My first acquaintance with Krishnamurti's work was in 1959 when I read his book, First and Last Freedom. What particularly aroused my interest was his deep insight into the question of the observer and the observed. This question has long been close to the centre of my own work, as a theoretical physicist, who was primarily interested in the meaning of the quantum theory. In this theory, for the first time in the development of physics, the notion that these two cannot be separated has been put forth as necessary for the understanding of the fundamental laws of matter in general. Because of this, as well as because the book contained many other deep insights, I felt that it was urgent for me to talk with Krishnamurti directly and personally as soon as possible. And when I first met him on one of his visits to London, I was struck by the great ease of communication with him, which was made possible by the intense energy with which he listened and by the freedom from self-protective reservations and barriers with which he responded to what I had to say. As a person who works in science I felt completely at home with this sort of response, because it was in essence of the same quality as that which I had met in these contacts with other scientists with whom there had been a very close meeting of minds. And here, I think especially of Einstein who showed a similar intensity and absence of barrier in a number of discussions that took place between him and me. After this, I began to meet Krishnamurti regularly and to discuss with him whenever he came to London.
We began an association which has since then become closer as I became interested in the schools, which were set up through his initiative. In these discussions, we went quite deeply into the many questions which concerned me in my scientific work. We probed into the nature of space and time, and of the universal, both with regard to external nature and with regard to the mind. But then, we went on to consider the general disorder and confusion that pervades the consciousness of mankind. It is here that I encountered what I feel to be Krishnamurti's major discovery. What he was seriously proposing is that all this disorder, which is the root cause of such widespread sorrow and misery, and which prevents human beings from properly working together, has its root in the fact that we are ignorant of the general nature of our own processes of thought. Or to put it differently it may be said that we do not see what is actually happening, when we are engaged in the activity of thinking. Through close attention to and observation of this activity of thought, Krishnamurti feels that he directly perceives that thought is a material process, which is going on inside of the human being in the brain and nervous system as a whole.
Ordinarily, we tend to be aware mainly of the content of this thought rather than how it actually takes place. One can illustrate this point by considering what happens when one is reading a book. Usually, one is attentive almost entirely to the meaning of what is being read. However, one can also be aware of the book itself, of its constitution as made up out of pages that can be turned, of the printed words and of the ink, of the fabric of the paper, etc. Similarly, we may be aware of the actual structure and function of the process of thought, and not merely its content.
How can such an awareness come about? Krishnamurti proposes that this requires what he calls meditation. Now the word meditation has been given a wide range of different and even contradictory meanings, many of them involving rather superficial kinds of mysticism. Krishnamurti has in mind a definite and clear notion when he uses this word. One can obtain a valuable indication of this meaning by considering the derivation of the word. (The roots of words, in conjunction with their present generally accepted meanings often yield surprising insight into their deeper meanings.) The English word meditation is base on the Latin root "med" which is, "to measure." The present meaning of the word is "to reflect," "to ponder" (i.e. to weigh or measure), and "to give close attention." Similarly the Sanskrit word for meditation, which is dhyana, is closely related to "dhyati," meaning "to reflect." So, at this rate, to meditate would be, "to ponder, to reflect, while giving close attention to what is actually going on as one does so."
This is perhaps what Krishnamurti means by the beginning of meditation. That is to say, one gives close attention to all that is happening in conjunction with the actual activity of thought, which is the underlying source of the general disorder. One does this without choice, without criticism, without acceptance or rejection of what is going on. And all of this takes place along with reflections on the meaning of what one is learning about the activity of thought. (It is perhaps rather like reading a book in which the pages have been scrambled up, and being intensely aware of this disorder, rather than just "trying to make sense" of the confused content that arises when on just accepts the pages as they happen to come.)
Krishnamurti has observed that the very act of meditation will, in itself, bring order to the activity of thought without the intervention of will, choice, decision, or any other action of the "thinker." As such order comes, the noise and chaos which are the usual background of our consciousness die out, and the mind becomes generally silent. (Thought arises only when needed for some genuinely valid purpose, and then stops, until needed again.)
In this silence, Krishnamurti says that something new and creative happens, something that cannot be conveyed in words, but that is of extraordinary significance for the whole of life. So he does not attempt to communitcate this verbally, but rather, he asks those who are interested that they explore the question of meditation directly for themselves, through actual attention to the nature of thought.
Without attempting to probe into this deeper meaning of meditation, one can however say that meditation, in Krishnamurti's sense of the word, can bring order to our overall mental activity, and this may be a key factor in bringing about an end to the sorrow, the misery, the chaos and confusion, that have, over the ages, been the lot of mankind, and that are still generally continuing without visible prospect of fundamental change, for the forseeable future.
Krishnamurti's work is permeated by what may be called the essence of this scientific approach, when this is considered in its very highest and purest form. Thus, he begins from a fact, this fact about the nature of our thought processes. This fact is established through close attention, involving careful listening to the process of consciousness, and observing it assiduously. In this, one is constantly learning, and out of this learning comes insight, into the overall or general nature of the process of thought. This insight is then tested. First, one sees whether it holds together in a rational order. And then one sees whether it leads to order and coherence, on what flows out of it in life as a whole.
Krishnamurti constantly emphasizes that he is in no sense an authority. He has made certain discoveries, and he is simply doing his best to make these discoveries accessible to all those who are able to listen. His work does not contain a body of doctrine, nor does he offer techniques or methods, for obtaining a silent mind. He is not aiming to set up any new system of religious belief. Rather, it is up to each human being to see if he can discover for himself that to which Krishnamurti is calling attention, and to go on from there to make new discoveries on his own.
It is clear then that an introduction, such as this, can at best show how Krishnamurti's work has been seen by a particular person, a scientist, such as myself. To see in full what Krishnamurti means, it is necessary, of course, to go on and to read what he actually says, with that quality of attention to the totality of one's responses, inward and outward, which we have been discussing here.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON DR. DAVID BOHM
David Bohm was for over twenty years Professor of Theoretical Physics at Birkbeck College, Universtiy of London. Since receiving his doctorate at the University of Berkely, he taught and did research at U.C., Princeton University, University de Sao Paulo, Haifa and Bristol University.
==============
The following is from page 157 of *Krishnamurti: 100 Years*
- - -
As the fire of interest and enthusiasm for Krishnamurti's work took hold in
England, a new relationship was formed, one which was of the greatest
importance to physicist David Bohm as well as Krishnamurti himself.
Bohm was a man of vast intellect, capable of exploring questions in depth,
yet with a scientist's tentativeness.
During the war years he worked on the "scattering of nuclear particles" under
the supervision of J. Robert Oppenheimer. He became assistant professor at
Princeton University in 1946, where he began discussions with Einstein.
However, the pervasive climate of fear during the McCarthy era brought many
artists, scientists, and intellectuals to account for views which did not
necessarily conform to those of a committee of the U.S. House of
Representatives. Allegations were brought against Bohm by the House
Un-American Activities Committee. Because he refused to testify, on
principle, he was found to be in contempt of Congress. His work in the United
States thus damaged, he left to work in Brazil, at Technion in Israel, and
later settled in London as professor of theoretical physics at Birkbeck
College. He was cleared of contempt charges and was eventually allowed to
travel in the United States.
The meetings with Krishnamurti became legendary and gave renewed urgency to
the term "dialogue" as a fundamental of Krishnamurtian teaching. "Exploring
together, like two friends sitting under a tree," or "thinking together" is
the way this process has been described. However one would characterize it,
dialogue is an old yet new way at looking at and questioning the human
condition.
- - -
The book continues with an 11-page interview with Dr. Bohm.
by Ulrich Brugger
Dialogue as such has not been invented by J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm. It has been used in the past by Indian and European philosophers and it's used presently in psychological, philosophical and even scientific circles worldwide.
However Krishnamurti introduced a very important new dimension to dialogue: true observation and "holding" of one's conditioning, listening without thought and images, and the direct understanding of inner realities (such as fear, anger, etc.) in the process of dialogue. All this elevated dialogue from a level of exchange of ideas to a level of pure insight or direct perception of psychological facts. If this occurs, then dialogue leads to inner transformation. If not, it's just an exchange of ideas, - even if K or Bohm ideas are included.
David Bohm experimented with various forms of dialogue while applying K's insights of dialogue. It was obvious that David Bohm understood K's essential "ingredients" of dialogue. But it was obvious too that he didn't pretend to hold the only key to dialogue ..because there is no exclusive key to dialogue. He told me in person one day in Brockwood that he was experimenting. This seemed the right thing to do because he saw the necessity of applying this new kind of dialogue in various settings (scientific, philosophical and even political) and in larger groups. And it worked very well as David Bohm was present as facilitator.
But later on, when others tried David Bohm's model of dialogue, it failed more often than it succeeded. This has various reasons. One of them is that there were only few people who really studied Bohm's approach and were therefore able to apply it. Another is that there were few people who had the gift or the skills of a facilitator. It's an illusion, in my opinion, to introduce a dialogue with some words such as "watch your assumptions, listen without an image, etc" and then let the group continue on its own. Most of the time it will not work. A facilitator who understands the dynamics of a group - small or large - and is able to handle all kinds of happenings (conflicts, changing topics, hurts,etc.) is necessary and crucial.
Also, it seems to me that it was forgotten that David Bohm was experimenting. Taking his model as the only and final one must lead to dogmatism. But if one takes his proposals as starting points...to experiment further...,then it can become a journey with many possible good outcomes. Also one should bear in mind that David Bohm is not the only one who developed models of dialogue. There are many more.
What ultimately counts in dialogue is not the form, it's the spirit that leads to insight. However the form is important too. It's like in nature: spirit and form are essentially one. And a creative energy in nature is responsible for that. The same in dialogue: a good facilitator catches the spirit of dialogue and uses the appropriate structure or form so that the dialogue can go deeper and deeper in a harmonious way. She/he unifies spirit and form. And most importantly she/he opens "windows" of insight, and therefore transformation. Without insight, a dialogue has no meaning, whatever model one uses.
Ulrich Brugger
Ojai, CA
from one of his philosophy courses involving the work of Krishnamurti (Study Questions for a course in Contemporary Eastern Philosophy, Spring, 1985).
1.) K is concerned with the problems posed by individual and collective human violence. He thinks there is
one and only one solution. What is it? What is his main objection to alternative solutions? Do you agree?
2.) K teaches that gurus and spiritual disciplines are counter-productive. Why? Give the best reason you can
for disagreeing with him.
3.) "The great religions of the world are the repository for our collective spiritual wisdom. The wise person
will learn this wisdom, and use it as a guide to his own experience." Would K agree? Explain why or why not.
Do you agree with K? If so, give the best reason you can for disagreeing with K. If not, explain why not.
4.) Consider: "The clerk, when he seeks to become a manager, becomes a factor in the creation of
power-politics which produce war, so he is directly responsible for war." Does K mean to imply that you,
since you also are ambitious, are also, in virtue of your ambition, directly responsible for war? Do you agree?
Give reasons for your answers.
5.) Consider: "One of the fundamental causes of the disintegration of society is copying, which is the worship
of authority." Explain in your own words what K means. Does K recognize any circumstances under which
appeal to authority is all right? What do you think is the most serious problem with his view? Give reasons for
your answers.
6.) "We will learn how to solve our problems when we learn how to give them more thought and better
thought." Would K agree? Explain why or why not. Give the best reason that you can for disagreeing with
K's answer.
7.) Could you live your life effortlessly? What does K think? Do you agree? If you do, explain why you're not
doing it. If you disagree, explain why.
8.) Do you have a self or just the illusion of a self? In either case, what should you do about it?
9.) Why aren't we fearless? What does K think? What do you think? Give reasons for your answer.
10.) Consider: "What is important, surely, is to be aware without choice, because choice brings about
conflict. The chooser is in confusion, therefore he chooses; if he is not in confusion, there is no choice."
Explain in your own words and in considerable detail what K is talking about.
11.) Consider: "Now, if we examine our life, our relationship with another, we shall see that it is a process of
isolation." Explain in your own words what K means. Give the clearest example that you can, from your own
life, to show that what K is saying is at least sometimes false. Explain why you think this is an especially
suitable example. Now explain how someone could best argue that what K is saying is even true of your
example.
12.) Bhagwan claimed to be contradictory on purpose. K doesn't make any such claim. But he may be
contradictory none the less. Give the best argument that you can that K is sometimes guilty of an important
contradiction. Does it matter? Give reasons for your answer.
13.) What does K mean by "loneliness"? How much of your life is an attempt to distract yourself from
loneliness _ according to K?, according to you?
14.) When you suffer psychological pain, who is it that suffers? How would K answer this question? Explain
in your own words what K means, so that someone who had never read K or any other philosopher could
understand you.
15.) "K says some confusing things about whether in his view it takes time to acquire self-knowledge. In
some places he says things which imply that it does, in other places he says things which imply that it doesn't.
Although his words are sometimes unclear, what he means to say is clear enough, and also consistent." Does
K say confusing things on this topic? Give reasons for your answer. Is there a plausible interpretation of the
many things K says on this topic that is both clear and consistent? Give reasons for your answer.
16.) K talks a great deal about "meditation". What does K mean by "meditation"? Things that some others
call meditation, K would not call meditation. What are the most important of these? Why does K think that
meditation, as he understands it, is important?
17.) K talks a great deal about memory. He seems to think that memory is often essential, or that certain
kinds of memory are essential, and that memory is often a hindrance, or that certain kinds of memory are a
hindrance. What are K's views on the importance of memory? What, in K's view, is the relationship between
memory and the self? Do you agree with K's views on memory? Give reasons for your answer.
18.) Is K an atheist, a theist, or an agnostic? Explain your answer in considerable detail.
19.) What are K's views on sex and love? Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer.
20.) Taking what K has to say all in all, what do you think is the greatest merit of his views? What do you
think is the greatest difficulty? Give reasons for your answers.
21.) Briefly explain what K meant by any five of the eight quoted remarks:
a. "The understanding of oneself is not a result, a culmination; it is seeing oneself from moment to moment."
b. "Effort is a distraction from what is."
c. "Reality, truth, is not to be recognized."
d. "Action as we know it is really reaction."
e. "Belief is a denial of truth."
f. "Cultivation of the ideal is considered virtuous; but if you look at it closely and directly you will see that it is
nothing of the kind."
g. "The more knowledge a mind is burdened with the less capable it is of understanding."
h. "I think we shall understand the significance of life, if we understand what it means to make an effort."
Raymond Martin
"It is absolutely and urgently necessary to produce a radical reuolution in human consciousness, a complete mutation in the entire psychological structure of man. " J. KRISHNAMURTI
J. Krishnamurti has devoted his life to speaking to large audiences throughout
the world. Annually, he gives talks in the United States, Europe and India. He has
produced many books. Among his published works are: Think On These Things
(1964), The Urgency Of Change (1971), The Flight Of The Eagle (1972), The
Awakening of Intelligence (1973), The Wholeness Of Life (1979), and Truth And
Actuality (1980), published by Harper and Row in the United States. They are also
published allover the world and translated in many languages and dialects.
Yet, people ask: "Who is Krishnamurti?" It is almost as though one were to ask:
"Who is Aldous Huxley?" Or, "Who was George Bernard Shaw?" The truth is that
for many thousands of people allover the world, Krishnamurti is a man of vision and
wisdom and one who has become a legend in his lifetime.
Jiddu Krishnamurti was born in Madanapalle near Madras in 1895. As the
eighth child of a Brahmin family and a boy, he was by tradition called Krishnamurti in
honor of Lord Krishna. His mother died in 1905. His father, a civil servant, then
moved to Madras with his four surviving sons. In 1911, he and his younger brother,
Nitya, were adopted by Annie Besant, the then President of the Theosophical
Society, who believed that he was to become a new Messiah, or 'World Teacher .' He
and his brother were taken to England where he was privately educated to fit that
role. However, by 1929, Krishnamurti began to have doubts about the part assigned
to him by his patrons, and shortly afterwards dissolved the large organization
created around him. He also made it clear that he was not looking for disciples.
Strangely enough, by repudiating the role assigned him, Krishnamurti has
actually become, not the Messianic figure intended by Dr. Besant, but someone
much more valuable. He proclaimed his freedom by saying: "Truth is a pathless
land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, byany
sect. .."
Krishnamurti observes that the general disorder in the world today is caused by
a sense of insecurity, sorrow, misery, and it hinders human beings from working
together in harmony. In order to understand the root cause of this widespread
chaos and confusion, he challenges us to examine our processes of thought. One
must differentiate the process from the content. On a daily basis, moment by
moment, we are only aware of the content of thought, but not its process.
According to Krishnamurti, thought is simply a material process.
Krishnamurti's lectures, like his books, are all variations of the above theme.
"The ultimate answer ," says Krishnamurti, "is to see things as they really are,
unclouded by the deceptions of self-concern. To accomplish this, one must be free
of all pre-conceptions." In his talks, Krishnamurti is asking for a particular kind of
participation on the part of the audience. Krishnamurti, the speaker, emphasizes
that he and the listeners are exploring human problems together. In that
exploration, the audience discovers what it means to listen. One cannot listen if at
the same time one is comparing what is said with what one has read. This
comparison prevents listening. Similarly, if one is translating what is being said
according to one's previous knowledge or opinion, one cannot listen. Listening
implies attention of the whole being. This attention is not the effort of concentration,
it comes naturally when one is deeply concerned with the many problems of
existence.
It is central to Krishnamurti's teaching that human beings, if they are to be truly
free, must first be aware of their psychological conditioning, which prevents them
from seeing things as they really are. This quality of attention to 'what is,' not to
what one likes or dislikes, is at the very core of Krishnamurti's teaching. It is in this
attention to 'what is' that the mind stops chattering and is still, and thus is no longer
separate from the thing it observes. In this silence, there is no 'me,' no center, to
which one relates all that is seen or heard. So, there is only 'what is,' and in this there
is the quality of love, of beauty, of order, of meditation.
Speaking of meditation, Krishnamurti explains that one can experience
anything he wishes, anywhere he wants -such as experiencing God, Jesus,
Buddha or Krishna. But one's forced experiences remain disingenuous and of no
real importance. The real significance of meditation lies in being attentive to what is
happening around and what is happening inside. The meditation entails the
emptying of mind of everything known. In order to meditate, to observe the totally
new, the mind must be denuded of the known, the past. He says: "Truth, or God, or
whatever name you like to give to it must be new, not something which is the result
of propaganda, the result of conditioning. Truth is something living every day.
Therefore, the mind must be emptied to look at truth."
According to Krishnamurti, meditation means to reflect, to ponder, while
paying close attention to what is actually taking place as one does it. One engages in
close scrutiny to all that is going on in connection with the actual activity of thought,
that being the root cause of the general disorder. The very act of meditation
becomes meaningful only when order or cleansing of the self is achieved. At first,
one must put one's house in order. The rest follows. As order sets in, the chaos and
chattering surrounding our consciousness begins to dissipate and the mind
becomes quiet. Meditation, as explained by Krishnamurti, can help us sustain that
mental order, and this fact could be utilized to end oJr chaos and confusion, misery
and sorrow, that are second nature to human kind.
Krishnamurti has dedicated his life to setting men "absolutely and
unconditionally free." This is truly a self-less dedication par excellence. Neither does
he accept personal fees for his talks, nor royalties on his books and recordings. Any
income from these sources is applied towards related expenses and for carrying out
the purposes of the Krishnamurti Foundations in the United States, England,
Canada and India. The Krishnamurti Foundation of America was established in 1969
as a charitable trust under the laws of the State of California. Like the other
Foundations, its purpose is to sponsor his talks, oversee the publications of his
books and to produce audio and videotapes.
In recent years, Krishnamurti Information Centers have been established all
over America where videotapes are shown and Krishnamurti teachings are made
available to a wider public.
The Foundations are also responsible for the Krishnamurti Schools, which are
established to provide solid academic programs in addition to "bringing about good
human beings." The school is a place where Krishnamurti's observations are being
put to a direct use. If human beings and society can change fundamentally in this
microcosm, it may be possible for such a transformation to take place more broadly
in the world at large.
Today, there are five such schools in India, one in England, one in Canada, and
the Oak Grove School in Ojai, California. It is the responsibility of the Foundations
to raise funds for the schools. Donations to the Krishnamurti Foundation of
America are tax deductible under U.S. income tax laws.
Information about Krishnamurti and the schools can be obtained by writing to:
Krishnamurti Foundation of America, P. 0. Box 216, Ojai, California, 93023.
"[Krishnamurti) is a religious teacher of the greatest distinction, who is listened to
with profit and assent by members of a/1 Churches and sects. .." GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Compiled by Professor Brij Khare for, and distributed by:
THE ASSOCIATION OF INDIANS IN AMERICA, INC.
7610 Truxton Avenue, Los Angeles, California, USA 90045
Mr. Chaitanya Dave, President
Dear Reza,
<SNIP>
Oh, and I can only sympathize so much with what you are writing about your
life-style, the green, non-smoking, non-alcoholic and mentally sane way of
living. Also your final remark about not owning a car I found delightful. We
are really close in many ways it seems in our approaches to this mysterious
thing called life.
One thing that struck me, as it so often does, living in a kind of society
as the Danish one, highly competitive and degrading and with a tremendous
misuse of bodies and minds, is how little fashionable it is becoming to live
a healthy life, how natural and obvious as it otherwise may seem.
People are drinking and smoking, especially the young women (even more
sad!), destroying themselves, and they think it is much more 'trendy', much
less 'boring' than just keeping away from these things. One is actually
ridiculed a bit or almost excommunicated, even in higher educated circles,
if one is not drinking 'socially', and it is far more accepted to drink too
much, or even to be an alcoholic than not drinking at all. At least you will
get a certain amount of understanding from this. But if you don't drink you
have no excuses. You have simply put yourself out of the good company, and
you need to excert yourself quite a bit to regain your position!
This is not the case with smoking. There you are excused, but smoking is
still far too much accepted everywhere. In Denmark it is virtually
impossible to find a restaurant or a cafe without smoke, and that is beyond
my comprehension. I think here in this country we are lagging about 10 to 15
years behind the US in that respect. And people here are almost proud of
their attitude, because they believe it shows they are not so bent down by
rules in their lives as others.
So much for now. I'll get back to you later.
Love.........Karsten
You know there must be something wild around you, like in Switzerland you
have the mountains, and here the sea. I would not thrive in a place with
limited access to real, genuine nature, which is not the kind of nature you
find in parks or in ordinary rural surroundings with mono-cultural farming,
that is, with long stretches of the same crop and with all weeds and flowers
rooted out by pesticides. This unfortunately is very typical of this country
with its intensive farming.
But then we have the sea as a final resort. Still not tamed, and not likely
to be. I go there as often as I can. The sound of it is tremendous.
Sometimes it seems to get higher with the distance you move away from the
sea, presumably because you hear more of the entire coast line. It grows
until it is like a rolling thunder. But when you approach the sea again the
sound turns into a peaceful whispering.
Karsten
My dear Reza,
You have voiced quite well the dangers of interpretation of K. My views
on the subject are as follows.
K often told us that we should neither accept nor reject what he says
but investigate it in order to come upon the truth for ourselves.When
we investigate his teaching we can of course share our perceptions and
thoughts with each other and he even advocated the value of
dialogue.Now if we just repeat his views then we can be accused of
plagiarism and if we express what we understand from his words then we
can be accused of interpretation.So, it would mean we just cannot speak
about his teachings which was obviously not his intention.
This question was put to him by David Bohm and he gave a very clear
answer.He said so long as we are making it clear that what we are
saying is how we understand what he says and do not claim to be an
authority or assert that that is the truth he was speaking of it is
perfectly honest and therefore legitimate; but if we insist that we
know what he meant without having perceived the truth for ourselves
then it becomes interpretation and that is dishonest because we do not
really know what he meant but are attributing our meanings to him.
Now it is not that someone becomes an authority on K's teachings by
speaking about it and that it is a wrong thing to do.Rather it is
important to realize that accepting something as truth on the authority
of another, including K, has no value since truth is not an idea.Ideas
can be shared and communicated through words but truth cannot be since
it lies at the level of perception.Only then does it transform
consciousness and end illusion.That is why professors of philosophy are
not nearer to the truth than other human beings.They are discussing
words , definitions ,ideas and arguments, not their own perceptions.
That is why agreeing and disagreeing with a statement are both
unintelligent responses to that statement whoever may have made it.It
does not change anything and certainly does not alter our consciousness
.So what is an intelligent response? If we listen to the satatement,
nether agree with it nor disagree but ask ouselves: what does it mean
and is it true? Then do not answer that question quickly since quick
answers come from memory which is conditioned and therefore subjective,
but stay with the question and observe oneself and life and learn from
observation then it is possible to perceive a deeper truth beyond the
intellectual level.One must of course doubt that perception too since
one may be deceiving oneself into thinking that it is a deep perception
and not a piece of knowledge.If one is honest it is easy to notice the
difference because a deep perception will alter consciousness and that
is noticeable.
In my view this is the "hard work" Krishnaji asks us to do.When he says
it is not a matter of time I think it means time does not help us to
come upon perception.One does not perceive truth gradually.Either one
has perceived it or one hasn't.But there is not just one truth to be
perceived and as one keeps inquiring and observing the more superficial
prejudices (illusions) drop away but deeper ones may still persist.So
one goes on living with a "learning mind" wherever it takes you and
there is no such thing as a goal to be arrived at.Learning here means
perceiving for oneself what is true and what is false.There is also no
end to this state of learning.K was learning even on his death-bed!
In this field of inquiry one is completely alone and authority has no
meaning.The reason we can inquire together is becuse the ultimate truth
is the same for verybody, just as much here as in science.Authority has
meaning only in the field of knowledge where there is also hierarchy.In
the quest of truth there is no hierarchy.Truth comes into being only
when a consciousness observes "what is" (the fact) without any
distortion.To come upon it again one has to perceive it again and not
remember it from one's previous investigations.Therefore memory has no
value in this quest and is an obstacle if one is not aware of this
danger.That is why K went into every question afresh and rarely did he
ever repeat his words.
Once one understands this very clearly one feels neither angry nor happy
with what anyone says.Every person speaks from his level of ignorance
and there is no other way he or she can speak.It is not important to
judge them or classify people as high or low (including K).
It is important only to stay in that state of inquiry which K called
"the learning mind" and move on.The world is the way it is because we
are the way we are and it only changes deeply if we LEARN.That is why
right education is the only meaningful way to change society.The rest
is just adjustment and control which are superficial responses.
I hope I have been able to convey something to you with this long
expression of what I think and feel at this moment.It may all change
tomorrow!
yours affectionately,
Krishna
=======
Dear Reza,
yes, he said that about several things.For example he said co-operation includes knowing when not to co-operate! I think he just meant it is an art , not a formula and excess of it goes wrong and too little also goes wrong.So one has to discover for oneself the right place of it and no book, no Guru can define that for you.Another example is his advice to neither pusue pleasure, nor condemn it.He always said everything has a right place in life but that place (which is order) cannot be defined.It has to be discovered for oneself.Then it becomes self-knowledge or one's own understanding.Blindly being skeptical is as absurd as being not skeptical at all and accepting everything.Similarly, knowledge has a right place -- it is neither everything, nor nothing.This is central to his teaching and perhaps the Buddha may also have meant this when he talked of the middle path away from all extremes.
yours affectionately,
Krishna
On July 27, 2010, I emailed Dr. Krishna asking if he would like to write something for this circular and for publication on my website, about a topic of his choice, and suggested perhaps something related to giving talks. We talked together about this subject in Ojai where he gave insightful talks, and he had some interesting stories to tell about what he's had to go through speaking about the kind of topics K spoke about, which in my opinion are the significant issues that impact every person's experience of living. He thankfully accepted this invitation and wrote the following:
Dear Reza,
I have been asked this question several times, mostly by so-called K- people.
I met K when I was 20 years old. For the last 52 years I have been passionately interested in this inquiry into the fundamental questions of life and the ending of disorder in our consciousness. When someone invites you to speak about what has been your passion in life it does not require any reason to accept that invitation. It would require a reason for not accepting it!
If two tennis players meet is it not natural for them to talk or discuss tennis? If two scientists meet they discuss science. So, why should we not discuss K's teachings or our own explorations into life ? He often said we must investigate his teachings and share this inquiry as friends.
It is also true that when I asked him in 1985 what all he wanted me to do after joining at Rajghat he said,"You must talk about the teachings with the students and the teachers here and once a year you must go round the world to talk about the teachings. They will pay you for it!". I was scared so I said,"Sir, I have never given such talks. I have only given scientific talks. I do not know if I can do it." He replied,"You come here Sir and it will come to you." I don't know whether he was seeing the future or simply guessing but that is exactly what has happened without my trying to make it happen.
I started talking with the students and teachers here about these matters concerning the need for self-knowledge and gradually the ability came. I started receiving more invitations both from India and abroad and I accepted whichever I could. For nearly 10 years Gisele invited me every year to talk at Saanen, starting in 1988 or 89.Some trustees started feeling I am stepping myself up as an authority and becoming a Guru. I was doing nothing of the kind. I only spoke as a friend investigating the teaching and verbalised my inquiry because they asked me to.
The first to make me aware of this was Dr. Parchure and I vividly recall this conversation with him in his cottage at Rajghat. I quote it here as it is relevant for my answer to your question:
TKP: Why do you go to Saanen?
PK : Well, because Gisele invites me.
TKP: Don't tell me you do not enjoy it.
PK : Of course I do. I also enjoy working at Rajghat, I enjoy my food, I enjoy looking at the river. What is wrong with enjoyment?
TKP: Are you not bulding yourself up?
PK : That danger always exists in every activity. I can build my ego around my work here or around my status, my family -- almost anything. We learnt from K to watch out for this danger and not avoid it. If I do fall, it will be my undoing, so why does it bother you so much?
TKP: So, you are aware of it!
PK.: Of course! Isn't that what the teaching is about ? But if I may now ask you, " Why do you not give talks? You have been with this teaching for many years and I find in my dialogues with you that you have a fairly good understanding of it. So why don't you talk ?
TKP: Because I don't think it is possible to keep the self out of it.
PK. And what other activities are there in life in which you are sure the self will not interfere ? Shall I tell you why you do not talk?
TKP: Yes.
PK : Because you are chicken! You feel they will make you into a Guru, fall at your feet and all that and you are afraid of that. I am not afraid because I am so clear that I will not fall into that trap.
That ended that conversation; but the matter did not end there. He talked to some trustees in Saanen and they said it is becoming Krishna's gathering. So Gisele came and told me," I don't like all this back biting. So, I would like to call a meeting of the trustees who are here and thrash the thing openly. Will you come? I said, " Sure. I would love to." So she arranged it and invited Dr. Parchure also to it but he did not come. The others came and we discussed the whole thing frankly. I told them," I have no teachings of my own. I only speak about my investigations of K's teachings and I have never claimed that I am an authority or that I am a realised man. I only explore the questions K has raised and that too because Gisele asks me to. I would be equally happy to just be a participant and let someone else give the talk or conduct the dialogue." We discussed the issue of interpretation and I told them my view about which I have already written to you earlier.
If, as a student of science I can speak about my understanding of the work of Einstein or Newton why can I not speak about my understanding of K ? I am not willing to give up that freedom which I had even as a professor of Physics. I joined the K foundation because it talks of seeking freedom and not in order to accept more restrictions ! But I told Gisele that she should not invite me for a few years since it is creating too much controversy and she may get into trouble with the foundations. So she agreed and invited me instead to speak in smaller forums in Geneva. She has always remained a good friend and understood me completely.
The next time this issue came up in a different way. The then chairman of the K-committee in France wrote to me an email saying: " I want to invite you to give a talk at our annual K-gathering in Paris but before I invite you I have two questions to ask you:
1. Why do you give talks in the Theosophical society?
2. If the TS offered you a high position would you accept it ?
I will decide after I have your anwers to these two questions."
I was rather amused by his queries and do not remember my exact reply but it was more or less to this effect:
1. I give talks at the TS because they invite me to do so. I would go even to the roman catholic church if they invited me so long as they give me the freedom to say what I want to say. I do not judge my audience and then decide whether to accept an invitation.
2. I do not find a tremendous difference between the people in K-circles and those in the TS or in any other circle. They are all conditioned and they all need to free themselves of their conditioning. K did not say one conditioning was superior to another , he talked about freedom from conditioning. He also said the other man is yourself. He did not say that this is so only when he is not a theosophist!
3. K appointed Radha Burnier as a trustee of KFI knowing full well she was a devoted theosophist. He also appointed Samdhong Rimpoche as a trustee knowing full well his committment to Buddhism. To me this means he was telling us the affiliation of a person does not matter. It is the consciouness inside that matters.
4. About your second question. It is specualtive. If and when such an offer comes I will consider carefully what work it involves, whether it interests me and whether I am competent and free to do it. The decision would have to be taken then and not in imagination.
5. However, one thing is clear. You should not invite me to speak since you have so many reservations about me!
He replied saying he has decided not to invite me to the annual gathering but he would like to invite me to his home for dinner. I wrote back saying I am delighted. I went to his home for dinner, we became good friends and he invited me next year to give a talk in his department in the university and the following year to conduct dialogues at a K-retreat in the zen centre near Paris!
Sorry if this mail has become very long but you are a good old friend and I just felt like writing frankly and fully. I have no objection to your quoting any of this as this is the truth and I have no reason to be ashamed of revealing it!
The work and the inquiry go on amidst all this natural confusion !!
Love
Krishna
In considering the relationship between the finite and the
infinite, we are led to observe that the whole field of the finite
is inherently limited, in that it has no independent existence. It
has the appearance of independent existence, but that appearance
is merely the result of an abstraction of our thought. We
can see this dependent nature of the finite from the fact that
every finite thing is transient.
Our ordinary view holds that the field of the finite is all that
there is. But if the finite has no independent existence, it cannot
be all that there is. We are in this way led to propose that
the true ground of all being is the infinite, the unlimited; and
that the infinite includes and contains the finite. In this view,
the finite, with its transient nature, can only be understood as
held suspended, as it were, beyond time and space, within the
infinite.
The field of the finite is all that we can see, hear, touch,
remember, and describe. This field is basically that which is
manifest, or tangible. The essential quality of the infinite, by
contrast, is its subtlety, its intangibility. This quality is conveyed
in the word spirit, whose root meaning is “wind, or breath”.
This suggests an invisible but pervasive energy, to which the
manifest world of the finite responds. This energy, or spirit,
infuses all living beings, and without it any organism must fall
apart into its constituent elements. That which is truly alive in
the living being is this energy of spirit, and this is never born
and never dies.
Dr. Colin Foster taught physics at the Brockwood Park Scool in England for many years. We first met in 1993 in the Swiss Alps where we shared an apartment as guests of Friedrich Grohe. The following is regarding the work of a fellow physicist, Dr. David Bohm, an associate of Einstein, and Professor of Theoretical Physics at Birkbeck College, Universtiy of London for over 20 years. -- Reza Ganjavi
By Dr. Colin Foster
The implications of quantum mechanics (QM) suggest a new worldview that is less destructive and fragmentary than the one that operates at present. This is one of the insights that comes out of Bohm’s physics. Until his death, he worked on an interpretation of quantum phenomena that gives a more coherent view of the nature of matter than either that which informs the fragmentary view or that which comes out of the standard interpretation of QM accepted by mainstream physicists.
It is hard to imagine anyone better qualified to deal with the implications of QM than Bohm, as he spent all his working life as a theoretical quantum physicist who was considered by Einstein as his “intellectual son”. It is worth pointing out that, although he was a renowned physicist, it was clear to him that understanding the processes of the brain was of “pivotal” concern for mankind, and endeavours such as science, art and music, while obviously worthwhile, were secondary to understanding the process of thought/feeling. He also felt that many of the conflicts that mankind faces are rooted in the fragmentary nature of our worldview. Lee Nichol’s excellent article (issue 23) covers some of Bohm’s thinking on this.
While it is not possible here to describe in detail Bohm’s interpretation, I would like to look at two key features that form the basis of his understanding of the implications of QM. One is that thought and knowledge are limited and the other is that there is an indivisible connection between the observer and the observed. These are familiar insights that Krishnamurti discussed in his public talks and in discussions with Bohm. They are also the key features of quantum phenomena where Bohm’s interpretation differs from that of mainstream physics, the latter, or Copenhagen interpretation, being due mainly to Niels Bohr (1880-1946). Using these two features, I would like to clarify what this difference is and their significance in the new worldview that Bohm found QM to imply.
Before going into this, it is important to reflect on Bohm’s approach to knowledge and understanding. Taking the concept of theory in science to illustrate this, it was important to him that the concept of theory be understood in its original etymological sense, i.e. as related to the word ‘theatre’, thus giving a meaning to theory as, at best, and as far as we know, an accurate but limited and relative way of looking at the world. This understanding is in contrast to the usual view of theory in science as expressing an absolute knowledge about the nature of the material world and its laws. Bohm’s understanding of theory leads to a flexible and open approach to what might be new or different, rather than clinging to an idea or theory because one has mistakenly supposed it to be true knowledge.
Along with this openness, he greatly valued clarity, coherence and fertility in ideas, a fertility that came from seeing learning about “the infinitely subtle nature of matter” as endless and worthwhile in itself. In contrast, a number of writers have described the Copenhagen interpretation as being sterile, and we will see why when we look at our first point.
Thought and knowledge are limited
It is easy to calculate that when a die is thrown many times the probability of a particular number coming up is 1/6. In a somewhat similar fashion, QM is a mathematical theory that produces probability fractions for possible outcomes of atomic events, and it indisputably does this with great accuracy! QM says nothing, however, about what happens in a single event, it being unpredictable like a single casting of the die. It is here that a significant difference of interpretation occurs between Bohm’s view and Bohr’s. Bohr gave a lot of importance to this unpredictability, not on the basis of the experimental results but rather because of his philosophical background. From this background (Kant, Kierkegaard, etc.), he saw the unpredictability resulting from the quantum world as being beyond the limit of thought and knowledge. He saw thought and knowledge not only as limited but also as having as a specific limit the quantum world. I believe the mass media have mistakenly used unpredictability as a characteristic feature of QM, because it is an easy concept to grasp, featuring as it does in many aspects of people’s lives. Bohr’s view seems to have led to an intellectual sterility, with many mainstream physicists accepting his view that it makes no sense to inquire into a realm that is beyond what is knowable. For Bohm, thought and knowledge are limited, but the boundary can always be extended in an indefinite way into the “qualitative infinity of nature”, and his work was to extend knowledge into the quantum world. With Basil Hilley he developed a radical interpretation that he hoped would be a fruitful “scientific metaphor” that would be considered on its own merits, alongside the other interpretations rather than in opposition to them. But John Bell, perhaps the most respected of quantum theorists who did not accept Bohr’s view either, described Bohm’s as “the best crafted” of the available interpretations.
Unpredictability is a feature of QM, but Bohm showed that, in itself, it does not entail a new view of matter. Unpredictability is also a feature of die-throwing and, therefore, not something that distinguishes QM from the Cartesian physics of Newton, often viewed as the basis of the fragmentary view.
The observer and the observed
Imagine that you are looking at a cat in your garden. You close your eyes and, instead of a cat, you hear a bird in the cat’s place. You open your eyes and again see a cat, close them and again hear a bird. In other words, it would seem as though your perception is dependent on how you are perceiving. If you found yourself in this situation, you would be very surprised, yet physicists have discovered that contextdependent phenomena do occur at the quantum level. They have found that what they observe depends on how they are observing – in a way that cannot be understood in terms of the normal division between the observer and the observed. Bohr stated that if one wasn’t shocked by this phenomenon, then one hadn’t understood the nature of what was going on. Wave/particle duality in the behaviour of fundamental particles is an outcome of this phenomenon, and the uncertainty principle expresses mathematically the ambiguity that results when you treat the observed particle as divided from the observing apparatus. Bohm and Bohr recognised the significance of this and both used phrases such as “un-analysable wholeness”. Mainstream scientists and the media appear to be uncomfortable with wholeness as an outcome of QM, and have either ignored it or consigned it to the mystical, although a related aspect of this undivided wholeness, non-locality or entanglement, has been experimentally observed, due partly to the work of Bohm and Bell. Bohr recognised its importance but understood it in terms of yin/yang, or what he called “complementariness”, and in fact used the yin/yang symbol in his coat of arms.
For Bohm, however, this wholeness is the starting point for understanding quantum phenomena and the creative movement behind the material world and living systems. As he pointed out, this wholeness is not to be seen as just an abstract concept, a part that can be abstracted (i.e., pulled out) from the whole, because the whole cannot be so abstracted. Wholeness needs to be sensed as an insight into the unlimited, beyond what thought can grasp. He felt this sense of the unlimited was necessary to bring thought to order. Without this sense, thought represents itself as capable of dealing with everything, which is an incoherence that leads thought into disorder. To express the sense of something beyond static concepts, he used the phrase “unbroken wholeness in flowing movement” and developed the notion of a holomovement, a movement of unfolding and enfolding of the perceived world from and to a much vaster and subtler implicate order. This is the infinitely subtle source of all that is, that forms the basis of the holistic worldview that Bohm believed was implied by QM. He felt that such a worldview was necessary to respond to the conflicts caused by the pervading fragmentation.
Colin Foster, September 2005
Laura Huxley
Laura Huxley recalls her meeting with Krishnamurti at the home of yoga master, Vanda Scaravelli. (Page 83 of the 1968 Celestial Arts paperback edition).
__________
At the Signora S.'s we had a delicious luncheon--the regime was completely vegetarian. Anyone can successfully prepare the good classic American dinner in fifteen minutes--salad, steak, frozen peas, and ice cream; it is nutritious, unimaginative, and satisfying. But a completely vegetarian dinner is very often a failure--understandably so--for to achieve variety and nutrition without meat, fish, eggs, and milk products requires imagination and knowledge, patience, and above all a really Epicurean perception of Nature's gifts.
At Signora S.'s the food was natural, alive, and varied. Aldous and I praised it and were told that the order and combination of the courses had been made according to the famous Dr. Bircher-Benner of a nearby clinic in Zurich. From recipes for food, we went on to speak of my "Recipes for Living and Loving." I had been very active in psychotherapy that year and had almost finished my book. Aldous spoke about the origin of the word ''recipes''--it is the imperative of the Latin word recipere, to receive--and told our hosts how my recipes had succeeded with some people for whom the orthodox methods had failed. Krishnamurti asked a few questions and listened intently. We spoke about vitamins and imagination, solitary confinement, LSD, alcoholism, and the congress on extrasensory perception that Aldous had recently attended in the South of France.
After lunch Signora S. tactfully suggested that I might want to speak alone with Krishnamurti. She and Aldous went into the living room. A large French window opened onto the terrace, where Krishnamurti and I were left alone. The French window was closed, but, as I realized later, Aldous could see us silhouetted against the sweeping view of the Alps. An hour or two later, when we left our hosts, Aldous could not wait to ask, "What in the world happened between you and Krishnaji? You two were gesticulating with such animation and excitement--it almost looked as though you were having a fight. What happened?"
The silent pantomime Aldous had seen through the French window must have been descriptive of our conversation--an extraordinary conversation against an extraordinary panorama. Krishnamurti and I had stood, walked, and sat on the terrace of the Swiss chalet, enveloped by high peaked mountains and pine woods of all gradations of green, light exhilarating green, and the deeper green of the vast mountain pastures. Brightness again, in luminous sky and in shining flowers, in sensuous undulating valleys, in Krishnamurti. Brightness everywhere.
The first thing I asked Krishnamurti, continuing our table conversation about psychotherapy, was how he dealt with the problem of alcoholism. He said nonchalantly that it had happened quite often that people, after one or two interviews with him, stopped drinking. When I asked how this came about, he said he did not know. He dismissed the subject and asked me whether LSD, mescaline, and the psychedelic substances in general were really of any benefit or just gave a temporary illusion. I told him of the medical research done in Canada in the field of alcoholism--of unexpected and successful results reported by Canadian doctors with a number of hopeless alcoholics who stopped drinking after only one or two administrations of LSD, and without further therapy. Krishnamurti seemed surprised.
He was silent for a few moments. There was something that he was going to say; also I had the feeling that his inner intensity was too powerful for the medium of words. I had no idea what was coming, but I knew something was about to happen. Silently he was holding my eyes with his dark burning look. Then with an extremely tense voice, he exploded, "You know, I think that those people who go about helping other people .. ." He stopped--then, with an even more piercing gaze, he spat out the next words like bullets of contempt: "those people ... they are a curse!"
After the conversation at the table I had no doubt that "those people" included me. The accusation and the fire with which he flung it at me were for an instant paralyzing. Then, almost without thinking, I asked, "What about you? What do you think you are doing? You go about helping other people."
As though he had never thought of himself as belonging to that cursed category, Krishnamurti was taken aback for a moment, totally surprised and perplexed. Then, with disarming simplicity and directness, he said, "But I don't do it on purpose!"
It was the most extraordinary of statements. Aldous was enormously impressed by it, and also very touched and amused. Of course he understood it. But I must have looked bewildered, for Krishnamurti, in a softer, calmer way, said, "It just happens, do you see?" Alas, I did not see very well. Krishnamurti continued, "I am not a healer, or a psychologist, or therapist, or any of those things." The words "healer," "psychologist," "therapist" burst from him like projectiles ejected by compressed power. "I am only a religious man. Alcoholics or neurotics or addicts--it doesn't matter what the trouble is--they get better quite often--but that is not important; that is not the point--it is only a consequence."
"What is wrong with such a consequence?" I asked. "I only give people techniques or recipes or tools to help them to do what they need to do--what is wrong in using the transformation of energy to change those miserable feelings into constructive behavior?" That had been what we had discussed at lunch. I knew that Krishnamurti was violently opposed to dogmas, rites, gurus, and Ascended Masters--to all the gadgetry of those organized powers whose aim is to impress the masses with keeping the godhead and its graces as their supreme and private monopoly. But I had no idea that he also objected to psycho-physical exercises, such as my recipes. Unaware of this fact, I had innocently exposed myself and my work. Now I realized that he had restrained himself during lunch, tactfully waiting until we were alone. He did not restrain himself now; vehemently, with unspeakable intensity, he spoke.
"No! No! Techniques--transformation--no--rubbish! One must destroy--destroy . . . everything!" Fleetingly a thought crossed my mind: how easily such a man can be misunderstood, misinterpreted! I wanted to understand--I knew that he wanted me to understand, but how to ask--that was the question. "But what do you do?" I repeated.
