Very often the comment is made by people who never met UG "He seems to be very harsh and negative in his comments. He criticizes everything and doesn't have a good word to say about anyone."

This is often the response of those who only have seen UG in a short video clip on the internet, or who might have met him once or twice.

"I'm not known for my sense of humor, am I?" he would slyly ask.

But, if you hung around for awhile, and you could stand his fierce attacks on everything you held dear, then you would also see his fantastic humor. He would sometimes say about someone, "He's got a tremendous sense of humor!"

But UG never claimed that for himself. He would never tell jokes, and he had trouble even following a long humorous story, but the atmosphere around him was always filled with irreverence and laughter, interspersed with the dread and terror of perhaps losing your mind, too. The humor helped with the utter hopelessness of the situation. Here we sat with perhaps the world's most extraordinary man, awestruck by the freedom and freshness of his being, and we were stuck in our wandering thoughts about money, the future, or relationship.

You had to laugh sometimes.

UG Krishnamurti returned to America in late 1981, his first visit since 1960. He had lived for 5 years with his family in Chicago in the 1950's. For the first few months he would sometimes watch television for a few minutes.

"I'm interested in the advertisements, how they are selling. That's the real creativity. I don't care about the programs, except for Perry Mason."

One day my friend Bob came to visit UG and found him alone in the living room with the TV tuned to an old "I Love Lucy" program. They both sat for several minutes until Bob, bored with the program and puzzled as to UG's apparent interest, asked UG, "UG, could I just ask you something?"
"Yes, Bob."
"Well, you said that the thought process must come to an end before I can really see anything, and I want to know how...."
He never made it to the end of his question because UG had turned to him and was looking at him with his intense and penetrating eyes and waved off his question with a slight but authoritative movement of his hand.
"Bob, your questions are like throwing a pebble into a tranquil pond. The ripple you see is caused by you. Otherwise, nothing is happening here at all."

UG Krishnamurti died a few months ago on March 22, 2007. Although I first met UG in 1979, I spent my most concentrated time around him since Dec. 2003, continuing with only short breaks until he died in Vallecrosia, Italy. During this period I found myself pulled to follow UG's unpredictable migration around the world. We went to India, California, New York, and all over Italy, Switzerland, France and Germany. He stayed regularly in these years in Gstaad, Switzerland, Palm Springs, California and Bangalore, India. But he moved daily from these bases, usually by car, in his life-long habit of wandering. He wasn't interested in travel to see tourist sites or even beauty spots, but seemingly to just be in motion, without a plan, a map, or a destination. The stark uncertainty of this drove most of us around him to real extremes of emotion, interrupted by hours of peace and wonder at the world, and at this extraordinary, unique man.

"Anyone who has been hanging around me for a long time cannot write sentimental shit! Others can write whatever they want, not those around me!" UG, 2006

We'll do the best we can, UG. But we remember him as the man who had the most impact on all of our lives, who we walked with in the streets, all the time amazed that the passersby didn't give a second glance to this great, great man.