The Age We Live In

Here is wisdom for our age, the age of the ascending Dvapara Yuga, which lends its name to this site. That we find ourselves in the second of four unequal ages runs contrary to the tradition India, which nonetheless inspired the model, as does the classification of Dvapara as the second of those ages. One reason for the discrepancy is that India remembers the ages as running in only one direction, and because a cyclical order also moves backwards, a tortuous explanation had to be produced of why Dvapara is the third age. In fact they already have a third age, appropriately named the Treta Yuga.

The classification of the yugas used here comes from the Binary Research Institute, which since 2001 has advanced a model of our sun as the binary companion of a nearby star. This ingenious model, inspired by the writings of a yogi and worked out by mathematics, resolves many anomalies present in both current scientific theories and the traditional Indian literature, such as the Precession of the Equinoxes and the Great Year which lasts about 24,000 years, related observable phenomena that have been of human interest since remote antiquity. The binary theory of the solar system also restores the natural celestial motion of circles and ellipses, thereby correcting the error of Hindu science that the ages move in one linear direction, but then somehow repeat from the beginning. For more on the binary model of the Great Year, please watch the Institute’s captivating film, The Great Year.

Perennial Wisdom

The content of this site is framed by traditional wisdom, stretching across millennia, coupled with modern iterations and clarifications of that same wisdom. As such, the language of the blog posts is often antiquated, for example referring to humanity as Man, and B.C.E. (before the common era) and C.E. (common era) by their twentieth-century terms, B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (anno domini, Latin for the year of our Lord). The site’s twentieth-century author sees no reason to update these terms to keep up with the times, and makes no apology for this favored nomenclature.

Built on Tradition

The wisdom presented here, supported by double piers spanning 1,500 years to the present, is essentially the message that everything people think is wrong — and that message is still fresh today.

The first pillar — Bodhidharma, known in China as Da Mo — was the founder of Chan or Zen Buddhism and the tradition of the Shaolin Temple, according to the legend. The second pillar — twentieth-century philosopher Uppaluri Gopala “U.G.” Krishnamurti— was acknowledged in India as a liberated soul (jivanmukti) during his lifetime after his “calamity” at age 49, which fundamentally changed his physical composition and brought him permanently into the “natural state,” as he referred to it. Both men defy facile explanation and classification, so first and foremost we will present them in their own words.

We hope you come across something you’re never heard before as you enjoy your journey here!

The Wisdom of Bodhidharma in His Own Words

The Buddha said people are deluded. That’s why when they act they fall into a river of endless rebirth. And when they try to get out, they only sink deeper. And all because they don’t see their own nature. If people weren’t deluded, why would they ask about their own nature? The Buddha wasn’t mistaken. Deluded people don’t know who they are.

When we’re deluded, there’s a world to escape. When we’re aware, there is nothing to escape. When you’re deluded, buddhahood exists. When you’re aware, buddhahood doesn’t exist. That’s because buddhahood is awareness. When you’re deluded, you’re on this shore. When you’re aware, you’re on the other shore. But once you go beyond delusion and awareness, the other shore doesn’t exist.

If you understand anything, you don’t understand. Only when you understand nothing is it true understanding. If you seek direct understanding, don’t hold on to any appearance whatsoever and you will succeed. The sutras say, “Everything that has form is an illusion.” Don’t cling to appearances, and you’ll be of one mind with the Buddha. The sutras say, “That which is free of all form is the buddha.”

Everything that appears in the three realms is mind. Through endless aeons without beginning, whatever you do, wherever you are, that’s your real mind, that’s your real buddha. Beyond this mind you’ll never find another buddha. To search for enlightenment or nirvana beyond this mind is impossible. The reality of your own nature, the absence of cause and effect, is what’s meant by mind. Nirvana is an empty mind. You might think you can find enlightenment or a buddha somewhere beyond this mind, but such a place doesn’t exist.

Your real mind, through endless aeons without beginning, has never varied. It has never lived or died, appeared or disappeared, increased or decreased. It’s not pure or impure, good or evil, past or future. It’s not true or false. It’s not male or female. It strives for no realization and suffers no karma. It has no strength or form. It’s like space. Space has a name but no form. You can’t possess it and you can’t lose it. No karma can restrain this real mind.

Whoever sees his own nature is a buddha; whoever doesn’t, is a mortal. Beyond our own nature there’s no buddha. The buddha is our nature. There is no buddha beyond this nature. And there is no nature beyond this buddha. Unless you see your own nature, all this talk about cause and effect is nonsense. Buddhas don’t practice nonsense. A buddha is free of karma, free of cause and effect. To say he attains anything at all is to slander a buddha. What could he possibly attain?

If you know that everything comes from the mind, don’t hold on to anything. Once you cling, you become unaware. But once you see your own nature, the entire Canon becomes so much prose. Understanding comes in mid-sentence. What good are doctrines? Those who worship don’t know, those who know don’t worship.

Once mortals see their nature, all attachments end. Awareness isn’t hidden. But you can only find it now. It’s only now. If you really want to be aware, simply let go of everything. Once you let go and just let things be, you’ll be free, even of birth and death. You’ll transform everything. You’ll possess spiritual powers that can’t be obstructed. And you’ll be at peace wherever you are.