And he repeated: "Nothing--I am only a religious man."
It had the sound of a final statement, a baffling one to me. Six words, I thought, but hundreds of different meanings, according to each person's conditioning. Perhaps he was simply restating what Christ had said:
But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.
But I was not thinking about Christ--I wanted to know what Krishnamurti meant by "a religious man."
"What is a religious man?"
Krishnamurti changed his tone and rhythm. He spoke now calmly, with incisiveness. "I will tell you what a religious man is. First of all, a religious man is a man who is alone--not lonely, you understand, but alone--with no theories or dogmas, no opinion, no background. He is alone and loves it--free of conditioning and alone--and enjoying it. Second, a religious man must be both man and woman--I don't mean sexually--but he must know the dual nature of everything; a religious man must feel and be both masculine and feminine. Third," and now his manner intensified again, "to be a religious man, one must destroy everything--destroy the past, destroy one's convictions, interpretations, deceptions--destroy all self-hypnosis--destroy until there is no center; you understand, no center. " He stopped.
No center?
After a silence Krishnamurti said quietly, "Then you are a religious person. Then stillness comes. Completely still."
Still were the immense mountains around us.
Infinitely still.
From http://www.itp.edu/about/aldous_huxley.php
Huxley died on November 22, 1963 (the same day as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy) just as he had lived: in an experiment of expanding consciousness. He battled throat cancer for several years, so on his deathbed he was unable to speak. By writing a note, he asked his second wife, Laura, to administer LSD to him. She honored his wishes and also engaged in a ceremonial farewell to her husband which she described later in her biography of him:
Light and free you let go, darling; forward and up. You are going forward and up; you are going toward the light. . . .You are doing it so beautifully, so easily. Light and free. Forward and up. . . .You are going toward a greater love than you have ever known. You are going toward the best, the greatest love, and it is easy, it is so easy, and you are doing it so beautifully. (L. Huxley, 1968, p. 286)
(Edited by Lee Nichols)
A selection of essays by the distinguished physicist and thinker, taking as their focus the role and nature of creativity in its broadest sense. Truly inspiring stuff as usual, this strongly reinforces Bohm's worldview as that most closely corresponding with my own.
Creativity, as both a component of one's state of mind, and as an underlying function of human activity, is shown to be essential to the maintenance of a positive vector, both for the individual and for society in general. Indeed, it is effectively woven into the very fabric of life. Also examined is the connection, at root, between scientific and artistic activity. By careful examination of the derivation of key words, Bohm shows how what have become essentially separate disciplines were in fact rooted in the same soil, with creativity being the essential nutrient.
Only by changing ourselves can we hope to change society, and only by becoming creative can we hope to change ourselves. Thus, creativity is seen to be at the centre of positive change - good news indeed for those who are naturally creative - but, we knew all along, didn't we ;-)
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Suspension of thoughts, impulses, judgments lies at the heart of Dialogue…Suspension involves attention, listening and looking and is essential to exploration. Speaking is necessary of course…but the actual process of exploration takes place during listening—not only to others but to oneself.
—David Bohm
Again, thank you so much. Krishnamurti's book "Freedom of the known" is for me the most important book ever read. Thank you Reza again for your effort.
Cheers,
Schakeb
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These are what people have written about Freedom From The Known on a very popular internet bookseller's website: amazon.com
[5 out of 5 stars] Full of Wisdom, January 13, 2002
Reviewer: Tom Adams from Apex, NC USA
I've never read a book that was so short (less than 150 pages) that contained so much wisdom. From beginning to end, Krishnamurti's words capture your attention as he leads you through a discussion of the most important issues that face mankind. The manner in which he explores the extremely complex topics like freedom, love, violence, and ideology is more like conversation than lecture, which makes reading the book that much more enjoyable.
If you approach his words with an open mind and an honest heart, it is one of those rare books that can change your entire outlook on life. As I read it for the fourth time, I continue to find the subtle points of wisdom that are scattered throughout, and each read brings a greater understanding of what "freedom from the known" is all about.
[5 out of 5 stars] Understanding, May 25, 2001
Reviewer: Jason Gordon (see more about me) from College Station, TX United States
It seems amazingly trite to assign stars and write a paragraph about a teaching that has turned the world and therefore me upside down. This is the most concise of Krishnamurti's writings and is a good introduction to the teachings. Would also recommend Total Freedom and You are the World. Like me, you'll probably have to read them more than once to really digest the powerfully simple facts of life that Krishnamurti explains. It won't be easy so if you are just looking for a quick fix or a validation of your own ideology, keep looking. If however, you are interested in Truth and transformation, then read and be amazed.
[5 out of 5 stars] Freedom from the Known, February 27, 2001
Reviewer: Carol A. Chester (see more about me) from usa
"The world accepts and follows the traditional approach. The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another; we mechanically follow somebody who will assure us a comfortable spiritual life." To understand ones self, Krishnamurti believed, is the beginning of wisdom. Understanding is not accepting a description of the view of the world mapped by another no matter how lofty the map maker. Krisnamurti encouraged making your own map:).This book should create a revolution within you. It is the start of a fantastic journey.
[5 out of 5 stars] An inquiry into the nature of true freedom, October 6, 2000
Reviewer: Michael Schelb (see more about me) from Boca Raton, FL United States
The book addresses the basic issue of perception with regard to knowledge, which is acquired through culture, religion and society as a whole. Krishnamurti turns to the nature of human fear, which arises from our social perceptions and offers his own insight. This book is an essential part of any Krishnamurti library.
[5 out of 5 stars] KRISHNAMURTI IS AN AMAZING TEACHER, July 19, 2000
Reviewer: A reader from Pittsburgh, PA
It is impossible to find arguments against what Krishnamurti is saying because he only uses known facts; facts that everyone has to accept because they come from common sense. His teachings are amazing, but difficult to live. I recommend this book and all of his other books to anyone interested in going deeper in his/her understanding of life.
[5 out of 5 stars] there is no escape, May 3, 2000
Reviewer: Douglas Chorpita from Philadelphia, USA
Krishnamurti tells it like it is. He shatters us, taking away every possible comfort, leaving us with nothing, but ourselves. Krishnamurti talks about how all knowledge is "old". In order to discover the "new" we must let go of all beliefs, preconceptions, theories, ideas, attitudes, systems, disciplines, etc. To live with great intelligence, we must forget EVERYTHING WE KNOW and simply be alert to life, as it is happening right now.
[5 out of 5 stars] Freedom from the known, March 23, 2000
Reviewer: A reader from australia
I started to read Krishnamurti's "Freedom from the Known" some time ago. The book was very difficult to understand. K 's statement "thought is time " I could not comprehend. Now, I fully understand what that statement means. My whole vocabulary and thinking process has been transformed. There has been a shift, a transformation, and "Freedom from the known "has been instrumental in this process. If you love Truth, then read this book. But dont expect to be enlightened overnight. If anybody wants to be challenged and be radically changed I highly recommend this book.
[5 out of 5 stars] This is the most comprehensive commentary on living., August 24, 1999
Reviewer: guru_2001@hotmail.com from USA
This book summarizes the teachings of J. Krishnamurti. If any human being could read one book in their lives this should be the one. After reading the book one can get the sense of immense potential in terms of freedom, love, and joy.
One can see for oneself the influence of culture and tradition on our thought process at a fundamental level. One can see how this influence conditions our mind and distorts the perception of facts. At the same time the human mind has an inner demand to be free from this influence.
Our desire to be free is pacified by organized religions, gurus, psychologists, and propaganda by the politicians. However, it does not die until an answer is found.
So, if the desire to be free is present even the minutest of forms then this book can be a true beginning in life of freedom and happiness.
[5 out of 5 stars] A liberating view on fear and knowledge, August 10, 1998
Reviewer: pathless@msn.com from Boca Raton, Florida
If there is a core teaching with regard to the many dialogues of J. Krishnamurti then this is it. The book tackles the basic problem of perception with regard to the knowlegde, which an individual aquires through education, society and culture. Further, Krishnamurti deals with the nature of human fear, and provides thought-provoking insight to this issue. Highly recommended - one of the most important books in my library!
[5 out of 5 stars] a fearless examination of what it means to be alive., August 1, 1998
Reviewer: maude@aol.com from Braintree MA. U.S.A
.In this book krishnamurti explains lucidly how all thoughts are conditional..In order to understand this a paradox needs to be understood-that is that truth or love cannot be known,however it can be experienced..This book is brilliant in it's clarity.It continues to have a profound effect on the way I view the world and my place in it.
The clearest of Krishnamurti's work., May 24, 1998
Reviewer: suecity24@aol.com from Los Angeles, California, USA
I have read many of Krishnamurti's books and this was the one that put it all together for me. Krishnmurti expresses the fundamentals of his outlook and approach without compromising power or depth.
We are celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Centre and it’s a privilege to have been asked to speak today and perhaps convey to you some of what was involved in setting up the Centre and running it for 15 years. I am not used to speaking to any groups of people, let alone such a large one, so this is extremely daunting to be speaking with all of you, many of whom I have known over the years, and some I have never met.
The Centre has been open 20 years. Its 21 years since Krishnaji’s death. It’s such a long time, and it seems important that we celebrate this Centre and actually the miracle that brought it into being.
Krishnaji had talked in the early years at Brockwood about having a place for adults to study, and part of the cloisters was meant to be used for that purpose, but it was soon taken over by the needs of the school. Staff members were resistant to creating a new centre as it was felt it would take money and energy away from the school and we needed all our resources for the school to thrive.
In 1983 Krishnaji began talking about the need for a study centre again and Scott, my ex husband, began looking at the least expensive form of architecture which was an A frame architecture. A visit was arranged to see a large A frame building in the New Forest. Many people including Krishnaji, Mary Zimbalist, Dorothy, Scott, some trustees and Friedrich Grohe went along. No one felt this design was right. It just wasn’t aesthetically pleasing enough, but there was no money anyway. On the way back in the car Friedrich said he would donate the money. With this very generous donation it seemed it might be possible. It was at this time that Scott and I were asked by Krishnaji to be responsible for building the Centre and for me to run it. We found architects, had a small model built and planning permission submitted. The application was unanimously refused however, because this piece of land is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty, and the land owner who owns the land that surrounds Brockwood, also strongly objected.
We hired a QC in London who specialized in building permits to see what he could do. He found the original application was not legal, as no provision had been made for a septic tank. Not only that, there was also some very small technical detail, having to do with the septic system, which had been omitted. This meant it had been an incomplete application. We were back to square one and we had to begin again. Despite being shocked and disappointed we were delighted because we almost had another chance.
We began looking for new architects as we felt that even with a new application; we would receive the same response. Scott was in the South West of England and by chance he met some people who said they had heard of an architect Keith ‘someone’ who used sacred geometry to design. We managed to track Keith down and ask him to submit some drawings or a proposal. We also asked four other top UK architects to submit proposals of what they felt this building could look like. They were then invited here to meet Krishnaji and present their ideas to him. Keith Critchlow was the second person Krishnaji met and immediately he knew that Keith understood what he was looking for. He had the sense of what he wanted. Jon Allen who will speak later will talk more about Keith’s design and insights. We were thrilled to have found someone who also had a spiritual interest. In fact Keith’s father had left him some Krishnamurti books after he died and Scott and I knew Jon from the Gatherings.
After having met these marvelous architects and seen their proposals, Krishnaji made a comment to the affect that he wished all five of them could all work on this project together, which is how he always wished us to work. To think and work together.
In order to get our planning permission, there was a great deal of work we needed to do with the members of the County Council. Early in the process it became apparent that there was resistance to us, because we were a Krishna - something place, but you could see the relief on the Council members’ faces when they visited us and saw that we weren’t running around with shaven heads in yellow robes. I think these visits were significant in our eventually getting the building permission.
The head of the County Council who had been extremely antagonistic to our application was a very religious Anglican. His son was important in the Anglican hierarchy, and the evening after this man’s visit to Brockwood, his son brought an African Anglican bishop to his father’s house for dinner. In the course of the dinner conversation, the father spoke of visiting Brockwood and said something derisive about Krishnaji. The African bishop interrupted and said something to the effect that ‘Krishnamurti is a truly religious man, and a man that is very respected in all religious circles,’ The man was so astonished that he told us all about this conversation, and, naturally he changed his mind. The head of the County Council was on our side.
There were other objections that the council had, but we were able to meet each one, so that by the time our project came up for discussion with the final County Council meeting they voted unanimously. The Centre that never was looked like it might just be.
This was now late summer of 1985. We assembled quotes from builders and were almost ready to start when Krishnaji became ill in India. Krishnaji managed to get to Ojai and there was a plea from some of the Brockwood’s trustees to only build half of the Centre. This was put to Krishnaji in his final weeks and I was also asked to fly over to Ojai and take the final elevation drawings for him to see. They were absolutely beautiful. He said we should build the entire building and make it ‘first class’.
Money of course was still a large issue. It seemed that the new Centre even after Friedrich Grohe’s donation would require us to raise an extra 1 million pounds. We had never raised that amount before.
Krishnaji died and it seemed that the whole universe had changed.
Trustees were naturally anxious about starting such a project after Krishnaji’s death. We all wondered whether everything would slowly die? A building of this scale had never been done before. He wished the Centre to be beautiful, austere and ascetic, simple but comfortable. That it should last a thousand years and he didn’t want us to diminish it in any way. This is what I referred to every time I was required to purchase or choose something or make any large decision.
We were all so doubtful as to how the school could continue in the long term, so a possibility would be, to use the school for a Centre and the money donated by Friedrich be kept as an endowment for the Centre. This was hotly debated and we must realize what an act of faith and courage on the part of the trustees this actually was. Krishnaji, the source of everything we did, and the inspiration for all the support we had ever received was gone, and we were facing the prospect of needing to raise 25 times more than we had ever raised, even in his life time. The Centre that almost never was, seemed to be struggling yet again, to come into being.
Just before signing the contract with the builders to go ahead with the construction the matter was put to the staff; and it was put starkly. If this contract is signed we are committed to paying this amount of money. We have never raised this kind of money or anything like it. If we fail to raise the necessary money we will go bankrupt and that means loosing Brockwood, loosing our homes, loosing our livelihoods, losing everything we had worked so hard to achieve. Should we sign this contract? They agreed with one voice to sign it.
This was what Krishnaji wanted. Then they made a collective offer that was quite extraordinary. The staff offered to cut their wages to help finance the building of the Centre. This offer/trust and spirit that they showed really merits special appreciation and still tugs at my heart, because we were only earning pocket money in those days, so their wages wouldn’t even have made a dent in what was needed. But that wasn’t the point, the fact is they were 100% behind it.
The contract was signed and we began the construction but we had to find the extra money to pay for it. We did everything we could think of. We were tireless in trying to collect every penny and pound we could find.
The final story is one of the many miracles that went into the creation of this Centre. The construction was coming to an end and the final bill was soon to be paid and we had done everything but we hadn’t yet raised the final amount of £400.000. We were in trouble. We could lose the Centre just as it was finished being built. There was talk of perhaps dividing the Centre from the school and selling one or the other. Another very very difficult moment.
I need to interrupt this story for a moment and tell you a side story. When we were in Sannen filming the talks Krishnaji was giving in 1977 or 78, the video department made an appeal for money in the tent before one of Krishnaji’s talks. We had to do this every year as the department had to raise all of its own funding. After this particular appeal an old couple from Belgium came to the video van and in halting English told us they would like to help us. Of course they were thanked profusely, hands were warmly shaken and that was that.
They didn’t give anything at that time, but this was not an uncommon experience. People would often express a desire to help but for some reason or another couldn’t, and that was always fine because even just good intentions seemed beneficial.
Now we were in this desperate situation of needing £400,000. Not having heard from the Belgian lady or gentleman before or since that one meeting in Saanen we suddenly had a phone call from Belgium from a lady who said she wanted to bring us something. We didn’t know who she was. She wanted to come with her friend who turned out to be the gentleman who had been with her ten years before. Neither of them had ever flown on an airplane and didn’t know how to go about doing that, so we asked Hugues van der Straten, one of Brockwood trustees at the time, who was Belgian, and living there, if he would escort them, which he kindly offered to do. It was only when they arrived that we realized that this was the lady and gentleman who had come to us nine or ten years earlier in Saanen, and said that they wanted to help. She told us that after meeting us that year in Saanen she had taken a suitcase of money to Luxembourg by train, because any contributions to any charity apart from the Catholic Church are heavily taxed in Belgium, and invested it. They were now bringing us the result of that investment. It was a cheque for £400,000. We were absolutely stunned, as was everyone else. Krishnaji always said if you do what’s right the money will come. It seemed to me and others that it was right that we had had to work so hard to bring the Centre into being. All the trial and error and backwards and forwards seemed to bring it about in the right way with the right intentions and that we were doing the right thing.
To bring it about with integrity and beauty in every sense of the word, but we would have to continue to work and work to make it happen.
One peculiar but special moment to me was when the concrete slabs for the living room and dining room had been laid, and the large oak pillars were being erected. They were being hauled up by huge cranes. I was standing in the field; it was winter, cold and stark. There was mud everywhere and I was looking around at the whole layout of the beginning of the Centre, and I felt so strongly that this building had always been there. It wasn’t new or being built, it was there, it belonged. I know this sounds ridiculous but it has always felt to me that it belonged to this part of the earth. It nestles into the earth and is held in the earth. It’s meant to be here. You could say it’s because of the particular architecture, but my feeling is that it’s more than that, and the feeling is reinforced as the years go by.
In the beginning my function was to set up the interior of the Centre. I had to imagine what the building would look like, what each room would look and feel like. I find reading drawings and plans quite difficult. I had to try and capture the atmosphere from the drawings and from being in discussions with the architects and builders. There were no walls, floors, lighting, doors, and kitchen - nothing. It was not my building or my home so my challenge was to try not to use my personal taste for the choices I made. I tried to imagine what it might be like to come to a place like this and what my needs might be. Everyone would be well taken care of. Their basic needs would be met and they should feel safe and comfortable, so all that was left to do and the most important thing would be to take the opportunity to immerse themselves in the teachings. Be in this beautiful space, read, watch tapes, talk with others and hold the jewel. Watch, absorb so it is in the blood. Like Krishnaji said. Having a marvelous set of pearls, you put them around your neck and they are always there. With no building built, nothing to replicate, I furnished the Centre from top to bottom.
We wanted to paint the walls in a soft off white colour that had a hint of warmth. We couldn’t find what we wanted so we persuaded the paint manufacturers to create the colour we were looking for. So we had our own brand. The main areas were called Krishnamurti White by the manufactures and the corridors and bedrooms were Brockwood White. We didn’t know this until a few years later when we needed a couple of extra cans of paint. We were looking for subtlety and beauty in everything. I carefully chose in conjunction with Mary Zimbalist and others the curtains and carpets and purchased all the furniture, fixtures and fittings. The Centre should last a thousand years. With beautiful hand made bricks, roof tiles, floor tiles it will hopefully last but my task was always where I could spend money, and how could I save it.
At one moment I was struggling with how comfortable it would feel to sit in the living room as a guest all on ones own. I imagined a vast space with me sitting alone reading a book. Would I feel lost, alone, self conscious, uncomfortable? I asked Keith whether a guest would feel at home in this large space. He said yes. Well you can tell because of his extraordinary architecture, that this is the case. I looked in all the shops for dining room tables and chairs and furniture for the library. Nothing seemed suitable. So the dining room tables were designed and made with wood from the Brockwood grounds and our workshops by a staff member. The book shelves and chairs were designed and made by a friend of mine from Scotland.
Both used the Brockwood Arch which are the proportions that Keith used in the arches in the dining room and sitting rooms. Somehow all this detail contributed to the harmony of the building.
The Quiet room was created and designed later than the main building. Krishnaji’s way of creating it was to describe its position. That it should not be above anything, below anything or next to anything, but, it shouldn’t be apart. A person should step up to it and enter from the East. It should have natural daylight but no one should be able to look out of any windows. In other words it couldn’t be in a field where you might come upon it and just walk in. It would be something quite deliberate, when you felt you were ready. We therefore suggest to guests that they don’t use it for anything other than sitting quietly, and that perhaps they would wait a day or two before using it. When showing guests around I was amazed that when this was suggested, it seemed to convey the essence of what the Quiet room and was for. The Central flame.
The functioning of the Centre and its use evolved as we talked and planned, but of course we had not done this before. Excellence was always the key. It was a tough and extraordinary experience and then once built I had to run it. When Krishnaji asked Scott and me if we would build the Centre and then for me to run it, I did want to ask why me, oh why me? What an enormous task I was presented with and I didn’t feel I was ready. But I would never have been ready. One couldn’t refuse Krishnaji anything; you just found a way to do it. I remember the night it opened in December 1987 as I lay in bed. I felt something push at my chest or thump my chest. It was so strange, and I didn’t imagine it either. I didn’t know whether it was the enormity of what we had done or perhaps the enormity of what lay ahead. Strange moments like this don’t happen to me.
My focus for setting up the structure was for it to run smoothly and quietly, providing a space of silence, beauty and peace that would allow for something else to happen. I tried not to let it become diluted. Even if something peculiar happened and many many times it did, the Centre somehow has the strength to absorb it and let it be.
Many interesting guests have stayed in the Centre and they find the space, beauty and peace is what brings them back, for some a life changing experience. We once had a Korean Monk visit. This man had stayed in retreats all over the world and yet he found the Centre the most peaceful and beautiful of all the places he had been to.
A couple of years before Krishnaji died he persistently asked staff and associates an important question many times. What will you say to the man from Seattle? For those of you who don’t know this expression. He was asking what we would say to the average man in the street that had never had the opportunity to hear him and see him in his life time. He implored us to explore how we would convey the perfume of what it was like to have talked with K; what is was like to have been with him and, what he was like as a person. We had this responsibility to him and the teaching.
One day I was faced with this question at a very difficult time in my life. I was all alone on duty in the Centre one afternoon when this large, tall man from Canada carrying a back pack walked in. He wanted to know absolutely everything about the Centre and more particularly in great depth about Krishnaji. Here was my ultimate challenge. The man from Seattle was here! I didn’t feel well, or really want to talk to anyone but it was so important for me to do so. When we were finished talking all that I had been carrying and feeling had shifted.
As the years moved on one of our many challenges was how to make the Centre known to a wider audience. When Krishnaji was alive he talked about not putting him with anyone or anything. How were we going to do this?
How and where do we advertise and at the same time not dilute its main intentions. How do we prevent it from becoming a casual day trip, or for one nighters, or a retirement home? Many avenues were explored and the theme week-ends came into being. They have developed over the years and have been of benefit to many people for different reasons.
Over the years so many people from all over the world have come to stay in the Centre and have played such a large part in its development. There have been contributions on so many levels that are so necessary for its life.
I was involved with the Centre from its inception for 18 years. Looking back I can see what a gift I was given. It was a life changing experience. One, that extended me beyond my limits.
I feel the Centre has moved on from those early years and is flourishing. It has a maturity; the beauty with the silence that Krishnaji would approve of.
It has been and always will remain a benediction in my life.
POP & CLASSICAL "Probably the people who are 'classical' have a prejudice against the 'pop'. I do not know. You know, one of the most extraordinary things is that anything new is popular. People dislike the old because everybody wants to escape from the old; they try to find something new. But the new is not necessarily beautiful; nor for that matter, is the old." 1966, Rishi Valley
MATURITY "Maturity is a state of mind wherein there is no image from which it judges" 1966, R.V.
MARRIAGE – LIVING ALONE "There is the desire for companionship -- that is the desire to be with somebody to whom we can talk about ourselves and who will listen to us. It is the desire to be with someone whom we love and who loves us and who will help us to think
By Dr. Ruben Ernesto Feldman-Gonzalez
Jiddu Krishnamurti is the most important person of the 20th Century if not the most important in the past twenty centuries.
He discusses the essential core of all religious teachings given to mankind.
He does that in an unprecedented way, using a clear, non technical and simple language in a fresh and actualized form.
To understand Krishnamurti one has to be ready to learn and willing to unlearn. Krishnamurti's words have to be understood only in the context of his whole teaching. He sometimes uses words depriving them of their accepted, conventional meaning. He can also use the same word with a different contextual meaning in different occasions.
Krishnamurti uses a new form of expression to awaken a new form of understanding. It is an understanding that moves from fact to fact, radically denying every form of conditioning, tradition, ideology, belief, romanticism, sentimentality or predilection.
In the spiritual dimension of life the conclusions of knowledge don't count. You may know how to cite and recite all the verses of the Gospel, the Koran and the Gita but you may still not be able to live with a silent mind. A silent mind is a very energetic mind in constant regeneration, a mind that is able to relate, to think, feel and act without prejudice, without conflict and without effort.
When intellect "enters" the spiritual dimension (if such a thing was
possible), it encounters the paradox. Without transcending paradox, which is the last refuge of intellect, the mind can't live in the spiritual dimension, which moves in the most vibrant and energetic silence.
"Life starts after death" is one of those intellectual paradoxes which maintain the mind at the threshold of the spiritual dimension.
Without dropping words and conclusions of intellect, the mind can't transcend the threshold. Without pure listening of all sound, without words, there is no access to the second silence or spiritual silence of which no description is possible. The sacred dimension is called "secret" or "occult" by those who prefer a comfortable, mediocre and superficial life.
The Christian word "Metanoia" (Greek) means originally "to go beyond knowledge and beyond thinking" but was mistranslated as "repentance" which in itself means "to be sorry again" (for past misdeeds).
The mistranslation of the word "Metanoia," uncorrected for 500 years, with its multiple implications, may be considered both a cultural catastrophe and also a true break with original religious culture.
Going from fact to fact the mind needs no effort, creates no distortions and starts no conflict whatsoever. Going from fact to fact the mind is so clear that it needs to follow nobody nor conform to any Gita, Bible, Koran or Vedas.
Freedom for Krishnamurti starts when one dispenses from within with all crutches, with all help, with all shelter and with all authority. Freedom is nevertheless compatible with following the law of a country.
People talk about "spiritual liberation" but it is not "Ruben who obtains liberation." Rather, only when Ruben disappears as an ego, life is liberated in Ruben. If Ruben wants to express himself, he won't allow the expression of life in himself. Life alone benefits in liberation and also everyone who is not afraid of the expression of life.
This is the meaning of the paradoxical sentence: "Life starts after death.”
This is quite related with a frequent misinterpretation of Krishnamurti's teaching: he used to repeat "know yourself" and "be a light to yourself.” But interpreting Krishnamurti's "know yourself" as "self knowledge" may sound very philosophical but it is a big mistake.
Krishnamurti emphasized that there is thought but not a thinker, so there could hardly be anything static as "a self" to know. Obviously he meant "discover by yourself and follow no one" whenever he said "know yourself.”
We have to discover by ourselves how we need respect all the time and how the need for respect is related to everything in our life: jealousy, fear of emptiness, fear of loneliness, greed, a complex and stifling lifestyle, blind competition, cruelty and brutality, the building of personal, corporate or national empires, the invention of enemies and the ultimate incoherence of "making wars to achieve peace".
Repeating the words of another makes the mind dull, insensitive, and ultimately boring, cruel and brutal (same as what our minds have become !). Such a mind is bringing into the world more and more chaos as we see around us in all and every one of the activities of men and women.
Present planetary society is creating very chaotic and confused men and women. Many of those confused men and women are teaching in school and universities, contributing to the maintenance of the collective status quo, which is the criminal and meaningless society we know. Krishnamurti teaches that the fact has significance and that only the fact is significant. The fact that we are greedy and envious, jealous, fearful and angry is the significant thing, not the idea that we should be non greedy, not fearful and not angry. If a terrorist makes you angry don't dwell on the terrorist, rather perceive anger at the time it happens and not later.
Krishnamurti says "to look at the fact, you have to see the fact completely and not introduce a contradictory idea.” If you see you are afraid, see the fear completely without the word fear, because if you conclude that you shouldn't be afraid, you stop seeing your fear.
If you stop seeing your fear, you don't see it completely and if you don't see it completely, you are not free from fear. Fear is built in thought and thought creates both fear and the thinker.
If Krishnamurti says that there is only thought and no thinker and one responds by stating that Krishnamurti is "vague,” it only shows one's resistance to learn and to unlearn.
Only a man that is completely silent and quiet is completely alive and sensitive. Only a silent mind can see and listen well.
Krishnamurti goes even further: "It is only such a mind that can perceive that which is immeasurable.”
The perception of "the immeasurable" depends on remaining open for the new. We don't even see the fact that relationships are not static. Looking at any relationship from a fixed point of view makes the relationship dull or uncreative.
Habits and addictions of any kind dull sensitivity and our life is full of habits and addictions. Many persons who are slaves to habit incoherently talk about creativity and in the name of being creative precisely create a lot of havoc and confusion in their lives.
Krishnamurti goes deeper saying that there is no creativity unless the mind lives in creation, but only the silent mind is able to live in creation. Seeking creativity is in itself a non creative act.
Those who are afraid of discovery and of dropping everything they know, like to call Krishnamurti a guru or a philosopher, but he is neither.
Mixing Krishnamurti with mythology and religious legends is another very common and immature way to invalidate Krishnamurti, almost as bad as base personal gossip.
During the second world war Krishnamurti was called a "Nazi" by the communists and a "communist" by the Nazis, since both had vested interests and both wanted to invalidate Krishnamurti.
But both missed the fact that Krishnamurti went far beyond ideology and belief. His teaching is both universal and timeless, it is meant for all men, no matter what their situation may be.
Between 1920 and 1940 he was introduced to the public as a World Teacher of the same magnitude as Jesus Christ or Buddha Gautama, a new young Teacher or seer who only spoke a more updated and reliable language. This "soteriologic language" could be heard at last first hand, without any distortion from followers, churches, translators and sacred books. He spoke simple, everyday, nontechnical English!
When I first met Krishnamurti in March of 1975, I tried to discuss the translation of his books into Spanish. He simply told me: "tell them to learn English!"
Since 1929 Krishnamurti was an independent teacher, who never belonged to any organization nor wanted to found one. He was, in that sense, alone through his death, aloneness he maintained with uncompromising integrity. He defined "aloneness" as the ability he had to feel one with all men and women: all one ness.
He avoided also all kinds of propaganda for himself and his teaching. He said the best way to spread the teaching was to live by it, with a very silent and quiet mind, constantly open to the sacredness of each moment.
Such a mind would completely see the rage generated by an insult, the envy generated by a compliment to a perceived rival and the pride evoked by flattery.
Once rage, envy and pride are completely "seen" in unitary perception or choiceless awareness, they would instantly disappear without a trace and the mind would naturally go back to the bliss of silent peace.
Living with that silent mind was what he dared to call "meditation", knowing very well that when he used this word it carried an altogether different and non traditional, non technical meaning.
Krishnamurti didn't read books, so his teaching came directly from his own authentic discovery and expressed itself from his own original, pristine, uncontaminated intelligence.
He would ask his friends: “Are you aware that you are dull?”
He would shock a lady by asking: "Have you discovered your husband already?"
We were having lunch one day (June 1978) in Brockwood Park, and somebody asked: "Tell us about reincarnation.”
Krishnamurti said: "What is it that continues?"... before quietly continuing eating his salad. That's all he said!
I found what he meant by it only much later, while I was reading his collected works.
He would give new meaning to old words. He would define "discipline" as the ability to learn and to unlearn.
He would provide tremendous depth to the shortest sentence, using it at the right time.
He said once: "People need to be awakened, not instructed.”
He could be very harsh with me, but at the same time I could feel the love in his intense, undescribable eyes when he said the words.
I invited him for a walk once, in Ojai, California. He said: "Let's walk as long as we walk in silence "
After walking for an hour he said only this: "Dr. Gonzalez, will you continue being one of the many or will you start being one of the few?”
He gave me non verbal clues for me not to answer. It was clearly implied that this was one of those questions you have to keep alive for the rest of your life.
Being with him for an hour every time we met made me feel in bliss, in a quasi levitated, peaceful and joyful state.
On one of those occasions I told him: "when I am with you I feel like a condor.” He instantly replied: "For how long do you want to be infected?"
He meant one has to find the way to be in bliss by oneself!
The kind of discovery Krishnamurti had made (and that he invited all to make themselves) gave him the energy and the wisdom to persuade or shock without too many words and without too much effort.
In 1977 he said: "Transformation is not from this to that but the ending of this"
He had obviously undergone some supreme transformation which most men refuse to go through.
He used to repeat in different ways: "My teaching is neither mystic nor occult for I hold that both are part of man's limitation upon truth. Those who are bound by what they know will have difficulty in understanding the ever changing truth.”
A friend of mine, who had recently divorced from his wife, went to see Krishnamurti in despair. He complained that his wife didn't love him anymore. Krishnamurti told him: "if you love you don't need anybody's love. You need her love because there is no love within yourself."
The loving silent mind doesn't need to express itself to "fulfil,” to "impress,” to "achieve,” to "succeed.” To "be useful" or to "be remembered.” Its expression is spontaneous and without goal. The scent of a flower is not considered to be "an expression" of the flower, simply because the scent is spontaneous and without a goal.
A good scent is part of a good flower. The good and silent mind doesn't need to express itself.
Pursuing a goal has to be intelligently balanced with silence, leisure, unsought relaxation and being fully alert and alive in choiceless awareness or passive attention.
Spiritual "training" (and "technics") is only one of the many ways by which we escape from being fully alert and alive right now. Compulsively watching T.V. or playing with a computer may fulfil the same function: to escape from life.
Right now is the beginning of a whole new life in which we constantly, every day and all day long, are attempting, without any effort, to live with death in futureless silence. We have to be willing and ready to change our plans with each change in the present.
If we live this way, every moment is a new beginning, or a life without beginning, and everything that has to be done can be done without effort and without any conflict.
"In such a life" Krishnamurti says: “The teacher is not important, he is only a telephone, throw him overboard and just learn to listen.”
The only one able to lead man beyond himself is man himself.
Krishnamurti said: "For as long as the smallest part of the brain remains unconscious, it will project words and symbols which will only create the illusion of communion with something higher.” Later he repeatedly said: " The word God is not God.”
The reality of God can only be perceived in deep and alert silence.
Good & Evil
A Selection of Passages From The Teachings of J. Krishnamurti
Extracted from website of Krishnamurti Foundation of America
P.O.Box 1560, Ojai, California 93024
©1995 by the Krishnamurti Foundation of America and the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd.
The good is not the opposite of the evil...
2007 -- by G. Gautama
Two significant things have happened in school during the past 3 months - one you may have already heard about, the work of the school being stretched to 10,000 schools! A little more detail below:
1. MIDDLE SCHOOL - ACTIVE LEARNING METHODOLOGIES fro SSA
During our conversation with the SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan - Education for all) wing of the TamilNadu Edn dept we discovered that they were keen to follow up on the ACTIVITY BASED LEARNING in Primary schools with a similar program in the Upper Primary classes (grades 6 to 8). SSA were eager for us to conduct the workshops for their TEACHER TRAINERS at the earliest since they wanted to change the methodologies in the current academic year.
We crafted a program called MIDDLE SCHOOL - ACTIVE LEARNING METHODOLOGIES, based on the pedagogic movements at at school. Our teachers, under Sumitra's coordination, ran a 11 day program for 60 SSA teacher trainers during the period May 16 to May 26th during our summer vacation. A draft manual was prepared at the end of these workshops.
The term ACTIVE LEARNING METHODLOLOGIES has been coined by us. From May - Aug 2007, the Outreach wing of The School has been involved in devising workshops and a framework for the SSA - Education for all - wing of the Education Department. The framework of interactions for the workshops was evolved and coordinated by Sumitra, our coordinator for Outreach, and the content and details of the workshops were conceptualized, collated and conducted by Suchitra, Padmavathy, Girija, Ramakumar, Akhila and Sumitra, assisted by several more teachers (Arun, Sampath, Kala) and also teachers from Olcott School (Poornima, Indira). All the people involved chose to volunteer their time, and did not accepted any remuneration Govt.
This work is a sequel to the workshops Padmavathy and Sumitra had done in 2003 - 2005 for teachers of the Corporation schools of Chennai. This was followed by a year-long research on life-skills by Suchitra. The materials generated by these efforts have provided the basis for the present work.
These workshops were very well received by the trainers and SSA wished to try out if the learning was replicable and effective. A pilot program was scheduled in 12 districts, 10 schools in each district. This was so well received that the Government indicated that they now wished to go further in an accelerated manner across the state. Last week the news was out in the papers that the Govt is going ahead with the programme across the state in 10,000 schools.
It may be pertinent to say here that this extraordinary movement from one set of workshops to a state-wide educational transformation for the upper primary children was beyond our wildest expectations. We set out to share our pedagogic leanings, which we have found good and are still under development. The stories we hear from the villages and the work we see from the students is most rewarding and we feel fortunate to be able to contribute to the larger context.
Now, we are told the Govt is formally going to inaugurate the program shortly. We will keep members informed. Further we have helped SSA in finalising the Manual for teachers. Once completed, we have been told this will be in the hands of 200,000 teachers and form the basis of the pedagogy in the current year.
It is also wonderful that we can offer the Middle Schools of Tamilnadu the best of what we ourselves have evolved over the past 9 years for our school, in the area of self-study and active learning methods.
We are now working rapidly to consolidate this work in English as well - all the work for the `govt has been in Tamil. Once an English Manual is ready we propose to publish it so teachers in English speaking schools may also have access to this approach. The problems and the pedagogy are not that different in English medium schools from the Govt schools.
The links below give you some news articles...
aug 7
aug 13
aug 18
http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/18/stories/2007081858290300.htm .
2. Kanji at Kilapakkam school - almost as wonderful in quality and scope...
We had written a proposal to offer Kanji (a nutritious porridge) to primary school children in Govt school In Kilapakkam (210 children, many of whom were suffering from malnutrition). This is the village where the school's old farm is situated. Our proposal met with many obstacles as no one was willing to take responsibility in the school for this move. As you know the govt offers a noon meal scheme and Sumitra and Sampath visited one Education department official after another. Finally the Govt relented and issued a letter indicating that the project can go ahead if the headmistress is willing to personally supervise the preparation and distribution of the kanji.
The Headmistress-of the Kilapakkam village school agreed to the kanji project. From July 210 children have been getting a nutritional supplement, a kanji of millets and grain. The vessels, tumblers and all the ingredients have been donated by us. The running cost of about Rs 5000 per month takes care of the ingredients and the cooking charges. We have donations for the next 3 months to run this scheme. This effort was also spearheaded by Sumitra.
The response from the village had been extremely positive. We hear that daily some children would faint from hunger. This has completely stopped. The teachers feel happy to see the children active. We have been requested 'never to stop this work'.
This effort creates a model. This is probably the first example of a Govt school receiving / accepting an input such as this. The approach shows the possibilities for many children in many such schools receiving nutritional supplement. This shows a way for private initiative to contribute directly to children's well being through Govt. Schools.
By Pedro López
Thinking that I was under financial pressure that meant I would not be able to afford my travel plans, I ended up working for a Summer Camp in a prestigious international school in Switzerland, the name of which I prefer not to mention. The camp was devised as a language-learning opportunity for parents interested in their kids learning and perfecting their skills in English and French. For this, the mornings and early afternoons were basically destined to classes, and from three o'clock onwards me and my colleagues would be in charge of entertaining them and having them to join the different activities offered, which ranged from horseback riding to golf (during a few hours in the afternoon), and from bingo to pizza banquets in the evenings.
In the motivation letter I wrote to the Summer Camp's manager, I mentioned that -after having lived at one of the Krishnamurti Schools for nearly two years- I was very much willing to work in an environment with teenagers and related to education. What I did not know at the time was that my concept of education, quite possibly very influenced by Krishnamurti's own vision on the subject, was radically different from the one offered by my new employer. And now that my experience here is coming to an end, I leave with the impression that if we are really to give importance to the future of our youth, we have to change the way we are educating them.
The School in Switzerland is owned by a profit-driven firm which, in turn, hires people who can maximize the benefits of its shareholders. I got this very clear on the introduction day, when we were told that the main objective of our work was to have the parents satisfied so that they would send their kids for the academic year. And parents, apparently, care mainly about security and about having their children occupied. This means that my task was to have them entertained with activities at all times, and keep an eye on them 24 hours a day. No possibility for them to be on their own, no time for just being with their friends.
Now, can we really have such a concept of what education means? We were told to tell them that gadgets (such as mobile phones, iPods, netbooks and others) were not accepted in the camp because they were too distractive. But we, in turn, were making sure at all times that they would be distracted, that they would not get bored and that their days were packed with things to do. We were also told that we should, at all times, know exactly were each one of our pupils where, regardless of whether we would be within school premises, or in safely inside a museum, or inside the boarding house. I, at some point, questioned the logic behind this, not really because I cared too much myself, but rather to be able to explain the students why they needed to be around me like chicks around a hen. The answer I got was that that was my job. When I explained that I did not feel comfortable not being able to explain someone the reason behind a certain measure, I was told that explaining was not part of my job.
So in the end, my impression is that education (at least in the traditional sense of the word) is based on two pillars: The need for having our kids busy all the time and a blind acceptance of what the superior says. And that is what we teach our children to be the right thing, and then we are surprised when they turn into their iPads on any occasion they have, or plug themselves into their headphones whenever there is time in silence. Or when they do mischievous things as soon as we take our eyes out of them, or decide not to engage in the activities as soon as they realize that it is not compulsory to do so. But ¿is it not this model of learning that is creating all these problems? We are, basically, creating experience junkies with a complete disliking of any authority. The former we do by not allowing any space for just discovering what life really is, for being bored and seeing how silly it is to have a mind that seeks entertaining and new experiences all the time. The later by basically teaching that authority goes before reason, and that doing what one is being told to do is more important than understanding why one should act in a certain way. Krishnamurti once told a group of students never to accept any commandment they would not understand the reason for, otherwise they would become adults full of fear and completely insensitive. He also talked repeatedly about the need for silence and space on one's own as a means to flower as a human being. Now we, fearful and insensitive as we are, are telling our kids the complete opposite. And for what I can see, unfortunately they are listening.
by G. Gautama
This summer was not unlike the previous ones. Students fill up application forms for admission tests. There is an uneasy and an uncertain atmosphere. College admissions become difficult - many applicants and few seats. The students are aware that they may not get the course of their choice. The students also know that money can purchase seats for qualifying in professions that will pave the way for earning the money spent and more.
Peer pressure, societal dictates, images of good life, plenty and status exert an inexorable pressure. Why this hurry? One can work, start with something simple and fulfilling thereby reducing parents' burden. Our society believes that if you are unqualified you cannot be employed. This needs to be challenged with common sense. It is important that one acts intelligently.
Try and put down on a piece of paper why you want to go to college after school. Then discuss with friends and adults to find at least three ways of accomplishing what you wish to do. Once this is done you will arrive at multiple possibilities and also realise that you are not part of a mindless herd.
Education and certification do not belong to colleges alone. Distance education programme helps one get qualified and certified while being employed. It is worth exploring. It means understanding that certification in almost any field, except Orthodox Medicine and Architecture is possible through Distance Education programmes. AMIE has produced some very good engineers. It is a rigorous course that needs work experience as part of the certification process.
The Association of Chartered Accountants has created the foundation course for students after they complete school. One could say that to harvest the rich diversity of this land, we need more such enterprising plans. Monolithic educational structures, like large organisations have had their day. We are entering the age of the small and the diverse. The Government has declared that there should be discrimination between correspondence students and college students when being considered for higher education or jobs.
The future is here all too early, catching us off guard. The Internet is here, transforming the world. In a few years it will not be necessary to go to school or college for knowledge, non physical skills and certification. The cyber college is already upon us. Students participate in discussions on the Net, attend classes, do assignments and receive comments. They may soon take examinations on the Net as is being done with the assistance of computers for examinations like GRE and TOEFL. Of course, the company of fellow human beings will be ruled out. This will be a true challenge.
Students hardly know what they wish to pursue. The advice they get at this stage is on these lines: Do as we did, choose a profession and work hard. Stick to one profession, specialise. Choose one of the new careers that seems to have bright prospects. Select the one everyone is choosing. Do whatever you wish but make sure you make enough money.
The students too are encouraged to choose the career they are interested in. One needs to deliberate carefully here: how is interest different from fancy? I would answer this question thus:
All of us have capacities that are worthwhile for the present and latent potentials that can be honed. A person with alertness will never be jobless and hence be without resources or without viability. Do you have this: an alert head? Discovering one's viability is the key issue.
Second, choose an exploratory mode of learning. Accepting that one is not clear about one's choice, gathering information and learning will make the magic work. This means trusting that there is something in oneself waiting to be discovered. Spending time searching for one's avocation is far better than spending it tied to something just for some money.
Peace Pilgrim was a remarkable woman who walked 20000 miles for peace and then stopped counting. She walked till she was offered shelter and fasted till she was offered food and carried no money. There is the story of a young woman who worked in an office and had a nervous breakdown. Her psychiatrist could do little. She had another breakdown. When she met Peace Pilgrim she was asked what she loved. She loved flowers, liked to swim and liked singing, though she was not very good at it. She got a job as a florist for her livelihood, swam three times a week for exercise and sang once a weekat an old age home. Peace Pilgrim says what one needs in life is an avenue of work to earn a livelihood, an avenue of exercise to the body fit and an avenue of service.Third, if you haven't yet found your avocation, explore in an inexpensive manner, not paying a fortune. This is sensible. There are many low key options available. Find things which appeal to you and also find some people who inspire you. Today in libraries and on the Internet there are vast volumes of information available. Read biographies and autobiographies of people who have done something interesting, something exciting. One can draw courage from the lives of contemporary people. There have been many who have dared to dream and act in consonance with their deepest predilections. One can always choose a career, but only after trying to find one's avocation, that special thing for which one would work long hours, for which one needs no external rewards.
The youth have the most enjoyable task of educating themselves and also create models of education that will be useful for future generations. If this has to happen a change has to come about.
G. GAUTAMA
THINKING AND AWARENESS
When I lived in Neem House in Rishi Valley, a rat used to come in my room at night in darkness through a hole in the tiled roof. Whenever I heard the sound of the rat running on the roof, I switched on the light. The rat immediately disappeared. It could not be seen in the light. This used to happen several times every night. The rat was attracted to some food kept in the cupboard.
Our thoughts (or the thinking process) is like a rat. It comes in the darkness of unawareness. But when the light of awareness is switched on, thoughts disappear. Thoughts cannot go in in awareness. The mind is quiet but alert. This is the initial stage of meditation. In advanced stage of meditation, thoughts may come and go in the background of awareness. In the blue sky of awareness, thoughts come and go like white clouds.
