to me -- the answers didn't interest me at all.But this question "Can you take it?" ... "How arrogant he is!" -- that was my feeling.

Although he felt Ramana’s responses were arrogant, he nevertheless resolved to try to attain Ramana’s state of being.

Sources :

1) Paul Brunton and Ramana Maharshi by Dr. J. Glenn Friesen Book

2) U.G. Krishnamurti: The Mystique of Enlightenment: The unrational ideas of a man
called U.G. Online at [http://www.realization.org/page/namedoc0/moe/moe_1.htm].