The Timeless Wisdom of U.G.

Beyond human experience there is something, and that something is life. Life is energy, it follows its own movement and is aware of itself. If you can let go of the separative thought structure that posits a separate “I” living in a “world” and experiencing “things,” in those moments life flows through you and you are life. But there is no one to experience or record that movement, in those moments there is no “you” to form any impression or conception.

U.G. in His Own Words

It is very difficult to be like the other fellow, to be ordinary. Mediocrity takes a great deal of energy. But to be ourselves is very easy. You don’t have to do a thing. No effort is necessary. You don’t have to exercise your will. You need not do a thing to be yourself. But to be something other than what you are, that requires a lot of effort, you need to do a lot of things.

Your effort to control life has created a secondary movement of thought within you, which you call the “I.” This movement of thought within you is parallel to the movement of life, but isolated from it; it can never touch life. You are a living creature, yet you lead your entire life within the realm of this isolated, parallel movement of thought. You cut yourself off from life — that is something very unnatural.

Your experiencing structure cannot conceive of any event that it will not experience. As long as you have known life, you have known yourself, you have been there, so, to you, you have a feeling of eternity. To justify this feeling of eternity, your structure begins to convince itself that there will be a life after death for you — heaven, reincarnation, transmigration of souls or whatever. What is it that you think reincarnates? Where is that soul of yours? Can you taste it, touch it, show it to me? What is there inside of you that goes to heaven? What is there? There is nothing inside of you but fear.

Every time a thought is born, you are born. When the thought is gone, you are gone. But the “you” does not let the thought go, and what gives continuity to this “you” is the thinking. Actually there is no permanent entity in you, no totality of all your thoughts and experiences. If you do not communicate to yourself, you are not there. The prospect of that is frightening to the “you.”

You want what you call the “you” to continue. You are protecting that continuity. Thought is destructive because it is nothing more than a protective mechanism, programmed to protect its own interests at all costs. Anything born out of thought is destructive: it will ultimately destroy you and your kind.

Any doing in any direction is violence. Any effort is violence. Anything you do with thought to create a peaceful state of mind is using force, and so, is violent. You are trying to enforce peace through violence. Yoga, meditations, prayers, mantras are all violent techniques. The living organism is very peaceful — you don’t have to do a thing. The peacefully functioning body doesn’t care one hoot for your ecstasies, beatitudes or blissful states.

If there is any power in this universe, it is in you. You don’t let that power express itself, because that’s a thing that you cannot experience. You want to experience it. How is that possible? That power is something living, vital — it’s the throb, the pulse, the beat of life — you are one expression of that life, that’s all. How can you experience that?

This structure of thought, through which you experience, is dead; it cannot experience that life at all, because the one is something living and the other is dead, and there can’t be any relationship between the two. You can only experience dead things, not a living thing. Life has to express itself. This is a thing which nobody can teach you. You don’t have to get it from somebody; what you have is there.

You cannot be aware; you and awareness cannot coexist. If you could be in a state of awareness for one second by the clock, once in your life, the continuity would be snapped, the illusion of the experiencing structure, the “you,” would collapse, and everything would fall into its natural rhythm. In this state you do not know what you are looking at — that is awareness. If you recognize what you are looking at, you are there, again experiencing the old, what you know.

The shattering perception that finally dawns on you is that there is no such thing as “ego” at all! This insight blows everything apart with a tremendous force when it hits you. It is not an experience that can be shared with another. It is not an experience at all. It is a calamity in which both experience and the experiencer come to an end. A man in such a state does not escape reality and has no romantic tendencies.

What is keeping you from being in your natural state? You are constantly moving away from yourself. You want to be happy, either permanently or at least for this moment. You are dissatisfied with your everyday experiences, and so you want some new ones. You want to perfect yourself, to change yourself. You are reaching out, trying to be something other than what you are. This is what is taking you away from yourself. All I can guarantee you is that as long as you are searching for happiness, you will remain unhappy. This is a fact.

This is the ultimate: You have to totally surrender yourself. There is no path of wisdom — there is no path at all. It is total surrender — throwing in the towel, throwing in the sponge — and what comes out of that is wisdom. It is not surrender in the ordinary sense of the word; it means there isn’t anything you can do. That is total surrender — total helplessness. It can’t be brought about through any effort or volition of yours. If you want to surrender to something, it’s only to get something. It’s a state of total surrender where all effort has come to an end, where all movement in the direction of getting something has come to an end. All wanting, be it this wanting or that wanting, is totally absent.

The natural state cannot be transmitted to another because there is nothing there to transmit. Neither is there anything to renounce. Even your scriptures — the Kathopanishad — say that you must renounce the very search itself. The renunciation of renunciation happens not through practice, discussion, money or intellect. A rough translation of the original Sanskrit is, “Whomsoever it chooses, to him it is revealed.” If this is so, then where is the room for practices, sadhana and volition? It comes randomly, not because you deserve it.