Do you have time and space to experiment with watching how thoughts come and go? Have you experienced a gap between two thoughts? This is the key to understanding oneself by direct perception. Human beings are caught in the whirlpool of thoughts. The deeper human psychological problems cannot be solved by just thinking. Awareness, which is not made of thinking, is the instrument in understanding. Thinking is narrow, limited space, awareness is immeasurable.
Krishnamurti talked about this for 60 years. He had found the key to psychological freedom. His words are simple and clear. Hope you will read and experiment with his teachings in the daily life. A new world may open up for you as it happened to me many years ago. Once the awareness is ignited, it would reveal to you everything without any effort. Then you can stop reading books of Krishnamurti.
The book of your own life will be read with freshness as it is written. Then you may understand the meaning of words like love and beauty.
Harshad Parekh
By G. Gautama
As parents, our most important duty towards our children is to teach them to take the right steps in life. In a world where their future is uncertain, we have to show them that we care enough about them to change our ways of living. Only then will they learn that their lives will be as good as they themselves make it, says G. GAUTAMA.
Great spirit, great spirit my grandfather, look upon
these children with children of their own,
that they may face the north wind
and walk the good road to the day of peace.
Old American Indian prayer
HUMAN beings have always had feelings for their children. Societies and families have had visions of the future for their children. This is what Abraham Lincoln had to say to his son's headmaster.
"He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just, all men are not true. But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero; that for every selfish politician there is a dedicated leader. Teach him that for every enemy there is a friend. It will take time, I know, but teach him, if you can, that a dollar earned is of far more value than five found. Teach him to learn to lose and also to enjoy winning, steer him away from envy, if you can; teach him the secret of quiet laughter. Let him learn early that the bullies are the easiest to lick; Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books but also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hillside. In school, teach him it is far more honourable to fail than to cheat. Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if every one tells him they are wrong. Teach him to be gentle with gentle people, and tough with the tough. Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone is getting on the band wagon. Teach him to listen to all men, but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth, and take only the good that comes through.
"Teach him, if you can, how to laugh when he is sad. Teach him there is no shame in tears. Teach him to scoff at cynics and to beware of too much sweetness. Teach him to to sell his brawn and brain to the higher bidders, but never to put a price tag on his heart and soul. Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob and to stand and fight if he thinks he's right.
"Treat him gently, but do not cuddle him, because only the test of fire makes fine steel. Let him have the courage to be impatient; let him have the patience to be brave. Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will always have sublime faith in mankind.
"This is a big order, but see what you can do. He is such a fine little fellow, my son."
In the twentieth century we hear a different flavour of things that an adult may say to a young one.
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans.
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a grave yard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain 's a-gonna fall.
Bob Dylan
Adults hold the soil of today, and this is the soil from where tomorrow has to spring. If the adults of tommorrow, the children of today were to ask us: "Tell me, O adult, what can I look forward to?"
Would we say,"My dear. I would like to say that you have rosy tomorrows, in this paradise of hues and colours and creatures. You have golden realtionships to look forward to and magical possibilities. But I am afraid this can't be said. Men have ravaged this planet with their dreams and their toil. They have ravaged each other with their minds. The beauty of songs is drowned by the clatter of man-made things. And far more dangerous, men everywhere appear to believe that this is the right way to live. This, my child, is the world you will inherit."
And the young one could say "Surely you exaggerate O adult. Things can't be so bad. I see smiles and hear laughter. Surely you adults and those before you could not have let things come to such a pass."
Would we say, "Yes things are not as bad as that. There is the good and there is the bad. The good things are that there is enough food. The bad is that man does not know how to distribute it. The good news is that there is a splendid diversity of life and beauty on this planet. The bad news is that there are few eyes and fewer hearts to meet this richness. There is a wealth of hope in human hearts but they turn sour in human minds. We say the animals and birds and fishes are important but we use them and their numbers are dying."
So my young friend, yes, there are many fine ideas and many dreams in the minds of adults. But there is also a curious tragedy. Man has learnt to live in two worlds simultaneously, the world of noble ideas and that of the most corrupt, base, actions. We talk of progress, but quality of life and relationships have not improved, they have probably become starker. We speak of the need to protect forests and continue to lead ecologically unsustainable lives. And if the young were to say, "why then did you bring me to this earth? Was it to meet these awful situations? Or was it the accident of lust? Is this the best gift to your children and grandchildren?"
What would we say? Would we be silent? We could say some things surely.
My young friend - we have learnt a few deep lessons for tomorrow. We have struggled maybe not too well, to live them. But in the time we have we will join you and share with you these lessons. We have learnt that more is not better than less. In fact, finding out what one needs is the answer. Also, we need far less than we think we do. A bigger house or more wealth has not made a happier man. We have learnt that abundance can be turned into scarcity. Air, water, forests, wildlife, have all shrunk, thanks to the way we have taken them for granted. Finding a way of life where we do not take things for granted is the answer, but live with respect, if not reverence for the bounties of sunlight, fresh water, air.
We have learnt that human beings know little about love. To most of us love is attachment. There is great boredom born of familiarity and then great emptiness. We need to ask, you and I, what love means. We need to ask also what brings dignity and beauty. The less man knows about these things, the louder has been the rhetoric.
We have learnt painfully that we need to rediscover our legs. Cars and other transport leave behind ghostly graveyards, fill the earth with smoke and ruin. Time and speed are things we have chased for the past 200 years. How much do we need to travel and how? Our legs need to find strength again and we need to discover again that small steps can take us far. That small is truly beautiful.
We have learnt that religious beliefs while they are supposed to bring people together, seem to carry seeds of division. That religion is different from religious life. We need to learn to live a religious life.
Our young child may continue: "I feel happy to hear all this and see some direction. But tell me, is all this only for me, for the future? Are you telling me what I need to do? What are you, the adult, going to do? Are you only going to tell me to do things which you are not able to do?"
What will we say?
Will it be, "My child, I am tired and quite set in my ways. It is very difficult for me to change. So this is the best I can offer. Advice from the sidelines."
Or will it be: "My child, you have asked a difficult question. I see that we are both in the same boat psychologically. We both have habits and patterns. And I was a child not too long ago. I am willing to change. I feel afraid as I say this. And I will walk with you. I have to learn a new way of living. And I might as well begin now."
Do we see that "The future is now," as J. Krishnamurti said?
By
Harshad Parekh
I went to the United States for the first time in 1969 to study for a
master's degree in Electrical Engineering at Iowa State University. It was a
great cultural shock. I was not exposed to the western culture at all before
leaving India. The shock produced loneliness, anxiety about the future, fear
of meeting Americans and complete loss in confidence in oneself.
One day in 1972, I was passing by our campus bookshop at Iowa State
University. Through a glass window, I saw a book of Krishnamurti, "The
Flight of the Eagle", on display. The photograph and the title of the book
attracted me. I knew nothing about Krishnamurti at that time.
I bought the book out of curiosity. As I started reading the book, it had an
immediate impact on me. His words were simple. He talked about the problems
of daily existence. He talked about fear, loneliness, boredom, anxiety,
religious and nationalistic conditioning, and other psychological problems.
Through his words, I could see exactly what was going on within me.
He asked -" Why are we conditioned by our culture? Why do we think of
ourselves as Indians, Americans, Chinese..? Why are we lonely and isolated
human beings? Why are we afraid of the future?"
He asked us to look at the source of all psychological problems like
jealousy, anxiety, fear and loneliness. He said that thought creates the
thinker and then, the thinker tries to change thoughts. The duality between
the thinker and the thought creates all psychological problems.
These ideas were completely new to me. I tried to observe the beginning of a
thought and the thinker arising out of thought. But every time I tried to
observe the beginning of a thought, nothing came to my mind. Only the
silent observation existed. So I felt that Krishnamurti was absolutely
correct. If there is no thought, there is no thinker and there are no
psychological problems.
The observation of the thinking process became the main interest or passion
in my life. I could observe clearly the beginning of fear, jealousy,
anxiety, and other such feelings. The observation of what is brought about a
sense of freedom and confidence. The senses were sharpened. Colors, trees,
lights, human faces - everything began to appear clear, beautiful, fresh. I
began to take an active part in social activities. I shared apartments with
people of various nationalities. I began to express my thoughts and feelings
in our campus newspaper. I began to feel that we human beings shared the
same consciousness.
For five years I read Krishnamurti's books. The interest in observing the
mechanism of the thinking process intensified with time. It helped in my
research work at the university. During these years I completed the Master's
and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering. I wrote several letters to
Krishnamurti. In my first letter, written in 1973, I wrote -"I have been
attracted to the teachings of Ramkrishna Paramhansha and Vivekananda for
many years. Now reading your books, I understand how far a human being can
go in the spiritual dimension."
I received a letter from Krishnamurti's secretary. She wrote that Mr.
Krishnamurti had read my letter and he hoped that all would be well with me.
I kept on writing letters to Krishnamurti. I expressed what was happening
within me. I felt that Krishnamurti's books had given me a new life - a
fresh mind to observe the beauty of nature and the depth of human feelings.
In 1975, I moved to Canada. Now I was working as a Research Associate at
University of Waterloo. I was earning money and had holidays too. In 1977 I
went to Ojai to listen to K's public talks for the first time. I was happy
to see the man who had affected my life so much. I was happy to see the
beauty of oak trees and the hills in Ojai. What he talked about was not new
to me. I did not feel anything extraordinary about listening to him.
One day, after the talk, I saw him standing under a tree. He was alone. A
friend of mine almost pushed me to meet K. When I came very close to him, he
looked at me as if he was not in this world. My mind became blank. I could
not say a word, but extended my hand to shake his. We shook hands for a
second or two. As I left him, a pleasant cool breeze passed by me.
I visited Ojai again in 1978. I listened to his public talks but there was
nothing remarkable about my listening to him.
I visited Ojai again in 1979. This, I thought, would be my last visit to
Ojai. At that time, I had come close to another spiritual group. I had some
very good friends in this group who were urging me to visit their
communities in USA and Canada.
In April of 1979, I listened to K with perfect silence and attention. In
that state of mind, I could listen to sounds of children playing far away,
dogs barking, as well as the meaning behind K's words. In that state of
attention, I saw light radiating from the space around K's face. In that
space, I saw the face of an old man with a long white beard.
The face disappeared after a few seconds, but the silence and attention
remained undisturbed. The next day I wrote an affectionate letter to K
without mentioning what I saw. The words of the letter came to me in a
spontaneous flow. I wrote:
Beloved Krishnamurtiji:
I have always considered you as my grandfather ever since you ignited a
flame in my life. That happened about seven years ago when I was a student
at Iowa State University. The flame has become brighter with time. I would
be glad to dedicate my life to K schools if there is an opportunity. I would
like to teach love, beauty and life to children of your schools. I have no
experience in teaching these things, but I can at least teach physics and
mathematics.
How nice it would be to meet you! But I know there are many people like me
who love you and you cannot meet all of us.
With much love,
Harshad Parekh
I gave the letter to Mark Lee to hand it over to K. K must have read the
letter. I felt very happy after writing the letter.
A few days after writing the letter, there was a music concert in the
Octagonal Pavilion. Lakshmi Shankar had come to sing for K and others.
Before entering the Pavilion, I was talking with someone about K with deep
feeling of love.
We were sitting in the Pavalion. Lakshmi Shankar and her companion were on
the stage. I was looking at the musicians. The entrance door was behind us.
We were waiting for K to arrive. Suddenly my heart and brain started
throbbing wildly and my face became warm. Then I saw K passing by me and
taking his seat in front of the musicians. I closed my eyes. The throbbing
went on for few minutes. I opened my eyes. Everything looked divine, clear,
beautiful, radiating light. Though we did not look at each other, there
seemed to be communion. The throbbing stopped after a few minutes, but it
seemed that something new had happened within the brain and the heart.
The next day I wrote another letter to K spontaneously with deep feelings.
Beloved Grandfather:
Your blessings are showering upon me. You have given much. You are too
independent to receive anything from anyone but I wish all the remaining
years of my life be added to your life. The burning volcano of passion must
remain alive for many years to come. The tiger must continue to roar for
many years to come.
After giving this letter to Mark Lee to hand it over to K, I left Ojai. My
eyes were seeing everything so clear and beautiful. After returning to
Canada, I could not sleep for two days. It was very clear that my life was
meant for K schools. I wrote another letter to K from Canada.
Beloved Krishnamurtiji:
It is very clear that my life is meant for K schools and Foundations.
Everything I have now belongs to the schools. I have saved about $15000
which I would like to donate to the schools. There is an awaking of love and
compassion. Please write to me if there is any possibility for me to teach
at any of the K schools.
With love,
Only after writing this letter, I could sleep. I knew that my life was
changing its direction without any conflicts, doubts, fear, analysis and so
on. I received a letter from K dated May 9, 1979 from Ojai.
My Dear Dr. Parekh:
Thank you very much for your letter and your deep interest in the various
Foundations. I talked to Mark Lee and I am afraid there is no place at Ojai
for your capacities. Perhaps you might be able to be of great help at
Rajghat near Benares or at Rishi Valley in the south. As I am seeing the
Principal of Rishi Valley, Mr. G.Narayan, at Brockwood Park in England in a
few days, I will talk the matter over with him to write to you. He will
naturally want to know your qualifications and so on.
It is very good of you to have written and to be willing to give up
everything to work for the Foundations, and most likely it will be in India.
I hope everything will be well with you.
With the Best Wishes,
Yours affectionately,
J.Krishnamurti
A few days after K's letter, I received a letter from Mr. Narayan. He was at
Brockwood and so was K. Mr. Narayan suggested that I visit Brockwood and
discuss with him and K about my coming to India.
I visited Brockwood for the first time in June 1979. It was a tiring journey
from Heathrow airport to Brockwood. I traveled by bus, then by train, and
again by bus. Then I had to walk for two hours in the rain, carrying my
luggage. When I reached Brockwood, I was very hungry and tired.
After lunch, I was feeling sleepy, but Mr. Narayan suggested that we go to
the Grove. The giant redwood trees in the grove looked strangely alive and
beautiful. All my tiredness was gone. Then Mr. Narayan said -"Look! Who is
there?". K was in the grove. Probably he was responsible for the
extraordinary happiness and energy I felt in the grove.
The next day I had lunch with K. I was a bit shy sitting in front of him but
I was neither nervous nor self conscious. He asked me a few questions about
my family, whether I was married or not, whether my parents approved of my
joining a K school in India and giving up my job in Canada. I told him that
there were no problems and I was free to do what I enjoyed most. Then he
said -"Try for a year or two at Rishi Valley. It is possible that you may
not like us or we may not like you." I thought -"Sir, I do not want anything
from anybody. If people at Rishi Valley do not like me, I will go away." I
did not say this but I think he understood what I felt. Then he said -"If I
may suggest, do not stay at one place for too long." I immediately said
-"Sir, it does not matter where I go." He said -"Yes, I know that."
I went to Rishi Valley in November 1979. The school van came to Madanpalle
to pick me up. As the van entered the campus, I saw K coming out for his
evening walk. When the van reached the guest house, I felt an extraordinary
beauty around me. I felt that this place would be my home.
I had an opportunity to meet K in Rishi Valley individually and also in
small groups. Several times I felt that extraordinary sense of happiness,
beauty, otherness in his presence. This happened by itself - not during
talks and dialogues but during music and dance programs.
K passed away in 1986. I continued to teach in Rishi Valley up to 1998. I
was at Rajghat for a year in 1983 and at Brockwood Park in 1989. Then I
taught at Sahyadri School from 1998 to 2004 and at Valley School in
Bangalore from 2004 to 2007. I retired from teaching in April 2007. I
continue to visit all these schools and also schools in Ojai and Brockwood
Park. All these places are beautiful. It was a great privilege to teach at
all these places. I always wanted to teach in a school and I have fulfilled
my desire.
>From 1979 to 1986
in India
By
Harshad Parekh
I have written about how I came into contact with Krishnamurti's teachings
in 1972, about his impact on my life in USA and Canada, about my meeting
with him at Brockwood in 1979 and about my coming to Rishi Valley in a
separate article. After my joining Rishi Valley as a teacher in November
1979, Krishnamurti visited Rishi Valley every year for a month and held
discussions with teachers and students. I was present during these
discussions and participated in some of them. In this article, I remember
Krishnamurti with the help of diaries I maintained during those years.
I arrived in Rishi Valley for the first time on November 9, 1979. The school
van came to pick me up from Madanpalle. As the van entered the school, I saw
Krishnamurti walking elegantly on the main road. When the van reached the
new guest house, everything looked wonderful in the evening light. I felt
that this place would be my home.
One day in 1979, we had lunch with Krishnamurti. The teachers present were
Mr. Narayan, Shanti Menon, Mishraji and Hanumant Rao. Krishnamurti talked
with Shanti Menon about English Literature. Then he said to me -" You come
from Canada. You must be bored in this place." I said -"Rishi Valley is a
beautiful place."
We talked more about Canada, the place where I lived and worked. Then we
talked about teaching students without comparing them. I said -"When we go
to a classroom and ask a question to students, the intelligent students
answer the question immediately and then other students would feel inferior.
They compare themselves with intelligent students. The feeling of comparison
exists within them even if we do not compare them." Krishnamurti said -"Of
course." Sometimes Krishnamurti looked at me when I was looking down at my
plate. At one time during the lunch, he said -" I am glad that I have no
son". Then he wanted to know my feeling. I said to myself - that is not
true. Many people think of you as father."
In 1980
K arrived in Rishi Valley in the morning on November 22 along with Mary
Zimbalist, Dr. Parchure and Nandini Mehta. K looked well with innocent smile
and silvery hair.
On November 28, there was a teachers' meeting with K. He asked -"Do you have
the vision of the whole? Do you have a vision of what this school could be?
Are you passionate about anything? Do you have a mission in life with
sustained energy? Come on, all of you! I am challenging you!"
He also said -"If you have a vision, there can be no fear. If you have no
vision, then talking will be intellectual and meaningless."
Mr. Narayan was feeling tense while speaking. K asked him if he was free
from prejudice. Jaya asked many ordinary questions but he listened with
seriousness. He made her realize the futility of analysis. Jaya was touched
by K's love. Tears were sparkling in her eyes and K also tried to wipe his
eyes.
On December 1, K talked with teachers from various schools in India and
abroad. He talked about knowledge, memory, conditioning, learning. He became
very passionate when Jaya asked some questions. He was very gentle with her.
He said -"There is no effort involved if one knows how to listen.
Understanding does not come through thinking - material process."
On December 3, there was another teachers' discussion with K. This was the
first time I participated in the discussion with K. He talked about two
streams of learning - learning about matter and learning about the mind. He
said that there was a conflict between the two. Both kinds of learning
involved accumulation of information. He asked -"Is there a different kind
of learning which does not involve effort and accumulation of information ?"
At one point he asked -"Is there anything to learn?" Then he said -"There is
nothing to learn."
Pupulji asked -"How can one accept such a statement?"
K asked again -"Do you accept what I said?"
No one answered. I said -"Yes, I accept."
K said -"This is the most illogical absurd thing to accept. Do you accept?"
I said -"Yes, I accept."
K said -"Explain to Pupulji why you accept."
I said to Pupulji -"If you have problems, you find it necessary to learn
about yourself. But if you are free, there is nothing to learn."
K said -"You used the word 'if' "
I said -"There is no absolute truth in a verbal statement."
K asked -"What is learning?"
I said -"To see things as they are."
K said -"You are repeating my words."
I said -"No Sir"
K talked about the danger of a poisonous snake and the danger of opinions.
He said that both involve conditioning.
I said -"But the two things are different. The danger of a cobra is an
instinct for survival and it is a form of intelligence. The opinions are not
instinct of survival."
He said -"That is what I am saying."
A teacher from Bangalore school asked K -"Is there nothing to learn?"
K answered -"Nothing!"
The teacher got up and said -"I got your point." He left the meeting.
Later K asked -" Why did he leave the meeting? He has not understood."
Mr. Narayan said -"May be there was a sudden flash of Zen-Satori"
Kabir said -"He is an immature, impatient young man."
On December 5, K talked about beauty. He asked -"What is beauty?"
I answered -"Clear perception without images."
He said -"That is just a theory."
I said -"No, Sir." I look at everything with clear eyes and no images. In
that there is beauty which cannot be described in words.
Earlier he said -"We talked about two streams of learning. There is conflict
between the two in our daily life. Also there is no learning for a man who
is free. This is a complex thing and I will not go into it."
Then he looked at me and said -"Don't agree with what I am saying."
There was nothing to agree or disagree with him. What he said was true for
him and so it was for me.
He talked about the state of mind of a child who is absorbed in a toy.
He asked -"What has happened to the mind of the child?"
I answered -"His attention is narrowed down."
He was probably impressed by this answer as I could see a flash in his eyes.
He asked -"What is your relationship with your students?"
I answered -"I enjoy looking at them."
He asked -"What do you mean by that?"
I preferred to keep silence.
He asked -"Whom do I challenge?" For few seconds, no one responded.
Then I said -"Sir, you can challenge me."
I also said -"Sir, why do we narrow down our relationship with students?
What is our relationship to people and everything?"
He asked -"What is your relationship with your husband or wife?"
Mr. N answered -"We have no relationship."
Mr. T answered -"It is a relationship of convenience."
K asked -"Have you told that to your wife?"
K said -"Teaching is the greatest profession in the world. Teaching is to
create a new generation of boys and girls. Oh, I wish there were more
flowers in Rishi Valley. This is not asking in time. I am not interested in
time."
When he said this, I was deeply touched by his passion to create flowering
human beings.
I said to myself -"Yes. Rishi Valley would flower with beautiful human
beings."
Mrs. S, who was sitting far, said -"It is ten minutes after eleven."
She had not understood what K was talking about time. K became angry and
said -"What are you talking about?"
It was not her fault.
On December 6, there was a teachers' meeting with K. Some organizational
changes were made in Rishi Valley. Rajesh would be in charge of junior
school, Venkatraman to be in charge of senior school, Mrs. Thomas would act
as Headmistress and Mr. Narayan to continue acting as the Principal.
Then K talked about how to approach a problem.
I said -"You can approach a problem only if you have no problem." There was
a flash in the minds of some teachers.
K said -"I will not be here for long. I am already a dead man. Only four or
five years may have been left. What is the future of this school? Do you
have a vision of what this place would be?"
On December 7, there was another discussion with teachers. He said
-"Investigation begins when thought stops."
I said -"As long as there is investigation, thought operates. When thought
stops, what is there to investigate?"
Pupulji said -"With other teachers of philosophy, ending of thought is the
final goal. With Krishnaji, it is the beginning. Is that right?"
K said -"Yes." He did not say about what is the nature of investigation in
which thought is absent.
He talked about affection, religion and meditation.
Mrs. Indira Gandhi visited Rishi Valley on December 20. K left Rishi Valley
on December 22.
In 1981
On January 10, I came very close to K in Vasant Vihar. I wanted to talk with
him but I could not because of my shyness. I greeted him with 'Namaste' and
he reciprocated.
On April 18, I wrote a letter to Krishnaji:
Beloved Krishnamurtiji:
This is Harshad Parekh a teacher at Rishi Valley School. I am writing to you
after almost two years. You visited Rishi Valley in 1979 and 1980. But we
could not talk with each other because of my shyness and your very busy
schedule. Also, I had no personal questions to ask.
I have been teaching here for about a year and a half. This has been one of
the happiest times in my life. This has been a good time for my mental and
spiritual development. I had good opportunities to discuss your teachings
with many teachers, students and visitors. We have had challenging
discussions in the staff meetings every week. I enjoyed teaching maths and
physics in classrooms where time flew fast. I have very good feelings for
all teachers and students (and everyone) here at Rishi Valley.
I hope to be here for one more year. After I have completed two years of
teaching at Rishi Valley, I would like to teach at some other K school in
India or abroad. Since I am a citizen of Canada, I had written a letter to
Dr. Siddoo at Wolf Lake school. I received a letter from her two days ago.
She wrote that Wolf Lake school would be closed for a year and if it
reopens, she would prefer a teacher who would stay there for many years. She
advised me to write to other K schools.
Krishnaji, I would like to teach or do some other work at Ojai or Brockwood
Park schools if there is any opportunity.
It is quite hot here at Rishi Valley during these months of March, April and
May. Our bodies are constantly perspiring during the day. But this place is
as beautiful as ever with bluish hills, red earth, thousands of green trees
and bright and colorful flowers.
With Love and the Best Wishes for your health and work.
Yours Truly
Harshad Parekh.
Note- Recently I met Pandit Gopi Krishna who lives in New Delhi and
Srinagar. He writes books about kundlini. He had met you once in Saanen. He
said -"Krishnamurti is an honest teacher unlike other spiritual gurus. But
we have differences of opinions. Rishis, who wrote Upanishads, also differed
with one another."
December 8, 1981
K had a discussion with teachers. He spoke about knowledge. Knowledge is
limited. It is clouded by ignorance. Scientists would never be able to
understand the mystery of the universe. They use their mind to understand
things which are beyond the comprehension of the mind. Man created God. If
God created man, man would not live the way he does.
Too much emphasis has been given to knowledge in our schools. Knowledge has
produced atom bombs and nuclear weapons. Very little emphasis has been given
to the study of mind. The result is that nations are preparing for war. Man
will destroy himself if he fails to understand mind and its complex
behaviour.
He asked -"Do we see that knowledge is limited?"
I asked -"What is it that sees? To see something requires mind which is
limited!"
He said -"Don't complicate. We will complicate it later!"
On December 15, K had a discussion with students. It was about how to live
in this corrupt world. Is it possible not to be corrupt? The discussion must
have stirred the mind of many sensitive students. It must have also created
confusion and uncertainty of future.
At the end of the discussion, he asked all of us to close our eyes and sit
still. The clock in the auditorium was ticking loudly in the silence.
In one of the discussions with teachers, K spoke about the religious mind.
He said -" The religious mind is a mind which is free from all illusions."
I asked -"If the mind is in illusion, can it be aware of itself? We try to
understand what you are saying with our intellect which is limited. How do
we know whether we are in illusion or not? Is there an understanding which
does not come from intellect and logic?"
He was pleased to listen to this question. Then the whole discussion was
centered about illusions. He was very passionate while discussing.
When K speaks, everyone listens with awe and tenseness. He goes on asking
questions and he does not want his listeners to go to sleep. This makes most
of the listeners tired at the end of the discussion. He would not accept
anything said by the listeners. His mind is very flexible, sharp and quick.
Very few listeners can move with him. His words come from silence. He is
intense but quiet too.
We had lunch with K on 15th December. Mr. Narayan, Mr. and Mrs. Bedi,
Krishanan Kutti, Radha Burnier and I were on the lunch table. Mr. Bedi is a
well known photographer and a friend of K. He went on talking about cameras,
photography, his health. K spoke about cars, cameras.. Once in a while, Mr.
Narayan and Radha spoke. I and Krishanan Kutti were mere listeners. It was
very tiring to listen to them talking about superficial things. But food was
light and excellent.
On December 19, K talked with Rishi Valley teachers. He spoke about love and
beauty. These were the topics I wanted him to talk before he started. He
said that you cannot create good and happy human beings without love. He
asked -"Are you growing - flowering in this valley? Or are you blocked with
problems you are unaware of?"
He also talked about good taste in walking, eating, dressing etc.. He felt
that students of our school were careless and had no sense of good taste.
Feroza asked -"Would you define good taste?"
He did not answer. It cannot be defined. But he asked the same question to
Usha.
Usha said -"It is something which does not break certain harmony."
Mr. Narayan asked -"You have talked about good taste, cultivation of
intellect etc. But you have also said that there is nothing to learn. Would
you please explain what do you mean?"
K said -"One can learn about scientific facts, various subjects, etc.. But
apart from these, there is nothing to learn. Is there anything to learn
about yourself? You just observe what is going on."
I said -"As long as mind is working(that is, thought is operating), there is
something to observe. But when the mind is not, what is there to observe?"
He said -"Observe that tree, green leaves and red flowers."
I said -" But when you say this, your mind is working. Trees and flowers are
there. What is there to observe?"
He asked -"What is wrong with observing with the mind?"
I said -"Nothing wrong."
He said -"You all have some fantastic ideas."
But he had agreed or understood what I meant. He just wanted to test me. He
again emphasized that there is nothing to learn or observe when the mind is
silently awake to itself.
Earlier I had said -"Sir, when we understand what you are saying, everything
drops."
He asked -"What drops?"
I said -"Thoughts. Then there is a state of emptiness, we cannot speak about
it."
He said -"Yes. What is articulated is not the real."
At the end of the talk, K was in a happy state of mind. He said with a smile
-"We are having lunch together. That is very important. We will have good
food and jokes." K left Rishi Valley on December 20.
Some of us, teachers, went to Chennai to listen to K talks. K spoke with a
quiet strength. He said that he was completely free from conflicts. His face
shone with light and wind played with his white hair. He looked like a great
rishi. People listened with utter silence. He spoke about order,
responsibility, conflicts, duality etc.
In the second talk, he was a bit tired and distracted by loud music coming
from outside. He said -"Muslims ruled over India for 700 years and
Britishers ruled for 150 years. They did not affect much our old culture.
But after independence, you have made a mess in this country. There is no
discipline and rules. The whole country is full of corruption and
immorality. No one cares about anything. This noise coming here with the
wind is not music."
1982
K arrived in Rishi Valley on December 1. We received him at the old guest
house where he stays. His coming is a great event for us. His presence makes
us happy and alert to the ways of the self. During his presence we would be
kind to all students and workers. We would be concerned about bringing the
transformation of the brain. He would challenge us and we would accept his
views with humility. He would tell us jokes and laugh with us. Then he would
go away and we will be back to our old ways of thinking and living.
On December 7, K talked with a group of serious teachers from different K
schools. He told us that he would not be us after few years. After his
death, we should be our own teachers and disciples. We should live and
flower with love and goodness. There would be groups of serious teachers in
all K schools. We should visit different schools and interact with each
other. We should be committed to the Teachings and the Teachings are ever
fresh and infinite. Shall we cooperate with each other leaving aside our
fears, suspicions and strong ideas of 'right' and 'wrong'? He asked - "After
I leave India in February or March, how shall we keep in touch with each
other?"
On December 8, K talked with students. The topics were knowledge, memory,
conditioning, sensitivity. He asked us to find out where knowledge is
necessary and where it is not. In love, knowledge is not necessary. At the
end of the talk, he asked us to close our eyes and watch our thoughts. What
a silence was in the auditorium? We never had such silence before! A boy of
class 4 asked him -"Do you have any fears?" He answered with all humility
that he had no fear of his reputation, death or of any thing.
K has been talking with a group of teachers almost daily. He is as
passionate as ever and does not look too old. K desires to have groups of
serious teachers in all K schools. Once I asked him -"Instead of starting
with the idea of forming such groups, would not it be marvelous if this
happens by itself? Politicians form groups with a common purpose but it does
last long." He said -"These schools did not happen by themselves. We had to
work hard to bring about such groups."
On December 12, K talked with teachers about capacity. Capacity means
something which can be contained in a limited space. It depends on
experience and knowledge. Is there a kind of capacity which is beyond
knowledge and experience? He also talked about how to approach a problem. Is
it possible to just lok at it without a desire to solve it? How do you
develop a style? It just comes from feelings which are spontaneous. It comes
from silence.
On December 14, K talked with a small group of teachers. It was quite
intense. He said that Rishi Valley would be a place where people with
religious mind would live and work together. He asked -"What is the most
essential quality of the religious mind?"
Shreeniwas said -"Intelligence to observe what is."
I said -"Probably it is compassion."
K asked -"Is it an idea?"
I said -"When we speak, it is an idea. When there is compassion, we do not
speak."
He said -"The religious mind is a mind free from ideas and ideals."
I said -"I agree but in our daily life, when we teach, don't we want our
students to be good? Is this not an idea? Can any one live for 24 hours a
day without having an idea?"
He said -"Forget about students. Can you live without ideas?"
I asked -"When you say that Rishi Valley would be a place for people of
religious mind, is this not an ideal?"
He said -"You have not listened to me. I said that the religious mind has no
ideas or ideals."
He asked -"How do you learn about yourself? Is there a mirror within you in
which you see the whole of yourself?"
I said -"If such a mirror exists, it is probably made up of ideas and
ideals. Does not this indicate duality?"
He said -"Probably such a mirror does not exist." Yet he spoke about seeing
the whole of oneself in the mirror of relationship.
He said -"When you have the religious mind, you are like a rock in the
ocean. When students see such a man, what happens to them? Put yourself in
the place of students."
On December 16, K again spoke about the religious mind. He wants Rishi
Valley to be the spiritual centre. He places a great emphasis to talking
with young and enthusiastic teachers. The students are not serious so why
waste energy on them? The trustees of KFI want him to take rest but he is
very much enthusiastic talking with teachers. He would like us to come to
Madras where he would continue talking with us. He would like to keep in
touch with us even after he leaves India.
He said -"The religious mind is free from conflicts and images. Can you live
the daily life without a single image? What is your answer?"
I said -"The mind which watches the conflicts and images as they arise -is
such a mind the religious mind? We are not concerned with ending images but
watching their operation, their movement."
He said -"My brother died 57 years ago. I think about him and live with his
memories. What does this do to my brain? Does not this deteriorate the
brain?"
I said -"If one watches when the memory arises, then it is happening in the
present. In such watching, the brain does not deteriorate."
I was leaving the guest house after the discussion. He asked me to stay.
When all teachers had left, we sat on a soft mat. We remained silent for a
minute. Then he asked me to speak.
I said -"I have always been shy of meeting you. I have not talked with you
personally after coming to Rishi Valley. I would like to thank you for
allowing me to teach here. I have enjoyed my work. Next term I will be going
to Rajghat School."
He asked -"Do you enjoy teaching here?"
I answered -"Yes, very much."
He asked -"Are you going to Rajghat in June?"
I said -"Yes."
He asked -"For how long?"
I said -"For one year."
We remained silent for a while. Then he asked -"You wrote me letters, didn't
you?"
I said -"Yes. I wrote several letters. I wrote one letter after staying here
for a year."
He said -"You wrote letters before joining the school. Didn't you?"
I said -"Yes. In one of my letters I wrote that I always considered you as
my grand father. No one has affected my life as you did."
He smiled. I remained silent. The flowers in the room and the clay image of
a god were alive with beauty.
After sometime I said -"Once I wrote you about my meeting with Gopi
Krishna."
He asked -"The man who writes about Kundlini? I had met him once. Is he
genuine?"
I answered-"From his writings, he seems genuine. He is a gentle, honest man
and speaks with humility and confidence."
He asked -"Is he extra ordinary like this?" From his gestures, he meant -
was he like K?
Then he said -"He has gone through some experiences but he is making too
much out of it."
I said -"He writes about the evolution of humanity."
He said -"Yes. I know that."
Again there was silence. After a minute, he said -"That is enough."
He smiled and touched my leg with affection.
On December 17, K spoke to all teachers of the school. He asked -"Why does
the brain deteriorate?"
I said -"When we do things which we don't enjoy, the brain deteriorates. The
conflict between our daily work and our deeper interest in life produce
deterioration in the brain."
He asked -"Are you speaking for yourself?"
I answered -"Yes."
He asked -"What do you mean by enjoyment? You may enjoy power, position.."
I said -"No, Sir."
He said -"Not you. Others may enjoy power, position, respectability. Some
may enjoy drugs. Does this prevent deterioration?"
I said -"Drugs may have side effects."
He asked -"Is there any enjoyment which does not have side effects? You may
enjoy sexual pleasures and live for 95 years. Will this prevent
deterioration of the brain?" He talked about the limitation of knowledge,
experience, thinking etc.. This limitation is responsible for the
deterioration of the brain.
He said -"All thinking leads to the deterioration of the brain. Do you see
that?"
Radhika agreed. I did not. K asked us to discuss this matter.
I said -"If we enjoy learning, knowledge does not deteriorate the brain. But
if we learn because we have to (against our interest), then deterioration
happens.
K said -"Unless one has a new instrument to deal with knowledge, it is bound
to lead to the deterioration of the brain.
I asked -"What is that new instrument? If I ask this question to myself, the
answer will be from thinking. So one does not know if such an instrument
exists."
I also said -"If what you say comes from thinking, it is limited."
Pupulji talked about the limitation of thought, knowledge.
I said -"When you speak about the limitation, you have an idea that there is
something unlimited. Is there such a thing, or everything is limited?"
K said -"You cannot walk to Madanpalle in two hours. That is the
limitation."
Alan asked -"Does that lead to the deterioration of the brain?"
K understood that the limitation of knowledge does not lead to the
deterioration of the brain. He said that the limitation is bound to lead to
the deterioration of the brain if one has not acquired the new instrument to
deal with knowledge. He said that I was waiting for such an instrument.
I said -"You cannot wait for this."
He talked about computers, wars, meditation, our responsibility etc.
On December 18, K had a discussion with Pupulji. It was very good. Pupulji
asked some questions about how to read the book of life, what is the nature
of what is and with what instrument we observe. K said that the whole
humanity is within us. It is the story of humanity that we read. Sorrow and
loneliness belong to all human beings. The brain has infinite capacity and
the Mind is the universe. The Universal Mind is the source of all creation.
The limited brain cannot understand the Infinite Universal Mind. The
unconditioning of the brain is essential for the understanding of the Mind.
He said that there was nothing to read when the observer and the observed
were one. Then the brain and the mind were as vast as the cosmos. He said
that what they discussed will stand the test of time. Great intellectuals of
the west would understand the truth of his teachings.
All teachers had lunch with K in the guest house. After lunch, he told some
jokes. K left Rishi Valley on December 20 for Madras.
1983
On January 7, K talked with a group of teachers in Madras. K asked -" What
is a human being? Do we feel that we are bundles of thoughts and emotions?
Why do we make everything into a problem? Is it because our brains are
trained that way? Why our brains are trained to solve problems?"
I said -"When the mind is disturbed, it creates problems."
He asked -"Then how do we resolve it?"
I said -"It can't be resolved. It has to happen by itself."
He said -"I refuse to have problems." After sometime, he asked -"What shall
I do?"
I said -"If you have made up your mind that you will not have any problems,
then you do not ask -what shall I do?"
He said that I did not listen to him carefully.
On January 8, K talked with teachers for 2 hours. He talked about the
problem making machinery called thinking and feeling. He asked if the
machinery had come to an end and if it was so, what had happened to our
minds?
When I tried to answer, he said -"Don't think about it."
I said -"I am not thinking. I am watching. The machinery has almost come to
an end. But when can one say that it has ended completely? Can one ever say
that?"
Earlier he talked about the bundle of thoughts and feelings. We are all such
bundles. But why do we create problems?
I said -"If it is a static bundle, it does not create problems. But it is a
dynamic bundle. Different elements of the bundle collide and create
problems."
K said that there will be problems in Rishi Valley if the machinery has not
ended. - why has it not ended after discussing these things for many years?
At the end of the discussion, Pupulji, Shreeniwas and Rajesh were talking
about thinking, feeling and ideas as abstraction. Shreeniwas said glibly
-"Feeling is a cry of the heart!" Listening to that K acted as if somebody
had hit him hard and that made me laugh uncontrollably. He acted as if he
had fallen on the ground!
On May 1, I wrote a long letter to Krishnamurti:
Beloved Krishnaji:
We have a vacation here from March 20th to June 15th. There are very few
teachers staying here for the vacation. The valley is very quiet. We have a
lot of leisure. We spend time reading, writing, going for walks, listening
music, playing tennis and indoor games, sleeping, dreaming, meditating etc..
I have not written to you for almost 2 years. During your last visit to
Rishi Valley you asked us -"How shall we communicate after I leave India?" I
thought you wanted us to write to you. You want to know what is happening to
us and the school.
I will write first about what is happening within me and then about the
school.
I have been teaching here for almost three and a half years. I have enjoyed
living and teaching here. I have got attached to this place. Everyday is
fresh. The eyes have become sensitive to beauty of things and people. The
brain is throbbing day and night. Every now and then some pleasant
sensations occur in my back. The body has become sensitive to its movement.
I have lost 7 kg of weight after joining this school but my health is good.
After two months I will go to Rajghat School for a year. I will be back to
Rishi Valley in April 1984.
Now About Rishi Valley
Rishi Valley is as beautiful as ever. But this year there is shortage of
water. Last night there was a short shower. We hope more showers will follow
in May and June. This year was good for tamarind but very poor for mango. We
have no water for paddy. Mr. Naidu is very busy drilling holes in the
existing wells to get more underground water.
About School
The school is progressing well. New buildings are being built for classrooms
and hostels. We may be able to install a solar water heater and two bio gas
plants with the financial help from the government. Radhikaji is keenly
interested in these projects. We are also doing some work for the
development of villages surrounding the school.
There is talk about autonomy for the school. However, there is no clarity
regarding this issue. Teachers talk about teaching methods, curriculum etc.
These talks seem superficial and intellectual to me. They talk about what
they have read in books on education.
Our school, you say must be a spiritual centre. But most of us don't feel
that way. The school is concerned mostly about academic matters. This school
might become a Business Centre. But anyway, this school is a good place to
grow if one cares. I have enjoyed my work.
Recently I visited Madurai, Kodai Kanal and Kanya Kumari. It was a good
experience.
With Love,
Harshad Parekh
P.S. A debate is going on within me. If you have any comment, criticism or
advice, please write to me at your convenience. Once during a discussion at
Rishi Valley you said -"I am not criticizing you. I have no right to
criticize you." Your criticism will be valuable. I think I am in touch with
myself but I may not have understood myself completely. A person, who is in
illusion, does not know that he is in illusion. If he knows, there is no
illusion. We had discussed this once at Rishi Valley.
One voice within me says -"Will you go on living like this for the rest of
your life? Until now you have lived a quiet life of pleasant dreams and have
remained an introvert. Is this all? Is there not a different way of living
in which physical actions come from serenity? Should you not give up
romantic dreams and be an austere man of action? The time is ripe for this.
Don't remain satisfied with what you are. Break habits which are pleasant
and comforting. Enter the world of action. Your time of dreaming and
contemplating is over."
Another voice says -"Why should you try to be this or that? Watch what is
happening. Right action cannot be thought out in advance. It will happen at
the right time. A fruit falls when it is ripe. If it is plucked before the
right time, it tastes bitter or sour. Have patience. Don't be ambitious.
Good works will be done through you. Don't muddle yourself by will and
effort."
I left Rishi Valley in June 1983 to teach at Rajghat School in Varanasi for
a year. That year K did not visit Varanasi. So I visited Rishi Valley to
meet students, teachers and K in December. Before meeting K, I met all three
main administrators of the school. They were not happy about my coming back
to Rishi Valley to teach in June 1984. They were upset by my outspokenness.
I was told that I must not come back to Rishi Valley to teach next year. I
was disturbed to hear this. So I decided to meet K.
K talked with students on December 16 from 9.30 to 10.30 a.m. After the
talk, I approached K and said -"Sir, I would like to see you for few
minutes."
He smiled but looked very tired. He placed his hand on forehead and asked
-"How long you will be here?"
I said -"For two more days only."
He asked -"Where will you go from here?"
I said -"To Rajghat School."
He said -"Let me see if I have time." He left.
I had an appointment to meet K at 4.45 p.m. on December 17. I went to the
old Guest House at 4.30 p.m. Dr. Parchure asked me if he could discuss with
me before meeting K. I said 'yes' He started asking simple questions and
slowly developing a clear picture of what I wanted to say to K. Dr. Parchure
after listening to my story asked -"Would you like to teach at Rishi Valley
in summer and at Rajghat in winter?"
I said -"That would be nice. I want to avoid summer at Rajghat. That is my
only problem."
Dr. Parchure was surprised at the attitude of administrators towards me.
K called us upstairs. When I sat down on a chair in front of him, he asked
-"What can I do for you?"
I said -"This morning I had a disturbing discussion with administrators of
Rishi Valley. They don't want me to teach here next term."
He asked -"What?"
Dr. Parchure said -"Dr. Parekh has been teaching at Rajghat School. He finds
summer at Rajghat School very hot and humid. He likes to come back to Rishi
Valley next term. But the administrators are not happy about his coming
back."
K said -"Of course summer is terrible at Benaras. Why don't they want you to
teach at Rishi Valley next term?"
I said -"It is a problem of relationship. They don't like to talk with me.
They think I talk like an Enlightened man."
K asked -"Are you an Enlightened man?"
I said -"No. I am not. But they don't like my way of talking."
K asked -"In what way do you talk?"
I said -"The same way I talk with you or any one else."
K said -"I do not discuss people and their personal problems. The
administrators must decide what is good for the school. We discuss only
policy and direction of the school. I don't have anything to do with you."
I asked -"If they do injustice to some teachers, should I keep quiet? If
they ask me to leave this school, should I go away?"
He said -"Let me make myself clear. I have nothing to do with you."
There was some discussion about Mr. X telling me about corruption in the
school. It was difficult to explain the whole thing. K wanted simple facts
but it was difficult to talk about petty matters.
K said -"You took the side of discontented people and became an intermediary
between them and the administrators. The proper thing is to bring them face
to face with the administrators."
I said -"I know that some teachers are discontented. But they are afraid of
expressing themselves. They don't want to lose their jobs."
After sometime, K looked at me and asked -"What is disturbing you?"
I did not answer. We looked at each other for several seconds in hypnotized
way. Then he turned away his eyes. He had finished talking with me. We got
up. He smiled and touched my shoulder with affection. I also did the same.
We were friends.
I told K that I did not want to talk about all these things. I wanted to
talk about Rajghat School.
He asked -"What did you want to talk about Rajghat School?"
I said -"Rajghat School is neglected."
He asked -"By whom?"
I said -"By you."
He said -"No. I am not neglecting Rajghat School. I am visiting Rajghat next
year. I am keeping in touch with Mr. Sathaye and Professor Hiralal is
joining Rajghat School."
I said -"Your coming may make us work hard and create a better environment."
1984
I arrived in Varanasi on November 1 to listen to K's talks. There was curfew
in the city due to Indira Gandhi's assassination. K decided to cancel his
talks in Varanasi this year. However, he arrived on November 10 and gave two
talks on November 11 and 12. He spoke on security, fear, self, meditation,
religious mind and death. On 11th, he had lunch with all campers in the
dining hall. He planted some trees. I came close to him several times but
did not speak with him.
