Stopped In Our Tracks
Stories of U.G. In India from the Notebooks of K. ChandrasekharTranslated and Edited by J.S.R.L. Narayana Moorty 2d/3d Series
There Is a Lot to Be Done By the Body—You Cannot Die!
This morning at 9 a.m., Suguna, the children, Nagaraja Rao, a friend, and I—we all talked to U.G. I want to relate here the details of the experience that happened to U.G. last night—not an ordinary experience, but the divine experience which U.G. described in Telugu. Why I am calling it a divine experience is that such experiences do not happen normally to anyone, not that I want to attribute to them any spiritual value.
"Last evening, I had such inexpressible anger. How I condemned the Buddha, Jesus and other incarnate prophets! How I poured abuse on them! I was furious. Irrepressible anger. It hasn't subsided even now as I am talking to you. My anger did not subside with all that abuse. I went to bed with it. My whole body was burning. Flames, flames. Everything was burning with that irrepressible anger. It felt as though the whole house was burning along with my body. Everything was gone. The whole body was going to turn to ashes. I was saying, 'You can go now.' Meanwhile, someone said, 'No, you cannot. There is a lot to be done by the body.' It sounded like a dialogue which J.K. had with death. Slowly, the burning in the body calmed down and the body became normal.
This morning, Sampat came and said he had a dream last night that U.G. had died. "There was a huge wail inside myself; irrepressible sorrow. How much I cried in the dream! I set out right away to come to see him," said Sampat.
"In Bangalore, in Subbanna's house, something similar happened once to you," I said to U.G. I asked him, "You mentioned that your experience was that your body was burning. Was this experience the same?"
"When compared with this, what happened then was not worth mentioning. When compared with this heat—the flames that happened last night—that was nothing. It was pleasant. Last night, the rage, the anger and the flames haven't subsided yet," said U.G.
Sampat spoke later: "I never had such an experience before. Normally I am not moved by death. In my dream last night, U.G. was talking sitting in a chair and suddenly breathed his last. Then I was looking at a photo of U.G. in a dancer's house. Immediately there was big cry within myself, an unceasing cry. I felt that I was never going to see him again. That's why I came running early in the morning. I didn't even feel like phoning first before I came. I felt that I couldn't very well ask someone on the phone, "Is U.G. still alive?"
"Last evening, I had such inexpressible anger. How I condemned the Buddha, Jesus and other incarnate prophets! How I poured abuse on them! I was furious. Irrepressible anger. It hasn't subsided even now as I am talking to you. My anger did not subside with all that abuse. I went to bed with it. My whole body was burning. Flames, flames. Everything was burning with that irrepressible anger. It felt as though the whole house was burning along with my body. Everything was gone. The whole body was going to turn to ashes. I was saying, 'You can go now.' Meanwhile, someone said, 'No, you cannot. There is a lot to be done by the body.' It sounded like a dialogue which J.K. had with death. Slowly, the burning in the body calmed down and the body became normal.
This morning, Sampat came and said he had a dream last night that U.G. had died. "There was a huge wail inside myself; irrepressible sorrow. How much I cried in the dream! I set out right away to come to see him," said Sampat.
"In Bangalore, in Subbanna's house, something similar happened once to you," I said to U.G. I asked him, "You mentioned that your experience was that your body was burning. Was this experience the same?"
"When compared with this, what happened then was not worth mentioning. When compared with this heat—the flames that happened last night—that was nothing. It was pleasant. Last night, the rage, the anger and the flames haven't subsided yet," said U.G.
Sampat spoke later: "I never had such an experience before. Normally I am not moved by death. In my dream last night, U.G. was talking sitting in a chair and suddenly breathed his last. Then I was looking at a photo of U.G. in a dancer's house. Immediately there was big cry within myself, an unceasing cry. I felt that I was never going to see him again. That's why I came running early in the morning. I didn't even feel like phoning first before I came. I felt that I couldn't very well ask someone on the phone, "Is U.G. still alive?"
