Karl Renz

Karl is like quicksilver, you can't catch him and he's impossible to define. He offers no teaching, and no help, and only speaks 'I' to 'I'. He employs his unerring empty-handed karate to unseat each questioner and destroy their concepts, moving freely between the sacred and the profane. After de-constructing spiritual ideas like Truth and Peace, it's now time to unravel the true nature of Bliss. Any experience of bliss leaves blisters in your brain, he says, as they leave you with unsatiated desire for more; until finally you are left with nothing but tears. Karl plays with words like a juggler, tossing out jokes, puns, invective, and the Living Words, all with the same careless zest. And when the questions subside and his audience is empty and silent, he points to 'being what you cannot not be'. These talks are the gift of crazy wisdom

Mind loves new concepts for they provide a cosy terra firma - a comfortable landing place. Of late 'Peace' has been one of the famous landing places for spiritual seekers. There are infinite techniques of how to be at peace with oneself... Meditation... celebration... renunciation... Sure enough, Karl comes around questioning the one who wants to be in peace. With compelling insights, the one looking for peace is then seen in a new light... as the source of misery. Karl's koan-like expressions are truly mind-bending - the resultant frustration of the mind tripping over its own concepts is a telltale sign of the one trying to understand. What it all boils down to is this: when the most famous idea of being at peace is challenged - what remains? Let's just say that the one trying to be peaceful is in for a fine round of walloping

Around 1945, in the area of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, some peasants accidentally discovered some 53 parchments, written in Sahidic Coptic, buried in a large jar one meter high. Those leather-bound papyrus codices were mostly Gnostic texts, including the prestigious 'Gospel of Thomas'. The Gospel of Thomas, dated 4th century AD, is composed of 114 logia or sayings from Jesus, which reveal that the Kingdom is already present in each of us contrary to the canonical Gospels which advocate an apocalyptic psychosis in an eschatological context. This is because Gnosis, free from all religions, doesn't know any spatiotemporal otherworldliness. The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas provides the proof that Jesus uttered non-dual words attesting to the same awakening as the great sages of the East. Thus the source was also to be found in our Western tradition but had been concealed by centuries of theology. This is why mile Gillabert has been rather particular on the correct French translation of this text in the light of the universal Gnosis, that is to say of the non-duality, so much so that he founded the Metanoia association whose purpose is to explore the Gospel of Thomas in depth as well as to make it known. The Metanoia association had the fortunate inspiration to invite Karl Renz on four occasions. During those informal and spontaneous conversations, the participants had the opportunity to present to Karl a large number of logia in order to spark off his commentaries. This book tells the best part of those commentaries revealing Karl's responses to his questioners while expressing, over the course of the talks and in his unequivocal manner, the living Word which he so clearly embodies. Whilst Karl's commentaries directly respond to each logion, they also answer participants' questions as they naturally come up and this free flow takes hold of the one who is exposing himself by blocking off all possible escape routes, thus creating an unconventional non-dual echo of the true Gnosis. ""We must - as Jesus suggests - divest ourselves of personal clothes. The necessity of this surrender is emphasized through all the 114 logia,"" mile Gillabert stressed, agreeing with Karl: ""That is absolute nudity... And That is Jesus.""

Undecided: Neti-Neti Neti-Neti: Neither this, nor that. This is a self-inquiry technique of negation which negates all things that you are not. Finally what remains, is what-you-are. Not as the one who knows, not as the one who doesn't know. But as the one who neither knows nor does not know - tabula rasa, existing in its original, pristine state which Karl describes as "blankety blank". Karl Renz is a mystic, a painter, a friend and the biggest nemesis of that which you believe your self to be. He travels around the world meeting visitors, answering questions, conducting 'self talks'. These talks can be exhilaratingly delightful or an absolute nightmare, especially for the one who wants to survive as a knower. As Karl says, neti-neti is not a concept of the mind. It is just remaining in that what-you-are. It's not like someone who says - 'not this, not this': there's no one who says 'no'. It just remains in that what-it-is. That what is not a concept, that is neti-neti. You're neither that nor That. In other words, you are the undecided. Being the undecided, you have no sides. There is no this side nor that side. You have no inside and no outside - neither in nor outside, that is what-you-are. These talks are an invitation to a journey of self-discovery, of being what-you-are. And your only friend on the way is the discrimination of knowing what you are not

'Extreme' - that's how seasoned Advaita buffs would term the Karl Renz brand of Advaita, suggesting compromise as an option. However the option of compromising or not itself gets burnt out in the untamed fire of Karl's living words. 'I would rather kill myself than bullshit myself, ' says Karl, scoffing at requests to be 'nice' or 'accommodating' to listeners gasping for survival. By neither confirming nor destroying core ideas of mind, no-mind, presence, absence, real, unreal, he ends up mesmerising the intellect. 'Oxy-moron' Karl merrily hums his song of irrelevance without intention of teaching, sharing or clarifying - whatever. Care-freeness itself in action. Paradoxes unlimited, neti-neti: negation-negation, then negation of the negator and finally negation of negation itself. In that, there is no 'finally'. This seemingly is the melody of Karl's 'Song of Irrelevance - meditation of what you are'. I don't talk to 'you', he says. Relevance seekers can eat their hearts out. Irrelevance of irrelevance pervades here - with the flavourless flavour of nobody needing to grasp anything And the effect? Smiles and chuckles unlimited Welcome to this menu of 'indigestible' talks - an assortment of talks from Coimbatore, India and Koh Samui, Thailand. You may savour them, even chew on them, but digesting them could be hazardous.... they could well end up digesting you