Our plan of returning to Rishi Valley was cancelled three times due to bad
weather. As a result, we could attend K's talk with teachers of Rajghat
School. He spoke about the teacher's responsibility, the present situation
in the world, infinite capacity of the brain and its deterioration by
conditionings.
He invited us to participate in the discussion. I asked him -"Is not our
primary responsibility to find freedom from the self and the psychological
problems associated with it? What can we teach or communicate when we are
not free?"
He said that we do not have to be free first and then teach. In discussing
with students we learn about ourselves. We should not discuss with a
position of authority. In the atmosphere of friendly and open discussions we
begin to learn about our conditioning.
I asked -"Is it only by discussing with students do we learn about
ourselves?"
He answered -"Of course not. We learn about ourselves in the mirror of
relationship."
One lady teacher from Vasanta College said -"Even when we know about our
conditioning, we do not be free. We continue with our faults."
K asked her several questions about her relationship with students. She
answered gently but confidently. Sahida from Rajghat School also joined the
discussion. She also spoke gently and clearly. Several times K held her
fingers in his hands. Dennis also joined in the discussion. K asked him
several questions to understand him. He answered hesitantly. The discussion
lasted for two hours. People sitting at the back were relieved when the
discussion ended.
On November 19, K had a discussion with students of Rajghat School. The
students were unable to express themselves in English. Only two boys and one
girl participated in the discussion. What K spoke was beyond their capacity
to understand. He stopped after one hour but students wanted him to
continue.
In the evening, pandits of Varanasi chanted in the presence of K. They had
powerful voices but the hall was too small for the sound.
K arrived in Rishi Valley on December 2. He had a discussion with students
on December 7. Some boys and girls of class 8 participated in the
discussion. It was a lively discussion. K was happy and intense. The topics
for the discussion were prejudice, comparison, insecurity, infinite capacity
of the brain etc. The questions asked were - Is understanding someone a
prejudice too? What is it that gets hurt when someone insults you? Why does
one compare? Can a confused brain free itself? K was impressed by Ajit Pai's
questions.
On December 8, K had a discussion with teachers. He spoke for about 40
minutes about the role of educator in the world, our relationship with the
world, corruption and disintegration, authority and cooperation. When he
invited comments or questions, I said -"Cooperation is not possible when we
have self interest."
He said -"It is a nice statement. Do you have self interest?"
I hesitated but said -"I do not have self interest in my work with the
school."
He said that we hide our self interest in the pretext of nationalism,
religious beliefs, ideas etc..
Radhika asked some questions about self interest, clarity and independence.
K was gentle with her. He asked her to sit beside him and discussed gently
with her.
Mr. Pant, J.P. and Hiralal also joined in the discussion.
K said that thinking is common to all of us.
I said -"Because we think, self arises. From self comes, self interest."
K said -"Thinking itself is the cause of division."
I and others did not agree. I said -"From thinking arises the self. Then
only it causes conflict. If the self does not arise, there is no conflict or
division."
K said -"Thinking itself is the cause of division. Do you understand that?"
I asked -"It divides us from what?"
He was impatient with my question. He said that I did not listen to what he
was saying. He would show it to me if I listened carefully. He explained
every step logically. Thinking arises from memory. Memory is recorded due to
experience and knowledge. Knowledge is limited or partial. So whatever is
limited can never be whole. Thought being partial, it is divisive. Then he
said -"Now ask. Jump on me."
I said -"In that case, everything we observe, think, feel is partial and
divisory. Is there anything whole, complete, absolute?"
He said -"You have to find out for yourself what exists when thinking ends."
He seemed to say that in him the thinking had ended. I may not believe that.
I had the right to explore, ask and doubt.
It was time to end the discussion. I could have asked more questions and
made him more angry or impatient.
K's discussion with teachers was quite intense on December 15. He talked
about the religious life. There is no security in life and yet our brain
cannot function well if it is in conflicts. For him, there is absolute
security. In thought there can be no security because it is limited and
divisive.
I said -"When we are thinking, we talk about security and insecurity. But
when we are free from thoughts, we don't know what is security and what is
insecurity."
He said -"You are not listening to what I am saying."
I said -"I was listening to you when you were talking with Pupulji. I can
tell you what you were saying to her."
He said -"That means you were not listening. Forgive me if I say so
respectfully."
He talked about past, present and future. All time is in 'now'. We could not
follow what he was saying. He was discarding the possibility of change in
the future.
I said -"What you are now is not what you were when you were born. At some
time, change occurred in you."
He tried to answer but avoided. Prof. Hiralal said -"We are not moving from
what we were discussing last time. You showed that there is no change as
long as we are thinking because thinking in itself is divisory."
K said -"You are not moving because you have not stopped."
Pupulji and Achyutji's dialogue was filmed on December 16 by a Malayalam
film director. It was quite intense and interesting. K was not disturbed by
lights going on and off every five minutes by the film crew. His mind was
clear and alert. But why did he make sweeping statements like -All saints
were neurotic- How would he know without living with them?
We went to Madras to listen to K's talks in the last week of December. Just
before his talk on December 29, it started drizzling. K talked about the
biological and psychological evolution. He said that time is not required
for psychological evolution. We had lunch and dinner with K. He was watching
us with curiosity. He seemed to be happy and loving when we left Madras on
December 30.
1985
On December 3, at 9.30 a.m., K talked with the teachers of K schools. He
began slowly describing the disintegrating world and our responsibility to
create a new human being. He talked for most of the time. The discussion
was not challenging enough. Very few teachers participated in the
discussion.
He asked -"You work in this school for 30 years and spend enormous amount of
energy. Yet you see students being absorbed in the corrupt world. Have you
wasted your time and energy?"
I answered - "It is not the wastage of energy. While teaching, we learn
about ourselves. So even if students do not respond to us and conform to the
corrupt world, we learn about ourselves. It is not wasting of time and
energy."
He asked -"Do you learn about yourself?"
I said -"Yes Sir"
He asked -"What do you mean by learning?"
I said -"It is being aware of ourselves, how we live, think etc.."
He asked -"For how long?"
I said -"It has nothing to do with time. It is learning moment by moment."
He asked -"What do you mean by learning? Is it like learning and
accumulating and acting from the memory? Do you agree with me?"
I said -"No. I do not agree with you."
He said -"We are not fighting or arguing with each other."
Then he asked again -"What do you mean by learning?" He talked about
learning a language, some skills which require memory.
On the whole, it was a dull discussion. He asked -"Do you like this kind of
discussion? I am used to this kind of stuff. I have talked with the top
scientists, government officials, priests etc. They say they have lot to
learn but they remain the same."
He also said -"Basically I am a shy person. You may not believe what I am
saying."
On December 5, K talked with boys and girls of Rishi Valley School about
fear. Firdaus, Prashant and other juniors talked with him.
K asked -"What is the feeling of fear?" Boys and girls gave many answers but
he was not happy with the answers. Firdaus gave the genuine answer -"Heart
beats faster, muscles contract when fear arises." His gestures and movement
of eyes made me laugh for a long time.
On December 8th, I wrote a letter to K. I wrote:
Beloved Krishnaji:
I am writing this letter to expose my mind. I am sure you can see through it
and make useful comments. If you have time to discuss the contents of my
mind, it would be very useful.
I came into contact with your teachings in 1972 when I was a student at Iowa
State University. It made a great and immediate impact on my life. In few
months, there were noticeable changes in me. I read most of your books from
1972 to 1979. During those years I went through many experiences of
different kinds. I wrote several letters to you describing those
physical(biological) experiences of body, brain and perception.
After coming to Rishi Valley in 1979, my body has become very sensitive to
what is happening within. The brain is throbbing day and night with pulses
which are neither painful nor pleasurable. These pulses are felt in various
parts of the body as well. Occasionally a tingling sensation occurs in the
back. A cricket like sound created within the ear is heard all the time.
I am curious to understand what is happening. Is it possible for you to
comment on such experiences?
It seems to me that the thinking process is the secondary process. Its root
lies in the bio-chemical process occurring within the brain. What causes the
change in bio-chemical process in the body?
A voice within me says -"Don't get trapped in experiences. Sensitivity of
body and experiences related to it are far from Truth. Is your mind free
from thoughts, images, conclusions? Are your nights very peaceful and free
from dreams? Is your mind like an empty drum which gives sound only when it
is struck? Ask these questions and observe in silence. You have lot to
learn."
Lovingly, Harshad Parekh
On December 9, K gave the last talk for the teachers. I was late by few
minutes and so I sat very close to the door. I could neither see him nor
could I listen to him.
But in front of me was a lovely plant. I looked at its green and chocolaty
leaves which radiated light. At the end of the talk, I delivered my letter
to him.
I met K and others walking on the main road several times. I went for
cycling in the evening. While coming back to school, I saw them. Sometimes
we raised our hands to greet each other.
K talked to the students on December 11. He seemed to be tired of talking.
He repeated his words. Students got bored. Very few students participated in
the discussion. Boys wanted to know about his life. But he found it
difficult to remember the events of his life. Lynn asked -"Why our minds
keep on thinking? Why are we concerned about ourselves most of the time?" He
talked about memory, experience, time, etc..
There was a conference of educators for four days from December 13 to 17.
There were intense discussions on the aim of K schools. The Indian schools
were not so intense about K's Teachings. These schools seemed to be more
concerned with curriculum, teaching methods, training of teachers, and
excellence in academics. The schools in the west were passionate on K's
Teachings. The excellence in academics was of secondary importance. Both
David Moody and Scott Forbes spoke passionately on creating the New Mind.
The Indian speakers seemed more relaxed and well settled in their ideas and
work.
K spoke passionately and affectionately at the end of the conference. In his
presence we had a feeling of wholeness. He asked -"What is life? What is
creation? What is goodness and what is the New Mind?"
1986
On February 17, Mr. Narayan announced in the assembly hall that K had passed
away in sleep at 1 a.m. in California. I did not feel sad but when a girl
started crying, I was touched. I could not sleep at night. I wrote the
following words in my diary about K.
He lived an extra ordinary life, full of activities and meditation. He
affected thousands all around the world. He loved and was greatly loved too.
He was the greatest man I ever came across and who affected my life more
than any living or dead person in the history of mankind.
A man dies but his memories remain. His teachings are extra-ordinarily
revolutionary in the sense that he rejects memories as the dead weight of
the past. Man must live in the present and be passively alert to the ways of
his thoughts and feelings.
Listen to this man on the subject of life and death -"On the journey of life
and death, you must walk alone; on this journey there can be no taking of
comfort in knowledge, in experience, in memories. The mind must be purged of
all the things it has gathered in its urge to be secure; its gods and
virtues must be given back to the society that bred them. There must be
complete uncontaminated aloneness."
He showed the way to freedom not only through his brilliant talks,
discussions and inspired writings but also through his own life. K is gone
but his Teachings will remain alive in the lives of those who find the
teachings challenging.
By Professor Jack Miller, Dept. of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
I am delighted to come to Brockwood School for its celebration of 30 years of existence. I would like to start my talk on a personal note and mention the importance of Krishnamurti's work to my own spiritual practice. Then I would like to discuss how he is one of the most important figures in holistic education in this century.
Personal Connection to Krishnamurti
I first started to read Krishnamurti when I first came to Canada in 1969. I had left the United States because of my opposition to the Vietnam war. Of course this was a very turbulent time in the US and my own life. The disruption of leaving one's country and essentially going into exile set me on a spiritual journey which continues to this day.
Before leaving for Canada I read a book entitled Yoga, Youth, and Reincarnation by Jess Stern which led me to practice hatha yoga. After doing this practice for a few weeks I began to feel more whole and more integrated. This experience stimulated me to inquire more deeply into eastern thought and practices and I was led to the work of Krishnamurti and I read books such as The First and Last Freedom, Life Ahead, Commentaries on the Living, and Freedom from the Known. I was struck immediately by the directness and clarity of his thinking. I still am today when I read his work; his writing provides a welcome contrast to the turgid prose of so many academics.
More than anything I believe that Krishnamurti helped me to look at the world in the fresh way or to facilitate the opening of what Suzuki-roshi called the beginner's mind. It is so easy in our world to let the mind become clouded with projections, models, and anxieties so that we become almost totally self-absorbed. We function on automatic pilot and are no longer are able to really see the color of a flower or hear the voice of a child at play. Krishnamurti's work in contrast can help us wake up.
Education and the Significance of Life
At the time I was reading Krishnamurti I was working on my doctoral degree at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. I was interested in how education could address the problem of alienation and assist in the development of the integrated person. During my studies I came across Krishnamurti's book, Education and the Significance of Life. For me this is his clearest and strongest statement on education and today this book offers an approach to teaching and learning that is deeply holistic. The word "holistic" was not in use when he wrote Education and the Significance of Life which was published in 1953. Instead Krishnamurti uses the word "integrated."
I would like now to turn to his book and examine some of the central themes that are so relevant to holistic education today.
The Problem of Fragmentation.
Krishnamurti felt that fragmentation was a central problem in modern life.
He stated:
In our present civilization we have divided life into so many departments that education has very little meaning except in learning a particular technique or profession. Instead of awakening the integrated intelligence of the individual, education is encouraging him to conform to a pattern and so is hindering his comprehension of himself as a total process. To attempt to solve the many problems of existence at their respective levels, separated as they are into various categories, indicates an utter lack of comprehension. (p.12)
The problem of fragmentation and compartmentalization are still with us more than 40 years after he wrote these words. Our inability to see relationships and interconnectedness has led to our environmental woes. However, the horrendous condition of our air and water has forced us to examine the relationship between economic activity and the biosphere. In short our environmental problems have made us look at life from a more interdependent perspective. The problem of fragmentation has also stimulated holistic approaches to so many aspects of life today including education, health, and even politics (Williamson, 1997).
The fragmentation also lies within ourselves. Krishnamurti saw that education tends to focus almost solely on the intellect which manifests itself as "cunning minds caught up in explanations." (p.63) Today we still educate the head but ignore the body, soul, and spirit. This fragmentation within ourselves, I believe is what underlies so much of the suffering that we have in our world.
In the Western world particularly there is deep separation between head and heart. I believe we have become a society of "talking heads" with all energy focused above the neck.
The Aims of Education
If the problem is fragmentation, what then should be the purpose of education? Krishnamurti states: "The highest function of education is to bring about an integrated individual who is capable of dealing with life as a whole."(p.24) This ability to see life as whole involves what Krishnamurti calls intelligence. In his words "Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential that what is; and to awaken this capacity, in oneself and in others, is education." (p.14) Perceiving what is means not being caught up in ideals or models that get in the way of being in the present moment. Thus education should not be embedded in ideology. Instead its goal should be freedom where the individual is no longer confined by cultural conditioning but is genuinely a free and creative person. Again in Krishnamurti's words:
Education in the true sense is helping the individual to be mature and free, to flower greatly in love and goodness. That is what we should be interested in, and not in shaping the child according to some idealistic pattern. (p.23)
Self-knowledge, or "awareness of one's total psychological process" is another important aim for Krishnamurti. He believes that the student should "observe and understand his own self-projected values" and the conditioning influences that have influenced the student. The student learns to see himself or herself clearly and his or her relationship to others and the surrounding environment.
Closely related to development of intelligence and self-knowledge is the realization of wisdom. For Krishnamurti "wisdom comes from the abnegation of self" (p.64) When we are rooted in competition and greed the self dominates. When we let go of the notion of me and mine and abide in a love, wisdom arises naturally. Krishnamurti speaks frequently of the importance of love and compassion as he feels love and intelligence should be closely connected. He states "to understand our responsibility, there must be love in our hearts, not mere learning and knowledge." (p.78) He adds, however, that "we are all brains, and no heart" (p.78) Again almost all educational reform movements have ignored this fundamental point.
Finally, Krishnamurti feels that education should help shape a new set of values. It should not just reinforce conformity and competition that exist in society but help in the transformation where freedom, creativity, and peace are more deeply respected and experienced in daily life.
Principles of Learning
How these goals be achieved? First we have to give up the educator's obsession with technique. Krishnamurti states: "Present-day education is a complete failure because it has over-emphasized technique. In over-emphasizing technique we destroy man." (p.18) His words still apply today, perhaps even more so. The present day obsession with accountability and standards is just another form of deadening technique. Of course, educators must be accountable but the almost pathological emphasis on comparing tests scores between individuals, schools, and countries is actually interfering with the learning process. School has become a game where the emphasis is on teaching to the test. Alfie Kohn ( 1993 ) has done research in this area and this research indicates that the more we test students the less they learn. In the present environment fear tends to predominate rather than risk-taking which is one of the most important elements in significant learning.
Educational reform has also tended to emphasize technique whether it be with regard to accountability or curriculum and instruction. Unfortunately, even those who call themselves holistic educators can fall into this trap advocate a particularly technique such as visualization or cooperative learning without linking the teaching technique to a larger context of holism. It should be noted that Krishnamurti felt that education should offer information and technical training but within the context of what he calls the "integrated outlook."
Krishnamurti was also critical of attempts to control children and to use rewards and punishments. The reason for this is straightforward as how can the student become truly free if is he or she has to function in an environment of compulsion? Instead of discipline and compulsion there should be an atmosphere of mutual affection and respect. This sense of respect must start with the teacher's respect for the student which the student must sense and feel in the classroom. Mutual respect arises in atmosphere where there is no fear. In Krishnamurti's words:
The right kind of education must take into consideration this question of fear, because fear warps our whole outlook on life. To be without fear is the beginning of wisdom, and only the right kind of education can bring about the freedom from fear in which alone there is deep and creative intelligence. (p.34)
When rewards and punishments are used, they undermine the development of intelligence. In an environment of rewards and punishments education becomes a game where students try to please the teacher. Krishnamurti points out that an education built on punishment and rewards supports a "social structure which is competitive, antagonistic and ruthless." (p.35) Alfie Kohn (1993)
has done research in this area and his findings support Krishnamurti's insight. His research indicates that rewards and punishments including grades actually interfere with student learning. In short , the student learns more in an environment where there is not an emphasis on rewards and punishments. For example, Kohn cites several studies where students who were not rewarded with money or candy did better on tasks than those who were rewarded. (p.43) This finding is held true for elementary school children as well university students. For example, in one study of high school students some students were rewarded for tasks related to memory and creativity and some were not. The students who were not rewarded performed significantly better on the tasks.
Krishnamurti felt the traditional religious education was problematic because it was based on fear and rewards. It also discouraged inquiry into the nature of things which is at the heart of true education. At one point he states:
True religious education is to help the child to be intelligently aware, to discern for himself the temporary and the real, and to have a disinterested approach to life; and would it not have more meaning to begin each day at home or at school with a serious thought, or with a reading that has depth and significance rather than mumble some oft-repeated words or phrases? (p.40)
Krishnamurti's vision of education is different than that of Steiner who does recommend that the day begin with 'oft-repeated" words and phrases. Although I believe that Steiner and Krishnamurti shared the same aims for education-that is the development of the free and integrated person their approaches to pedagogy were
quite different.. Steiner outlined a very detailed curriculum for every stage of the child's development. Krishnamurti did not; instead he outlined certain general principles for educators to follow. While Steiner had specific prescriptions for almost every aspect of life, Krishnamurti avoided such prescriptions because it might result in some kind of inflexible dogma that undermines the freedom of the individual.. I believe there are positives and negatives to each of these approaches which I will comment on later in this paper.
The School
Krishnamurti argued that schools should be small. Large institutions by their very nature cannot be responsive to the needs of children. Again his insights are supported by the research. This research indicates that in small schools students participate more in the life of the school and that students in small schools actually do better in areas such as writing, dramatics and music. ( Barker and Gump, 1964; Wicker and Baird, 1969). Despite this research schools districts in North America over the past twenty years have tended to close small community-based schools and build larger institutions because they are supposedly more cost efficient. Yet there is also research which indicates that small schools can educate children at a lower cost. (Sher, 1977). For example in Vermont it was found that six of the top ten schools in percentage of graduates entering college were small schools (fewer than sixty in the graduating class) and that they were able to produce these results with operating costs, on a per pupil basis, of $225 less than the large schools.
Krishnamurti also felt the classes should be small. There has been recognition of this fact by some educational reformers and as smaller class sizes have been mandated in various jurisdictions in North America particularly at the primary level.
Another important element that Krishnamurti cites is a committed staff. He argues that teachers should be enthusiastic in their work and care deeply about the students in the school. The staff should also work together as a whole which again is easier to do in a small school.
Krishnamurti suggests that teachers meet often as a whole group to make decisions. Decisions should not be made arbitrarily by the principal but by group consensus. The whole life of the teacher should also be addressed. If the teacher is having difficulties at home Krishnamurti suggests that these problems can discussed at the group meetings so that some form of support can be provided to the teacher.
Krishnamurti was sensitive to the problems of teachers and stated that no teacher should be overburdened since this will adversely affect the teacher's work.
He also suggested that students be involved in school governance. Krishnamurti argued that student council be formed that includes both teachers and students and deals with problems such as " discipline, cleanliness, and food": Students should actually supervise each other in these matters and thus learn self-government.
The Teacher
Krishnamurti realized that teachers need to be integrated if schools are to achieve the aims he has outlined. The task of the teacher is first to wake up and be aware of his or her own thoughts and feelings. Teachers should examine their own conditioning to the influences on their behavior.
I think another word that we could use here even though Krishnamurti did not is "mindfulness". To be mindful is to be present in the moment so that we can see clearly and not be lost in our thoughts, habits and projections.
In my own work with teachers I introduce them to mindfulness in my classes. I encourage them to be mindful in their lives for just a few minutes each day when they are shaving, preparing a meal, washing the dishes or folding the laundry. It is usually easier to start with something simple and then apply the practice to more complex situations like the classroom.
One of the ways we can be mindful is to be aware of our speech and eye contact. To be mindful of speech means we aware of what we say and the manner in which we say things. Is our speech harmful to others or is it supportive? Sometimes the classroom and staffroom in schools can be a place where sarcasm takes hold. Mindfulness of speech can help us move away from negative discussions that are not helpful to anyone. We can also be aware of the tone and clarity of our speech. Is our tone soft or harsh? Do we speak clearly and distinctly?
Eye contact is also important. Emerson in talking to teachers said "do not chide, do not snarl, but govern by the eye". Rachael Kessler (1991) has also written about the importance of eye contact in classrooms: "Eye contact is crucial. It establishes not only empowerment, but also connection and caring on an individual basis. Eye contact reflects confidence, and students respond to the inner strength of a teacher who is comfortable communicating this way. " (p 9)
Awareness of our speech and eye contact are subtle factors that can gradually transform a classroom into a softer space. A teacher in one of my classes comments on the impact of being more mindful.
As a teacher, I have become more aware of my students and their feelings in the class. Instead of rushing through the day's events, I take the time to enjoy our day's experiences and opportune moments. The students have commented that I seem happier. I do tend to laugh more and I think it is because I am more aware, alert and "present", instead of thinking about what I still need to do. (Miller, 1995, p.22)
Mindfulness is way that we can bring Krishnamurti's vision into practice.
For Krishnamurti the teacher should also be open and vulnerable. Emerson (1990) once wrote about a preacher but I think we could apply his thoughts to teachers as well.
He had lived in vain. He had not one word intimating that he had laughed or wept, was married or in love, had been commanded, or cheated, or chagrined. If he had ever lived and acted, we were none the wiser for it. The capital secret of his profession, namely, to convert life into truth, he had not learned (p.116)
Vulnerability does not mean that teachers should continually be self-disclosing. It means, however, that when it seems appropriate teachers can share something of themselves. Below is good example of this process by Rachael Kessler (1991)
One night during my first year of teaching there was a blazing fire in my community, the roads were closed, and I was unable to get home to my family. I was able to contact them and know that they were safe, but I spent the night in town and came in to teach that morning. I felt so disconnected, worried, confused, and disoriented that I knew I couldn't be present without telling my students about the fire. I started the class by asking for their help: "You kids have all grown up here in California with fires, floods, earthquakes. This is new to me. How have you coped with disasters in your life?" This class was turning point for that group. Previously reticent about their personal lives and feelings they jumped into this one with gusto. My authentic need, my vulnerability and a very hot topic had brought them to life. (p.13)
At appropriate moments then as teachers we can open ourselves to our students. In these moments students begin to see us as human beings and not just as "teacher".
Krishnamurti also refers to spontaneity as an important element in teaching. He states "Intelligence is the spontaneous perception which makes a man strong and free."(p.103) Emerson held a similar view when he (1990) wrote: "All good conversation, manners, and action, come from a spontaneity which forgets usages and makes the moment great. Nature hates calculators; her methods are salutatory and impulsive. . . .(p.237-8) I would add to Emerson's list of "conversation, manners and action" education which has often been forced into rigid models including outcome based education where there is little opportunity for spontaneous action. Ideally there should be a balance between planned action and the spontaneous.
The student's inner life thrives in a climate where spontaneity is present and it withers in an environment which is overplanned and controlled. In education we give room for the spontaneous when we talk of the "teachable moment." In the teachable moment that teacher moves away from the lesson plan and follows his or her intuition in working with the students. Kessler's exploring her feelings about the fire was a good example of the teachable moment.
Krishnamurti believed that teaching is not just a job but "way of life". In some way the teacher should feel called to the profession. The teacher feels deep satisfaction in being with children and in some manner assisting in their growth and development. Krishnamurti comments at one point: "One teaches because one wants the child to be rich inwardly," (p.113). How important this statement is today as in my view holistic teaching and learning must address the inner life of the child. In various ways the inner life the child should be nurtured rather than repressed as it is most forms of education. This can be done through the sensitivity of the teacher, the arts, fostering a connection to the earth and using approaches such as meditation and visualization which actively nourish the inner life.
Finally Krishnamurti states that "truth comes into being when there is a complete cessation. . . When the mind is utterly still . . . it is silent, . . . then there is creation." Educators need then to be comfortable with silence. In my work with teachers in two courses I require them to do meditation practice which can be viewed cultivating silence to see more clearly into the mind. I am very open with regards to which form of meditation they use; I just insist that for 5 or 6 weeks they spend part of the day in silence. So far I have introduced to approximately 1000 teachers to meditation practice. Often they are skeptical in the beginning and worry about doing it right. Yet I continue to be amazed how after a few weeks they settle into some type rhythm where they feel more comfortable with the silence.
Krishnamurti was careful not to endorse any method or practice and referred to meditation more as self-awareness than as specific technique. I am not concerned with the particular technique that the person uses but more that simply bring awareness to what they are doing.
Conclusion
What is the legacy of Krishnamurti with respect to education? As I have outlined in this paper he provides a powerful holistic vision for education that has influenced educators for the past half a century. He reminds us today that we should not be trapped by our conditioning but use our inherent awareness to free ourselves and our children. We have lived in a century of ideology- capitalism, socialism, communism, and now the more eclectic ideologies of postmodernism. Education has also been rooted in ideology; the current one being the ideology of market driven education and accountability. Krishnamurti reminds us that the essential task of education is nurture the development of free, integrated human beings. How desperately we need to hear this message today.
One of the other major spiritual visionaries of this century was Rudolf Steiner who I referred to earlier in this paper. Steiner was much more prescriptive in his vision and the result is the Waldorf school movement. There are approximately 800 Waldorf schools today which are all based to a large degree on Steiner's very specific suggestions regarding the school curriculum. Krishnamurti refrained from making such specific recommendations regarding the curriculum as he was more concerned with the general approach that the teachers and schools take in educating students.
As we approach the next century I think both of these individuals can help us shape an education that is genuinely life affirming and holistic. Much of the Waldorf curriculum and Steiner's visions of child development can provide a framework for the child's education. Yet Krishnamurti reminds us that we should not be dogmatic or doctrinaire in our education and unfortunately some Waldorf educators have become too narrow and rigid in their approach.
Ultimately I don't we think can ever rely solely on one person for our approach to education or life itself. The universe has given us many educational geniuses- Socrates, Froebel, Pestalozzi, Tolstoy, Montessori, Steiner and Krishnamurti. Although we may feel connected to one thinker or set of ideas, I believe we need to remember that ultimately we should follow the teacher that exists within each one of us. This teacher is the divine spark that lives within each human being and is the principal source for healing the planet and educating our children.
I believe that we need to remember this principle as we approach the 21st century. Other principles that I believe are important to the future of holistic education include:
- The importance of spiritual practice
Spiritual practice has traditionally focused on techniques that help us access our innner wisdom. I believe it is extremely important that each one of use follow a particular practice to help us in that process. There is a paradox in most spiritual practices in that as we follow a particular discipline this usually fosters an inner freedom, lightness and spontaneity. Our intuition should be the judge of what practice is appropriate for us.
- Avoiding ideology and dogmatism
As a we follow a particular method or practice there is danger in thinking that we have found the way or the answer. We need to see our practice as a method that helps toward the goal of freedom but not is the goal itself. What I am talking about here is a genuine humility in respect to our practice and any beliefs that we may hold about spiritual practice and spirituality. We can see this humility in the Dalai Lama when he says that he is simply a monk. This humility brings a lightness of being that our planet needs so much at the present moment.
-We need to be politically aware and socially active
We cannot afford to stand on the sidelines. If we see injustice around us we cannot ignore it. What action we take can vary depending on the injustice and our own life context. However, whatever action we take should come from our inner wisdom and not our egos. Social activism based on the ego simply causes more suffering. I love the story of Gandhi and the salt march. Gandhi was being pressured to act in response to the British tax on salt in India. Instead he meditated for several weeks. Finally, the answer came to him one night in a dream as he saw himself walking to the ocean and simply taking some salt from the ocean water. This insight led to the famous salt march where 60,000 people Indians were jailed and was the beginning of the end of British rule in India
Holistic educators also should attempt to live holistic lives. Our efforts in education are just part of larger pattern in our lives. This does not mean we are trying to be perfect; in fact it means accepting our imperfections. On my favcrite human beings Elizabeth Kubler-Ross has a wonderful way of putting it: "You are not OK, I am not OK and that's OK.
-We need to use clear and straightfoward language.
We must avoid the trap of using language the most people cannot understand. I believe that is has been a major problem with regard to critical theory and post modern thought. Let the academics talk amongst themselves. We cannot afford this luxury if indeed it is a luxury. Krishnamurti is a wonderful example of someone how we can express ourselves clearly and directly.
- The need for networking and collaboration
We need to support each other in our work. Networks can allow us to nourish one another. In the last year I have become part of a network in educators interested in spirituality in education. The individuals in this network have provided invaluable support to me in my own endeavors. At the same time we need to reach out to others who may not hold our world view. We need to avoid we-they thinking. Compassion can allow us to do this as we see oursevles and others from a larger perspective. For some this perspective like the ancients we can view the universe as a dance or song. As we move into the next millenium, we can choose to dance or sing with joy or become lost in world of our egos.
- Trusting the Tao.
There are forces working in the universe that are much larger than you and me. It is difficult to name these forces but for me the term that comest closest it the Tao. I would like to briefly quote fromt the Tao te Ching.
The great Tao flows everyhwere
All things are born from it
yet it doesn't create them.
It pours itself into its work,
yet makes no claim.
It nourishes infinite worlds,
yet it doesn't hold on to them
Since it is merged with all things
and hidden in their hearts,
it can be called humble.
Since all things vanish into it
and it alone endures,
it can be called great.
It isn't aware of its greatness;
thus it is truly great.
Tao te Ching #34 (Stephen Mitchell translation)
Somehow we need to learn to trust the mystery of the Tao. Again spiritual practice can help us but this goes beyond spiritual practice as we simply learn to listen to our own hearts and rhythms of the earth and the cosmos. Have you ever been with someone who embodies this trust? It is wonderful experience because by their simple presence you can learn to trust the Tao more. It is this trust that will also help us heal this planet.
I believe that Krishnamurti encourages each person to trust himself or herself more and to live without fear. It is pleasure to be in place where this vision of freedom and wholeness has been residing. for 30 years.
References
Barker, R.B. & Gump, P.V. 1964. Big school, small school. Palo Alto, CA.: Stanford University Press
Emerson, R.W. (1990) Selected essays, lectures, and poems. New York: Bantam
Kessler, S. (1991) The teaching presence. Holistic Education Review.
4, pp.4-15
Kohn, Alfie. (1993) Punished by rewards. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Krishnamurti, J. (1953) Education and the significance of life. New York: Harper and Row.
Miller, J. (1995) Meditating teachers. Inquiring Mind. 12 (19&22)
Sher, J.O. (1977) Education in rural America. Boulder, Co.: Westview Press.
Wicker, A. & Baird, L. (1969) Journal of Educational Psychology, 60
Williamson, M. (1997) The healing of America. New York: Simon and Schuster.
There are often a number of obstacles that prevent dialogue from being an energetic learning experience.
These difficulties revolve around the nature of the thinking process.
Most of us are generally unaware of the movement of the thinking process in ourselves. Because we are
unaware of this movement, what appears as truth to one person is experienced as a mere opinion or thought
by another. These opposing points of view often create conflict that diminishes energy within the group in
dialogue - unless participants earnestly explore the source of the conflict.
We share an interest in wanting to understand ourselves and we generally feel that what Krishnamurti
talked about in his lifetime is relevant to the human condition. Most of us live in communities with very few
individuals interested in the kinds of subjects that Krishnamurti drew attention to. We naturally want to meet
like-minded people who share this interest as most human beings caught in the ordinary conditioned existence
of everyday life are not aware of the significance of what Krishnamurti talked of. New participants often
sense disappointment that the disharmony that exists in the general population also occurs among human
beings interested in the teachings of Krishmamurti.
To diminish the potential frustration and disagreements that may arise, the following guide to dialogue
etiquette is offered to participants, especially those who have not participated in these dialogues before. If
participants have observations that can be added to this list we would like to hear from them.
1. Limit the length of what you have to say. The longer you speak, the less likely it is that others will hear
you out.
2. Listen to what others are saying, instead of preparing your own statements.
3. Ask for clarification before opposing a statement.
4. Repeating what Krishnamurti has said does not constitute understanding or support our arguments.
5. Those who speak easily need to speak less, to encourage expression from those who are reticent.
6. Responding honestly without merely reacting is not common in today’s society. Honesty in society is
dangerous, that same danger exists in the group. Be aware of the tendency of uncomfortable, conflictual
subjects being swept under the carpet. Uncomfortable subjects are often very useful in understanding the
movement of thought.
7. Stay on topic. If the group is not talking about your particular interest, find a meaningful connection
between your interest and the subject being discussed. Do not change the topic without recognising that some
may wish to continue discussing the subject that you are abandoning.
8. Watch the reactions that arise in you when some statement is made that you strongly disagree with.
9. Observe the desire to ‘become’ psychologically when making statements that you hope will be seen as
intelligent or erudite.
10. Act as a facilitator. Be responsible for everyone feeling part of the group.
These guidelines to etiquette are not hard and fast rules - they will not be appropriate in every situation.
What is important is to see that a harmonious exploration of the psychological domain can only develop if
there is cooperation among the participants in each group.
These exchanges occurred in a small mailing list a friend of mine has. Some very interesting ideas and recollections here about J. Krishnamurti, Osho, UG, etc.
On 10/1/2010 8:25 PM, Shreeniwas wrote:
My very personal view. This could offend you if you are attached to these people.
I visited Rajneesh's Ashram in 1987. I found him very hurt, cynical and cruel. He is a glib
talker, a gifted stand-up comedian. There is nothing original about that chap. People close to him say he died of AIDS, he was a serious sex addict. The book " Bhagvan, the god that failed" clearly shows what a confused man he was. He stole most his message from Buddha, K, and others. If people follow him , nobody can save them. Though he is a shade better than UG. I have met that chap a few times. He was very jealous of K, class conscious, violent and stole everything from K , while not acknowledging it. He tried to persuade me to give him publicity, invited me to lunch a couple of times and gave me all his books. When I told him he was jealous of K and was desperate for publicity he got upset. I think these two guys are truly mad.
Regarding K, I was a person who doubted him, questioned him and publicly asked him questions about his comfortable life style.
What was remarkable was after my questions disturbed his meeting, caused much doubt in people who were listening, he did not allow anybody to condemn me. When I went back and said: " Sir I hope I haven't offended you by publicly saying those things... " He replied : " No sir, not at all, I am not that kind of person sir" My doubts never left me for long but what really matters now is not what or who he really was. He was loving, caring and genuinely sane till I last met him in Vasanth Vihar, one month before he died.
Many things he said have happened to me after 24 years , but they could all be coincidences too. What matters is if I can be harmless, understand the tricks of the ego.
Cheers
Shreeniwas
========================================================
On 9/27/2010 5:19 PM, Sitanshu Kumar wrote:
I have read rajnessh since i was fifteen, and having seen him in person when I was only four. Lately when I hear him, it seems his understanding of all major issues is faulty, if not plain wrong. But one thing I detect in him, he had a some kind of fearlessness, Wether it came from complete resignation, or something else, I do not know. He played around too much with sex and material things ( which is completely frivolous). I do not think anybody should read Osho at al. It may lead to madness.
Regards
Sitanshu
========================================================
subbu,
As I was taking a walk in the morning, it came to me. Is there a superior being ?
In my realization there is not. Only a "clear" being. This bring is like glass or quartz crystal , without a mark. But all the light is amplified many times over. As I said I remember Rajneesh from when I was 4, he used to wear white clothes. I was about 50 feet. I did not feel anything thing extra-ordinary.
My earliest remembrances of K was when I was 5. I still remember him as a light bulb. A yellow light bulb. K was darker than Rajneesh, but a yellow light emanated from him. Of course as soon as he stepped, the whole congregation would become silent. Pin drop. As I have indicated earlier K had some sort of super clairvoyance. Any way I got side tracked. Rajneesh had good potential, but attachments got the better of him, indulged in a lot of delusionay thinking. Out friend Pathik did agree with me, that towards the end of his life, he was positively mad. Be-aware of the spiritual path .
Regards
Sitanshu
========================================================
Hi Subbu
As I was growing up fist chirst, then gandhi and then rajneesh and then K became a big figure for me ( in that order). As I have grown older, I realized that all men have drawbacks. But now, I do not see any spirituality in Rajneesh. He
was an armchair philosopher, most of the time reading books written by others. He also seemed to be living for wealth and sex, all that profane crap. Living for these things is profanity of life, not using them when required.
Sorry for expressing these for a man that is gone. He makes a good light reading for many, and they should continue. But I still maintain that seriously following him
can lead to madness. I did mention K and Rajneesh in the same paragraph, but I never think of them together. I still think is a joker but not as mad as UG krishnamurti.
Regards,
Sitanshu
On 12/28/2011 5:55 AM, Subu Kavasseri wrote:
The etymological root meaning of Samadhi is 'putting together in place'.
Reminds me of a definition of art !
It is not to be confused with 'construction'. In fact it means 'deconstruction'
quite paradoxically. I think Sitanshu rightly put it as non-becoming. Cadbury
also gave a definition - 'cessation of thought', for nirvikalpa samadhi.
I am always impressed at how rich and deep these Eastern ideas are -- to even think along these lines of a "state" as my dear friend Michael Mendizza keeps reminding us, of peace, for lack of better word, implies a level of depth that is somewhat missing in traditional Western ideas.
I would put all that together (no pun intended) and define samadhi as 'deconstruction
of that which is put together by thought and thus, the ending of becoming'.
which is the same as what I understood of K saying (but K read Buddha anyway but i believe him that he came to it first hand - even if i hear from you there's a flower out there i can still go perceive the flower first hand - so coming to something first hand doesn't mean to be the first to come to it.
Sariputra, the great disciple of the Buddha was once asked how he would define
Nirvana and he simply said 'cessation of becoming'.
K's non-dualistic state where the observer is the observed, comes close to the
definition of Nirvikalpa Samadhi as given in Wikipedia. K never spoke much about
what happens after physical death, but since 'samadhi' does not have anything to
do with a person, it probably does not matter if there are two definitions of samadhi
- one for a state before physical death and the other after physical death.
He often didn't talk about this subject but when pressed In a discussions, what I understood of it was that he referred to the stream of human consciousness and stepping out of it by ending one's anxieties etc while alive and otherwise staying in that stream -- how original this idea is, maybe you guys can tell me more but it sounds pretty Buddhistic as well doesn't it ? I'm not saying K was repeating a theory. How true this was to him is just a matter of speculation
Their wandering thoughts trained more on everyday things than on fantasies, and much more than on worries. That's similar to what previous studies have found. "A lot of what they're reporting is ... mental to-do lists," Kane said.
Michael Kane, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, sampled the thoughts of students at eight random times a day for a week. He found that on average, they were not thinking about what they were doing 30 percent of the time.
For some students it was between 80 and 90 percent of the time. Out of the 126 participants, only one denied any mind-wandering at the sampled moments.
Prior work has also turned up average rates of 30 percent to 40 percent in everyday life.
Dad grew up in a fishing town in south Cornwall. His family were butchers, with their own small abattoir and butchers shop. For sure my dad, Alfred Clive Toms was an artist and yet somehow he was encouraged to join HM Customs and Excise and head to London to work, rather than go to university. He had two brothers, one who was a prison officer and the other a woodwork teacher.
So there he was, a quiet guy, young, in the London docklands in the early sixties, working on checking cargo and shipments and quantities and allowances and imports and exports. I imagine it was pretty rough. Somewhere in London he met my mother who was studying physiotherapy in South London.
My older brother and I were born in north London, but we moved to the countryside before I was 2, so I grew up in Wiltshire, where my Dad continued to work as a civil servant. Now more involved in checking the production levels of the brewing industry.
His involvement with alcohol unfortunately extended beyond work, and as long as I can remember, booze was around, be it long, frequent visits to the pub, home brewing, or drinking with friends. And later, alone.
I remember his philosophical mind. Things were never straight forward. He said that he didn't get along with that many people. Things continued fairly normally into my teens. It was then I started feeling awkward around him and his convoluted explanations with touches on true wisdom, his launching into seemingly irrelevant descriptions of historical events. But also great humour at times. I didn't really understand him much. Once when mum was in hospital I wanted to cry. He told me not to because he would too.
The heavy drinking got more frequent and I would avoid him more and more, often hiding up in my room. Dinner at home became food in front of the tv instead of together at the table. Weird jealous notes written to my mum. And later bottles of spirits found around the house. He never got physically violent, at least not with me.
I left home when I was 18 for university. By then my mum had had enough and had moved out, and a divorce followed. When I got married at 22, I was too embarrassed of him to invite him to the wedding. I can't imagine how bad this must have made him feel, increasing his alienation from his family.
Jumping back a while... A keen amateur magician, a puppeteer, a choir member, a parish councilor, a nature lover, a film buff, highly intelligent. And jumping back some more, a loving father, reading bedtime stories, carrying us on shoulders, a keen walker, encouraging in us a love of the outdoors.
Away at university and beyond I had less and less to do with him. I felt estranged at a visit to our old family home before it was sold, him living alone, a stale smell in there, me and my two brothers sitting about, all awkward, him saying it felt like a forced visit to an aunt. It did to me too. I went out to take the dog, now so sad-looking, for a walk.
The house sold and I heard he was living with a drinking friend, in the nearby town. We would write sometimes and he'd often guiltily defend his drinking. 'What's wrong with the odd Guinness at lunchtime?' But it was way more than that, and had been for years.
Then I heard he'd been taken ill. Liver trouble. Big trouble. Released from hospital but unable really to look after himself he was in a low grade psychiatric hospital when I went to visit. Looking around 70, he was yellow from the liver damage. He didn't really know which of his sons I was, some amalgamation of us all. He wanted cigarettes from town and it was a relief to go get them. This was typical, me avoiding the issue by leaving. A sad scene in there, lost people looking up at the tv high on the wall; horse racing.
When he got better, a little bit better, he was out again but his weak body couldn't take any more. He died of complications from a stomach ulcer due to alcoholism soon after. Drinking on an empty stomach. He was under 50 years old.
A man who never found his place, who didn't fit in easily and used drink to help. A heavy drinking London culture started it off. When he quit his profession there were sorry attempts of self employment but he never worked again and he never found an outlet for his creativity and intelligence.
I didn't really know him in adult life. He's taught me the dangers of alcohol, a route all three of us have been in danger of in our time. He said that you can tell more about a person in their eyes rather than their words. Time and time again while watching tv he would tell us: this isn't real, you know. Kind of obvious but very true. Real life isn't mediated and if it is it isn't real life.
Many times I remember his illnesses, days in bed, shaking, sweating, that strange smell. Trying to quit. And when he was well, I remember, seems strange now, him doing yoga asanas on the bedroom floor.
from http://www.kfionline.org
Education was always one of Krishnamurti's chief concerns. He felt that if only the young and the old could be awakened to their conditioning of prejudices, fears, desires, etc. which inevitably leads to conflict, they might bring to their lives a totally different quality. His concern found expression in the establishment of Education Centres--schools for the young, and Study Centres/ Retreats for adults.
When Krishnamurti spoke to the school children, his language was lucid and
simple. He explored with them their relationship to nature and to one another,
and to psychological problems like fear, authority, competition, love and
freedom. To him the schools were a milieu in which the larger existential
issues could be explored in an atmosphere of freedom and responsibility.
The cultivation of a global outlook, a spirit of inquiry, and concern for man
and environment have since been integral to the intentions of these schools.
The more apparent features of this spirit are shared by all schools--large
campuses of great natural beauty; a friendly, caring relationship between
teachers and students; simple, wholesome vegetarian diet; austere but
comfortable living quarters; spacious and inviting classrooms;
well-equipped libraries and laboratories; and a small teacher-student ratio
with highly qualified and motivated teachers.
A school is a place where one learns both the importance of
knowledge and its irrelevance. It is a place where one learns to
observe the world without a particular point of view or
conclusion. One learns to look at the whole of man's
endeavour, his search for beauty, his search for truth and a way
of living that is not a contradiction between conclusion and
action. It is a place where both the teacher and the taught learn
a way of life in which conflict ends. Conflict is the very essence
of violence.
It is here one learns the importance of relationship which is not
based on attachment or possessiveness. It is in the school one
must learn about the movement of thought, love and death, for
all this is the whole of life.
-- J. Krishnamurti.
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Hello! - and welcome to the II Term edition of the Rishi Valley Newsletter.
In our last newsletter we had raised many questions. This term it would appear that some of them have been answered. Rangingfrom the creation of clubs, to garbage collection, to organizing several hikes, there has been increased enthusiasm from teachersand students alike.
