Customer Reviews

Mind Is a Myth

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His teaching is Zen like but a good trip to see oneself. He shatters with astonishing honesty and brutal questioning ! He has nothing to offer. Although he rejects Buddha, his words are similar to Buddha's approach. His writings are only to someone who have experienced brutality of life with kind heart. There is something about him that we can't totally write off..Not his intelligence alone but some honesty behind all that roar. Zen like..but destroys Zen too. Worth reading them and get experiencing the shock. No nihilim but intelligence .....not in sense we expect.
He of course stererotypes religious gurus and society and one should note this while reading and understand the essence not his mere words. There is nothing to learn from his teaching. It is empty with wisdom !

I came across Mind Is a Myth after reading Sri Ramana Marharshi, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and John Wheeler. U.G. continues in the non-duality train of teaching (and if you are interested, Amazon has books by the authors I listed). U.G. is a non-teacher in the respect that he makes clear that he asks for no audience, no position and states that neither should we. We all can use "pointers" through life, and that is what U.G. and the other fellows offer. None tell another how to live his/her life, and by U.G. there is no practice necessary in life. That's not to say that there is anything "wrong" with meditation or yoga, for instance, but that there is no "way" to some eureka experience which will be a solve-all and be-all from which point one would be "perfected." The neat thing about reading non-duality authors is that there really is nothing to "do"...as one reads and picks up pointers, the reformation just occurs on some silent deep level without effort. Enjoy the book, but it is "heavy" and one without any exposure to non-dual thought may find it rather difficult to understand.

First impression of this book as I started reading was oh my goodness, there is no point to anything at all!

If I had not read and or been exposed to others writings like Richard Rose, Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Stephen Norquist, or Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj to name few, I would have been totally put off an likely believed there is nothing more than my current experience.

But! reading between the lines U.G's message is the same as those others mentioned above. Its just worded, wrapped up or expressed differently (fortunately or unfortunately) in a way to shock "your" system.

Irrespective you would be well served by the exposure to this material, if only to give you a moment that thought can not clutter with learned experience, a moment of clarity which can't be verbalized.

Before reading Mind is a Myth, I thought extreme nihilism was something I had born witness to. Now I know that even the most ardent denial of reality I'd been aware of only scratched the surface. The title of this book is not a metaphor... he's very serious about that.

The author declares, with absolute insistence, that there is nothing that anyone knows about anything. Except for himself of course. He knows everything there is to know of any importance what so ever, but he insists many times throughout the book that there's no possible way that anyone else could learn what he knows from his words, since nothing can be communicated from one person to another.

For something so useless as communication (according to U.G.), he sure talks a lot. But then he also insists many times throughout the book that his words are just a matter of pure happenstance, with no significance in any way other than some sort of instinctual yakking. Meaning: He believes his language is automatic reflex to inquiry but it's pointless for anyone to listen since nothing he ever says could be understood.