Decoding Karl is akin to understanding electricity: simply cannot be done. Its effects, though, may be felt and described. That's what you may encounter here in Worry And Be Happy. It's the welcome release from needing any release which makes Karl's display of 'the audacity of hopelessness' in this book so enchanting and endearing. If you believe you have 'made it spiritually' it may be worthwhile to test your 'understanding' through an encounter with Karl. Honestly though, in such a situat

Watch out. This is not another of those feel-good 'oneness' Advaita books. This one is a double-barrelled shotgun taking pot shots at the conceptualising mind - one barrel being fired by the great Indian mystic-sage Dattatreya (Avadhut) and the other by Karl Renz, the contemporary 'Avadhut'. There is no escape here not just for the 'fragmented-mind' but also for the enlightened 'whole-mind' Though Echoes of Silence may come across as the quintessential playground for a relentless game of deconstructing the 'mind', you cannot however miss its omnipresent soothing core of Silence Paradoxically, only Timeless, Motionless Silence echoes and pervades here despite the volley of 'living' words being fired by these two maverick 'entities' separated by centuries and geographies, who apparently have not much in common - except, perhaps, their 'own' non-existence So, what comes out of all this? Non-existing masters prattling empty words to non-existing seekers seeking non-existing liberation? Can you, as the-one-existing-now, take it? Find out for yourself... as you set forth on this turbulent voyage, with these two bafflingly wise masters at the helm, through the treacherous seas of the mind. Survival is not guaranteed - for any 'one' And the good part? You survive, no complaints. You perish, no complaints again. You simply cannot find 'the complainer' here complaining to anyone about anything at all. All that remains is the carefree bliss of the eternal song of the duet of one... or none.

"An inspirational telling of all of the truths we humans have been taught to deny." -Midwest Book Review The teachings of Karl Renz are a bit like Zen Koans-those short statements that stop the mind's activity by contemplating their paradoxical meaning. But Karl will take you even further: contemplating his words have the power to turn the mind back upon itself, toward our original awareness of Being. A Little Bit of Nothingness is a unique juxtaposition between dialogues of Karl Renz and the eighty-one verses of the Tao Te Ching. Here, the reality of the Tao¬¬-the unnameable, original cause of all that is-becomes evident as our own reality by the deep insights provided through Karl. The search for happiness usually takes us on an outward journey where we find ourselves identifying with everything except "that which we truly are." What we really need is to taste a "a little bit of nothingness"-the absence of any kind of presence that we believe ourselves to be. This is who we really are: our true self. No one sees this as well as Karl Renz, the German mystic-artist who, for the last ten years, has travelled around the world pulling the rug out from under our hallowed beliefs, leaving us blissfully wanting even less.

Am I - I Am is an assortment of delectable snippets from various talks of Karl Renz - talks which Karl often refers to as 'Living Words'. These 'Living Words' are best described in Karl's own words as those "without a speaker, having no direction, are not teaching, give no advice and do not want anything from you." This, simply put, is the heart of the book. All you can say about the phenomenon named 'Karl' is that the words that emanate from him are a relentless destroyer of all concepts - from the cosy to the profound. Using his livewire humour and trademark wordplay, Karl edges you so far beyond your pet concepts that at some point you may just find that 'you' have fallen off into the void. An enigmatic feature of Karl's words is that they are utterly bereft of intent or strategy. And surprise Something which otherwise would have been deemed fit to be dismissed as mindless prattle, has quite the opposite effect in this case - of making one want for more and never having enough of it This spontaneous barrage of Karl's words, steeped in carefree-ness and intentionless-ness, can be more destructive to 'whatever that can be destroyed' than any conceivable tool of destruction. So, go ahead and enter this vortex of Absolute churning at your own risk - 'you' may or may not get out

"People always ask 'what do you think about unknotting the karmic knots'? That's Vedanta. Unknotting your tendencies by techniques, by meditation or something. You come to me, we are doing the opposite I put so many knots in your bloody brain that you cannot even imagine that they ever will be gone. Because succeeding by unknotting knots makes the first knot, that there is one who has knots, stronger and stronger. No, I go the opposite way. I make so many knots for you, maybe there is a point of giving up even trying to unknot them. Because then laziness is there, your Nature. The laziest of the laziest." Welcome to Circus Renz Are you ready for a high-speed roller coaster ride through spiritual concepts that might blow your mind and turn your understanding upside down? The experience of reading Karl Renz might just take you somewhere where your mind can't follow, leaving you with a refreshing sense of wonder about what just happened. 'May it be as it is' is a collection of talks Karl gave in Mumbai in 2010 and 2011. Enjoy the ride After giving 'Self-talks' around the world for many years, Karl Renz came to Mumbai to give talks for the first time in 2010. He doesn't fit into any category but calling him an 'Advaita Punk' might come close to describing the experience of the talks. Most people who discover him get addicted to the careless irreverence and 'sixth sense of humour' of this brilliant Advaita entertainer.