Inspired by Sridhar Sir, a group of students formed a Literary Club. Its activities ranged from discussing Ayn Rand excerpts toviewing interesting films. On the initiative of a large number of students, Shirali Sir held a few sessions on Astronomy. Under thebeautiful night skies, he showed us how to read star charts and identify some familiar constellations. Taking advantage of oursurroundings, hikes were organized for almost every class; some were led by Senior students!
A striking example of student enthusiasm is the formation of an animal care group, RVAC (Rishi Valley Animal Care). SashaSud (11th), leader and initiator, hopes to extend his programme to all the animals of Rishi Valley but is currently concentratingonly on the stray dogs. RVAC cares for the stray dogs by feeding and grooming for them regularly and is interested in dogpopulation control with assistance from a voluntary group in Bangalore.
Our music teachers Srinivasan Sir and Seshadri Sir will be visiting University College School in London, UK, as part of theRVS-UCS teacher exchange programme. They will be giving many concerts during the tour and accompanying some renownedartists. We are sure that it will be a most enriching experience for them.
We bid sad farewells to several teachers this term. Ambika Akka, Sumita Akka and Padmini Akka-who have been with us formany years-are leaving us. The term also said goodbye to Aroop Sir and Bipin Sir. We shall miss them a lot and wish them wellfor their future careers. Parekh Sir too will be away from School, but only temporarily-he will be spending the year teaching inSahyadri School (KFI). We look forward to seeing him next year.
As the year comes to an end, yet another batch of ISC and ICSE students will be leaving us. The School will surely feel theirabsence and we will miss them.
The term has been culturally productive and eventful and we hope the enthusiasm carries into the coming year.
- Ishier Raote, Arzanne De Vitre, Kiran Keshavamurthy, Kadambari Misra, Pronoti Datta, Theodore S. Kaye.
FROM THE PRINCIPAL
Following the pattern set during earlier years, the II term has been culturally much richer than the I term. There have beenworkshops and events of one kind or another right through the term; practically every class has partaken of the feast. Theexamination batches too had their fun, with exposure to a rock climbing workshop.
New programmes instituted this term include the class outings to Kaigal, a plot of land near Palamaner (less than 2 hours drivefrom Rishi Valley), owned by the KFI and currently being used by the three southern KFI schools. The idea is to exposestudents to a rich natural environment in small doses, via short stays at the site. Meals are prepared by the students and escortsthemselves over a wood fire, and washing is done in a nearby stream that runs through the plot. There is even a waterfall withinwalking distance. The experience is thus very much an open-air one. In keeping with the intention behind the programme, musicsystems are not permitted to be brought along, nor card games, frisbees, volleyballs, ...; indeed, anything in the nature of outsideentertainment. So far the experience has proved to be a very positive and enjoyable one. (The students were reluctant toreturn!) We hope to make these outings a permanent feature of the term calendar.
Krishnamurti's words on man's relationship with nature come to mind as I write this.
"We have become far too clever. Our brains have been trained to become verbally, intellectually, very bright. They are crammed with a great deal of information and we use this for a profitable career. A clever, intellectual person is praised, shown honour. Such people seem to usurp all the important places in the world: they have power, position, prestige. But their cleverness betrays them at the end. In their hearts they never know what love is or deep charity and generosity, for they are enclosed in their vanity and arrogance. This has become the pattern of all the highly endowed schools. A boy or girl, accepted in the conventional school, gets trapped in modern civilisation and is lost to the whole beauty of life.
When you wander through the woods with heavy shadows and dappled light and suddenly come across an open space, a green meadow surrounded by stately trees, or a sparkling stream, you wonder why man has lost his relationship with nature and the beauty of the earth, the fallen leaf and the broken branch. If you have lost touch with nature, then you will inevitable lose relationship with another. Nature is not just the flowers, the lovely green lawn or the flowing waters in your little garden, but the whole earth with all the things on it. We consider that nature exists for our use, for our convenience, and so lose communion with the earth. This sensitivity to the fallen leaf and to the tall tree on a hill is far more important than all the passing of examinations and having a bright career. Those are not the whole of life. Life is like a vast river with a great volume of water without a beginning or an ending. We take out of that fast-running current a bucket of water and the confined water becomes our life. This is our conditioning and our everlasting sorrow."
An outing to Kaigal is not going to change in any essential way our relationship with nature; nor will a trek in the Himalayas. Butit may help .... It may open our eyes to a world to which all too often we give very little attention. The world of nature is allaround us, from a sunset with its supreme dignity and silence, to a tuft of grass or flower growing unnoticed in a ditch. Probablythe most extraordinary thing about nature is its complete anonymity and lack of centre-it does not demand to be seen,appreciated, photographed-and also the touch of mystery about it which is so utterly uncontrived. Can we understand andcapture the essence of that feeling?
Another idea being tried out this term is that of attaching a 'tutor' to a small group of students (numbering ten or so). The idea isto increase the interaction betwen staff and students and to provide an additional avenue for students to access when they feelthe need to do so. (The existing avenues are those provided by the Class teacher and the House parent. ) The programme hasbegun on a quiet but successful note, and we hope to enlarge its scope. It seems particularly relevant for standards 7 and 8, andperhaps for standard 9 too-this being the entry point into the senior school.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the years of adolescence are difficult years for our children. This may sound naive andfatuous, perhaps true tautologically; but things have not always been this way. There have been times when this country wasmore stable, when life was less open-ended, more secure, more certain. But times are changing rapidly, under the onslaught oftechnology and the media and the aggressive demand for entertainment. And by and by we are seeing these changes reflected inour own students, particularly the younger ones. In the western countries it has now become routine to find traumatic difficultiesexperienced during the growing-up years, and it would seem that girls have by far much more harrowing 'rites of passage' thanboys. "With puberty girls crash into junk culture" writes Mary Pipher in Reviving Ophelia; she wonders why at a time when thewomen's movement has made so many gains, the culture as a whole has become so much more oppressive towards girls. She isof course writing about American society, but is the situation in India so very different? Unfortunately, no .... The peer culture ismuch tougher today than it was twenty years back, and this is as true of India as it is of America. "Girls today are ... coming ofage in a more dangerous, ... media saturated world. They face incredible pressures to be beautiful and sophisticated." She adds,"Wholeness is shattered by the chaos of adolescence." These words may not apply wholesale to our social environment; and yetthe reality of this country too is cause for deep concern. What is the right action in the face of such a problem?
What is the problem, really? Is it lack of relationship, and therefore profound isolation? Is it that the ambient culture is so cynical(political cynicism, the hypocrisy of big business, ...) that children growing up in such environments inevitably view the worldwith the same cynical eyes? Are we witnessing the inevitable denouement of a way of life which has been around for manycenturies?-I refer to our essentially self-centred way of living, our incessant obsession with ourselves. Probably each of thesefactors is playing its part, to a lesser or greater extent. The problem is clearly not a superficial one, and there may be no simpleor direct solution.
Krishnamurti's words once more come to mind: "... [and] you wonder why man has lost his relationship with nature and thebeauty of the earth, the fallen leaf and the broken branch. If you have lost touch with nature, then you will inevitable loserelationship with another. ..." Perhaps this holds the key to what we can do. We have lost touch with the Earth; why can't webuild the relationship once more? And if we do, will this not bring wholeness and a sense of the sacred into our lives?
- Shailesh A. Shirali
NEWS FROM THE JUNIOR SCHOOL ...
This term the Junior School was exposed to a wide variety of activities, ranging from ribbon dancing to drama. There weremany interesting visitors. At the start of term, Stephan Harding, an ecologist and now a regular visitor to Rishi Valley, held a fewassemblies for the Junior School on the concept of the "ecological footprint" and how its impact can be reduced. Derek Hookheld his usual story-telling assemblies filled with innovative sound effects. (Stephan borrowed some of these sound effects for histalks!) Gerry Balcombe, now on his 15th visit to the School, directed a play, "Fudzel the Wise", with the 7th standard.
There were a number of workshops for all age groups in the Junior School. The 4th standard students participated in apuppet-making workshop conducted by a parent, Mrs Vakil. Mrs Prasanna, another parent, held a 3-week drama work-shopwith the 5th which included activities like writing dialogues. In fact the 5th even staged a play on Asthachal hill. They also learntribbon dancing from Andrea, who has now become a familiar face in Rishi Valley. The students were so enthused by theworkshop that they put up a ribbon dancing assembly two weeks after she left. Andrea also helped create a programme forJunior Games which includes a wider varity of sports.
A novel workshop on sketching and painting trees was conducted by Nalini Malani, parent and well-known artist, for the 6th.This was held in conjunction with the Science classes. The students studied trees in detail and then sketched or painted them inwater colour.
The 8th and 9th took part in a drama workshop held by Mr Vakil, a parent who is actively involved in theatre. The workshopwas mainly centered around "voice production". Dr Gieve Patel held a poetry workshop for the 7th, 8th and 9th.
Tom Harrison and Jonathan Shenfield, exchange teachers from the University College School in London, spent a few weeks inRV. Tom spent the first half of the term in the Valley and took a few classes in English and Drama for Junior School students.Jonathan who arrived a few weeks later took English classes for the 9th and French classes for Junior and Senior Schoolstudents. Both Tom and Jonathan spent a lot of time with students from the Junior School, accompanying them on hikes andexcursions and regularly visiting them in their houses.
Excursions ...
A number of hikes were organized during the term. Students from the 12th went on their last hike in RV to Bodi Konda whilethe 10th and 9th standards scaled Middle Peak and Rishi Konda respectively.
The 8th enjoyed a 3-day excursion to the Kaigal Waterfalls which seems to have become a favorite spot amongst the students.The 7th standard students went on a 4-day trip to Anantapur, Bellary, Hampi, Raichur, and the Hutti gold mines. The highlightsof the trip were the visits to the Tungabhadra Dam and the Hutti mines where the students descended 2400 feet into the earthand held 2 kg of pure gold! Mr Dalwai, a parent, helped organize the excursion. The 6th standard students were invited for 2days by the Valley School in Bangalore. The trip provided for an interesting interaction between the two sister schools.
A few music students had the opportunity to attend concerts held by L. Subramaniam and Zakir Hussain in Bangalore.
Music and Dance ...
The term has been an active one in the field of music and dance. The talents of students and staff have been in full display.
Reza Ganjavi was in Rishi Valley as part of a tour to the KFI Schools, which he has beenvisiting because of his interest in Krishnaji's teachings and his love for children. He has been trained on the classical guitar, and he played several pieces for us. He followed this with some energetically sung Beatles' songs. He was accompanied on stage by Arzanne and Vandana (standard 11), who made the performance still more lively.
Mrs Revathy Ratnaswamy, professional Carnatic singer and teacher and now a regular visitor to the School, conductedworkshops during her visits. She presented assemblies with the staff and students and also gave an individual concert. For oneof the morning assemblies, Vijay and Abhijit of the 11th and the Kambe brothers (Aditya, 8th; Siddhartha, 11th) put up aspirited tabla performance. They were accompanied by Srinivasan Sir. Madhusudhan Sir and Srinivasan Sir presented anotherassembly in which they sang classical Carnatic songs. They were accompanied by Seshadri Sir on the violin and Ananth (12th)and Vijay (11th) on the mridangam. Madhusudhan Sir later presented a solo performance to lively accompaniment.
Sarah Akka's Christmas Choir came up with yet another commendable performance. The stage, lit by decorative red candles,highlighted (pun intended) the beautiful singing. It made for a very enjoyable evening.
In January, a special dinnger was followed by a presentation of Carnatic music. Students of the 8th sang a variety of songs,following which Seshadri Sir and Srinivasan Sir, on the violin and mridangam respectively, performed together with guestaccompanists on the morsing, ghatam, and mridangam. It was a great performance.
The much-awaited annual musical evening was held towards the end of term. As always it was hosted by Parekh Sir, whoinaugurated it with one of his favourite melodies. There was a lot of participation (with nearly 70 entries!) and the songs weresung with great enthusiasm, many of them spiced up by accompaniment from Ashwin (11th) on the keyboard, Ashish andAnanth (both from the 12th) on the guitar, and Abhijit's (11th) drumming. Students of 11th stole the show with eye-catchingfancy-dress costumes. (Robin Hood, Nehru, Satan and Hitler were some of the characters impresonated!) It was a memorableevening!
Sandhya Jade, an ex-student of Rishi Valley, visited the Valley in February (her first visit since she left in the 70's!) and staged adelightful Bharatanatyam performance. She is now a professional dancer and lives in California.
Sharada Akka, our dance teacher, staged a Bharatanatyam performance under the Banyan tree. She presented the concert inthe traditional style, starting with the Allaripu and ending with a Tillana. She danced with grace and the performance was apleasure to watch.
The term has clearly been a very active one culturally, and there has been enthusiastic participation from both students and staff.Music and dance performances have made for some very memorable evenings this term, and we certainly hope to see more ofthis next year.
Arts and Crafts ...
The term has seen numerous activities taking place in the field of Art.
Early during the term a pottery workshop was held by a visitor from Canada, Mrs Bharati Vadgamma, for students of the 11th.The students improved their clay-work skills greatly during the workshop. Ms Bharati also gave a talk on her occupation asradio therapist.
This year's Arts and Crafts Exhibition, "Srujana", presented an impressive collection of work done in Pottery, Batik, Tie andDye, Carpentry, Stitching and Fine Art by students ranging from the 3rd to the 12th. A few highly intricate pieces of Kalamkariwere on display too. The exhibition was over a weekend and one could sense the enormous effort that went into making it sucha success.
Another round of the annual Hand-Made Paper Workshop was put up for the 11th by Mrs Patricia Gokhale, a parent. It washeld over 3 days and proved to be hard work. The students learnt a great deal about the principles involved and the instrumentsused in paper-making. The workshop was challenging but also lots of fun!
Art students from the 9th and 11th visited the Valley School, Bangalore, for 2 days, to attend their annual "Art Mela". Theexhibits included Batik, Pottery, Carpentry, Photography, and several others. It was a colourful and enriching opportunity forour Art students to interact with the teachers and students of our sister-school.
Sports ...
The term has been an active one in the sports arena. Ample opportunities provided by the School have encouraged greaterparticipation from students.
Numerous tournaments were conducted. An inter-class Volleyball tournament held in January this year included teams from 9,10A, 10B, 11 and 12. The 12th swept through the tournament without losing a single match. A much awaited Badmintonmixed-doubles tournament, originally scheduled for last term, was finally held early this year. After an exhausting round ofmatches, JT and his 7th standard partner Aarya defeated the 10th standard duo Ravi and Shruti in the finals. In the tennisdoubles tournament which was held at the same time, Kartikeya and Vivasvat recovered from a shaky first match to beat thefavourites Nikhil and Ryan in straight sets and clinched the title.
Football proved to be especially eventful. A coach from Tirupati stayed with us for a month and worked on sharpening ourstudents' football skills. Later he invited a team coached by him in Tirupati to play against Rishi Valley. The School team wontwo out of the three games. Nearly a dozen other matches were played against other teams: the Madanapalle FootballAssociation and the Besant Theosophical College, to name just two. The success rate was phenomenal-only two matches werelost by the home team.
The term was a good one for cricket too. The traditional clash with Kolar, held as always on Republic Day, resulted in a closematch. Despite a spectacular start by the School team, Kolar won the game. Numerous other matches were played. This yearthe success rate for cricket also has been one of the best in the past decade; the cricket captain Fraaz (11th) is to becongratulated.
Visitors ...
Gieve Patel, now a regular visitor to the School, conducted a poetry workshop for children of the 7th, 8th and 9th. Heintroduced the children to poetry as a form of expression, encouraged them to create their own work and finally organized anassembly where a large number of students presented samples of their poems.
He also gave two talks on ancient Mughul painting and illustrated them with spectacular slide shows. His presentation exposedthe cultural and historical background of the Mughal rulers starting from Babar and moving on to Arangzeb. He showed thechange in their lifetstyle throughout their glorious rule of India. The slides were extremely vivid and he described them in minutedetail. This made the experience very real for the audience.
The beginning of term saw the return of much loved Derek Hook, the master storyteller. He spent several enjoyable hours withthe Juniors narrating stories in his unique style. He also presented an assembly where he narrated two stories using hisimprovised musical instruments, much to the fascination and amusement of the audience.
A remarkable student-teacher pair, Anne Hojhott and Jane Smith, visited Rishi Valley as a part of the Teacher Trainingprogramme of their College DNS in Denmark. They were interested in rural education and visited our centres. They also took avideo film of some of the educational and environmental aspects of Rishi Valley.
Augmenting Rishi Valley's environmental spirit, Spanish permaculturist Gras Eugenio spent a month helping develop our variousnature-preserving activities. He helped out in compost gardening, mending a septic tank, and renovating our soap-water tankcleanser. He also gave talks to a number of classes on his work and the need for eco-consciousness. He travels around theworld teaching methods of permaculture. We hope to see him again next term. Priscilla, a teacher from Costa Rica, spent acouple of weeks in the Valley, giving talks to the Junior School. Deeply impressed and inspired by the philosophy and ambienceof our School, she plans to set up her own school in Costa Rica based on some of the Krishnamurti's educational principles.
After living in Rishi Valley for many years, we sometimes tend to take our surroundings for granted. This term aBangalore-based outdoor gear company, Wildcraft, changed this by holding a 3-day Rock Climbing Workshop in late Januaryfor students from the 9th and 11th standards. Though it was hot, the students enthusiastically grasped at the sport (pun intended)and even rapelled down a 40-metre face in the Valley! By the end of the Workshop, the wildcraft instructors had left ourstudents with a new sense of respect for Nature and a very different perspective of their surroundings. Wildcraft has suggestedthe setting up of a rock-climbing wall for making the sport more accessible to our students.
Much to our students' delight, Australian social worker and circus trainer Louise Moriarty spent a week in the Valley holdingworkshops on acrobatics, juggling and meditation. She gave lessons to students from the junior-most to the senior-most oneverything from making human pyramids and doing the traditional Brazilian Capoiera dances to juggling clubs. Ms Moriarty hasbeen training people for the circus and can juggle upto five balls! Her boundless energy enlivened our activites and her visit wasenjoyed by everyone.
From The Estate ...
1997-98 was a good year for the Estate-we produced nearly 700 bags of Paddy, reached self-sufficiency in items such as Rice,Coconuts, Groundnuts, Tamarind, Tomatoes and many Vegetables, and had an extremely good crop of Watermelon andSugarcane. Thanks to this, students got plenty of Watermelon and Sugarcane to eat during the II Term. As the summerapproaches, we have cultivated 10 acres each of Paddy and Sugarcane, and we are now trying to grow Bananas, Sapotas andGuavas. Unfortunately the Mango yield this year is expected to be very poor (this is so for the entire region around here).Electricity shortages continue to be a source of difficulty, but thankfully the water supply has held out.
The multi-grade teaching and learning methodologies created at the Rishi Valley Education Centre have met with wideacceptance in Andhra Pradesh and other parts of India. The Director DPEP (A.P.) visited Rishi Valley and toured the satelliteschools to study the methodology adopted. There is now a proposal to adopt the methodology in some 2000 schools spreadover 20 mandals in 7 districts of the state. A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with the District PrimaryEducation Centres of Haryana, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for capacity building in this area. Training of programme coordinatorsfrom these states has begun; the programme is of one year duration.
Work on producing the education kit in colour for the Andhra Pradesh non-formal education department is in progress.
Vicky Colbert, an expert on multi-grade education from Colombia, visited Rishi Valley with associates from the World Bank toevaluate our work and discuss the feasibility of creating a global network. Visitors to the Rural Centre included a group from thePhillipines, and participants from Assam and Maharashtra attended courses on campus.
We have produced six audio cassettes containing twelve Panchatantra stories set to folk music by the well known folk musicianMrs Vinjamuri Sita Devi in collaboration with Mr Seshadri. There is also an accopanying workbook.
Reprinted with permission
THINKING AND AWARENESS
When I lived in Neem House in Rishi Valley, a rat used to come in my room at night in darkness through a hole in the tiled roof. Whenever I heard the sound of the rat running on the roof, I switched on the light. The rat immediately disappeared. It could not be seen in the light. This used to happen several times every night. The rat was attracted to some food kept in the cupboard.
Our thoughts (or the thinking process) is like a rat. It comes in the darkness of unawareness. But when the light of awareness is switched on, thoughts disappear. Thoughts cannot go in in awareness. The mind is quiet but alert. This is the initial stage of meditation. In advanced stage of meditation, thoughts may come and go in the background of awareness. In the blue sky of awareness, thoughts come and go like white clouds.
Do you have time and space to experiment with watching how thoughts come and go? Have you experienced a gap between two thoughts? This is the key to understanding oneself by direct perception. Human beings are caught in the whirlpool of thoughts. The deeper human psychological problems cannot be solved by just thinking. Awareness, which is not made of thinking, is the instrument in understanding. Thinking is narrow, limited space, awareness is immeasurable.
Krishnamurti talked about this for 60 years. He had found the key to psychological freedom. His words are simple and clear. Hope you will read and experiment with his teachings in the daily life. A new world may open up for you as it happened to me many years ago. Once the awareness is ignited, it would reveal to you everything without any effort. Then you can stop reading books of Krishnamurti.
The book of your own life will be read with freshness as it is written. Then you may understand the meaning of words like love and beauty.
Harshad Parekh
By Mary Cadogan
Krishnamurti made the decision to start a school in Europe just over forty years ago and, after a wide-ranging search for a suitable location, he and the Foundation’s Trustees decided to establish this at Brockwood Park. For those of us who were involved from Brockwood’s beginnings it is a special joy to see how—forty years on—the School is still growing and truly flourishing.
Krishnaji worked very closely with Dorothy Simmonds, the first Principal, and all the Brockwood staff, to create the open, caring and really international atmosphere which, ever since, has remained central to the work of the School. His presence there for several months in each year was, of course, immensely helpful—but also immensely challenging. The School could never rest on its laurels! For Krishnaji there were no half-measures: he demanded excellence at every level from all who worked at Brockwood.
The School has weathered storms and vicissitudes from which it seems to have acquired new strengths and creativity. It has grown, and moved closely towards what Krishnaji wanted it to be from the beginning, “something much more than a school”. It is a place of enquiry, where staff and students live and learn together, without fear or prejudices, and where people interested in the teachings can visit and share their own discoveries with the Brockwood community. It is appropriate that Brockwood Park is now also the home of the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, the Krishnamurti Centre and the junior school, Inwoods.
Over the years, of course, Brockwood has had to respond to many challenges, and I would like to mention just two of these here. One was of a physical nature, but it seemed symbolic of Brockwood’s healing and restorative powers.
In 1990, many wonderful trees in the as if Brockwood’s grounds had lost forever a great deal of their loveliness and serenity—but with financial help from its friends and dedicated work on the part of the staff, careful clearing and replanting restored the grounds to their characteristic beauty.
Another, and an even greater challenge, came with Krishnamurti’s death in 1986. For over twenty years now, the School has had to function without his direct and personal input.
In this connection, I remember what happened when I visited Brockwood almost immediately after Krishnaji’s passing. I had been with him in California, and felt the need to visit the School to convey something of the mood of the momentous last days of his life.
I had, unconsciously perhaps, always regarded Krishnaji as the Father of the Foundation and particularly, of the School. When I arrived at Brockwood, something remarkable seemed to have happened there. There was an almost palpable atmosphere of calm, dedication, responsibility and true creativity: it was as if, with the death of the father, everyone in the School had suddenly “grown up”. A new strength was there—which, I feel, still continues. I can honestly say, as someone closely associated with Brockwood but not one of the staff, that almost every time I go there I am struck by its openness, sensitivity and vitality. I hope and trust that this will continue over the next forty years.
In the 1970s Joseph Chilton published his National Best Seller, The Magical Child. Magical Child describes nature’s agenda for unfolding unlimited human capacity. A core concept that weaves throughout all of Pearce’s works is what he refers to as the “model imperative.” The unfolding and development of any potential capacity is “experience” dependent. It is the model-environment that provides the experience that mentors and develops every possibility.
Magical Parent-Magical Child written by Michael Mendizza with Pearce explores what it takes for adults to BE the optimum model-environment for humanities next giant leap forward, that is to parent, coach, educate or mentor a child.
Everyone knows that childhood is a transformational journey for children. Few realize that loving, caring for and mentoring children is, like it or not, a developmental, transformative practices for adults. Certainty no adult emerges from these relationships the same as they begin. The explosive learning, personal growth and yes deep, profound transformation children experience throughout childhood is available to adults right now, at any age.
My work weaves together three basic themes. First, parenting, coaching, caring for and the educating children are developmental, transformative practices or stages for adults, just as leaning to walk and talk are transformative practices for the child. The adult-child relationship represents an explosive opportunity for adults to reach beyond the limits most have accepted for themselves and the childlike qualities, the genius of childhood, being modeled by the child in this relationship represents the optimum “state” for this transcendent journey to take place.
Second, learning, performance and wellbeing, at any age or stage of development, are “state specific.” The specific state of the body and mind as one meets a challenge defines what is learned and how well one performs. Meaning, content, what we usually call “the score” emanates from the specific state of the body and mind as it meets any challenge. If we want to change the outer, the score, we must begin by optimizing our own inner state.
Third, if learning and performance are “state specific,” the next question is, “what is the optimum state? The great rule according to Pearce is: Play on the surface and the work takes place beneath awareness. Play we discover is not an activity. Play is a state of being, the optimum state for relating to any challenge. Athletes call this optimum state the Zone. Researchers call it Flow. For centuries people have been researching the “psychology of optimum experience.” Play, the Zone and Flow have similar characteristics. They are in fact one state expressing differently at different developmental stages. The state of Play we discover is nature’s expectation for optimum learning and performance lifelong. My work applies this optimum state to parenting and to education.
The child is desperately looking to the adult and adult culture for transcendent models that awaken and challenge the child’s innate transcendent nature. The only way adulterated adults can provide this “model imperative” is by taking their cues from the child and rediscovering, in relationship with the child, their transcendent nature, which most adults have forgotten or abandoned long ago. My work helps adults rediscover the playful, childlike genius of their own nature as they guide, learn from and mentor children. This awakening develops in adults’ new capacities and possibilities, which transforms the adult. Adults modeling their transcendent nature create radically different learning environments for children, which transforms the child and cycles back to challenge and transform the adult in new ways. Joe and I call this playful, reciprocal-dynamic, the Optimum Learning Relationship.
A story from Brockwood Park School
At the time, Andy was on a collision course with staff and in danger of being asked to leave Brockwood. He was rebellious, angry, failing to get work done and entirely lacking in the self-confidence required to remedy the situation. His tutor, having tried many things, decided to create a completely new timetable for him, one that involved many more ‘hands-on’ activities, at which he was good, but one that also required him to attend the Krishnamurti Class.
The Krishnamurti Class was still in its first term, having started in September 2002, partly in response to demand from a few students and partly out of a perceived need. The aim was to offer students in the School some direct and sustained exposure to Krishnamurti’s teachings and the provocative questions and challenging insights contained in them. The format was simple: one 45-minute class a week, no homework, no advance reading. My colleague, Antonio Autor, and myself, would choose the text or video clip to be looked at and in the class we would allow plenty of time to pause for discussion while looking at the material with the students. Sometimes material was chosen on a topic suggested by students, always it was selected with a teenage audience in mind. The class was entirely voluntary.
Andy was, therefore, the exception. He hadn’t chosen the class and he didn’t wish to be there. It placed him in the company of a group of students that he would not generally choose to hang-out with and it required him to participate in an activity that he didn’t wish to. It is important to understand that many students who attend Krishnamurti Schools know virtually nothing about the founder or his teachings upon arrival and some would prefer to keep it that way. They are attracted to the School because of the atmosphere, the setting, the opportunities it affords, but, for some, to exhibit an interest in Krishnamurti teachings would be tantamount to defecting to the enemy camp. The feeling of ‘us and them’ that conventional schools are so good at inculcating, reinforced by the fashionable rebelliousness of adolescence, means that the message is dismissed before it is heard.
When Andy did join the class, he added his chair to the circle that is the weekly seating arrangement for our sessions. He chose a low chair, from the odd selection lining the walls; this allowed him to lounge and adopt an insouciant and indifferent air. He gazed at the ceiling or out of the window for most of the proceedings and declined to say a word for at least a month. However, the class went on around him and he could not help but hear the text as it was read out, the questions as they were raised and the responses of his fellow students and the staff. He was not required to formulate his own replies, not tested on his knowledge and not burdened with homework. He began to relax.
We were working mainly with text taken from the section entitled For the Young, in the Krishnamurti Reader (Publisher: Penguin Arkana). There are 24 parts to this section of the book, each one raising questions and concerns that the average teenager might never have been encouraged to explore seriously with others, let alone in a school setting. Andy listened as we read Krishnamurti’s questions and sought to make them our own. Why go through the struggle to be educated? Is there such a thing as security? What does it mean to love? What does it mean to be free? What is the mind? Can the mind be free of habits and from creating habits? How does an idea come into being? What is simplicity? What is beauty? What is the difference between self-confidence and confidence without the self?
Whether it was the more intriguing ‘confidence without the self’, or its better-known relation, it is hard to say, but by the second term Andy had begun to speak in the class. His contributions were generally short and perfunctory, but they were freely offered and were listened to with interest and respect by all present. As time passed he contributed more and more and began to engage with the text and the group in a manner that we could hardly have dreamt of in the first term. Other areas of his life in the School were also going better since his new programme came into effect. In the Krishnamurti Class the self-reflective, discursive format seemed to be growing on Andy and making him feel more at ease with himself and with the overall ethos of the School itself.
In its concerns and approach the class is intended to somewhat mimic the discussions Krishnamurti had with the students when he visited Brockwood. From the beginning of the School in 1969 until his death in 1986, Krishnamurti was a regular visitor to Brockwood spending on average about four months of the academic year in residence. He met with students and staff at least twice a week and sought to ensure that there was a vital exploration of consciousness and human transformation at the heart of the School. Since his death, Brockwood has done many things to ensure these concerns are still central to what we are doing; the Krishnamurti Class is just part of a growing list of courses that have been offered in the School that are intended to do this.
We chose to call it a ‘Class’ and to timetable it in the heart of the academic day because we felt that it gave it a legitimacy that was called for and because it provided a mental activity that was counter but complementary to that required for academic study. Students are increasingly faced with heavy academic workloads, burgeoning timetables and examination pressures. To cope with this they have a tendency to become doggedly conservative in their tastes, giving their energy and attention where it will be of most benefit; which is generally understood to mean subjects for which examinations and good marks are essential. To ‘tack on’ at the end of the day activities that seek to encourage enquiry and self-reflection is to suggest they are of lesser importance and invites a lack-lustre response from the students. In former years, on his arrival at Brockwood in the spring, Krishnamurti was infamous for cancelling examination classes so that students could meet him to discuss relationship, anger, responsibility and love.
In Andy’s brief feedback on the class at the end of the year, he observed that although there had been ‘a bit of force’ involved in getting him to join the class in the first place, he had kept an open mind – not something we would have agreed with in the opening weeks! In the end, he concluded, “I really enjoyed it”! Andy made us re-examine the question of the ‘use of force’. We had shied away from making the class compulsory because we didn’t want to put students off the teachings before they knew what they were. There was already a compulsory course (Inquiry Time) in the School, which sought to explore serious psychological questions with all of the students, but this did not necessarily make any direct use of the teachings. The teachings, we felt, added another challenging dimension to any inquiry. It was our experience with Andy that made us decide that we should take that challenge to all of the students, regardless of their response. At the beginning of the next academic year we made the class compulsory.
We are now almost half way through our second year of running the ‘K Class’ as a compulsory element of our curriculum for all Brockwood students and we are able to assess the outcome a little better. We have not attempted to use many of the standard assessment tools – essay writing, testing and examination – for obvious reasons. Therefore our assessment is primarily based on student self-review and feedback and our own observation of the classes. We have been pleasantly surprised by the lack of opposition to the classes amongst the students and the positive nature of the feedback they have given us. Generally they have approached the classes without the resistance that Andy was displaying and have welcomed the opportunity to reflect on what Krishnamurti has to say and how it relates to their lives.
Reflecting on what the class had done for her, Eva (aged 17, from Germany), wrote; “…[it] brought many questions up, it made me think about the world and how things are going. I would never have thought about some of those questions without someone asking them.” For Marlon (aged 15, from Italy), the questions had a double impact. Firstly they changed his idea of Krishnamurti and secondly they changed the way he felt in himself: “My idea towards Krishnamurti changed. I believed that he was just asking questions and that is it, but now I realize that his questions open your mind and make you active in every sense.” When understood, these questions can act as a strong catalyst for change in a young person: Lucy (aged 19 from the UK) writes, “ [the book]… caused me to examine my own ideas about the future with regard to career, success, values, leadership and imitation. It made me question the necessity of some of my goals for the future and I found myself reshaping those notions, which may be a long but rewarding and important maturing process. “
Lucile (aged 16, from France) summed it up for countless people who have read the teachings, when she wrote; “What I really like about reading Krishnamurti’s books… is that he puts into words the thoughts I can’t explain. I really find myself in what he says.” Finding yourself in the teachings also means reviewing yourself and all that you stand for. One doesn’t have to have a grasp of human development to know that teenagers are often in the forefront when it comes to being absorbed with questions of identity, direction and meaning. To engage these young people seriously on deep issues is to open in them a door which modern culture tends to neglect. It is not just the educators, parents, politicians and pundits who fail to do this, as Daisy (aged 15, from the USA) puts it, “[the K Class]…brings up things that you wouldn’t talk about with your friends, and it brings up questions that you need to think about the answer to.” The students recognise that in the class something out of the ordinary is going on amongst themselves, as Daniel (aged 19, from Germany) wrote: “It is incredible to see 15 year olds talk or think about awareness or religion for example.”
One of the things that can be striking about the classes is the atmosphere in the room. Atmosphere can be difficult to agree on and hard to pin down, but both teacher and student can generally sense when that curious combination of attention, interest, affection and inquiry are alive in a room. “Without a good atmosphere nothing can work out how we want it to” wrote Dasha (aged 16, from Russia). For the students the atmosphere seems to arise at least in part from the fact that they are released from the usual pressures of having to perform academically: “I like this class because it’s the only one where I don’t feel pressures of any kind; it’s a free class where everybody can say what they think without fear of being right or wrong” says Manuel (aged 17, from Mexico). While Robbie (aged 18, from the UK), at first was concerned that the class was compulsory and that this would have a negative impact on the atmosphere, he later wrote “…[I] feel the atmosphere inside classes is more relaxed and feel that it has a good effect in terms of the atmosphere of the School.
If the K Class is really going so well, is one class a week enough? Some students don’t think so: “I would love to have Discussion, K Class and Inquiry Time more than once a week. If you only have maths class once a week you won’t get very far. It is the same with these classes” writes Kailyn (aged 15, from the USA). Some students would like to see a ‘broadening’ of the topic to include the work of other great ‘philosophers’; while others have asked to learn more about Krishnamurti the man: “…how did he spend his free time; what were his hobbies, habits, activities and so on… because it is interesting to know the person from the other side, not as a great philosopher but as a human being” wrote Vitya (aged 19, from Russia). Other students have suggested a different emphasis. One whose upbringing has been in a family where Krishnamurti’s teachings were introduced to them at a young age wants to see more open dialogue without reference to the teachings, because, as she wrote, “I feel that I am thinking of all that he is talking about and having it told to me is, I feel, a little frustrating… his books are there to point something out but when they have done so we should think for ourselves… and trust ourselves that we can do it” (Zoe, aged 16 from France).
Andy left the School at the end of that first year of the K Class, and we have not heard from him since. The same will probably be true of many of the students who currently gather in the oak-panelled Study, overlooking the South Lawn, in the circle at the K Class. But having heard the questions, having witnessed the beauty of the teachings, having felt the delight of inquiry, perhaps they too will start to think it out for themselves. ‘To trust ourselves that we can do it’!
Some of the names in this article have been changed
Bill Taylor
Scott H. Forbes
Roehampton Institute, London
Third Annual Conference on ‘Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child’
June 28, 1996
The holistic education movement does not have a single source, a predominant
proponent, or a major form or expression. Consequently, it is difficult to define ‘holistic
education’. However, there are a number of values and perceptions that most schools
claiming to be holistic would embrace, and today I would like to mention some of these
values and look especially at what gave rise to their popularity. I feel that what gave rise
to their popularity is particularly important because it is a combination of new
perceptions and values which seems to be something like an international grass roots
movement - a movement which rejects many of the authorities as well as the values and
perceptions of the immediate past. ‘Whose Values?’ for holistic education, is a particularly
relevant question.
Today I will put forward the view of many holistic educators: that holistic education
reflects and responds more fully than conventional education to a new and increasingly
accepted view of what it means to be human as well as to much popular social criticism.
For schools to ignore what seems to be a change in humanity’s view of itself is to risk
having schools that try to prepare students for something they don’t believe in; it is to
risk having an educational system that is felt to be meaningless by the very population it
wants to serve. For schools to have values and views of human nature different to those
of its population is like asking a committed pacifist to attend a military academy. We see
just this kind of dissonance frequently expressed in many of our schools whose
populations come largely from some minority groups. These groups feel the conventional
education their children are offered does not reflect their values and it ignores their views
of who they feel they are. The large number of students presently disaffected with school
must challenge us as educators to reflect whether these students feel a similar dissonance
with the values and perspectives our schools promote.
While some advocates claim that views central to holistic education are not new but are,
in fact, timeless and found in the sense of wholeness in humanity’s religious impetus;
others claim inspiration from Rousseau, Emerson, Pestalozzi, Froebel, and more recently
Krishnamurti, Steiner, Montessori, Jung, Maslow, Rogers, Paul Goodman, John Holt, Ivan
Illich, Paulo Freire. Still others feel that the views central to holistic education are the
result of a cultural ‘paradigm shift’ that began in the 1960’s. What is clear is that the
values and the vision of humanity in the holistic education movement and which it
promotes are increasingly popular. There are now at least seven thousand five hundred
holistic schools1 with more seeming to start every week. Unfortunately, the insights of this
1 A survey of alternative schools found almost 7500 schools but this writer knows of schools that are not in
that list and there are without doubt many others. Jerry Mintz (ed.), The Handbook of Alternative Education (New
York: Macmillan, 1994).
2
vision are often clouded by misty-eyed New Ageism, and a great deal that is valuable is
dismissed because of this association.
I will concentrate today on developments in the 1960’s and 1970’s that forced some of
the ideas of holistic education onto centre stage because it was these developments that
made the ideas so popular. The ecological crisis, the prospect of nuclear annihilation,
chemical and radiation pollution, the breakdown of the family, the disappearance
traditional communities, and the disregard for traditional values and their institutions (i.e.
the church), caused many people to question the direction of the modern western world
and many of its central values. The consumer society was criticised in a way that seemed
to be absent in the first sixty years of this century.2 Even if some societies seem able to
continue their consumption from a local perspective, the earth’s resources were
beginning to be seen as finite; and a small proportion of the world’s population
consuming a disproportionate percentage of the earth’s resources was seen as
unsustainable and destructive - and ultimately it became a moral issue.
Mechanistic utilitarian rationality (as scientific thinking was called by its critics) was
acknowledged for its contribution to the creation of clever gadgets but blamed for
uncontrolled economic and technical growth that seemed to swamp other human
capacities. Because scientific thinking on its own lacked the non-rational (as opposed to
irrational) or ‘supra-rational’ capacities of mind such as wisdom, intuition, appreciation
for beauty and insight, it was most commonly used to create brilliant weaponry or
unnecessary consumer goods. The ‘supra-rational’ capacities were seen as increasingly
important in view of what unrestrained mechanical thought was producing. ‘Small is
Beautiful’ by Schumacher3 and the works of Wendell Berry seemed to fly in the face of
convention, yet made perfect sense to hundreds of thousands.
The professional view of human nature was also changing drastically at this time. The
Skinnerian view of a person as an electro-chemical stimulus-response machine (so helpful
to the needs of governments during the war and so popular with those who saw
conditioning of others as a solution to their own aspirations) was being rejected as only a
very partial view of the mind. Behaviourism seemed more of a tool for exploiting people
than for understanding them in any depth. In the wake of the many explorations into
consciousness of the 1960’s, Freud’s very compartmentalised views of the mind lost
popularity while Jung’s more open ended and mysterious understandings gained support.
Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, and R.D. Laing became almost cult figures, and several
new forms of psychology emerged that took the science of mind further and further away
from the strictures of conventional measurable science. Gestalt therapy with its slogan
‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ corresponded to the everyday common
sense experience that many people had of themselves. There was too much of us that
seemed to be unmeasurable and non-mechanical, if not ineffable. The view of mind as
2One commentator on the development of American culture said that ‘Americans changed from wanting to
do good, to wanting to do well’, but this criticism could equally be levelled at many modern cultures. The
great depression and the two world wars are seen as traumas that produced an extreme materialism in the
survivors.
3E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (London: Blond & Briggs, 1973).
3
machine, while increasingly popular as a model of some thinking, especially that involving
computers,4 was seen as only a part of the mind’s functioning - usually the lesser part.
Traditional nationalism and localism were also being challenged, and were seen as
inadequate to meet the world’s realities. The ecological crisis is not a respector of
political boundaries. The greenhouse effect, the depletion of the ozone layer, air and
water pollution, radiation leaks, and the elimination of species and rain forests are
perhaps national or local in origin but they are global in impact. People began to see that
by serving national or local interests these problems could not even be understood, much
less solved. The earth had to be seen as a whole, and Lynn Margulis’ and James
Lovelock’s ‘Gaia Hypothesis’ found wide and popular support.5 Environmental interest
went from being a gentleman-sportsman’s concern for conservation (usually to maintain
hunting) to a critique of modern western thinking. The epistemology which claims to
understand things by breaking them into their constituent parts was seen as not only
unable to meet the problem, it was part of the problem. Creating locally wanted
conditions and looking only locally seemed often to produce problems elsewhere that
eventually became unwanted local conditions. ‘Wholism’, ‘whole earth ideas’,
‘wholefoods’, and ‘the whole child’ described things that might not have been fully
examined but which seemed to many people to make sense. People began to feel they
needed to look at the global to see the local. Years after the ‘Gaia Hypothesis’, educators
and ecologists like David Orr and Gregory Cajete suggested that seeing the
interconnectedness of all things with nature as the foundation, was the basis of the new
mind that the world needed for its survival, and that the creation of this mind was the first
responsibility of education.6
Many people began saying that looking at ‘wholes’ was necessary to understand other
things as well: the economy, which had become global; human interchange, where
satellites and computers had made the global village a reality; and cultures, which were
increasingly international. It is not without reason that some nationalities like the French
speak of cultural imperialism and find difficulty in countering a movement that is literally
coming at them from all directions (even if the origin seems to be Hollywood). The youth
culture is global. The computer culture is global. Many modern cultural icons (such as
media stars and products) are global. One doesn’t need to see the six foot tall blonde
fashion models in Japan, or jeans-clad Marlboro-smoking teenagers in Mongolia, or Coca
Cola drinking farmer’s wives in Uzbekistan to know this is true; the evidence is constantly
before us. Many post-modern philosophers had been telling us we are socially
constructed, but the society that was constructing us was now an international one, and
many of the values that were imbedded in this construction seemed alien to the places in
which they were being lived. Many cultural institutions (like schools) assumed a local
culture, but the culture of the young was not local, and the conflict between the young
and the institutions that claimed to exist for them was painful for everyone.
4A fascinating study of the way in which computer use has altered the way people see themselves can be
found in the book by Sherry Turkle, The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1984).
5James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).
6David Orr, Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Post-modern World (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1992). Gregory Cajete, Look to the Mountain: an ecology of indigenous education (Durango, Colorado:
Kivaki Press, 1994)
4
Looking at ‘wholes’ or what some scientists came to call the ‘systems approach’ began to
be seen as necessary for understanding even traditional disciplines. Respected scientists
such as David Bohm, David Peat, Karl Pribram, and Ilya Prigogine were even insisting that
seeing things as systems (or ‘wholes’ within ‘wholes’) was a better way to understand their
traditionally reductionist disciplines as well as most other things. They said that for the
sake of convenience we can look at parts, but separate parts do not actually exist - there
are no discrete bits of reality. Contrary to the way we had been thinking, we can’t
understand the ‘more’ from the ‘less’- the ‘more’ does not derive from the ‘less’. To
understand anything is to understand its relationships to larger ‘wholes’ - the larger the
‘whole’ and the more extensive the relationships being understood, the truer the
understanding. The extension of this thinking (and it extends by its very nature) to
questions about general human existence resulted in these scholars becoming popular
with readers who knew nothing of their professional disciplines. Many scientists in seeing
the particulars as inseparable from the larger context also felt they could not decontextualize
themselves; they as observers could not be separated from what they
observed. In this many scientists found an interest in Krishnamurti who had for years
been exploring the relationship between the observer and the observed.
Books and conferences linking science with religion appeared and became popular with
people who before had not been interested in either of these subjects. People were
excited by the possibility that two disciplines which had held truths that seemed mutually
exclusive might be converging. Whether people were correct in thinking this is another
question; but people felt new understandings were being reached that went beyond the
partial truths to which each discipline had previously been confined. The old dichotomies
of head and heart, science and religion, beauty and function seemed to be about
fragmentation and we needed to see things in larger wholes. ‘Truth’ needed to be
unshackled from the claims of the traditional authorities. If education was to reflect this,
then the traditional division between disciplines had to go, and the world needed to be
understood from the largest possible wholes and not through the fragments.
The extended seeing of ‘wholes’ within ‘wholes’ brought many to a religiosity that seemed
inherent in the approach, and something that many holistic educators feel is fundamental
to what they do. The largest ‘whole’; that which has relationships to everything; the
ultimate ‘more’ from which all the ‘less’ derives was described as the absolute, the sacred
or some form of ultimate order. There is remarkably little conflict amongst holistic
educators on the details of this, itself an extraordinary break with tradition and something
worth noting in view of the problems we have in our pluralist schools. The physicist David
Bohm postulates an implicate order into which everything is enfolded and from which
everything unfolds to be re-enfolded.7 Many Depth Psychologists postulate a higher self
which extends beyond the individual. While a few holistic educators refer to the soul or
atman of traditional religions, most speak in terms of some universal order, or of common
threads running through all religions, or archetypal mythologies, or what Aldous Huxley
called ‘the perennial philosophy’8. These timeless and perennially re-seen insights are said
to have been expressed differently in different times and places and so to have given rise
to the different religions. These perennial truths are felt by some to be seen in their most
7David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980).
8Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (London: Chatto and Windus, 1946).
