He was honest, but because all these things were imposed on him, there was a constant reaction, rebellion, and he lived in that reaction his whole life. The theosophical movement destroyed the man. He might have become a Gautam Buddha – he had every possibility – but because of this reaction, he fought those dead tutors, those dead Theosophical Society leaders, Annie Besant, Leadbeater, and others, his whole life. He was fighting with those shadows his whole life – against masters, against mystics, against scriptures – but it was not coming as a revelation, it was coming as a reaction.

His whole life was wasted by the theosophical movement. If they had allowed him to grow naturally, there would have been a possibility; the man had the potential of being a Gautam Buddha. But they destroyed him, and he could not get rid of them. Those shadows he lived with in his early childhood became so ingrained that he was fighting against them. He lived in a negativity, and one cannot live in a negativity and be nourished and blossom into a lotus flower.

So even J. Krishnamurti was not enlightened, and U.G. Krishnamurti is a shadow of an unenlightened intellectual giant. U.G. Krishnamurti is not even an intellectual giant, but he goes on preaching the same words, the same language, and tries to hide the fact.

Just the other day I saw an article about him in a newspaper. He was asked by the interviewer, “When and where did you become enlightened?” And his answer was, “I don’t know when and where.”

Enlightenment does not happen in time or in space. “When” and “where” are time and space. It happens when you are nowhere, no one. It happens when there is eternity, no time. But his answer may impress many people – people are very gullible.

I am taking his case for a particular reason – because the whole of the Western intelligentsia has become immensely interested in Zen, but their interest remains intellectual. They have written great books, and we will be discussing in this manifesto almost everyone who has written books on Zen.

My effort is to make you really clear that all these intellectuals may have written very beautiful books – I appreciate their scholarship, I appreciate their articulateness of expression, but they are not men of Zen, to say nothing of masters of Zen. Hence this manifesto is absolutely needed to make the whole world clear that Zen is not a mind affair. It is a no-mind space.

I told you that all the religions are saying, “Drop the ego.” Zen goes beyond the ego and beyond the self. Except Zen, no religion has come to the point of going beyond the self, beyond the atman, beyond your spirit, beyond your individuality. It is absolutely a single man’s contribution to human consciousness – Gautam the Buddha’s.

Zen is the ultimate flowering. Slowly, slowly improving the image of Gautam the Buddha, each master has contributed something, a new dimension to it. Gautam Buddha is the only person in the whole history of mankind who said, “Just dropping the ego will not help. It can be easily dropped if you drop God.” He dropped God, the ego disappeared. The moon disappeared. The reflection disappeared. He went away from the mirror, the mirror was empty. His reflection in the mirror disappeared. He had been fighting with the reflection.