Karl Renz - May It Be As It Is: The Embrace of Helplessness

THE EMBRACE OF HELPLESSNESS

KARL RENZ

Be what you cannot not be.
You are that Knowledge and thats absolute Knowledge. But there is no knower in it, thats the main thing.

KARL RENZ

WHATEVER YOU GET FROM ME IS WRONG

A fter many years of giving talks in Tiruvannamalai, as well as retreats in Ladakh, Rishikesh and Coimbatore, Karl talked in Mumbai for the first time in January 2010. In 1995 he met Ramesh Balsekar there for one day, and the next day he left for Tiruvannamalai, where Arunachala became the final cut: By that what I am, seeing that even the most superior awareness, which is pure light, is still imagination, and you are still prior or in spite of it - that takes the last hope of home away. If even the divine light of Shiva is just an imaginary light - what else can happen? Since then he has been to Tiruvannamalai every winter where he has given talks for more than 10 years.

Landing at Bombay airport from Thailand after midnight, a small group of us traveling with Karl were more than curious about the first talk in Bombay. Sitting in a tightly packed living room at Cuffe Parade the next day it quickly became clear that the Bombay talks would indeed be something special. The talks in Tiruvannamalai had been attended by large crowds of Westerners, but only a small group of Indians from Tiru and Chennai. In Bombay there were as many Indian visitors as foreigners. Most of the people attending had been with Ramesh Balsekar for many years or met him briefly at some point. So there were many questions referring to Rameshs concepts, as well as the teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj, UG Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi. More than in other talks around the world there was a focus on Advaita and other Indian concepts, symbols and techniques, as Karl kept surprising his audience with refreshing new twists on well-known traditions. The talks were high-energy and fast-paced with a lot of serious questions about spirituality, philosophy, science, psychology and many other topics. Karl says he isnt really interested in the questions but in the questioner revealing himself, but clearly the Bombay audience had good questions. There was a sense of urgency so the talks were argumentative, dense and most extended well past the scheduled two hours. Karls irreverence, carelessness and infamous use of language in the face of Indian traditions seemed more shocking than in Western countries but didnt appear to offend anyone, even when it came to concepts like Advaita de toilette.

What doesnt come across in the book is the incredible speed of the talks, and Karls comedic imitations of the sick seekers. Talks doesnt really capture the full flavor of the experience except that there is a lot of talking going on. Karl calls them entertainment, and they are a much more colorful, unpredictable and chaotic performance than the usual question-and-answer satsangs. To me they feel like a mix of punk concert, circus, stand-up comedy and jam session -a mind-blowing, mesmerizing high-speed firework with words. It is a new way to experience language, a mix of poetry, rap, twisting and juggling, hammering and pounding and finally pulling the rug out from under you. Karl contradicts and changes meanings again and again until the mind is twisted into knots and all thats left is a refreshing sensation of blankness or hysterical laughter.

Karls brain doesnt seem limited by the usual laws of biology and doesnt stick to down-trodden connections between synapses, wildly creating new connections in all directions, unavailable to the normal brain. He constantly invents new words, doubling and tripling meanings, making word plays across languages, answering questions before they are pronounced and pushing every mind that tries to challenge him into checkmate. When someone called one of the talks in Mumbai a discussion his reply was: Discussion? I am always right and you are always wrong. Is that a discussion? No wonder he has been called the Advaita punk. There is a total carelessness of talking, not the carefully pronounced statements and pointers of other spiritual teachers. There is obviously no one who tries to present any precious teaching or who cares about anyone understanding anything, but a loudspeaker who doesnt care what comes out of it. Karl will claim he never said anything anyway. For him the beauty of language is its emptiness and he makes sure to take this freedom of words to the absolute limit. The listeners are bombarded with mind-twisting contradictions and every question is turned inside out ad absurdum. Any attempt to understand is drowned in endless complex variations of language which can feel beautifully hypnotic yet leave nothing to hold on to. The verbal destruction of everything that can be destroyed is painful when there is resistance or holding on to anything, but mostly people leave the talks with an amazing feeling of lightness.