5
unadulterated form in the religions of premodern cultures.9 Hence the popularity of
rediscovering indigenous religious traditions as though this was the finding of ancient lost
religious truths. These rediscovered truths echoed the truths found in other areas: the
oneness of all life (which seemed in accord with the Gaia Hypothesis); the importance of
a person understanding his place in the community and the community’s place in the
environment and in ever expanding circles to the environment’s place in the full order of
things (which seemed to be in accord with systems thinking); and the emphasis on self
knowledge (which seemed to be in accord with all therapeutic psychology).
For many holistic educators, these perennial truths expressed in their general form rather
than a particular cultural form was the key to the spirituality that must be part of every
education. There is little argument in holistic education that there can not be an
education of the whole child if there is no education in what is transcendent. And there is
also little argument that cultural expressions of transcendence have been a source of
millions of deaths in thousands of conflicts in history. The three hundred years of
violence in Ireland between the Catholics and Protestants is just one example. For today’s
pluralist world, arguments about whose expression of ‘truth’ is more correct are social
suicide and might be in contradiction to the very ‘truths’ we espouse. Many holistic
educators feel that all expressions of ‘truth’ can only be partial and remaining with the
most general expressions of ‘truth’ not only remains closer to the original insight but
helps people see for themselves beyond what is culturally bound to what might be
timeless.
A spirituality that remains generalised and inclusive and therefore equally nurturing to all
resonated with another pressing concern of the 1960’s and 1970’s - equality. Religions
had frequently been dominated by particular races, classes, castes, and/or gender as were
most other aspects of most cultures. Some feminist historians and feminist
anthropologists demonstrated convincingly that inclusiveness and equal nurturing had
been characteristic of many cultures in history and remained characteristic in some
current pre-modern indigenous cultures10, and many feminist spoke of the gender
dominance in our modern cultures as destructive to all of us.
The focus on gender issues was only one of the ways in which relationship structures in
modern society were being questioned in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Increased divorce, one
parent families, and experiments in communal living all had people looking at what
relationship meant. This questioning of relationship based on structures of meaning
rather than structures of tradition was one reason why holistic education gave a central
value to relationship skills. Frequently people are first interested in holistic education
through the perceptions that we need to learn to live together much better and that our
social ills cannot be solved without new community building skills. In holistic education
9The widespread assumption that some timeless wisdom can more easily be found in less sophisticated
cultures has led many modern young people to seek meaning in their own lives in the native cultures of
North America, Africa, or Australia; a proposition that on the face of things seems ridiculous - how can a boy
from Huddersfield find meaning in his life from the Arapaho? But this view of humanity and our common
grounding in some universal truths is common and many books and movies with this theme are popular. For
Example, Black Elk Speaks (Kansas: University of Nebraska Press, 1988). Contrast this with assumptions in
‘the white man’s burden’ of not so very long ago. Even insights into how to raise our young are being sought
from native cultures because of their supposedly superior wisdom. See Jean Liedloff, The Continuum Concept
(London: Duckworth, 1975) and (London: Penguin Books, 1986) and Forrest Carter, The Education of Little Tree
(New York: Delacorte Press, 1976).
10Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987).
6
the classroom is often seen as a community, which is within the larger community of the
school, which is within the larger community of the village, town, or city, and which is, by
extension, within the larger community of humanity. How life is lived at the smallest level
should reflect what is considered to be ‘right living’ in the largest context.11 For this
reason many holistic educators feel that the claims made by conventional schools to
foster freedom and democracy are spurious, as most conventional schools are based on
authoritarian classrooms. They feel that learning to assume responsibility, to question for
oneself what is right, and to stand by one’s convictions can not be accomplished by a
childhood of unquestioningly obeying rules, conforming to codes of behaviour that seem
meaningless, and believing that the authorities have the answers. Holistic educators feel
that schools must be places where the relationships we want as adults exist for the
students as much as possible - where open, honest and respectful communication is the
norm; where differences between people are appreciated; where interaction is based on
mutual support and not on competition and hierarchy; where the common weal is the
responsibility of each individual; and where the decision making process (if not engaged
in by everyone at some level) is at least accepted by everyone. This emphasis on cooperation
rather than competition often results in holistic schools giving no grades or
rewards. In this view of human nature, people are seen as being more fulfilled from
nurturing and helping one another than from being placed above or below one another,
and competition is seen not as producing excellence but anxiety, aggression, selfcentredness,
low self esteem or inflated self images. Relationships between students,
between teachers, and between students and teachers are seen as both a primary source
of education and a topic of education. As a source, relationships are an excellent mirror
in which to see ourselves - we can learn a great deal about ourselves by seeing how
others respond to us.12 As a topic, learning about healthy mutually sustaining
relationships - how to create them and sustain them - is seen a necessary to solve many
of our social and personal ills. Community building began to be seen in the 1960’s as one
of the principal ways of dealing with urban decay, and it remains one of the most
successful approaches to problems in America’s inner cities.
The commitment to school as community, and community as arena for participation,
assuming responsibility, and self-determination, does not accept that schools should be
directed by governments. Most holistic schools are not. National governments, even
where democratically elected, can be unresponsive to the evolving needs of individual
schools each with its unique and changing population. In the 1960’s and 1970’s
governments were being questioned, and government directed educational programs
began to be seen as more responsive to political expedience than to the needs of the
individual child; and it is individual children and not undifferentiated masses that
educators and parents feel are being educated.
Most political, economic, or social movements that claimed to be ‘wholistic’ were
decentralised, democratic, grassroots, and co-operative, and whatever the
shortcomings13, this was seen as a more natural human society and a more accurate
11Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life (London: Victor Gollancz, 1955).
12Most of the problems of learning about oneself in relationship in a school community are explored
extensively by Krishnamurti in a book of discussions he had with the students of the school he founded at
Brockwood Park in England. See Krishnamurti, Beginnings of Learning (London: Victor Gollancz, 1975) or
(London: Penguin Books, 1978).
13Many failures at instituting social change by the holistic education groups and the green parties in different
countries are seen as resulting from not having centralised structures. Many green parties, alternative
7
reflection of human nature. These movements not only reflected values that seemed to
go back to our most distant past, these movements claimed to be forums for the
development and refining of ‘wholistic’ values. People felt they would become more
decent human beings by working in a non-hierarchical way with each other and caring for
each other. The hidden power structures in schooling and the implications of that
structure are powerfully described by Paulo Freire. In his ‘liberation education’ he
described that changing the traditional structure of authority and submission in schools,
and eliminating the training in uncritical acceptance normally found in schools was
essential to addressing the social injustices that plague the undeveloped nations and the
underclasses in the developed countries.14
The respect for the individual inherent in such decentralised democracy, where people
were not seen as part of a social or economic system, was linked to the religiosity I
mentioned before. In most holistic schools every child was seen as an expression of, an
arena for, or an entity containing the sacred, and must be recognised and treated as
such.15 Many holistic educators expressed that the sacredness inherent in each child was
not just something for the educator to be aware of, it was something that each child
should discover. This led many to feel that education was only partly a process of
instilling or pouring in - it needed to be mostly a process of unfolding, a leading out or
bringing out. If education is a process of discovery and uncovering, and every child was
unique; how could the traditional educational judging of children be anything other than
inherently wrong? How could a child be a slow learner if he was learning at a pace that
was right for him? How could a child be disruptive if he was doing what he was interested
in rather than what others wanted him to do, or were those others not in fact disrupting
him? If a child doesn’t learn through words and numbers, is he unintelligent or can he be
learning through other intelligences? In this, the work of Howard Gardner gave form and
legitimacy to what many educators felt - that some children who are poor at words and
numbers are never the less geniuses and terribly short changed, if not brutalised, by
traditional education.16 Gardner demonstrated that learning takes place in many
capacities of the child, not just the verbal-numerical capacities; and that this learning
process is different for everyone - echoing two themes in holistic education and the
holistic view of human nature. Many people felt it was not just a matter of valuing
everyone, it was also important to value the different capacities that we all have; to do
otherwise is to denigrate some individuals and to denigrate some aspects of each one of
us.
Holistic teachers took pride in developing new methods that reflected their new views of
what a child is. Research with individual learning styles, co-operative learning, critical
thinking, cross disciplinary curricula and multiple intelligence theory have inspired many
schools and co-operatives have disintegrated because of not understanding the fine line between
participation by everyone in decision making and anarchy. Never the less, despite the failures and
drawbacks, this view of how people should live in groups seems not just to continue, but to grow.
14Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness (New York: Continuum, 1973).
15‘The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil. It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he
shall do. It is chosen and fore ordained, and he only holds the key to his own secret...’ Ralph Waldo
Emerson, from an essay ‘Education’ 1864, published in Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York: New
American Library, 1965).
‘The child is the spiritual builder of humankind, and obstacles to his free development are the stones in the
wall by which the soul of humanity has become imprisoned’. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind (Madras:
Kalakshetra Publications, 1973).
16Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (London: William Heinemann, 1984).
8
new initiatives in holistic classrooms. The teacher became less of an authority who
directed and controlled and was more of a friend, a mentor, a facilitator, or an
experienced travelling companion. Psychology talked of the mutual dyadic responds of
infant learning and the importance of empathy in learning relationships, and the
importance of these seemed to extend into adulthood. Goethe’s quote, “You only learn
from someone you love” became almost a slogan.
Classes in holistic schools are almost always small, mixed-ability, mixed-age, and
extremely flexible. If it becomes appropriate for a child to move to a different class, he
moves - regardless of the time of year or the subjects he has been studying. Rigid
categorisation by age and progression in large groups up some educational ladder was
seen as a reflection of the manufacturing thinking of the industrial revolution when public
schooling began, and not as a reflection of new thinking about human nature.
The 1970’s saw some very surprising institutions proclaim respect for the uniqueness of
each individual, encouraging non-conformist thinking, and decrying hierarchy. These
institutions were large businesses. Several multinational corporations came to understand
that traditional authoritarian structures were inhibiting the productivity of their members.
They created ‘flat management structures’ (as opposed to the pyramid management
structures of the past) in order to foster healthier, happier, more responsive and
successful organisations. They spoke of decentralising, encouraging the uniqueness and
growth of all their members, and needing dialogue amongst all levels and departments of
their enterprises. Peter Senge from MIT became famous for demonstrating to businesses
the need to be ‘learning organisations’ where personal growth is defined in terms any
holistic educator would applaud. This was seen as essential, not for philosophical
reasons, but for purely pragmatic ones; it produced better business results.17 The bottom
line in business was confirming what holistic education had advocated but had failed to
satisfactorily prove.18
That humanity’s view of itself and the world has changed over the last twenty five years
seems incontestable. Indeed it would seem strange if it hadn’t. What is in question is
whether conventional schools reflect those new views and values, or whether, like many
large institutions, they have a life of their own and lag behind the population they wish to
serve. What does seem clear is that our traditional ways of understanding and preparing
people for life have not solved our personal, social, national and international problems.
If the modern western world is changing as rapidly as some people say it is, it may be
instructive to look at eastern Europe where the last seven years has seen a more obvious
‘paradigm shift’. There the understanding of what it means to be human, the
understanding of the relationship between the individual and society, the understanding
17Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York: Doubleday, 1990).
18This might be because assessment in the two areas is so different. In business the assessment is highly
abstracted from many of the processes involved; a new product, a new solution to a vexing problem, or
better service come about from highly complex behaviours and interactions with often no single person or
process able to take the credit. Co-operative discovery or learning through dialogue describes what most
participants in these new business arrangements seem to feel occurred, and this seems to need what some
in holistic education started calling ‘authentic assessment’ - looking for the evidence of learning or
intelligence in application; in demonstrations of learning about real things in the real world. By comparison,
educational testing that focuses on right and wrong answers, memory, solving rehearsed problems, and the
assumption that there must be some common criteria by which everyone - with all of their differences and
different ways of understanding - can be measured, is felt to greatly restrict learning. Many holistic educators
feel that assessment is the single largest obstacle to meaningful change in education.
9
of the nature of society and of their society’s role in the world, have gone through a
complete upheaval. The total inadequacy of most eastern European schools which still
reflect old paradigms to meet people’s new needs and aspirations is painfully obvious to
all those involved. As one traditional Russian school principal told a friend of mine, ‘I
have been in education all my life, but I don’t know how to educate anyone for today’s
world. I only know how to indoctrinate into the old.’ Whether conventional western
schools are similarly inadequate is the question posed by holistic education.
Hello: A reference to the following text by Maslow appeared in Scott Forbe's book. I found the text in the library and scanned it (the computer character recognition might not have been 100% accurate). With love for you and wishes for a Bush/Halliburton defeat in the upcoming elections :-) Reza Ganjavi
During the socially quiescent years of the early to mid-1950s, Maslow increasingly turned his attention to the psychology of religion. Before conducting any empirical research on what he would later call peak experiences, Maslow spent several years absorbing a great deal of material on comparative religion. Eventually, he became convinced that American psychology had badly overlooked the relevance of this field in developing a comprehensive view of human personality. In this brief, unpublished essay written in July 1954, Maslow set forth ideas generated by reading The First and Last Freedom by Jiddu Krishnamurti (1954).
In reading the modern Hindu philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti (1954), I think it is clear that to be choicelessly aware means to accept the experience-or the other person-as it is, without desiring to change or manipulate it.
To have this quality means to respect, enjoy, appreciate, and end experience the other in a passive, accepting, and yielding way rather than in a domineering, interfering, "seeking," or even improving way. It is not possible to be completely immersed in a love-experience if we are simultaneously concerned with the end-experience, for instance, plotting a change here and a change there. Certainly during moments of great love, we do not compare this person with another-either physically or mentally. Rather, we experience the lover as an end in itself rather than as a means to an end. For all references and comparisons to other people at other places and in past and future time have the 'effect of undermining and limiting our experience. As such, they're completely irrelevant.
To be fully aware-as close to complete awareness as possible-means to focus wholly on the experience: to concentrate utterly, to pour one's whole self into it, and to be unaware of everything else in the entire world and in all of time. This state necessarily includes a nonawareness of one's own ego. Just as one knows that one has really listened to music because self-awareness disappeared (which also occurs during true creating and absorbed reading), so also is complete love marked by forgetting the self.
(Though limited as yet, the psychological experiments on problem centering versus ego-centering are nevertheless useful in revealing that the act of forgetting one's ego is more possible for emotionally healthy people. Furthermore, that mental state also is more efficient for thinking, learning, and other activities.)
Yet, it seems to me that experiencing the beloved in Being-love is ultimately aesthetic. That is, I am defining aesthetic in this context as one's end-experiencing of all the sensuous qualities of the object, and this inner state significantly contrasts with abstracting, categorizing, and rubricating.
The philosopher Filmer Stuart Northrop (1946/1979) offers the same viewpoint. In the long run, this same perspective is what Gordon Allport's ideo graphic-nomothetic distinction will in effect become. This notion too is precisely intimated by Krishnamurti's (1954) phrase "to be aware of the present without choice" (p. 41).
In other words, in the blissful state of Being-love, we truly experience the beloved "aesthetically." The appropriate words here are appreciating and enjoying. Of the two, appreciating seems more exact because it carries the proper connotation of passivity and noninterference. As Krishnamurti aptly comments, "How can there be a choice when you are confronted with a fact?" (p. 45).
Merely even to intrude ideals, standards, and theories of perfection serves to devitalize one's ecstatic experience and to take the blood out of it. We also learn this principle from psychotherapy, in which sheer, passive, freefloating listening without teaching, improving, demonstrating, or overtly helping turns out to be so curative and releasing. Indeed, this observation leads us to comment that "You can't really perceive the truth and be aware of reality as it is unless you put aside all your hopes, ideals, and standards and just listen wholeheartedly." This situation encompasses objective and true actualization.
Therefore, the thing to do is to let both things and people happen.
KRISHNAMURTI’S INSIGHTS INTO EDUCATION
Scott H. Forbes, 1994
For most of Krishnamurti's life what he said and wrote sparked both interest and
controversy. His observations on religion, organizations, tradition, nationalism, and relationships
often ran counter to the convention of the day. If they are less startling today, it is either due to
the affect his insights have had on common consciousness or an indication of the extent to which
he was ahead of his time. But Krishnamurti’s insights on education are still radical and
frequently ignored or dismissed as impractical. This is possibly due largely to the fact that
Krishnamurti presents education as a religious activity in an age when most people still see it
predominantly as preparation for succeeding in a material world. People often can only hear
what they expect or want to hear. We all want our opinions and perspectives confirmed because
we prefer thinking that we already see the truth; we already know what is right. This is as true in
educational matters as it is in religious ones. Modern education is so obviously failing to solve
the world's problems, is so criticized for failing to meet societies’ aspirations, and is so clearly
unable to be prepare people for the challenges of life. Because Krishnamurti’s insights into
education marry the religious with the secular, they meet the challenges of living and the failures
of society at a profound level, and they do so at a time when these insights are desperately
needed. Very probably, Krishnamurti’s insights on education will have the greatest impact on the
world.
Krishnamurti's interest in education is long standing and was always passionate. In what
is perhaps his first book, "Education As Service" (1912), we see his concern for education, and
the introduction of a few themes that remained part of his message.1 We hear the voice of the
2
seventeen year old Krishnamurti writing from his heartfelt experiences when he says in the
forward,
Many of the suggestions made in this little book come from my own
memories of early school life;.... I have myself experienced both the right
way of teaching and the wrong way, and therefore I want to help others
towards the right way.2
And for the rest of his life he worked to help others towards the right way of educating. This
right way laid emphasis on 1) the intentions of education 2) the physical nature of the places in
which education occurs 3) the nature of the participants in education - the students and staff (and
this involves a view of what it means to be human that is quite different from that which has
shaped conventional schools) 4) the activities of an educational center. As all four of these
essential elements are explored and described by Krishnamurti in religious terms, we can see
that for Krishnamurti education is a religious activity. These four characteristics form the
framework of this article.
Krishnamurti repeatedly stated the intentions of the education centers he founded in very
unequivocal terms, and very religious ones.
These places exist for the enlightenment of man3 ... children who must be
educated rightly... educated so that they become religious human beings.4
In fact he insists that the purpose of all education is to bring about freedom, love, the flowering
of goodness and the complete transformation of society.5 Compare this to the intention of most
schools which is to prepare young people to succeed materially in the society which exists (or a
slightly ameliorated one). Even though it is now fashionable to declare loftier goals, examine
how much undivided attention during the day is given to those loftier goals and how much time
is given to preparing for earning a living.
Another constant theme in Krishnamurti's declarations of the intentions of education is
freedom, but freedom also is more religious in character than material. Of course, there is a
3
connection between psychological freedom and outward compulsion—it is difficult to help a
student find the former in a climate dominated by the latter—but it is not political freedom that
interests Krishnamurti, but rather the deeper freedom, the inner liberation that was the means and
the ends of education.
Freedom is at the beginning, it is not something to be gained at the end.6
There is no freedom at the end of compulsion; the outcome of compulsion is
compulsion.7 If you dominate a child, compel him to fit into a pattern,
however idealistic, will he be free at the end of it? If we want to bring about
a true revolution in education, there must obviously be freedom at the very
beginning, which means that both the parent and the teacher must be
concerned with freedom and not with how to help the child to become this
or that.8
Krishnamurti’s descriptions of what schools should physically be like is another
indication of the religiousness of education. Schools were spoken of as religious places, sacred
places. This should be reflected in their aesthetics, the atmospheres he felt should prevail, and
the special areas Krishnamurti insisted exist in all the schools he founded.
The schools Krishnamurti founded are very beautiful places, and this is not by accident.
Beauty is important, not just because it is pleasing, but because sensitivity to beauty is related to
being religious and indispensable to the healthy growth of a child.
To be religious is to be sensitive to reality. Your total being - body, mind,
and heart - is sensitive to beauty and ugliness, to the donkey tied to a post,
to the poverty and filth in this town, to laughter and tears, to everything
about you. From this sensitivity for the whole of existence springs
goodness, love; ...9
He himself was extremely attentive to details and critical of things that were badly done. He was
very understanding if things could not be better because of material constraints, and he never
pushed the administrators of his schools to produce anything that was beyond the means of the
schools. However, if things were not good through slipshod handling, neglect or lack of
sensitivity, then he felt it ran counter to something essential in education. To expect sensitivity to
4
develop in a child when the staff are insensitive to their surroundings is to teach a very strong
lesson in hypocrisy. Like Keats, who Krishnamurti greatly admired, beauty was related to truth.
Nature is also an important part of the schools Krishnamurti founded. His schools are in
parks or countrysides. Again, it was not just because he felt that nature was pleasing, but because
Krishnamurti felt that a relationship with nature had important implications for a relationship to
the sacred and to living sanely.
... the healing of the mind is something totally different. That healing
gradually takes place if you are with nature, with that orange on the tree,
and the blade of grass that pushes through the cement, and the hills covered,
hidden, by the clouds.
This is not sentiment or romantic imagination but a reality of a relationship
with everything that lives and moves on the earth.10 If you establish a
relationship with it [nature] then you have relationship with mankind... But
if you have no relationship with the living things on this earth you may lose
whatever relationship you have with humanity, with human beings.11
Another physical aspect of the schools he created, and another indication of the
religiousness of education, was his insistence that the schools have special places for silence. He
often spoke to the students of the importance of a quiet mind or silence so that they could
observe their thoughts.
You see meditation means to have a very quiet, still mind, not a chattering
mind; to have a really quiet body, quiet mind so that your mind becomes
religious.12
The mind of a religious man is very quiet, sane, rational, logical - and one
needs such a mind...13
Krishnamurti usually asked that these special places not be on the periphery of the schools, but
in the center of the them. Like a sanctum sanctorum, they were to be the heart, the space that
generated the rest of the school. Unlike the modern conception of schools, action was to be on
the periphery and understanding born of silence was to be at the center.
5
Perhaps the most unique link between educational places and religiousness is the
atmospheres that should exist. Krishnamurti wanted the atmospheres of schools to have their
own affect on students. At Brockwood, he talked frequently about the importance of generating
an atmosphere that would itself transform students the moment they came through the gates!
Long discussions were held with the staff at Brockwood about the nature of such an atmosphere
and how it might come about. Krishnamurti had no doubt that it was necessary. It had more the
ring of something religious than anything commonly associated with a school. It was something
sacred that worked its own magic on people in a profound and transforming way. Without that
real religious atmosphere, a school is empty; or worse, it is a parody of itself, a kind of
Disneyesque education theme park with the impression of something real but no real substance.
Of course the atmosphere, though distinct from the people in the schools, can not be
separated from them. A place may carry an atmosphere, but it is the people who create it or
destroy it. Places with atmospheres that at one time were special but which were destroyed
through neglect, incompetence or corrupt behavior has all too much historical precedence.
Krishnamurti often cited great cathedrals or temples that became tourist industries or money
making enterprises and so lost any sense of religiousness. They had become lifeless and without
meaning even though they maintained all the physical appearance of their former selves.
There was a very memorable discussion with Krishnamurti on his last visit to India when
several representatives of different schools he founded in India, America, and England had gone
for a walk with him. He asked us all what would be left in his schools to indicate that they were
Krishnamurti schools if the name Krishnamurti was removed; if all the books, audio tapes and
video tapes were gone. It was a question about the all important ineffable qualities, and it was a
question about what we were giving our attention to; and it was answered by a very telling and
uncomfortable silence.
6
As the people that are responsible for schools have such importance to their atmospheres
and activities, it is interesting to note the things Krishnamurti said about them. Not surprisingly,
the way he speaks about educators is another indication of the religiousness of education.
Because he is devoted solely to the freedom and integration of the
individual, the right kind of educator is deeply and truly religious. He does
not belong to any sect, to any organized religion; is free of beliefs and
rituals...14
The educator himself is to be religious; he is to be concerned with religious 'being', and then
right 'doing' would follow from it. Krishnamurti describes this relationship between 'being' and
'acting' frequently, but perhaps nowhere more succinctly than in one of his talks in Bombay, ...
“it is not 'doing is being' but 'being is doing'”.15 For Krishnamurti, 'doing' derived from 'being'
rather than 'being' deriving from 'doing'—the reverse of convention. Conventionally a question
like, "Who are you?" (a question about being) is answered by, "I'm a lawyer, engineer, etc." (a
statement about doing). This confusion of ‘being’ with ‘doing’ and the emphasis on 'doing' rather
than' being' is credited by many psychologists and innovative educators as a cause for what they
increasingly see; children who can do more and more, but who are socially or psychologically
dysfunctional—their 'doing' is highly developed but their 'being' is undernourished.
When discussing the selection process for students and staff at Brockwood (a frequent
topic), Krishnamurti always stressed the importance of the candidate's ‘being’—their sensitivity
to the deepest intentions of Brockwood, their goodness and intelligence (in his definitions of
those words), the depth of their questions about themselves and the world. Although he wanted
both staff and students to be intellectually sound, he never stressed their academic prowess, their
social abilities, or their talents. During one of these memorable discussions, after the staff had
answered Krishnamurti’s questions by describing what they were looking for in prospective
students, Krishnamurti described himself as a boy. He said he had been vague, shy, dreamy and
7
bad at all academics, but sensitive and affectionate, and Krishnamurti asked if the staff would
have accepted him as a child. Again, a painful silence. Our description of the students we were
seeking for a Krishnamurti school did not include the young Krishnamurti. How was this
possible? It was because we as teachers were acting traditionally, were more interested in
‘doing’ than ‘being’, more interested in the measurable than the immeasurable; we were again
choosing Barabbas.
Consider Krishnamurti's solution to the dilemma of the selection process. Here again we
see the emphasis on 'being' and its religious connotations. In a discussion with staff members at
Brockwood in 1980 on this question of selecting new students and staff, Krishnamurti insisted it
was most important to first establish "the common ground"16 for the staff already at Brockwood.
As Krishnamurti saw the self or ego as a central obstacle to living religiously, diminishing or
eliminating the ego is fundamental. Krishnamurti described the common ground for the staff as,
"The intent is to come together to help each other to have no self"17. He continued,
You see, if we stand on common ground, that will decide who will come
and who will go. You understand, sirs? Not my personal opinion, my
personal like and dislike... all that kind of nonsense goes.18
Something could be generated by the staff intention that itself acted or gave rise to insights. He
goes on to say that such a common ground and intention would generate the all important
atmosphere.
The relationships Krishnamurti felt should exist between students and staff were a further
indication of the religiousness of education. There should be no hierarchy in the fundamental
concern of schools. Staff members may know more about academic subjects, or gardening, or
administration and therefore have a certain authority there, but these are not the central concerns
of education. In the central concerns of education, which have more to do with inner liberation,
8
both the students and the teachers are learners and therefore equal, but this is untouched by
functional authority. This subtle point often eludes both students and adults.
Therefore I say, authority has its place as knowledge, but there is no
spiritual authority under any circumstances... That is, authority destroys
freedom, but the authority of a doctor, mathematics teacher and how he
teaches, that doesn't destroy freedom.19 In thus helping the student towards
freedom, the educator is changing his own values also; he too is beginning
to be rid of the "me" and the "mine", he too is flowering in love and
goodness. This process of mutual education creates an altogether different
relationship between the teacher and the student.20
When we compare Krishnamurti's view of the nature of a human being to that which has
shaped modern education, we see substantial differences. Krishnamurti's view that a human has
both a brain and a mind puts him at odds with the modern view and most learning theory.
Although this article is too short to do justice to this topic, we can simplify the difference as
follows: the brain is the center of the nervous system and the organ of cognition. It is therefore
responsible for co-ordination of the senses, memory, rationality, knowledge, etc. The mind,
which is not material, is related to insight (non-visual perception), compassion, and the profound
intelligence that Krishnamurti held as the real goal of life and therefore education. Obviously
one needs a brain that functions well, like one needs a heart or a liver that functions well; but the
real source of acting rightly, goodness, and a religious life come from the mind. In this unequal
relationship between the two, a good brain does not produce a good mind, but a good mind does
ameliorate the brain. The brain has a role to play with the mind; the role is freeing itself from its
conditioning, and this is one of the main functions of education (not accumulating knowledge).
The real issue is the quality of our mind: not its knowledge but the depth of
the mind that meets knowledge. Mind is infinite, is the nature of the
universe which has its own order, has its own immense energy. It is
everlastingly free. The brain, as it is now, is the slave of knowledge and so
is limited, finite, fragmentary. When the brain frees itself from its
conditioning, then the brain is infinite, then only there is no division
between the mind and the brain. Education then is freedom from
conditioning, from its vast accumulated knowledge as tradition. This does
9
not deny the academic disciplines which have their own proper place in
life.21
A further difference between the view of human nature that has shaped conventional
education and the views of Krishnamurti is that he felt that each person needs to be explored and
revealed rather than shaped into something. Here we begin to also broach the topic of the
activities that Krishnamurti felt should be central to education, and again we see that education is
a religious activity. To Krishnamurti, each person has a unique vocation that needs to be
discovered; what they really love to do has to be found and then pursued. Krishnamurti was not
the first educator or seer to have felt this,22 but it is a perspective that stands in stark contrast to
the traditional view that has shaped so much of modern education. In the traditional view,
children are seen as empty vessels to be filled, blank slates to be written on, or amorphous pieces
of clay that need to be shaped (and if a few recalcitrant corners need to be pummeled into shape
a bit, so be it). For Krishnamurti, true education helps the student discover himself.
To understand life is to understand ourselves, and that is both the beginning
and the end of education.23 The function of education, then, is to help you
from childhood not to imitate anybody, but to be yourself all the time. So
freedom lies...in understanding what you are from moment to moment. You
see, you are not educated for this; your education encourages you to
become something or other...24
The discovery of the natural vocation for an individual student and the student’s understanding
what he really loves to do may not fit into the plans of the parents or society, but it is an
important part of understanding oneself and, consequently, of education.
Modern education is making us into thoughtless entities; it does very little
towards helping us to find our individual vocation.25 To find out what you
really love to do is one of the most difficult things. That is part of
education.26 Right education is to help you to find out for yourself what you
really, with all your heart, love to do. It does not matter what is, whether it
is to cook, or to be a gardener, but is something in which you have put your
mind, your heart.27 And is not the true purpose of education to help you to
find out, so that as you grow up you can begin to give your whole mind,
heart and body to that which you really love to do.28
10
The difference between understanding what one is and striving to become something that
one isn’t is mirrored in the difference between wanting to discover ‘what is’ and striving to
materially change ‘what is’. Krishnamurti didn’t deny growth or material change; in fact he
applauded it. But meaningful growth and real material change without the all too frequent
unfortunate side effects cannot be produced by just insuring young people acquire knowledge
and skills and teaching them to conform to the strictures and demands of society in order to get
on in life. In emphasizing this, parents may comfort themselves that they are helping their
children have material security, and schools may congratulate themselves on their examination
results, but in Krishnamurti’s perspective they are only adding to the sorrows and violence of the
world. He decries the fact that most education is to...
...acquire a job or use that knowledge for self-satisfaction, for selfaggrandizement,
to get on in the world.
Merely to cultivate technical capacity without understanding what is true
freedom leads to destruction, to greater wars; and that is actually what is
happening in the world.29 Merely to stuff the child with a lot of information,
making him pass examinations, is the most unintelligent form of
education.30
Education should never coerce a child to conform and fit into present society. Education
should help create a totally different society and a different way of life. When speaking of his
own schools he said,
Surely they must be centers of learning a way of life which is not based on
pleasure, on self-centered activities, but on the understanding of correct
action, the depth and beauty of relationship, and the sacredness of a
religious life.31
In fact there are two kinds of learning both of which are important, but in most schools an overemphasis
on material learning that involved acquiring knowledge meant sacrificing a deeper
11
learning. In describing both forms of learning, he would often begin with the kind of learning we
are all to familiar with.
That is what you do when you learn a language, when you acquire
technical information and gain knowledge about what you are learning and
accumulating, which is learning to acquire knowledge, and using that
knowledge skilfully in action. And there is, a learning in which there is no
accumulation, a constant movement of learning which is non-mechanical.32
What Krishnamurti describes above as "another kind of learning" was what he felt should be the
principal concern of education, and it is an activity that is fundamentally religious. This profound
and life-transforming learning is certainly meant to be the focus of the schools he founded, and
this is in perfect accord with what in 1929 he stated was his central intention in life,
I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with
unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential
thing; to set man free. 33
For this Krishnamurti started schools, and this reason only. He never did waver from his wish for
people to have a constant movement of learning which is non-mechanical, a life of freedom,
love, and truth.
We read the words of the young seventeen Krishnamurti who writes,
If the unity of life and the oneness of its purpose could be clearly taught to
the young in schools, how much brighter would be our hopes for the future!
34
Forty-three years later he writes,
If one becomes aware that there can be peace and harmony for man only
through right education, then one will naturally give one's whole life and
interest to it.35
That is exactly what he did.
1While there is some controversy over the authorship of At The Feet of The Master (1910), there is little doubt that
he wrote at least parts of Education as Service (1912), especially the introduction.
2Krishnamurti, Education as Service (Adyar, Theosophical Publishing Society, 1912) Forward.
12
3Krishnamurti, Letters to the Schools : Volume One , Letter of 15 October 1979 (Den Haag: Mirananda, 1981).
4Brockwood Park, 2nd Public Talk, 26 August 1979.
5There are innumerable instances in which Krishnamurti describes the need for a completely different society, and
education as the way of creating that different society. This should not to be confused with the easier goal of social
reform. There could easily be an article on 'Krishnamurti: Social Transformation Through Education', but since
Krishnamurti posed education as a religious activity, it would in effect be an article on 'Social Transformation as a
Religious Activity'. Consider: “The real function of education is not to turn you out to be a clerk, or a judge, or a
prime minister, but to help you understand the whole structure of this rotten society and allow you to grow in
freedom, so that you will break away and create a different society, a new world. There must be those who are in
revolt, not partially but totally in revolt against the old, for it is only such people who can create a new world - a
world not based on acquisitiveness, on power and prestige... - a world that must be totally different from the present
one. Unfortunately, neither your parents, nor your teachers, nor the public in general are interested in this.”
Krishnamurti, This Matter of Culture, (London, Victor Gollancz, 1964) Chapter 3.
6Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life, (London, Victor Gollancz, 1955) Chapter 6.
7Ojai, 6th Public Talk, 5 July 1953.
8ibid.
9Krishnamurti, This Matter of Culture, (London, Victor Gollancz, 1964) Chapter 23.
10Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti To Himself, (London, Victor Gollancz, 1987) entry dated 25th February 1983.
11Ibid.
12Rajghat, 2nd talk to students, 19th November 1981.
13London, 2nd Public Talk, 7th June 1962.
14Krishnamurti, Education and The Significance of Life, (London, Victor Gollancz, 1955) Chapter 6.
15Bombay, 5th Public Talk, 18th March 1956.
16Brockwood Park, Staff meeting with Krishnamurti, 13th June 1980.
17Ibid.
18ibid.
19Ojai, Dialogue on Education, 16th April 1975.
20Krishnamurti, Education and The Significance of Life, (London Victor Gollancz, 1955) Chapter 6.
21Krishnamurti, Letters To The Schools: Volume Two (Den Haag, Mirananda, 1985) Letter of 1st October. 1982.
22Maria Montessori is probably the best known educator today to share this perspective with Krishnamurti.
Consider; "The child is the spiritual builder of humankind, and obstacles to his free development are the stones in
the wall by which the soul of humanity as become imprisoned." Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind (Madras,
Kalakshetra Publications, 1973.) We hear a similar theme in Emerson, " The secret of education lies in respecting
13
the pupil. It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he shall do. It is chosen and fore ordained, and he
only holds the key to his own secret..." Ralph Walso Emerson, from an essay Education 1864, published in Selected
Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nerw York; New American Library, 1965). Montessori had links with
Theosophy, and Emerson, as a member of the Transcendentalist Movement in 19th Century America, had interests
in eastern philosophy and religion. It is possibly more likely for people with such interests to have this perspective
of human nature than those with an old fashioned Christian view of people as born in sin with instincts that lead
towards loss of spirituality, and which therefore need to be controled and curtailed.
23Krishnamurti, Education and The Significance of Life, (London, Victor Gollancz, 1955) Chapter 1.
24Krishnamurti, This Matter of Culture , (London, Victor Gollancz, 1964) Chapter 3.
25Ibid.
26Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti On Education, (New Deli, Orient Longman, 1974) Part 1, Chapter 8.
27Ibid.
28Krishnamurti, This Matter of Culture, (London, Victor Gollancz, 1964) Chapter 7.
29Poona, 3rd Public Talk, 31st January 1953.
30Poona, 5th Public Talk, 26th September 1948.
31Krishnamurti, Letters To The Schools: Volume One (Den Haag, Mirananda, 1981) Letter of 15th October 1980.
32Bombay, 2nd Public Talk, 26th January 1975.
33Ommen, The Dissolution of The Order of The Star, 3rd August 1929.
34Krishnamurti, Education As Service (Madras, Theosophical Publishing Society, 1912) Forward.
35Krishnamurti, Education and The Significance of Life (London, Victor Gollancz, 1955) chapter 6.
--
Scott H. Forbes © 1994
Author’s contact information (as of 2003):
Dr. Scott H. Forbes Tel. 503-252-1946
Holistic Education, Inc. email: scott@holistic-education.net
P.O. Box 33166
Portland, OR 97292
United States
Additional discussions about Krishnamurti’s views on education can be found in these articles:
14
• Freedom and Education - discusses freedom in its deepest and most time honored
form, and what the implications are for education if such freedom is valued.
• Values in Holistic Education - details the primary values that most schools claiming
to be holistic would embrace.
These and other articles can be accessed at: www.holistic-education.net/articles/articles.htm
10th October 1999
Scott H. Forbes
1
FREEDOM AND EDUCATON
Krishnamurti often began discussing a topic by looking at the origin of the words he was
going to use, and that seems to be an appropriate practice here as I shall be discussing
freedom and education with particular reference to his work. As this paper is intended for
those interested in holistic education, I shall also make references to the work some other
authors who are frequently quoted by holistic educators.
The modern word ‘free’ comes from the Old English word frēo. This word is connected
with frēon which in Old English means ‘to love’ as well as frēond which means a person
whom one loves, that is a friend or lover. This connection of freedom to love is one that
we shall be returning on several occasions because for Krishnamurti “the word freedom
implies love...”1
As a general statement about the nature of freedom, Krishnamurti stated in many ways
and at many times that “freedom is a state and quality of mind.”2 This is, of course, not a
new view. Such an understanding of freedom lies at the heart of religious notions of
liberation found in the more esoteric approaches to all religions but perhaps most
conspicuously in Buddhism.
The earliest reference I know of which puts this notion of freedom at the heart of
education is in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his famous educational monograph
Emile, Rousseau says,
Freedom is found in no form of government; it is in the heart of the free
man. He takes it with him everywhere. The vile man takes his servitude
everywhere.3
This is a remarkable statement for a philosopher who was so concerned with political
questions, and one of many reasons that so many people credit Rousseau as a founding
thinker of the holistic approach to education.
I shall begin by mentioning six major impediments to the kind of freedom being discussed
here before addressing the topic of freedom in relation to education. I do this partly
because the nature of the freedom being discussed must first be clear before its relation
to anything can be considered. But I also begin exploring the topic of freedom through
impediments to it because this was one of Krishnamurti’s favourite methods. By seeing
what freedom isn’t, especially what is commonly assumed to be freedom but which isn’t,
he felt made it easier to see what it is. In fact, Krishnamurti specifically recommended an
approach through such negation as the best way to help students discover the nature of
freedom.4 Part of the reason he gives for approaching freedom through negation is to
avoid Utopianism, or ideologies, which is to say approaching freedom principally through
concepts. For Krishnamurti, freedom is not a concept and knowledge of freedom is not
accessible through concepts anymore than knowing how to ride a bicycle is accessible
through concepts.
One of the most frequent negative statements which Krishnamurti made about freedom
was that freedom is not from or to anything.5 Whenever a person wants to move from
something or to something, there is the sense that that thing (being either onerous or
pleasurable) is compelling the action; and any action being compelled is not a action of
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freedom. So the impediment to freedom is the thinking it can be found either away from or
towards something.
A second impediment to freedom which Krishnamurti frequently stressed is thinking that
freedom has anything to do with choice. All too often in our era we think that if we have
choice we are free, and Krishnamurti felt this was a great illusion.6
It is said that a customer came up to the first Henry Ford and complained that all the
model T Fords were black and that customers couldn’t have any colour they chose. Henry
Ford responded that customers could have any colour they chose as long as it was black.
Similarly, if the range of options amongst which we choose are limited and dictated to us
by our conditioning, what can it mean to say that choosing is an expression of freedom?
St. Augustine very poignantly said of his instruction, “Give me a boy from his birth until he
is seven, and I will have him for the rest of his life.” For such a boy with such an
upbringing, what can it possibly mean to say he chooses to be a Christian, or chooses to
pray? B.F. Skinner understood this, and as he felt it was impossible to be without
conditioning, he insisted that there was no such thing as freedom.
This leads to the complex topic of choicelessness as Krishnamurti used that term. We can
only briefly touch on this topic but it is important as it broaches one of the more subtle
aspects of the freedom being discussed here. Choicelessness, for Krishnamurti, refers to a
singularity that results from seeing something clearly as well as a singularity of action
which is in accord with such seeing. It is comparable to asking, ‘What is the shortest route
from here to New York’ and seeing that there is a singular response; there is no choice.
Perhaps there are two or more ways which are equally short, but that answer is just as
singular.
Choicelessness must not be confused with not being given a choice, and therein lies a subtle
but crucial distinction. In our example, a person must be free to consider any number of
routes to New York, and be free of influences, in order to see that there is no choice
about the shortest route. For Krishnamurti then, freedom is necessary in order to come
upon choicelessness. Choicelessness does not refer to trivial situations as, for example, having
two identical strawberries and needing to choose which one to eat first. In that there is, of
course, choice. But in life’s non-trivial situations one much decide which action to take,
and in seeing the situation clearly and fully there is a singular answer.
Abraham Maslow credits Krishnamurti’s insights on “choiceless awareness” with some of
his own distinctions between a state of mind which sees and acts out of what he called
‘Being-cognition’ and the more typical mind which rubricates, mulls things over and then
chooses.7
More than two hundred years earlier Rousseau had a similar insight and talked about the
importance of seeing what he called ‘the law of necessity’ and felt this was indispensable
to education. This law can be thought of as similar to the law of gravity yet for Rousseau it
also covers things like emotions, virtue, morality, etc. He called them “the eternal laws of
nature and order”8 and claimed that only by enslaving oneself to this law does one
become free.9 Rousseau was saying that only in having no choice about seeing what is
true and acting accordingly is a person free.
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Such choicelessness is related to seeing the necessary doing of something unpleasant now in
order to avoid a greater unpleasantness in the future (and its more benevolent cousin -
delayed gratification). Understanding this ‘law of necessity’ is a an important
understanding of the way the world works. This was seen as fundamental to education by
Rousseau,10 Pestalozzi,11 and has recently been shown by experiment to be an indicator,
when seen in preschoolers, of later success.12 What is important for the present topic is
that a person must be free to choose and free to have gratification or delay it if they are
to develop “choiceless awareness” or understand the “law of necessity” or develop
foresight.
The third impediment to freedom is one briefly touched on in the previous discussion of
choice; conditioning. Conditioning, however, needs to be addressed more fully as its
implications for freedom extend beyond its effect on choice.
Krishnamurti used the word ‘conditioning’ very differently to the way it is used in
behaviourist psychology.13 We needn’t fully differentiate the two uses of the word, but
only point to one salient difference mentioned earlier. Krishnamurti contended that the
conditioning of which he spoke can be seen by the person conditioned, and in such
seeing, the power of limitation and distortion of that conditioning can end. Hence, a
person might see that their perspective on something is conditioned by their language,
and in seeing this their perspective can be altered to adjust for the effect of language. A
behaviourist would contend that as long as that person still uses the language, it makes
no sense to speak of being free of its conditioning.
Krishnamurti frequently pointed out that we are slaves to the known; to concepts, beliefs,
symbols, and institutions,14 a point he persuasively made in one of his early books
entitled Freedom From the Known.15 He insisted that if we are to live with any sanity and
freedom we must find a way to end this enslavement. It is a point that has been made by
some others, most notably by one of the great unread philosophers of our age, Alfred
Korzybski,16 but it is a point that is surprisingly rare.
The importance of being free of conceptions and conceptualising as our only way of
knowing has received support in the last several years from several psychology studies.17
In these it has been shown that recognising patterns which are too complex for us to
conceptualise can occur when we are, in Krishnamurti’s phrase, “free from the known” as
well as free from the conceptualising process. While freedom from our conditioned
conceptions and conceptualising has been shown to be important for dealing successfully
with situations which are complex in the psychology laboratory, how much more
important this freedom must be, of necessity, for our actual lives which are infinitely more
complex that any laboratory experiment could possibly be.
From this one naturally asks the question, ‘Do we have any processes which are not
conditioned and related to freedom?’ For Krishnamurti, one such process is ‘awareness,’
most specifically ‘choiceless awareness’ as mentioned earlier. In recent psychology work
this has been most closely represented by states of consciousness called “mindfulness”18
or “flow.”19 One can say that such states of consciousness in general are an engagement
with the world that seems to be without the mediation of words, images or concepts, and
which seems more veridical than the state of consciousness normally held. Having such a
state of consciousness requires freedom from conditioning, yet paradoxically this state of
consciousness is said to generate freedom. This is a phenomenon we see in several
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aspects of some of the more esoteric approaches to psychology, holistic education, and
religion – namely, that to do X, Y is needed, yet in doing X, Y is generated. This is a
problem for those locked into causal thinking. A more subtle etiology knows that the
chicken and egg riddle is nonsensical. Some things, as confirmed by systems theory, have
a simultaneous emergence.
Another process that Krishnamurti said was beyond conditioning is love20 – which brings
us to the origins of our word ‘freedom.’ We shall be returning to his relationship of love to
freedom several more times.
Another impediment to freedom, according to Krishnamurti, is the pursuit of selfinterest.
21 To understand this we must make a distinction between self-preservation and
self-centredness. Rousseau named these two amour de soi, which he claimed was a
necessary and healthy self-preservation, and amour propre, which we might call egotism and
which he felt was destructive. Krishnamurti made similar distinctions but did not give us
two different terms. He felt it was necessary to take care of oneself in all senses including
aesthetically, yet he was completely against anything that smacked of self-centredness.
The distinction is analogous to seeing that one must observe oneself, but one must not
be narcissistic.
Krishnamurti insisted that the result of everyone pursuing their selfish interests,
ambitions, pleasures, is that it brings “about a great deal of disorder, confusion, conflict,”
etc.22 which then requires laws and restrictions to limit the damage. Essentially, as a result
of everyone pursuing this false idea of freedom nobody is free because everybody’s life is
circumscribed by the negative consequences of everyone else pursuing self-interest. There
is also, of course, the issue that in the pursuit of selfishness, it is people’s desires and
images, etc. (which are generally a product of their conditioning), which are driving the
person, and such conditioning, as we saw before, is not liberating but expressing a lack of
freedom.
Another impediment to freedom for Krishnamurti is identification. He said,
There is only freedom when there is absolute non-identification with
anything, with the church, with the gods, with beliefs, with a statue... with
anything.23
This insight was shared by Jung, who was also interested in a very deep sense of freedom.
Jung put the activity of differentiation at the foundation of this deep freedom and ultimate
human realisation. For Jung, differentiation was an ending of identification. He felt a
person needed to stop identifying with his culture, nation, family and even with himself in
the sense of ceasing to identify with his persona or constructed image of himself. This is
not a cold and heartless distancing that some might imagine, but a stripping away of the
accretions of identity accumulated from infancy onwards, so that the unique (what others
might call ‘self’) can be discovered.
Identity for many is a form of subtle possession, and possessions seems to cut both ways.
Many people have contended that when a person can say, “I have X” that person can say
with equal validity, “X has me.” As a consequence, for Rousseau “dominion and liberty are
two incompatible words...”24 and for Jung, “bondage and possession are synonymous.”25
These notions of possession are not to be confused with the possessions necessary for
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living, but they are very much meant to include all the psychological possessions we
accumulate, especially identity.
The final impediment to freedom we shall discuss is dependence. This seems like an
obvious statement, but it isn’t. For one thing, Krishnamurti maintained that nondependence
should not to be confused with independence.26 He insisted that we are not
and cannot be independent in any meaningful way as we depend on others for food and
for the materials that are part of even the most simple life.27 It is psychological
dependence (for things like security and approbation) that are the real impediments to
freedom.
Now that something of the nature of the freedom being discussed has been established,
we can now turn to the relationship of freedom to education.
To begin with, Krishnamurti, and I will presume most readers of this paper, are not
interested simply in education about freedom. A person could be in the most unfree
situation (e.g., a highly conditioned Islamic fundamentalist communist - if such a person
could exist - in a fascist concentration camp) and still get lessons about freedom. When
Krishnamurti, and most holistic educators say they are interested in people knowing or
learning freedom, they are saying that people must do more that simply learn about, they
must learn of. From this certain question necessarily follow:
- What does it mean to know of something such as freedom? Is it the same as
knowing of , something like, the names of the planets?
- If knowing of freedom is not the same as knowing of the names of the planets, what
makes it different?
To keep this as simple as possible, it can simply be said that a good case can be made for
there being a category of things (such as love, responsibility, courage, etc. – or even how
to ride a bicycle) which requires an experiential component as such things are not
accessible through concepts, abstractions or representations alone. This is the kind of
learning which Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow had in mind when they talked about
‘intrinsic learning’ and distinguished it from ‘extrinsic learning.’28 They saw extrinsic
learning as an accumulation of impersonal associations or information (necessary for
some things like learning the names of the planets) while intrinsic learning is a very
personal internalising of information or events (necessary for learning other things like
responsibility, freedom, or riding a bicycle).
In looking at such different kinds of knowledge, a question necessarily emerges: what is
education for? If education is principally for the accumulation of information and
acquisition of degrees, then extrinsic education is enough. Krishnamurti insisted, however,
that education should
be concerned with the cultivation of the total human being... We have laid
far too much emphasis on examinations and getting good degrees. That is
not the main purpose for which these schools [the Krishnamurti schools]
were founded...29
Krishnamurti went on to say that with such a wrong emphasis on examinations and
degrees “the freedom to flower will gradually wither.”30 For Krishnamurti, ‘the cultivation of
the total human being’ and ‘the flowering’ he frequently spoke of required what he called
‘the awakening of intelligence;’ that is, a capacity to discover truth, find meaning and
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values, and live with a certain ‘goodness.’ We shall return to the topic of finding truth,
meaning, values, and goodness a bit later, but they need to be introduced here as many
writers (including Krishnamurti) have insisted that acquiring such qualities requires more
than extrinsic learning, it requires intrinsic learning. Interestingly, there is an increasing
number of people suggesting that even for the relatively simple goals of earning a
livelihood and becoming a good citizen intrinsic learning is necessary.31
This raises questions about how people develop, and what the relationship of freedom
might be to the process of development. We need to mention briefly the historically old
notion that nature is dark, dangerous, animalistic, sexual, impulsive and evil – another
name for the devil was ‘the prince of this world’ – and that what is sacred rises above
nature; it is supra-natural. Part of this notion is that children are closer to nature and
animals and (until redeemed by religion and socialisation) are inherently sinful, and their
impulses must be kept in check until these children can rise above their own natures. This
justifies any withholding of freedom and even brutality to save children from their ‘lower’
selves. I shall not argue against such notions, not because I agree with them or because
such notions don’t still play a role in even the most modern societies (because they do,
though often in disguised form), but they will be left aside because I assume that most
readers here are not encumbered with such thinking. There is, however, another notion of
development which is more widespread and just as deleterious for any real freedom within
education.
This notion of development comes from Plato and (very briefly and simply) holds that the
mind develops according to the knowledge it acquires. According to Plato, after a certain
amount of knowledge of sufficient complexity is acquired by the child’s mind, that mind
develops the ability to form abstractions with that knowledge. Certain kinds of knowledge
are better for this than others, and Plato expounds on the virtues of mathematics as a
form of knowledge particularly well suited to this process. Developing the best mind is
accomplished by having the mind acquire the various forms of knowledge suited to form
abstractions, because it is with abstractions that a person finds truth. From this it follows
that the point of a curriculum is to present such knowledge in increasingly elaborated
forms in order to create the mind that will be able to create the abstractions that can see
truth. A good case can be made that this is fundamental to the thinking in many
approaches to modern education. For our present purposes the important point is that
the nature of the person is seen as determined by the nature of his mind, and the nature
of his mind is seen as determined by the knowledge it acquires.
Contrary to this was the notion of development proposed by Rousseau, and which has
been adopted by many holistic schools. For Rousseau, the nature of our minds is
determined principally by nature, not by knowledge. He held that we have three sources
of development or education – nature, men, and things.
The internal development of our faculties and our organs is the education
of nature. The use we are taught to make of this development is the
education of men. And what we acquire from our own experience about
the objects which affect us is the education of things.32
The education coming from nature is beyond the control of people, “that coming from
things is in our control only in certain respects,”33 so it is only the education of men that
can be entirely determined by the teacher. If all three sources of education are to be in
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harmony, which Rousseau felt was essential for the harmonious development of the
person, then they had to follow the development of nature because that is the one
beyond control. This means that the teacher has to pay attention to each individual child
and present lessons that are in conformity with the individual’s idiosyncratic nature and
natural development. A major task for the teacher is to watch and learn about the everchanging
child, and above all not interfere with the child’s nature, which is a reflection of
the sacred.
According to the Rousseauian notion of development the mind, just like the body, goes
through its own natural and inherently good process of development. Just as what the
body eats (as long as it is relatively healthy) does not determine the nature of the body (it
will still be composed of the normal body parts), so what the mind acquires (as long as it
is relatively healthy) does not determine the nature of the mind. This is the exact opposite
of Plato’s view.
In the Rousseauian model of development we have the first compelling reasons for the
necessity of a child having freedom and not just learning about it. A child must be given
the maximum amount of freedom possible so that the child can develop according to its
nature and so that the teacher can discover its idiosyncratic nature and make lessons that
accord with it.
Rousseau was well aware of the problems of conditioning which we discussed earlier, and
for him giving the child the maximum amount of freedom did not mean giving complete
licence. He equated giving a child complete freedom to planting a shrub in the middle of a
road and expecting it to grow naturally; society would simply run it over and destroy it.34
For this reason, Rousseau spoke of giving the child “well regulated freedom,”35 or freedom
that was real (not just a product of his conditioning), but still safe. Contrary to Plato,
Rousseau felt that a child is in no danger from having freedom to learn whatever he wants,
because what he learns is not nearly as important as how he learns, and that he learns how
to learn.
Learning how to learn, or meta-learning, is fairly universally acknowledged as important.
Yet, usually this is taken to mean, learning how to learn what the educator wants the
student to learn. This may, however, be a violation of a fundamental aspect of what it
means to really know something, namely, finding one’s own meaning.
Just as a good case can be made for there being a difference between learning something
from experience and learning from abstractions (e.g., learning how to ride a bicycle from
doing it or from reading a book about it), a good case can also be made for there being a
difference between seeing the meaning of something and being told about the meaning of
something. It is the difference between meaning that is made and meaning that is received.
‘Understanding’ has frequently been described in terms of making connections and seeing
distinctions. It is said that the intelligent person is the one who sees similarities where
others see differences and who sees differences where others see only similarities. In both
cases, it is the creativity of the act which distinguishes it. A person sees or makes, he does
not receive or accept. Krishnamurti was constantly imploring people not to accept or simply
agree with what he was saying. The important act for Krishnamurti was the seeing for
oneself.36
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It should be fairly evident that a person cannot learn to see for himself or make his own
connections if he is told where to look and what he should find when he looks there. Yet,
unfortunately, that is exactly what a prescriptive curriculum does. The prescriptive
curriculum usually also says at which rate a person should pick up the prescribed material.
If the student’s rate is slower than the prescribed rate, then the student is deemed to be a
dim, and if the student’s rate is faster, then the student is deemed to be bright. At no
time in this scenario, however, is it suggested that each student has a natural rate for
learning different sorts of material and it is never suggested that a good thing for the
student to discover is what his own rate might be. This, despite the value people ascribe
to meta-learning. What is also frequently missed is that a person’s learning about what
they find meaningful and what that person’s rate of learning is for different kinds of
material can be an important aspect of that person learning about himself. Probably the
reason this is missed is due to what are the perceived goals of education (as mentioned
above). If education is for acquiring information, then what a person finds meaningful and
their rate of learning different kinds of material is of little importance. If, however,
education holds self-knowledge to be central, then these things are of great importance.
According to a long list of respected commentators on education (including Rousseau,
Pestalozzi, Froebel, Jung, Maslow, Rogers, Krishnamurti) a person’s making their own
connections and their own meaning is fundamental to that person discovering what their
deeper interests are and, as a consequence, discovering something important about
himself. Probably, there would be a general consensus that it is a good thing for people to
discover what their interests are. There would probably be less of a consensus about the
value of people making their own meaning, as there would be concern that a person’s
own meaning might conflict with accepted meaning. What there would not be a consensus
on is that to discover interests and meaning freedom is required, yet this is exactly one of
the reasons all the aforementioned authors gave for the importance of freedom. They felt
that if you tell a child ‘These are the right connections to make in understanding this
topic, and this is what it really means’ you are simultaneously saying ‘Your connections or
meaning (if they differ from these) are not right.’ And, if you tell a child ‘This is important,
this is something you must learn’ you are simultaneously saying, ‘your interests (if they
differ from these) are not as important.’
This brings us back to the origins of the word ‘freedom’ with which we started, and its
relation to love. Krishnamurti, in talking with young children in one of his schools in 1954
said,
The love of something for itself is freedom. There is freedom when you
paint because you love to paint, not because it gives you fame or gives
you a position. In the school, when you love to paint that very love is
freedom, and that means an astonishing understanding of all the ways of
the mind. Also, it is very simple to do something for itself and not for what
it brings you either as a punishment or as a reward. Just to love the thing
for itself is the beginning of freedom.37
To what I imagine was the dubious joy of the teachers, Krishnamurti went on to suggest
the students give some time to such a love,
instead of wasting your time on some stupid stuff that does not really
interest you but that has to be done?38
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Krishnamurti was not suggesting a form of self indulgence. Instead it is a form of the
child’s learning what that child really wants to do in life (which Krishnamurti held to be
very important),39 and therefore a way for the child to learn about himself. It is also a way
of learning about motivation.
Krishnamurti talked about acting without a motive, which can be confusing in view of the
way the word ‘motivation’ is commonly used.40 It might be easiest to use the terminology
of Rogers and Maslow who again used ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ to distinguish kinds of
motivation, and who were making a point similar to that of Krishnamurti. Extrinsic
motivation is seen as motivation from the outside, it is the rewards or punishments that
compel so many of us to do so much that we do in our lives. Intrinsic motivation comes
entirely from within; it is something inner which is not dependent on any outside agent. In
this one needs to be wary of apparently inner rewards which are actually socially derived.
These include rewards such as fame, power, money, applause, or having a ‘cool’ image,
etc. We can say that these are internalised extrinsic motives – we may carry them inside,
and they come from outside. The only true intrinsic motivations according to these
authors which I can find, are the love of something for its own sake, seeing the rightness
of something (very much in keeping with what Krishnamurti described as ‘right action’),
and the appreciation of something (like the appreciation beauty or order). Those who try
to reduce such motives to disguised selfishness (as do many evolutionary psychologists)
are, to me, unconvincing and solipsistic – they demand proof of something other than
selfishness while denying the validity of the evidence; namely, the experience of the
selflessness of love, and the seeing of beauty.
There is a real problem in valuing intrinsic motivation in education, and it is one which
Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Krishnamurti gave a great deal of attention to, and it is a
problem that sends shivers down the backs of many educators. The question at the heart
of this problem is, ‘How does the educator, without the use of extrinsic motivation, get
the student to do what is for the student’s own good?’ Let us assume for the moment that
the educator knows what is good for the student. Unfortunately, the only answer to this
question is; ‘Engage the student’s interest.’ It is when the student is not interested in
doing what is good for him that the educator’s true colours show. Does the educator
allow the student the freedom not to do what is best for him, or does the educator
intervene? For Rousseau and Pestalozzi the answer was to let the students make mistakes
towards which they are inclined because they will learn more from the consequences of
that then they would from blindly following the educators’ instructions. We must not
conflate this issue with some supposed freedom of a child to run in front of a bus or off a
cliff, etc. Such dire and irreversible consequences are practically never the substance of
education. Usually those who invoke such parallels (i.e., the freedom of a child not to
study something they find boring with the freedom to run off a cliff) are seeking
justification for restricting freedom. This ends up as a variation on the Henry Ford quote,
‘You are free to do whatever you want, as long as it is in, what I see as, your best
interests.’
There are some questions that necessarily follows from this, namely: ‘Do humans have a
way of knowing for themselves what is in their own best interests? And if they do, how is
that faculty developed?’ The answer to the first question from authoritarian structures is,
‘No! People do not have a way of knowing for themselves what is in their own best
interests. They need to be told by those with superior religiousness, or spiritual
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development, or wisdom, or intelligence, or knowledge, etc.’ But is this answer true, or is
this simply an answer that serves the vested interests of those in power?
Rousseau insisted that this is not true, that a child is not naturally sinful or selfdestructive,
and that left to his own devices a child will eventually come to do what is in
his own best interests.41 And this answers the second of our two questions; ‘How is
faculty (of knowing for oneself what is best) developed?’ It is learned by the child having
freedom. Rousseau held that learning to discover what is in your own best interests is
learning how to trust oneself and this is the only basis one which one can be free of
authorities – reason enough for society, which is based on authorities of various forms, to
find it an anathema.
In modern times this phenomenon of inherent self-regulation has been fairly well studied
and is called homeostasis. It holds that all animals, including man, chooses what is in
their best interests if left to their own devices, and it is a phenomenon which Maslow and
Rogers felt ensured that freedom for children is safe. Krishnamurti didn’t use the word
‘homeostasis,’ but he did speak a great deal about ‘right action’ and ‘the flowering of
goodness’ in terms that when one really sees what is ‘right’ or ‘good’ that is naturally what
one does. The implication is that humans have a natural inclination to do what is right
and good if they can but see it - a kind of homeostasis that extends to the moral and
religious plane.
What this means for our present topic is that people are not in moral danger if they are
given freedom. Quite the contrary, it is only with freedom that people have the possibility
to develop the capacity to discover for themselves what is right and good, instead of
having to be told what is right and good. And here we come back to difference between
received meaning and discovered meaning, between received truth and discovered truth.
Krishnamurti was very firm on the subject. He held that no truth could be received. It
could only be discovered.42 Similarly, ‘right action,’ for Krishnamurti, could only be
discovered. As truth can only be discovered, and knowing what is right and good can only
be discovered, and as such discovery requires freedom, then freedom is not some
pleasant extra. Freedom is indispensable, and it is necessary at the beginning of the
learning process, not just when everything is in order and running smoothly.
It is not a question of order first and then freedom, but rather the freedom
first and then out of that freedom comes order.43
This order is not an imposed order which Krishnamurti, on several occasions, called
‘disorder.’44 Real order is discovered order and reminiscent of what has been said before
about discovered meaning. This intrinsic rather than extrinsic order has been echoed
through the millennia, especially where moral ordering is concerned. Jung stated it simply
when he said, “there is no morality without freedom.”45 If people are not free to act
immorally, they are not moral agents and therefore can not be said to act morally any
more than a dog trained to not steal food can be said to be acting morally. Elaine Pagels
shows this to be a Gnostic interpretation of the Adam and Eve story, which may well have
existed long before the Gnostics.46 Consequently, for any education which wants children
to be moral (rather than just learn about morality), they must have freedom.
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So far we have seen that finding meaning, truth, and right action, and the development of
morality require freedom. Are there any other compelling reasons for there to be freedom
in education?
For Car Rogers the answer is, yes. He maintained that giving a child freedom shows the
child that he is worthy of trust, respect, and able to be responsible. Not giving a child
freedom conveys the opposite to the child, which usually results in the child acting
irresponsibly when they finally have freedom. Having freedom dramatically affects the way
a child sees himself. Rogers feels that the normal message given to the child, namely that
the child needs authority and is dependent, is a message that a child too easily carries for
the rest of his life. Rogers also insisted that freedom is needed for discovery oneself.47
Similarly, Krishnamurti insisted that
One can never understand the depth of oneself when one is dependent
on something; one cannot be a light to oneself.48
Returning to the goals of education mentioned earlier: Let us say that education is for the
fullest development of the whole person and not just preparation for functioning (either
vocational functioning or social functioning). According to Krishnamurti, and many other
authors, the fullest development of persons requires self-discovery. If self-discovery
requires freedom,49 which all of the above mentioned authors insisted is true, we can add
self-discovery to the list of reasons for having freedom.
Let us, for the sake of brevity, agree that the fullest development of persons also requires
their development of judgement, insight, and sensitivity. It seems too obvious a point to
argue that such judgement, insight, and sensitivity require that a person be able to see
things as they are. It might be less obvious to say that seeing things clearly as they are
requires freedom from the distorting lenses of prejudice, opinion, bias, habit, customs
and other forms of conditioning. Krishnamurti insisted that without such freedom the
challenge of living can not be fully met.
Without this freedom you know, not as an idea but actually to be free,
inwardly - without this freedom, I don’t see quite how life with its vast,
complex problems, demands, activities – how all that can be
understood.50
What is clear is that the fullest development of persons, or what used to be called ‘selfmastery’
(in another era), is required to fully meet the challenges of living, and this
involves freedom. According to Goethe,
From the power that binds all creatures none is free
Except the man who wins self-mastery!51
An examination of the relationship of freedom and education must touch on social
aspects, otherwise an important element is ignored. It is frequently thought that it is
society that constrains freedom; after all, if it weren’t for others we could do whatever we
wanted. As mentioned earlier, the reverse is true; without others we couldn’t do hardly
anything of what we wanted.
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All social structures require order, and order can be kept for intrinsic or extrinsic reasons.
If order in kept for extrinsic reasons then it is felt as a hindrance to freedom, because one
is being compelled by external forces to act in a way that does not come from one’s own
inclinations. However, if order is kept for intrinsic reasons (e.g., out of an appreciation of
order as mentioned earlier), then for Krishnamurti, as well as Rousseau, Jung, Maslow and
Rogers it reflects intrinsic motivation, and is an expression of freedom.
Rousseau had the interesting insight that if a person acts pro-socially out of a sense of
duty (which he describes as extrinsic), it will never be sufficient because duty will
inevitably come into conflict with self-interest. However, if a person acts pro-socially out
of compassion or the love of order, then there is never that conflict because compassion
is an absence of self.52 For Rousseau, as for Krishnamurti and others, compassion is a true
love and the only reliable basis for pro-social behaviour, and “compassion requires
freedom”53; which brings us back to our etymology of the word ‘freedom.’
Two questions need to be asked in the light of what has been said:
1) What are the risks of giving the child freedom - and by ‘freedom’ we must mean at
least the freedom for the child to study what they want, when they want, how they
want, and if they want.
2) What are the risks of not giving the child such freedom.
According to Krishnamurti and several of the other authors quoted, in giving the child
freedom the educator risks the child not doing what the educator wants, how he wants it
and when he wants it. The educator also risks there being a certain amount of disorder
until homeostasis kicks in and a natural inclination towards well being brings order. As
Krishnamurti said,
...it is only when ....a human being is free inwardly that he disciplines
himself and does so naturally. But if I discipline through punishment, it is
not discipline at all.54
The educator also risks not inculcating the child with the morals, values, and perspectives
which the educator wants the child to have, and which the vested interests of society
want the child to have and might reward the child for having.
The risks of not giving the child freedom are, according to Krishnamurti and most of the
other authors referred to, not so much of a risk as a certainty. The certainty is that the
entire point of education will be lost and all that can remain is training for a livelihood and
the inculcation of social values and perspectives. For Krishnamurti, the point of education
is what he called ‘the awakening of intelligence’ and for Krishnamurti this involves coming
to know of goodness, love and beauty, which he claimed are inseparable.55 And for
Krishnamurti, “Goodness [love and beauty] can only flower in freedom.”56 All this points to
the rather stark conclusion that without freedom, there can be no real education.
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“School is a place where one learns about the totality of the wholeness of life. Academic excellence is absolutely necessary, but a school teaches more than that. It is a place where the teacher and the taught explore not only the outer world, the world of knowledge, but also their own thinking, their behaviour".
"It is so urgent for you to be rightly educated - which means that you must have teachers who can help you to break through the crust of so-called civilization and be, not repetitive machines, but individuals who really have a song inside them and are therefore happy, creative human beings."
"It is the concern of these schools to bring about a new generation of human beings who are free from self-centred action, to bring about a mind that has no conflict within itself and so end the struggle and conflict in the world about us."
Excerpt from "Life Ahead"
Part One Chapter 17
We have been examining the various factors that bring about deterioration in our
lives, in our activities, in our thoughts; and we have seen that conflict is one of the
major factors of this deterioration. And is not peace also, as it is generally
understood, a destructive factor? Can peace be brought about by the mind? If we
have peace through the mind, does not that also lead to corruption, deterioration? If
we are not very alert and observant, that word 'peace' becomes like a narrow window
through which we look at the world and try to understand it. Through a narrow
window we can see only part of the sky, and not the whole vastness, the
magnificence of it. There is no possibility of having peace by merely pursuing peace,
which is inevitably a process of the mind.
It may be a little difficult to understand this, but I shall try to make it as simple and
clear as I can. If we can understand what it means to be peaceful, then perhaps we
shall understand the real significance of love.
We think that peace is something to be achieved through the mind, through reason;
but is it? Can peace ever come about through any quieting through any control or
domination of thought? We all want peace; and for most of us, peace means to be
left alone, not to be disturbed or interfered with, so we build a wall around our own
mind, a wall of ideas.
It is very important for you to understand this, for as you grow older you will be faced
with the problems of war and peace. Is peace something to be pursued, caught and
tamed by the mind? What most of us call peace is a process of stagnation, a slow
decay. We think we shall find peace by clinging to a set of ideas, by inwardly
building a wall of security, safety, a wall of habits, beliefs; we think that peace is a
matter of pursuing a principle, of cultivating a particular tendency, a particular fancy,
a particular wish. We want to live without disturbance, so we find some corner of the
universe, or of our own being, into which we crawl, and we live in the darkness of
self-enclosure. That is what most of us seek in our relationship with the husband,
with the wife, with parents, with friends. Unconsciously we want peace at any price,
and so we pursue it.
But can the mind ever find peace? Is not the mind itself a source of disturbance?
The mind can only gather, accumulate, deny, assert, remember, pursue. Peace is
absolutely essential, because without peace we cannot live creatively. But is peace
something to be realized through the struggles, the denials, the sacrifices of the
mind? Do you understand what I am talking about?
We may be discontented while we are young, but as we grow older, unless we are
very wise and watchful, that discontent will be canalized into some form of peaceful
resignation to life. The mind is everlastingly seeking a secluded habit, belief, desire,
something in which it can live and be at peace with the world. But the mind cannot
find peace, because it can think only in terms of time, in terms of the past, the
present and the future: what it has been, what it is, and what it will be. It is constantly
condemning, judging, weighing, comparing, pursuing its own vanities, its own habits,
beliefs; and such a mind can never be peaceful. It can delude itself into a state
which it calls peace; but that is not peace. The mind can mesmerize itself by the
repetition of words and phrases, by following somebody, or by accumulating
knowledge; but it is not peaceful, because such a mind is itself the centre of
disturbance, it is by its very nature the essence of time. So the mind with which we
think, with which we calculate, with which we contrive and compare, is incapable of
finding peace. snip
Real peace is as creative and as pure as war is destructive; and to find that peace, one
must understand beauty. That is why it is important, while we are very young, to
have beauty about us -the beauty of buildings that have proper proportions, the
beauty of cleanliness, of quiet talk among the elders. In understanding what beauty
is, we shall know love, for the understanding of beauty is the peace of the heart.
Peace is of the heart, not of the mind. To know peace you have to find out what
beauty is. The way you talk, the words you use, the gestures you make -these
things matter very much, for through them you will discover the refinement of your
own heart. Beauty cannot be defined, it cannot be explained in words. It can be
understood only when the mind is very quiet.
So, while you are young and sensitive, it is essential that you -as well as those who
are responsible for you -should create an atmosphere of beauty. The way you
dress, the way you walk, the way you sit, the way you eat –all these things, and the
things about you, are very important. As you grow up you will meet the ugly things of
life- ugly buildings, ugly people with their malice, envy, ambition, cruelty; and if in
your heart there is not founded and established the perception of beauty , you will
easily be swept away by the enormous current of the world. Then you will get caught
in the endless struggle to find peace through the mind. The mind projects an idea of
what peace is and tries to pursue it, thereby getting caught in the net of words, in the
net of fancies and illusions.
Peace can come only when there is love. If you have peace merely through
security, financial or otherwise, or through certain dogmas, rituals, verbal repetitions,
there is no creativeness; there is no urgency to bring about a fundamental revolution
in the world. Such peace only leads to contentment and resignation. But when in you
there is the understanding of love and beauty , then you will find the peace that is
not a mere projection of the mind. It is this peace that is creative, that removes
confusion and brings order within oneself. But this peace does not come through any
effort to find it. It comes when you are constantly watching, when you are sensitive
to both the ugly and the beautiful, to the good and the bad, to all the fluctuations of
life. Peace is not something petty , created by the mind; it is enormously great,
infinitely extensive, and it can be understood only when the heart is full.
The following statement was written by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti:
The core of Krishnamurti's teaching is contained in the statement he made
in 1929 when he said: "Truth is a pathless land". Man can not come to it
through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or
ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique.
He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the
understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not
through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in
himself images as a fence of security--religious, political, personal.
These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images
dominates man's thinking, his relationship and his daily life. These images
are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception
of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind. The
content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is
common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and
superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The
uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom
from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So
he is not an individual.
Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not choice. It is man's pretence that
because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without
direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without
motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the
first step of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack
of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily
existence and activity.
Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are
inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man.
Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a
slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant
conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.
When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the
division between the thinker and the thought, the observer and the
observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this
division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is
insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight
brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind.
Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of
all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then
is there love, which is compassion and intelligence.
"I wrote it [Krishnamurti's Notebook] as a diary while I was traveling…but I did not write it for publication. I describe what I call the process - my sensation of being outside the ordinary world, of being completely at peace and removed from conflict. This happens only from time to time and clearly it is impossible to describe to anybody who has not experienced it. But I have attempted to put into words the actual pain and sensation which goes with the heightened consciousness. It is not intended in a romantic way: if you lead a certain type of disciplined, quiet life you realize a kind of energy-that's scientific fact-and this affects the non-mechanical part of your brain so that you enter into a new dimension. The physical organism is incapable of meeting it and so you get the pain. I am not suggesting that everyone should try to attain this, but it may be of interest to some people who have followed my thoughts and ideas to know what happens on a more personal level."
- J. Krishnamurti
[interview with The Guardian]
7th March, 1948
When you write down only a few of your thoughts and observe them, study them, your mind is immediately slowed. Watch your own mind now as you listen, see what it is doing. It is moving very slowly. You have not innumerable thoughts, you are merely pursuing one thought, which I am explaining. Therefore, your mind is slowed down, and being slowed down, it is capable of pursuing one thought to the end. When all thought is pursued to the end and the mind denuded of memory, the mind becomes tranquil, it has no problem. Why? Because the creator of the problem, which is memory, ceases; and in that tranquillity, which is absolute, reality comes into being.
28th May, 1944
I would like to suggest a way but don't make of it into a hard and fast system, a tyrannical technique or the only way, a boring routine or duty. We know how to keep a diary, writing down all the events of the day in the evening. I do not suggest that we should keep a retrospective diary but try to write down every thought- feeling, whenever you have a little time. If you try it, you will see how extremely difficult even this is. When you do write you can only put down one or two thoughts because your thinking is too rapid, disconnected and wandering. And as you cannot write down everything, because you have other things to do, you will find after a while that another layer of your consciousness is taking note. When again you have leisure to write, all those thoughts-feelings to which you have not given conscious attention will be "remembered." So at the end of the day you will have written down as much of your thoughts and feelings as possible. Of course only those who are earnest will do this. At the end of the day look at what you have written down during the day. This study is an art, for out of it comes understanding. What is important is how you study what you have written, rather than the mere writing down.
If you put yourself in opposition to what you have written you will not understand it. That is, if you accept or deny, judge or compare, you will not grasp the significance of all that is written, for identification prevents the flowering of thought-feeling. But if you examine it, suspending judgment, it will reveal its inward contents. To examine with choiceless awareness, without fear or favour, is extremely difficult. Thus you learn to slow down your thoughts and feelings but also, which is enormously important, to observe with tolerant dispassion every thought - feeling, free from judgment and perverted criticism. Out of this comes deep understanding which is cultivated not only during the waking hours but during sleep. From this you will find there comes candour, honesty.
But then you will be able to follow each movement of thought - feeling. For in this is involved not only the comprehension of the superficial layer but also of the many hidden layers of consciousness. Thus through constant self-awareness there is deeper and wider self-knowledge. It is a book of many volumes; in its beginning is its ending. You cannot skip a paragraph, a page, in order to reach the end quickly and greedily. For wisdom is not bought by the coin of greed or impatience. It comes as the volume
of self-knowledge is read diligently, that which you are from moment to moment, not at a particular, given moment. Surely this means incessant work, an alertness which is not only passive but of constant inquiry, without the greed for an end. This passivity is in itself active. With stillness comes highest wisdom and bliss.
K started by asking “why human beings live the way the are living.”.They went on to say going against the current may lead to a certain objective insecurity. K suggested it implies having to stand alone “not isolated - away from the stream. And that means you have to be alone, psychologically alone; and whether human beings can stand that.”
[the full video is on Youtube.]
K: That is herd instinct, which all the totalitarian people use, and also everything is together: be with people, don't be alone.
B: ...you see, I mean society, it seems to me, is giving us some false sense of togetherness which is really fragmentation.
K: I once was in... talked to a FBI man. He came to see me and he said, 'Why is it that you walk alone all the time? Why are you so much alone? I see you among the hills walking alone, and... why?' You follow? He thought: that's very disturbing.
K: Yes. You have seen those animal pictures? They are always in herds.
B: Right.
S: Except you know, the mountain lion. Did you ever read about the lion? There have been some studies done by this fellow Shaller, in which he shows that the lion... always in lion groups there is always one who goes off alone.
K: Yes, that is right. In aloneness you can be completely secure.
K: I mean a human being as he lives this way, if he transforms himself he becomes alone, he is alone. Because he does... I mean... that aloneness is not isolation and therefore it is a form of supreme intelligence.
K: I thought we dealt with that fairly thoroughly the other day. That is, after all when one realises the appalling state of the world, and oneself - the disorder, the confusion, the misery and all the rest of it, and when one says there must be a total change, a total transformation, he has already begun to move away from all that.
K: Now to be alone implies, doesn't it, to step out of the stream.
K: Step out of the stream of this utter confusion, disorder, sorrow and despair, hope, travail, all that - to step out of all that.
K: And if you want to go much deeper into that: to be alone implies, doesn't it, not to carry the burden of tradition with you at all.
K: So to be alone implies total freedom. And when there is that great freedom it is the universe.
K: Ah, sir, that is the most dangerous thing. That is a most dangerous thing to say. How can you say you are the universe when you are in total confusion? When you are unhappy, miserable, anxious - you follow? - jealous, envious, all that - how can you say you are the universe? Universe implies total order.
B: Yes, the cosmos in Greek meant order.
K: How can I think I have universal order in me? That is the good old trick of the mind which says, disorder is there, but inside you there is perfect order, old boy. That is an illusion. It is a concept which thought has put there and it gives me a certain hope, and therefore it is an illusion, it has no reality. What has actual reality is my confusion.
B: Yes, well can we go into that. Suppose several people are doing that, in that state, moving into cosmos, into order out of the chaos of society. ... are they all alone?
K: No, they don't feel alone there. There is only order.
K: So, as we said, to move away from that most people are afraid, which is to have total order. Alone, as he pointed out - all one. Therefore there is no fragmentation, when there is cosmos.
K: So shall we say human beings don't radically transform themselves – they are frightened of being isolated from the group, banished from the group. That is one reason.
K: And also traditionally we are so conditioned that we would rather accept things as they are: our misery, our chaos, our... all the rest of it, and not say, 'For god's sake, let me change this'.
K: Which means sir: if thought is... as thought is movement, which is time, if there is no movement I am dead! I am dead.
B: Yes, if that movement stops, then that sense that I am there being real must go, because that sense that I am real is the result of thinking. Right?
K: Do you see this is extraordinary.
K: No. When thought realises as a movement, and that movement has created all this chaos - total chaos, not just patchy, but complete disorder - when it realises that, what takes place, actually? You are not frightened, there is no fear. Listen to it carefully: there is no fear. Fear is the idea brought about by an abstraction. You understand? You have made a picture of ending; and frightened of that ending.
K: No, no. What he is saying is very simple. He is saying, does this fact, actuality, take place. And can you remain with that... can thought not move in but remain only with that fact. Sir, it is like saying: remain totally with sorrow, not move away, not say, 'It should be, shouldn't be, how am I to get over it?', self pity and all the rest of it - just totally remain with that thing, with the fact. Then you have an energy which is extraordinary.
FROM: http://www.katinkahesselink.net/kr/gossip.htm and http://www.kfoundation.org/quote.asp?key=25&url=
Question: Gossip has value in self-revelation, especially in revealing others to me. Seriously, why not use gossip as a means of discovering what is? I do not shiver at the word `gossip' just because it has been condemned for ages.
Krishnamurti: I wonder why we gossip? is it because it reveals others to us? And why should others be revealed to us? Why do you want to know others? Why this extraordinary concern about others? First of all, why do we gossip? It is a form of restlessness, is it not? Like worry, it is an indication of a restless mind. Why this desire to interfere with others, to know what others are doing, saying? It is a very superficial mind that gossips, isn't it? - an inquisitive mind which is wrongly directed. The questioner seems to think that others are revealed to him by his being concerned with them - with their doings, with their thoughts, with their opinions. But do we know others if we don't know ourselves? Can we judge others, if we do not know the way of our own thinking, the way we act, the way we behave? Why this extraordinary concern over others? Is it not an escape, really, this desire to find out what others are thinking and feeling and gossiping about? Doesn't it offer an escape from ourselves? Is there not in it also the desire to interfere with others' lives? Isn't our own life sufficiently difficult, sufficiently complex, sufficiently painful, without dealing with others', interfering with others'? Is there time to think about others in that gossipy, cruel, ugly manner? Why do we do this? You know, everybody does it. Practically everybody gossips about somebody else. Why?
I think, first of all, we gossip about others because we are not sufficiently interested in the process of our own thinking and of our own action. We want to see what others are doing and perhaps, to put it kindly, to imitate others. Generally, when we gossip it is to condemn others, but, stretching it charitably, it is perhaps to imitate others. Why do we want to imitate others? Doesn't it all indicate an extraordinary shallowness on our own part? It is an extraordinarily dull mind that wants excitement, and goes outside itself to get it. In other words gossip is a form of sensation, isn't it?, in which we indulge. It may be a different kind of sensation, but there is always this desire to find excitement, distraction. If one really goes into this question deeply, one comes back to oneself, which shows that one is really extraordinarily shallow and seeking excitement from outside by talking about others. Catch yourself the next time you are gossiping about somebody; if you are aware of it, it will indicate an awful lot to you about yourself. Don't cover it up by saying that you are merely inquisitive about others. It indicates restlessness, a sense of excitement, a shallowness, a lack of real, profound interest in people which has nothing to do with gossip.
Ojai California Tuesday 10th March, 1983
Krishnamurti to Himself: His Last Journal
Question: What makes something I say to another, gossip? Is speaking the truth or speaking good or bad about another,gossip? Can it be gossip so long as what is said, is true? Krishnamurti: Behind this question, there lie many things. First of all, why do you want to speak about another? What is the motive, what is the urge? That is more important to find out. You must know if what you say about another is true. Why do you want to talk about another? If you are antagonistic, your motives are based on violence, hatred; and then, it is bound to be evil; your intention is to give pain to another through your words or through your expression. Why do you talk about another, good or bad, and what is the necessity that urges you to talk about somebody else? First of all, does it not indicate a very shallow and petty mind? If you are really concerned, interested in anything, you should know the time for it, the time to talk about another, however good, noble that another may be, or however stupid or irresponsible he may be. A stupid or shallow mind always wants to have something to talk about, chat or be agitated about. It must either read, acquire, or believe. You know the whole process of being occupied with something. Then the problem arises, how am I to stop gossiping.
Both the gossiper and the subject of the gossip, good or bad, about an other, have a kind of relationship to one another; and both he and the man to whom he gossips, have a kind of mutual pleasure, the one to tell and the other to listen. I think it is very important to find out the motives, an not how to stop gossiping. If you can discover the motive and rather keep looking at it directly without any condemnation or justification, then perhaps your mind will begin to discover a deeper level, which consequently makes you put away this gossip, this talking about another. But to discover that motive, that urge, is quite an arduous task. Is it not?
First of all, the man or woman who is occupied with gossiping, is so interested in telling about somebody good or bad, that he or she has no time to think. After all, gossip is one of the ways of self-knowledge. Is it not? If you talk about another cruelly, it indicates antagonism, hatred. As you do not want to face your own antagonisms and hatreds, you escape through talk; and if you talk and gossip about another, it is another form of escape from your self.
The man who would really understand this whole process of life, must have profound self-knowledge, - not the knowledge which acquire from a book or a psychologist, but direct knowledge we comes through relationship, the relationship which comes as a mirror in which you see yourself constantly, both the pleasant and unpleasant. But that requires earnestness. Very few are earnest and many are petty and stupid.
This section is not meant as an interpretation or summary -- and reader should go to the source in order to grasp the full intention of the author -- these are only my notes (RG):
Love is not attachment.
Where there is attachment, love can not be.
"Thought" = psychological thought, unless noted as technical/practical thought.
Attachment is of thought. Thought and love can't co-exist.
Attachment, possessiveness, anxiety, jealousy, fear -- dependence because of loneliness.
dependence = no freedom.
escape from loneliness through attachment.
I am attached because I am lonely. isolated.
To understand loneliness through observing it.
loneliness caused by conditioning: education etc., as well as the inner working of thought itself : psychological thought being limited is divisive, fragmentary...
when thought sees/understands its own limitation doors of heaven open. loneliness and attachment come to end. [art of seeing what is without trying to change it as effort implies conflict, loss of energy, etc.]
J. Krishnamurti: A dialogue with oneself
taken from a Discussion Meeting at the
Brockwood Part Gathering, August 30, 1977
-----------------------------------------------
I realize that love cannot exist when there is jealousy: love
cannot exist when there is attachment. Now, is it possible for me
to be free of jealousy and attachment? I realize that I do not
love. That is a fact. I am not going to deceive myself; I am not
going to pretend to my wife that I love her. I do not know what
love is. But I do know that I am jealous and I do know that I am
terribly attached to her and that in that attachment there is
fear, there is jealousy, anxiety; there is a sense of dependence.
I do not like to depend but I depend because I am lonely; I am
shoved around in the office, in the factory and I come home and I
want to feel comfort and companionship, to escape from myself. Now
I ask myself: how am I to be free of this attachment? I am taking
that just as an example.
At first, I want to run away from the question. I do not know how
it is going to end up with my wife. When I am really detached from
her my relationship to her may change. She might be attached to me
and I might not be attached to her or any other woman. But I am
going to investigate. So I will not run away from what I imagine
might be the consequence of being totally free of all that
attachment. I do not know what love is, but I see very clearly,
definitely, without any doubt, that attachment to my wife means
jealousy, possession, fear, anxiety and I want my freedom from all
that. So I begin to enquire; I look for a method and I get caught
in a system. Some guru says; "I will help you to be detached, do
this and this; practise this and this." I accept what he says
because I see the importance of being free and he promises me that
if I do what he says I will have reward. But I see that way that I
am looking for reward. I see how silly I am; wanting to be free
and getting attached to reward.
I do not want to be attached and yet I find myself getting
attached to the idea that somebody, or some book, or some method,
will reward me with freedom from attachment. So, the reward
becomes an attachment. So I say: "Look what I have done; be
careful, do not get caught in that trap." Whether it is a woman, a
method, or an idea, it is still attachment. I am very watchful now
for I have learned something; that is, not to exchange attachment
for something else that is still attachment.
I ask myself: "What am I to do to be free of attachment?" What is
my motive in wanting to be free of attachment? Is it not that I
want to achieve a state where there is no attachment, no fear and
so on? And I suddenly realize that motive gives direction and that
direction will dictate my freedom. Why have a motive? What is
motive? A motive is a hope, or a desire, to achieve something. I
see that I am attached to a motive. Not only my wife, not only my
idea, the method, but my motive has become my attachment! So I am
all the time functioning within the field of attachment--the wife,
the method and the motive to achieve something in the future. To
all this I am attached. I see that it is a tremendously complex
thing; I did not realize that to be free of attachment implied all
this. Now, I see this as clearly as I see on a map the main roads,
the side roads and the villages; I see it very clearly. Then I say
to myself: "Now, is it possible for me to be free of the great
attachment I have for my wife and also of the reward which I think
I am going to get and of my motive?" To all this I am attached.
Why? Is it that I am insufficient in myself? Is it that I am very
very lonely and therefore seek to escape from that feeling of
isolation by turning to a woman, an idea, a motive; as if I must
hold onto something? I see that it is so, I am lonely and escaping
through attachment to something from that feeling of extraordinary
isolation.
So I am interested in understanding why I am lonely, for I see it
is that which makes me attached. That loneliness has forced me to
escape through attachment to this or to that and I see that as
long as I am lonely the sequence will always be this. What does it
mean to be lonely? How does it come about? Is it instinctual,
inherited, or is it brought about by my daily activity? If it is
an instinct, if it is inherited, it is part of my lot; I am not to
blame. But as I do not accept this, I question it and remain with
the question. I am watching and I am not trying to find an
intellectual answer. I am not trying to tell the loneliness what
it should do, or what it is; I am watching for it to tell me.
There is a watchfulness for the loneliness to reveal itself. It
will not reveal itself if I run away; if I am frightened; if I
resist it. So I watch it. I watch it so that no thought
interferes. Watching is much more important than thought coming
in. And because my whole energy is concerned with the observation
of that loneliness thought does not come in at all. The mind is
being challenged and it must answer. Being challenged it is in a
crisis. In a crisis you have great energy and that energy remains
without being interfered with by thought. This is a challenge
which must be answered.
I started out having a dialogue with myself. I asked myself what
is this strange thing called love; everybody talks about it,
writes about it--all the romantic poems, pictures, sex and all
other areas of it? I ask: is there such a thing as love? I see it
does not exist when there is jealousy, hatred, fear. So I am not
concerned with love anymore; I am concerned with `what is', my
fear, my attachment. Why am I attached? I see that one of the
reasons--I do not say it is the whole reason--is that I am
desperately lonely, isolated. The older I grow the more isolated I
become. So I watch it. This is a challenge to find out, and
because it is a challenge all energy is there to respond. That is
simple. If there is some catastrophe, an accident or whatever it
is, it is a challenge and I have the energy to meet it. I do not
have to ask: "How do I get this energy?" When the house is on fire
I have the energy to move; extraordinary energy. I do not sit back
and say: "Well, I must get this energy" and then wait; the whole
house will be burned by then.
So there is this tremendous energy to answer the question: why is
there this loneliness? I have rejected ideas, suppositions and
theories that it is inherited, that it is instinctual. All that
means nothing to me. Loneliness is `what is'. Why is there this
loneliness which every human being, if he is at all aware, goes
through, superficially or most profoundly? Why does it come into
being? Is it that the mind is doing something which is bringing it
about? I have rejected theories as to instinct and inheritance and
I am asking: is the mind, the brain itself, bringing about this
loneliness, this total isolation? Is the movement of thought doing
this? Is the thought in my daily life creating this sense of
isolation? In the office I am isolating myself because I want to
become the top executive, therefore thought is working all the
time isolating itself. I see that thought is all the time
operating to make itself superior, the mind is working itself
towards this isolation.
So the problem then is: why does thought do this? Is it the nature
of thought to work for itself? Is it the nature of thought to
create this isolation? Education brings about this isolation; it
gives me a certain career, a certain specialization and so,
isolation. Thought, being fragmentary, being limited and time
binding, is creating this isolation. In that limitation, it has
found security saying: "I have a special career in my life; I am a
professor; I am perfectly safe." So my concern is then: why does
thought do it? Is it in its very nature to do this? Whatever
thought does must be limited.
Now the problem is: can thought realize that whatever it does is
limited, fragmented and therefore isolating and that whatever it
does will be thus? This is a very important point: can thought
itself realize its own limitations? Or am I telling it that it is
limited? This, I see, is very important to understand; this is the
real essence of the matter. If thought realizes itself that it is
limited then there is no resistance, no conflict; it says, "I am
that". But if I am telling it that it is limited then I become
separate from the limitation. Then I struggle to overcome the
limitation, therefore there is conflict and violence, not love.
So does thought realize of itself that it is limited? I have to
find out. I am being challenged. Because I am challenged I have
great energy. Put it differently: does consciousness realize its
content is itself? Or is it that I have heard another say:
"Consciousness is its content; its content makes up
consciousness"? Therefore I say, "Yes, it is so". Do you see the
difference between the two? The latter, created by thought, is
imposed by the `me'. If I impose something on thought then there
is conflict. It is like a tyrannical government imposing on
someone, but here that government is what I have created.
So I am asking myself: has thought realized its own limitations?
Or is it pretending to be something extraordinary, noble,
divine?-- which is nonsense because thought is based on memory. I
see that there must be clarity about this point: that there is no
outside influence imposing on thought saying it is limited. Then,
because there is no imposition there is no conflict; it simply
realizes it is limited; it realizes that whatever it does--<snip>--is limited, shoddy, petty--even though
it has created marvellous cathedrals throughout Europe in which to
worship.
So there has been in my conversation with myself the discovery
that loneliness is created by thought. Thought has now realized of
itself that it is limited and so cannot solve the problem of
loneliness. As it cannot solve the problem of loneliness, does
loneliness exist? Thought has created this sense of loneliness,
this emptiness, because it is limited, fragmentary, divided and
when it realizes this, loneliness is not, therefore there is
freedom from attachment. I have done nothing; I have watched the
attachment, what is implied in it, greed, fear, loneliness, all
that and by tracing it, observing it, not analyzing it, but just
looking, looking and looking, there is the discovery that thought
has done all this. Thought, because it is fragmentary, has created
this attachment. When it realizes this, attachment ceases. There
is no effort made at all. For the moment there is effort conflict
is back again.
In love there is no attachment; if there is attachment there is no
love. There has been the removal of the major factor through
negation of what it is not, through the negation of attachment. I
know what it means in my daily life: no remembrance of anything my
wife, my girl friend, or my neighbour did to hurt me; no
attachment to any image thought has created about her; how she has
bullied me, how she has given me comfort, how I have had pleasure
sexually, all the different things of which the movement of
thought has created images; attachments to those images has gone.
And there are other factors: must I go through all those step by
step, one by one? Or is it all over? Must I go through, must I
investigate--as I have investigated attachment--fear, pleasure and
the desire for comfort? I see that I do not have to go through all
the investigation of all these various factors; I see it at one
glance, I have captured it.
So, through negation of what is not love, love is. I do not have
to ask what love is? I do not have to run after it. If I run after
it, it is not love, it is a reward. So I have negated, I have
ended, in that enquiry, slowly, carefully, without distortion,
without illusion, everything that it is not--the other is.
Published by KFT – 2003 – Full Text Edition
13 Mar 1962
You went with the sun, far away; you didn’t withdraw you just went away, not knowing where; if you withdrew, you would come back, now or later, and then you would repeat the whole weary cycle again, endlessly. Your withdrawal bred callousness and the agony of despair. Don’t ever withdraw or isolate yourself; don’t retreat into corrupting family or into the dead ashes of ideas, beliefs and the cheap gods of your mind. There is no love there. But if you just went away, not knowing where, not planned, not cunningly plotted out, then you can walk in that filthy street, with dead men and you would know love. As you walked, pushed around by cars and people, you would meditate, with delight; then meditation became an ecstasy, a movement of infinite tenderness and you held the hand of a passing child. Then you would give the garland of fragrant jasmine that had just been given to you to that passing beggar and you would see his immense surprise and delight. Then you would know that the everlasting was always there, round every corner, under that dead leaf and the fallen flower. The man ahead of you was smoking a strong cigarette and the brown eagles had stopped circling in the sky.
7 March 1962
You should never be here too much; be so far away that they can’t find you, they can’t get at you to shape, to mould. Be so far away, like the mountains, like the unpolluted air; be so far away that you have no parents, no relations, no family, no country; be so far away that you don’t know even where you are. Don’t let them find you; don’t come into contact with them too closely. Keep far away where even you can’t find yourself; keep a distance which can never be crossed over; keep a passage open always through which no one can come. Don’t shut the door for there is no door, only an open, endless passage; if you shut any door, they will be very close to you, then you are lost. Keep far away where their breath can’t reach you and their breath travels very far and very deeply; don’t get contaminated by them, by their word, by their gesture, by their great knowledge; they have great knowledge but be far away from them where even you cannot find yourself. For they are waiting for you, at every corner, in every house to shape you, to mould you, to tear you to pieces and then put you together in their own image. Their gods, the little ones and the big ones, are the images of themselves, carved by their own mind or by their own hands. They are waiting for you, the churchman and the Communist, the believer and the non-believer, for they are both the same; they think they are different but they are not for they both brainwash you, till you are of them, till you repeat their words, till you worship their saints, the ancient and the recent; they have armies for their gods and for their countries and they are experts in killing. Keep far away but they are waiting for you, the educator and the businessman; one trains you for the others to conform to the demands of their society, which is a deadly thing;** they will make you into a scientist, into an engineer, into an expert of almost anything from cooking to architecture to philosophy. Keep far, far away; they are waiting for you, the politician and the reformer; the one drags you down into the gutter and then the other reforms you; they juggle with words and you will be lost in their wilderness. Keep far away; they are waiting for you, the experts in god and the bomb throwers: the one will convince you and the other [show you] how to kill; there are so many ways to find god and so many, many ways to kill. But besides all these, there are hoards of others to tell you what to do and what not to do; keep away from all of them,
** They have a thing called society and family: these two are their real gods, the net in which you will be entangled. [Krishnamurti’s insertion.]
11 Mar 1962
But everywhere there were the desperately poor, lean, hungry; and the polished cars went by and the people in there were sad too. Their day was over, never to return; they had money and nothing else. You never saw anything so utterly innocent; she was lying on her back; you could just see the whole delicate line of her and she was almost touching the water; it was a stroke of light of the very young, new moon, appearing for the first time in a cloudless sky. You never saw her before, though you had seen her a thousand times; it was so innocent that you in that crowded noisy street were made innocent. You were innocent, without striving, without thought; everything about you was new, you had never seen them before. Your eyes were washed clean and you had not a spot in your heart; you were so far away that nothing could touch you. You could never be polluted again for there was no again; there was no in the meantime; there was no past or future; there was only that vast empty space of now, of innocency whose immensity was blessedness. It was a benediction and you couldn’t carry another to it, even though you loved. There was no saviour, no teacher could bring you to it; you have to abandon them and get lost where your thought couldn’t find you. It was the innocency of complete aloneness, not a thing that you had carefully carved out of life, a corner of self-immolated isolation. You were not alone, for you were where experience could not reach you. You did not know it was aloneness; you were not aware of anything but there was that immense innocency in that nothingness. It was the innocence of all energy and life and if you ever came there casually, and it must always be casual never determined, then you would be in an ecstasy that had no reason and no death. The long line of cars honked behind you, and in front of you a political meeting was going on, on the beach, and the bellowing voice of the politician, through the loudspeaker, came to you. The new moon was below the sea.
March 19 1962 - The last journal entry.
We were flying at 32,000 feet; the endless clouds were far below us and the clear, spotless blue sky above; the sun was coming out of the clouds, dazzlingly white. There wasn’t a break in them and they stretched from continent to continent; they were over the desert, sea and islands and at that height the sky was of intense blue; from the earth, from the mountains, you never saw such blue; it was so solid that you could cut it and keep it in your pocket and the horizon was white where the blue met. From a deep valley or from a high mountain sometimes you saw the blue of the sky, but it was never like this. It filled your eyes and carried you very far, beyond the measure of time. The plane wasn’t crowded yet, probably, it would fill up at the next landing, so you had the next two seats to yourself. There was the roar of those jets and it wasn’t too noisy, you could hear the conversation of those ladies, seated across the aisle. But there was silence. Amidst all that chatter and roar, it was there as clear and spotless as the blue sky. You were aware of it not as an observer [of] something to be experienced and put away into endless memory; you could not think about it, there was no time; it was there with such intensity that there was no experiencing of it. Out of this silence, suddenly and unexpectedly, there was that immensity. Your whole being became utterly still, without a thought, without a feeling; there was that unapproachable strength that was not put together by man. It was the strength that nothing could penetrate and so utterly vulnerable. And there was that strange intensity which no will or passion could conjure up. They were not separate things, the immense, that impenetrable strength and intensity; they were inseparable, never to be broken up, like death and love and creation. Your brain could not grasp the vastness, the majesty of it; it had become still, many centuries ago, before you came aboard the plane when they were playing some light music; out of the humid heat of the night, you came in and instantly were lost, many, many centuries ago, only an hour ago or perhaps a little more. You sat there motionless and totally lost and you would never be back completely. Three hours passed and you thought you had just got in and they were telling you to fasten your belt. And the two seats next to you were taken by a man and woman. And again we were in the blue sky, innocent and spotless, and that immensity was there. No man or god could disturb it and your mind and heart were of it, past belief and past beyond all time. Such a thing should happen in such a place! The man was smoking and it was in your face; the baby across the aisle was crying in breathless sobs, there was no milk and the mother couldn’t quieten it; the strain of it all was beginning to tell on the mother. The hostesses came and took the baby away, to clean it up, to quieten it and now the mother began to cry. The roar of the jets changed and we were coming down to land again. There was a river and green fields; the river was like a snake winding in and out through the fields and the fields were like men’s mind, all broken up, divided; the property of each owner. And beyond was the sea, blue, rough and incredibly alive. And there were the hills and the islands.
We drink coffee, we take alcohol, we smoke, we do all kinds of things including taking drugs, marijuana, grass, hashish, opium and heroin – right? … why do we take them? Coffee and tea are stimulants aren’t they? Physiologically you may need some form of stimulants. Some people need them… football stimulating, alcohol stimulating, tea, tobacco, heroin, all the rest of it. Why do you need them?…why do you depend on any of these stimulants? Coffee, tea may be physiological because we eat wrongly, we live wrongly, we overindulge and so on, we need certain form of stimulation. SAANEN 71
Do you need constant stimulation and entertainment, must you have tea, tobacco, drugs and all the rest of it? Why do you need them?
Some feel the need of coffee in the morning, and without it they get a headache. The body may not have required it at first, but it has gradually got used to the pleasurable taste and stimulation of coffee, and now it suffers when deprived of it… but is coffee a necessity? C.O.L. #3
You drink coffee, tea or alcohol; when you keep drinking it, you will need more and more, which makes the mind more and more dull – not sensitive, alert, awake. So when one realizes that any form of outward or inward stimulation breeds inevitably a sort of indifference and dullness and when one sees the truth of it, the stimulation naturally will drop away. 1966 NEW DELHI
A person takes a cup of coffee every morning, for example, because without it he feels he will have a headache. That action has become a habit, based on what he considers a necessity; that is, the stimulation of coffee has become a necessity. – 1956 NEW DELHI
Sent to me by an ex-Trustee
On 30th August 1979 during 2nd Public Question & Answer Meeting at Brockwood Park Krishnaji had talked about the work of the Foundation.
3rd QUESTION: You say that organizations will not help man to find what we Christians call salvation. So why do you have your own organization?
K: In 1925 - perhaps some of you weren't born even - in 1925 the speaker was the head of a very big vast organization. He was the head of it and they looked up to him with devotion - you know, all that stuff, candles and all that! (Laughter) Please don't laugh, we are just stating facts. And it was considered a spiritual organization, a religious organization. And in 1925 - or was it 28 or 29, I have forgotten, it is not important - that organization called 'The Order of the Star' was dissolved by the speaker, because he said that any spiritual organization of any kind is not spiritual. And he dissolved that organization, returned the properties, the whole works of it. Now he has - not, he has - there are several Foundations, one in India, one in this country, America and Canada. In India there are five schools, in different parts of that country, with a great deal of land. And they are schools, they are operated under the K. Foundation, which is responsible for the land, to see that the schools are more or less in the right direction - less perhaps than more! And here also there is a Foundation with a school and we are hoping the school will keep in the right direction. And the Foundation is responsible to gather all these talks, tapes, publish and so on and so on. And it is the same in America and in Canada. There is nothing spiritual about it. Right? They merely act as function. They are necessary, the law demands it. And to publish the books - you know, all the rest of it. And to see that the teachings are kept fairly pure. That is the only function of these Foundations - right? It has no other function. They are not spiritual bodies which you can join and attain Nirvana, or Heaven or whatever. It is very simple, very clear. Is that all right? So don't please next time ask about why do you have organizations. It is very simple: there are schools, they publish, tapes, arrange talks wherever I go and some of them look after the speaker physically, because the speaker has no money. When the speaker is in India they look after him, here they look after him, when the speaker is in America they do the same.
THIS DOCUMENT IS PUBLISHED IN 1926 BEFORE KRISHNAMURTI DISSOLVES THE ORDER OF THE STAR OF THE EAST AND BREAK AWAY AS AN INDEPENDENT PERSON. LATER HE ADVISED HIS READERS TO NOT PAY MUCH ATTENTION TO HIS WRITINGS BEFORE 1933 AS THEY WERE ‘PATCH WORK’ AND NOT REFLECTIVE OF HIS MORE MATURE WORK.
Cordially,
Reza Ganjavi
Krishnamurti, 1926
Self-Preparation - Messages to the International Self-Preparation Group
From the Chapter: Care of the Physical Body
Physical. I have already said that those of us who are aspiring to tread the Path should possess bodies which are capable of responding to the higher and nobler vibrations. The eating of flesh is magnetically impure, and invariably coarsens our physical bodies, and deadens their capacity to respond to the higher vibrations. By eating meat, we place one more barrier in the way of our becoming fit instruments of the Great Teacher, and it is our duty in this Group to discover with care all the obstacles which stand in our way, and to remove them ruthlessly.
Therefore, I would urge every member of this Group to consider this first step. When once they have arrived at the unalterable decision to give up meat, they should set about to find out‑‑each with a view to his own case‑‑the best course to follow in order to achieve their purpose. It is known, that vegetarianism, taken up unwisely and precipitately, is dangerous to the body. I suggest, therefore, that those who are in doubt, should consult a dietetist who has firm vegetarian convictions, and who can, if possible, supervise the patient in the transition period. If this is not practicable, I would suggest the reading of a good book on vegetarian dietetics, such as Right Food, by Charles C. Froude, B.Sc., published by Malmquist of New York; or Maintaining Health, by R. C. Alsaker, M.D., published by the Lowrey Marden Corporation; or Kellog's The New Dietetics; or Dr. Paul Carton's wonderful book on health, written in French. It is far better to have a good and reliable book, which one can study and apply intelligently to oneself, than to have an unreliable doctor whose knowledge of dietetics is out of date.
Personally, having been a vegetarian all my life, and having lived a great part of my life in countries where vegetarianism is considered a foolish fad, I have suffered a great deal, and what I have learned is from personal experience.
I should like to mention some rules which I myself have found useful, and which are, I think, generally applicable.
Never over‑eat.
Masticate thoroughly, especially the starches.
Avoid devitalized foods, such as white or polished rice, white flour, white sugar, and their combinations, such as cakes, candies, or sweet pies and tinned foods.
The most common error which vegetarians commit is the excessive use of starches in their diet. Let two‑thirds of your food during the day consist of fruit and vegetables. In cold climates, use more starch.
Have enough protein in your food to take the place of meat. Milk and all its by‑products, eggs, nuts, fresh peas, and a moderate amount of lentils, all these provide the necessary protein.
Avoid all excess of stimulants, whether coffee, tea, or chocolate, or dishes with spices or vinegar as an ingredient in dressings.
Use only a moderate amount of salt in the kitchen, and none at the table.
Do not mix acids with starches or sugar at the same meal.
Eat as little as possible of fried foods.
Do not have too much variety at one meal.
Avoid desserts.
Avoid giving eggs to young, children.
Eat some raw food every day (of course this does not mean that you should eat raw starch).
Let there be an interval of three hours between each meal.
In case of illness, especially colds and fevers, eat as little as possible; still better, do not eat at all, with the exception of fruit or fruit juice, unmixed with sugar.
Use commonsense.
These comparatively simple rules, which I have drawn up with the help of an experienced dietetist, may be carefully studied and followed until they become a part of one's life. Being of a general character, they can be adapted to meet the requirements of the varying individual constitutions. It should be well understood that, when one adheres to a strict and sensible regime at home, one can with impunity, and perhaps with relief, indulge in an occasional violation of these rules if one happens to be a polite guest. I need not here mention the importance of daily exercise, fresh air, and hygiene, but I would like to point out the necessity of relaxing the mind as well as the body once a day, if only for five minutes. By this I mean that one should lie down, fully stretched out and away from everyone. We have over‑civilized our food and violated natural laws. We have become so self‑indulgent that, instead of looking upon food as one of the elements in the care of the body, many, and indeed the majority, consider eating as one of the main pleasures of life.
POP & CLASSICAL "Probably the people who are 'classical' have a prejudice against the 'pop'. I do not know. You know, one of the most extraordinary things is that anything new is popular. People dislike the old because everybody wants to escape from the old; they try to find something new. But the new is not necessarily beautiful; nor for that matter, is the old." 1966, Rishi Valley
MATURITY "Maturity is a state of mind wherein there is no image from which it judges" 1966, R.V.
MARRIAGE – LIVING ALONE "There is the desire for companionship -- that is the desire to be with somebody to whom we can talk about ourselves and who will listen to us. It is the desire to be with someone whom we love and who loves us and who will help us to think clearly. We also want to be with others -- we want companionship -- because we are lonely. You see, to live alone is one of the most difficult things to do. It requires enormous intelligence to live alone.... Marriage, like everything else in life -- in fact like living itself -- is an infinitely difficult thing, and needs extraordinary attention. Marriage needs extreme understanding." 1961, R.V.
SIMPLICITY, INNER RICHNESS "You see, simplicity - inward simplicity - means richness. To be very simple inwardly is to see things as they are. To be simple inwardly is to see life as it is; it is to see the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the lovely, and the extraordinary quietness of life. Out of seeing things - jealousy, anger, fear - as they are, one will have an extraordinary simple mind, and it is only the simple mind that can go extraordinarily far. It is only the man who has an extraordinary simple mind and not the man who has a great deal of money who can go very far. The man who has a great deal of money can go to London or to the moon, but he can not go very far inwardly. To go far inwardly is very very difficult. One can go inside only with great simplicity. And simplicity, we said, is to see things as they are., neither accepting nor rejecting them. To take a tremendous journey inwardly, is real simplicity. And in that there is enormous riches which nothing can touch. 1965, R.V.
ORDINARY “To be ordinary is to be like the rest of them. – with their worries, with their corruption, with their violence, brutality, indifference, callousness, and so on… in the ordinary there is nothing new, nothing fresh, and to be ordinary means that you have no joy in life, you never skip among the hills…by ordinary I mean to never again be curious, intense, passionate and to want to find out. To be ordinary is to just conform… If you were going to see a snake, a poisonous cobra… you would just run miles away from it. In the same way, if you saw that you were ordinary you would run away from it and leave it far behind, not tomorrow but instantly. 1971 – R.V.
TO THE YOUNG “If you don’t understand something, it does not matter who said it – it maybe god himself – be fearless, say ‘excuse me, I do not understand what you are talking about. Please tell me more clearly’ 1961 R.V.
DREAMS “Dreams are trying to tell you something, the content of dreams – certain dreams and not all dreams – are a reality" 1965 R.V.
SUCCESS “You are impressed by success. You are impressed by people who have climbed the ladder of success, and not by works… You worship the god of success. Your god is the god of success, and you meditate on that god and pray to that god, wanting to be successful yourself. Right? Therefore that god will always betray you. Do you understand?" 1974 R.V.
HEALING "...Now when I put my hand on you and heal you, I say god, through me, healed you. The power is that I have meditated, and I have lived a proper life. As I have not hurt anybody and as I am totally selfish, I have got this power to heal and so on... I managed to heal because I lead a good life. As I do not run after money and so on and so on, I get this strange power and I heal you...." 1974, Rishi Valley
HARMONY "To find out or to come upon truth, reality, god – the meaning of religion – you have to have not a heavy body but a very good body, a very sensitive body. You have to have care, affection; you have to have love and a very good mind. For only then you can find out what truth, what reality is. And for that you have to work; you cannot just sit and say, ‘I am going to have a good body, I am going to have a good mind, I am going to have a good heart’. By just talking about it, you will not get it; you have to work for it. You have to think about it. You have to watch, observe, yourself, and out of that comes a harmony, an instrument that is capable of perceiving what is real." 1974 R.V.
A dialogue is very important. It is a form of communication in which question and answer continue till a question is left
without an answer. Thus the question is suspended between the two persons involved in this answer and question. It
is like a bud with untouched blossoms . . . If the question is left totally untouched by thought, it then has its own
answer because the questioner and answerer, as persons, have disappeared. This is a form of dialogue in which
investigation reaches a certain point of intensity and depth, which then has a quality that thought can never reach. It is
not a dialectical investigation of opinions, ideas, but rather exploration by two or many serious, good brains.
J. Krishnamurti, 1984
As dictated to a Trustee of the KFI
Vasanta Vihar Newsletter No. 2, November 1995
Krishnamurti Foundation of India
K: I come from Seattle and there you are, a group of you at The Centre. I am fairly intelligent; don't treat me like an
immature businessman, or an immature traveller, seeking, shopping. I've come and I want to discuss with you. ...What
will you do?
Q: We have been very dependent on you
K: That's just it. And he's dead, K is dead. I want to meet you all. I want to spend three weeks at Ojai and during
those three weeks I want to end fear. I don't want to go home at the end of it, fearful. I want to end it. I come there
after reading the books, seeing the tapes and I want to have a dialogue because I want to end fear. You are
responsible. You are responsible to help me end fear.
I would want quiet, first, to feel that around me everything is quiet, that people are not fighting, and there is no jealousy,
and all that. I would want a place where I can go into the garden and sit under a tree. But when I meet you all to
discuss, I want tension, you follow? So that you drive me to understand it. You drive me, help me, put me in the
corner, create a crisis in my life, so that I'll be free of fear. How will you deal with it? If you say, "I am sorry, I can't help
you to end fear, but we can have a dialogue about it, because I have not ended my fear and therefore let us go into it
together, each feeling the urgency of ending fear, so we'll help each other to end fear." Will you say that? So there is
no authority. I have not ended my fear; you have not ended fear. By coming together, sitting quietly, having a dialogue
every day, or every other day, we may help each other to dissolve it. Then you have something, you follow? Then I
know I am dealing with honest people, not a phoney crowd. And I come here. And at the end of theree weeks, I must
be out of it, so my urgency will make you urgent also. It will create an urgency in you.
And also much more complex problems. I want to understand death, meditation. I have tried Zen; I'm a fairly serious
man, therefore I don't try TM and all that business. I have studed a little bit of Zen meditation and Hindu meditation.
And K is saying something totally different, so I've come here. Will you help me to understand that meditation. I can't
go on like this. Please! Otherwise the Centre becomes rather silly. It is not worth it.
J. Krishnamurti, 1977
Ojai, California
© Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd
Q: I want to put a simple question: for this glimpse of the complete comprehension, can there not be the work of
preparation?
K: Of course not.
Q: Say you read something, you read some sayings of K; you need your intellectual process to read, don't you?
K: Of course, sir, wait a minute, wait a bit, careful. I read; am I really reading or am I reading behind the word?
Q: Well that is the question I wanted to ask.
K: Wait, wait. Listen, listen. I can read a really good detective story, I mean a good one, quickly; it is all boy, girl,
traitors, you know, the good old game, a lot of sex to skip. But here I am reading what lies behind the word; I am also
listening to the sound of the word; and to my own brain translating what is being said to suit myself. So I say; "Look
what you are doing. You are not listening, you are not learning, but accomodating, adjusting to what is being said." I
stop immediately. I wont read. So I penetrate that. I stop reading: I go and watch and say: "What am I doing? I am
translating something which I have read according to what suits me." So I am back to myself. Self-interest is in
operation. So I say, "Look what I am doing." I never stop watching.
J. Krishnamurti, 1985
Schonreid, Switzerland
© Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd
Q: ...It is this question of the teachings somehow going into the blood.
K: We will get at it sir, I am sure we will get at it. As long as we are talking together like this and keep at it.
Q: But, Krishnaji, I also feel that it has to be something that doesn't depend on you.
K: It depends on the teachings.
Q: An on how I relate to the teachings. But from my own relationship with the teachings there are some other things I
want to ask about, because there is something else I feel is important.
K: What is that, briefly?
Q: Sometimes studying the teachings for me means even just reading one phrase.
K: Quite right. That's up to you.
Q: But now wait. This is it Krishnaji. That one phrase- somehow holding it during the day - in action and in
relationship, holding it.
K. Quite right. You are carrying a jewel with you. You are watching all the time or it will get lost.
Q: Now I want to talk to you about that holding, because to me there is a secret in that holding, there is something
very special about that holding that most people don't know and I often forget.
K: Yes sir. Listen carefully. Someone gives me a marvellous watch. A marvellous watch, superb. And it is a most
precious thing - I watch it all day.
Q: Yes
K: The thing - I don't have to hold it, it is there in my hand. I watch it. I live with it.
Q: Yes. If I can come back to this, Krishnaji. It is there in your hands. Now to continue the metaphor, let's say: 'look,
would you please do the dishes, here are two gloves'. You are not going to keep the watch in your hand, you are going
to put it in your pocket, or you are going to do something else with it.
K: But the watch is still ticking away.
Q: Exactly. So, in this Centre somehow I feel we want to set up some activities that help people hold this thing all day
long.
K: Be careful. Don't do that. No activity is holding it. No outside help.
Q: No outside help. So perhaps we should not give people so many things to do.
K: Yes. You do all the things you have to do. You must allow for yourself four or five hours, or two hours, whatever
you want. Say, look, I shut my door after two o'clock or some other time. Then nothing disturbs me. You must have
time to study, to listen, to absorb - absorb so that it is your blood.
From a group discussion on The Centre with J.Krishnamurti
The Krishnamurti Centre, Brockwood Park, England
© Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd
So the first requirement for understanding is affection for the thing concerned – not for the person who represents the
idea, but for the idea itself. I know that most people kindly like me, and so on; but that is neither here nor there.
Fundamentally that has no value. Whereas if you examine, analyze, criticize, with affection, then that idea will become
practical and can be translated into daily action. When there is affection for the central idea, then there is friendship for
all who are approaching that idea. At present, you are all seeking that idea separately, individually, as separate entities,
each elbowing each other out. There is a contradictory spirit, an antagonism between individuals who are all
approaching the same idea, all trying to realize it, to understand it. But to understand, to approach, and to realize, you
must come with affection – not in the sense of possession, not in the spirit of rivalry as to who understands more and
who understands less …'
J. Krishnamurti, Early Writings
Eerde Gathering, 1930
© Krishnamurti Foundation of America
Krishnamurti, Tradition and Revolution Dialogue 3 New Delhi 15th December 1970
Questioner P: One of the most vital problems that has concerned man is the necessity of
containing evil. It appears as if at certain times in history, because of various
circumstances, evil has had a wider field within which to operate. The manifestations of
evil are so wide, the problems of evil so complex that the individual does not know how
to deal with them.
What would you say is the way of dealing with evil? Is there such a thing as evil
independent of good? Krishnamurti: I wonder what you mean. The bush with so many
thorns - do you call that evil? Do you call a serpent with poison, evil? No savage animal
is evil - neither the shark nor the tiger. So what do you mean by the word evil?
Something harmful? Something that can bring tremendous grief, something that can bring
great pain, something that can destroy or prevent the light of understanding? Would you
call war evil? Would you call the generals, the rulers, the admirals evil because they help
to bring about war, destruction?
P: That which thwarts the nature of things can be called evil. Krishnamurti: Man is
brutal, is he evil? P: If he is thwarting, if he through malignant intention makes certain
things deviate.... Krishnamurti: I was just wondering what that word evil means. What
does evil mean to an intelligent mind; a mind that is aware of all the horrors in the world?
P: Evil is that which diminishes consciousness, that which brings darkness.
Krishnamurti: Fear, sorrow, pain do that. Would you say that evil is the encouragement
of fear? Is evil a means to further sorrow? Is evil social or environmental conditioning
which perpetuates war? All these limit consciousness and create darkness and sorrow.
Evil, according to the Christian idea, is the devil. Does the Hindu have any idea of evil?
If he has an idea of evil, what would it be? Personally I never think of evil.
Would you say that in the flowering of goodness, there is no evil at all? That this state
does not know evil? Or is evil an invention of the mind which breeds fear and creates the
good?
P: May I say something? If you go deep down into the recesses of the human mind, into
the history of mankind, there has always been the sorcerer, the witch who subverts the
laws of nature, who brings fear and darkness. It is one of the strangest elements in the
human mind. It is because of this terrible fear of the unknown, that darkness without
limit, without end, that prevails through the history of man, that the human being has
cried out for protection; a cry that echoes through human consciousness. It is this which
is the unknown, un-named matrix of fear. It is not enough to suggest that it is fear. It is
all that and more.
Krishnamurti:Are you saying that deep in man, in the inner recesses of the mind, there is
the fear of the unknown, of something that man cannot touch or imagine? Being afraid
KRISHNAMURTI'S INTENTIONS: A CONVERSATION
Staff Member: Sir, I wanted to ask you about the proposed Centre and what it means to study the teachings.
Krishnamurti: If I went to the Centre, first of all I would want to be quiet, not bring problems there; not my household problems, business preoccupations, and so on. And also I think I would want what K says to be entirely part of my life, not just that I have studied K and I repeat what he says. Rather, in the very studying of it I am really absorbing it; not bits of it here and there, not only just what suits me.
S.M: Can we talk about how that happens because I feel this is where we will decide the nature of the place and its activities.
K: If I went there to study what K is saying, I would want to investigate it, question it, doubt it; not just read something and then go away. I would be reading not just to memorise, I would be reading to learn; to see what he is saying and my reactions to it, whether it corresponds or contradicts, whether he is right or I am right, so that there is a constant communication and interchange between what I am reading and what I am feeling. I would want to establish a relationship between what I am reading, seeing, hearing and myself with my reactions, conditioning, and so on; a dialogue between him and me. Such a dialogue must inevitably bring about a fundamental change.
Let us say that a man like you comes to this new Centre. You take all the trouble to come to this place, and for the first few days you may want to be quiet. If you are sensitive you realise there is something here which is different from your home, totally different from going to a discussion somewhere. Then you begin to study, and not only you but all the people living here are studying, seeing, questioning. And everyone actually listening with their whole being will naturally bring about a religious atmosphere.
That is what I would want if I went there. I would be sensitive enough to quickly capture what K is saying. And at lunch, or walking or sitting around together in the sitting room, I might like to discuss. I might say, 'Look, I didn't understand what he meant by that, let's talk about it' - not, you tell me about it, or I know better - 'let's go into it'; so it will be a living thing. And in the afternoon I might go out for a walk, or do some other physical activity. The Study will be a place for all serious people who have left behind them all their nationality, their sectarian beliefs and all the other things that divide human beings.
S.M: Can we say more about what it means to study the teachings profoundly?
K: I have made it clear.
S.M: Yes. But there is more to it. In organising the Centre I also have to ask about my own studying. I realise that if I don't do this seriously I have no business working there if I am not doing it - right?
K: That is understood.
S.M: It is this question of the teachings somehow going into the blood.
K: We will get it, sir, I am sure we will get it. As long as we are talking together like this, and keep at it.
S.M: But Krishnaji, I also feel that it has to be something that does not depend on you.
K: It depends on the teachings.
S.M: And on how I relate to the teachings. But from my own relationship with the teachings there are some other things I want to ask about, because there is something else which I feel is important.
K: What is that, briefly?
S.M: I have studied the teachings every day for some years.
K: Come, what are you saying, sir?
S.M: sometimes studying the teachings for me means even just reading one phrase.
K: Quite right. That's up to you.
S.M: But now wait. This is it, Krishnaji. That one phrase - Somehow holding it during the day - in action and in relationship, holding it.
K: Quite right. You are carrying a jewel with you. You are watching all the time or it will get lost.
S.M.: Now, I wanted to talk about that holding, because to me there is a secret. in that holding, there is something very special about that holding that most people don't know and that I often forget.
K: Yes, sir. Listen carefully. Someone gives me a marvelous watch. A marvelous watch, superb. And it is such a precious thing - I am very careful. I watch it all day.
S.M.: Yes.
K: The thing - I don't have to hold it, it is there in my hands. You follow? I watch. I live with it.
S.M.: Yes. If I can come back to this, Krishnaji. It is there in your hands. Now, to continue the metaphor, let's say: Look, would you please do the dishes: here are the two gloves, you are not going to keep the watch in your hand, you are going to put it in your pocket, or you are going to do Something else with it.
K: But the watch is still ticking away.
S.M.: Exactly. So, in this Centre somehow I feel we want to set up some activities that help people hold this thing all day long.
K: Be careful. Don't do that. No activity is holding it. No outside help.
S.M.: No outside help. So perhaps we should not give people so many things to do.
K: Yes, You do all the things you have to do. You must allow for yourself four or five hours, or two hours, whatever you want. Say, look, I shut my door after two o'clock or some other time. Then nobody disturbs me. You must have time to study, to listen, absorb - absorb, so that it is in your blood.
S.M: Yes.
K: It is really like having a marvelous set of pearls. You put them around your neck and they are always there. You follow?
S.M: Can you describe more closely, Krishnaji, without metaphor, when a person reads something extraordinary, how do they hold that?
K: Sir, you don't hold it. The moment you have read that and you see the truth of it, it is yours, you don't have to hold it. You look at those mountains, you don't hold them, they are there. You are always conscious of that. You are always looking at it. Even when you are washing dishes, that is there.
S.M: Yes.
K: Keep it, sir. Don't talk any more about it. Keep it. You have understood what it means. Go into it for yourself. You are going to have to talk to the people who come to the Centre about this. So you have to be very clear. I might come from Barcelona and say, what do you think about all this? I would like to discuss with you what K means by meditation, what he means by - you know - all the rest of it. And you must be able to discuss this.
S.M: Yes, I know, sir.
K: It's all right with practical jobs that have to be done for the building, which must be most beautiful, austere. But the other - you have a tremendous responsibility. Don't minimise it. And don't be frightened. You have got to do it. It is not easy.
S.M: Because here, Krishnaji, we are talking about the sacred, creating something of the sacred.
K: It will come. You can't just put out your hand and wait.
S.M: No.
K: It comes when you live the teachings.
===============================================================
IT HAD BEEN raining continuously for a week;
the earth was soggy, and there were large puddles
all along the path. The water level had risen in the
wells, and the frogs were having a splendid time,
croaking tirelessly all night long. The swollen river
was endangering the bridge; but the rains were
welcome, even though great damage was being
done. Now, however, it was slowly clearing up;
there were patches of blue sky just overhead, and
the morning sun was scattering the clouds. It
would be months before the leaves of the newly washed
trees would again be covered with fine,
red dust. The blue of the sky was so intense that it
made you stop and wonder. The air had been
purified, and in one short week the earth had
suddenly become green. In that morning light,
peace lay upon the land.
A single parrot was perched on a dead branch
of a nearby tree; it wasn't preening itself, and it sat
very still, but its eyes were moving and alert. It
was of a delicate green, with a brilliant red beak
and a long tail of paler green. You wanted to touch
it, to feel the colour of it; but if you moved, it
would fly away. Though it was completely still, a
frozen green light, you could feel it was intensely
alive, and it seemed to give life to the dead branch
on which it sat. It was so astonishingly beautiful, it
took your breath away; you hardly dared take your
eyes off it, lest in a flash it be gone. You had seen
parrots by the dozen, moving in their crazy flight,
sitting along the wires, or scattered over the red
fields of young, green corn. But this single bird
seemed to be the focus of all life, of all beauty and
perfection. There was nothing but this vivid spot
of green on a dark branch against the i blue sky.
There were no words, no thoughts in your mind;
you weren't even conscious that you weren't
thinking. The intensity of it brought tears to your
eyes and made you blink - and the very blinking
might frighten the bird away! But it remained there
unmoving, so sleek, so slender, with every feather
in place. Only a few minutes must have passed,
but those few minutes covered the day, the year
and all time; in those few minutes all life was,
without an end or a beginning. It is not an
experience to be stored up in memory, a dead thing
to be kept alive by thought, which is also dying; it
is totally alive, and so cannot be found among the
dead.
Someone called from the house beyond the
garden, and the dead branch was suddenly bare.
There were three of them, a woman and two
men, and they were all quite young, probably in
their middle thirties. They had come early, freshly
bathed and clothed, and were obviously not of
those who have money. Their faces shone with
thought; their eyes were clear and simple, without
that veiled look that comes with much learning.
The woman was a sister of the oldest of them, and
the other man was her husband. We all sat on a
mat with a red border at each end. The traffic
made an awful noise, and one window had to be
closed, but the other opened upon a secluded
garden in which there was a wide-spreading tree.
They were a bit shy, but soon would be talking
freely.
"Although our families are well-to-do, all three
of us have chosen to lead a very simple life,
without pretensions," began the brother. "We live
near a small village, read a little, and are given to
meditation. We have no desire to be rich, and have
just enough to get by. I know a certain amount of
Sanskrit, but hesitate to quote the Scriptures
authoritatively. My brother-in-law is more
studious than I, but we are both too young to be
learned. By itself, knowledge has very little
meaning; it is helpful only in that it can guide us,
keep us on the straight road."
I wonder if knowledge is helpful; may it not be
a hindrance?
"How can knowledge ever be a hindrance?" he
asked rather anxiously. "Surely, knowledge is
always helpful."
Helpful in what way?
"Helpful in finding God, in leading a righteous
life."
Is it? An engineer must have knowledge to
build a bridge, to design machines, and so on.
Knowledge is essential to those who are concerned
with the order of things. The physicist must have
knowledge, it's part of his education, part of his
very existence, and without it he cannot go
forward. But does knowledge set the mind free to
discover? Though knowledge is necessary to put to
use what has already been discovered, surely the
actual state of discovery is free from knowledge.
"Without knowledge, I might wander off the path
that leads to God."
Why shouldn't you wander off the path? Is the
path so clearly marked, and the end so definite?
And what do you mean by knowledge?
"By knowledge I mean all that one has
experienced, read, or been taught of God, and of
the things one must do, the virtues one must
practise, and so on, in order to find Him. I am not,
of course, referring to engineering knowledge."
Is there so much difference between the two?
The engineer has been taught how to achieve
certain physical results by the application of
knowledge which man has gathered through the
centuries; whereas, you have been taught how to
achieve certain inner results by controlling your
thoughts, cultivating virtue, doing good works, and
so on, all of which is equally a matter of
knowledge gathered through the centuries. The
engineer has his books and teachers, as you have
yours. Both of you have been taught a technique,
and both of you desire to achieve an end, you in
your way, and he in his. You are both after results.
And is God, or truth, a result? If it is, then it's put
together by the mind; and what is put together can
be rent asunder. So, is knowledge helpful in
discovering reality?
"I'm not at all sure that it's not sir, in spite of
what you say," replied the husband. "Without
knowledge, how can the path be trodden?"
If the end is static, if it is a dead thing, without
movement, then one or many paths can lead to it;
but is reality, God, or whatever name you may
give it, a fixed abode with a permanent address?
"Of course not," said the brother eagerly.
Then how can there be a path to it? Surely,
truth has no path.
"In that case, what's the function of
knowledge?" asked the husband.
You are the result of what you have been
taught, and on that conditioning your experiences
are based; and your experiences, in turn,
strengthen or modify your conditioning. You are
like a gramophone, playing different records,
perhaps, but still a gramophone; and the records
you play are made up of what you have been
taught, whether by others or by your own
experiences. That is so, isn't it?
"Yes, sir," replied the brother, "but is there not
a part of me which has not been taught?" Is there?
Surely, that which you call the Atman, the soul,
the higher self, and so on, is still within the realm
of what you have read or been taught.
"Your statements are so clear and meaningful,
one is convinced in spite of oneself," said the
brother.
If you are merely convinced, then you do not
see the truth of it. Truth is not a matter of
conviction or agreement. You can agree or
disagree about opinions or conclusions, but a fact
needs no agreement; it's so. If once you see for
yourself that what has been said is a fact, then you
are not merely convinced: your mind has
undergone a fundamental transformation. It no
longer looks at the fact through a screen of
conviction or belief; it approaches truth, or God,
without knowledge, without any record. The
record is the `me', the ego, the conceited one, the
one who knows, the one who has been taught, who
has practised virtue - and who is in conflict with
the fact.
"Then why do we struggle to acquire
knowledge?" asked the husband. "Isn't knowledge
an essential part of our existence?"
When there's an understanding of the self, then
knowledge has its rightful place; but without this
understanding, the pursuit of self-knowledge gives
a feeling of achievement, of getting somewhere; it
is as exciting and pleasurable as success in the
world. One may renounce the outward things of
existence, but in the struggle to acquire selfknowledge
there is the sensation of
accomplishment, of the hunter catching the hunted,
which is similar to the satisfaction of worldly gain.
There is no understanding of the self, of the `me',
the ego, through accumulating knowledge of what
has been or what is. Accumulation distorts
perception, and it is not possible to understand the
self in its daily activities, its swift and cunning
reactions, when the mind is weighed down by
knowledge. As long as the mind is burdened with
knowledge, and is itself the result of knowledge, it
can never be new, uncorrupted.
"May I be permitted to ask a question?"
inquired the lady, rather nervously. She had been
quietly listening, hesitant to ask questions out of
respect for her husband; but now that the other two
were reluctantly silent, she spoke up. "I would like
to ask, if I may, why it is that one person has
insight, total perception, while others see only the
various details and are incapable of grasping the
whole. Why can't we all have this insight, this
capacity to see the whole, which you seem to
have? Why is it that one has it, and another has
not?" Do you think it's a gift?
"It would seem so," she replied. "Yet that
would mean that divinity, is partial, and then there
would be very little chance for the rest of us. I
hope it's not like that."
Let us inquire into it. Now why are you asking
this question?
"For the simple and obvious reason that I want
that deep insight."
She had lost her shyness now, and was as eager
to talk as the other two.
So your inquiry is motivated by a desire to gain
something. Gaining, achieving, or becoming
something, implies a process of accumulation, and
identification with what has been accumulated.
Isn't this true?
"Yes, sir."
Gaining also implies comparison, does it not?
You, who have not that insight, are comparing
yourself with someone who has.
"That is so."
But all such comparison is obviously the
outcome of envy; and is insight to be awakened
through envy?
"No, I suppose not."
The world is full of envy, ambition, which can
be seen in the everlasting pursuit of success, in the
relation of the disciple to the Master, of the Master
to the higher Master, and so on endlessly; and it
does develop certain capacities. But is total
perception, total awareness, such a capacity? Is it
based on envy, ambition? Or does it come into
being only when all desire to gain has ceased? Do
you understand?
"I don't think I do."
The desire to gain is based on conceit, is it not?
She hesitated, and then said slowly, "Now that
you point it out, I see that fundamentally it is."
So it is your conceit, in the large as well as in
the petty sense, that is making you ask this
question.
"I'm afraid that's also true."
In other words, you are asking this question out
of the desire to be successful. Now, can this same
question - Why is it that I have no deep insight? -
be asked without envy, without giving any
emphasis to the `I'?
"I don't know."
Can there be any inquiry at all as long as the
mind is tethered to a motive? As long as thought is
centred in envy, in conceit, in the desire to be
successful, can it wander far and freely? Really to
inquire, must not the centre cease?
"Do you mean that envy, or ambition, which is
the desire to be or to become something, must
wholly disappear, if one is to have deep insight?"
Again, if it may be pointed out, you want to
possess that capacity, so you will set about
disciplining yourself in order to acquire it. You,
the would-be possessor, are still important, not the
capacity itself. This capacity arises only when the
mind has no motive of any kind.
"But you said earlier sir, that the mind is the
result of time, of knowledge, of motive; and how
can such a mind be without any motive
whatsoever?"
Put that question to yourself, not just verbally,
superficially, but as seriously as a hungry man
wants food. When you are asking, inquiring, it is
important to find out for yourself the cause of your
inquiry. You can ask out of envy, or you can ask
without any motive. The state of the mind which is
really inquiring into the capacity of total
perception is one of complete humility, complete
stillness; and this very humility, this stillness, is
that capacity itself. It is not something to be
gained.
'The first stone we lay should be religious.'
'There have been Gatherings every year, seminars and all the activities of audio and video recording. We have reached a point now not only to take stock of what we are doing, but also to make Brockwood much more than a school. It is the only centre in Europe representing the teachings, which are essentially religious. It must be a centre for those who are deeply interested in the teachings, a place where they can stay and study. In the very old days an ashrama - which means retreat - was a place where people came to gather their energies, to dwell, and to explore deeper religious aspects of life. Modern places of this kind generally have some sort of leader, guru, abbot or patriarch who guides, interprets and dominates. Brockwood must have no such leader or guru, for the teachings themselves are the expression of that truth which serious people must find for themselves. Personal cult has no place in this. It is a place which must demand the awakening of that intelligence which comes with compassion and love... The Study Centre will enhance, enrich, bring a new color, a new perfume to the school.'
‘As I see it, a Study Centre has become a necessity because that is the place where the treasure is... From that treasure you can draw. You can draw your strength, your energy, your sustenance, nourishment and so on... Here is something that is sacred... and from that everything flows.'
'It must last a thousand years, unpolluted, like a river that has the capacity to cleanse itself; which means no authority whatsoever for the inhabitants. And the teachings in themselves have the authority of the Truth.'
'There should be a place there... a room, where you go to be quiet. That room is only used for that and not for anything else... That should be like a fountain that is filling the whole place... That should be the central flame, that room, from which the whole thing is covered... Light, air - but it is quiet, silent, I would go and sit there for two minutes, ten minutes, half an hour, and go away. There you don't study, discuss, or have videos - nothing of all that... It is like a furnace that heats the whole place... If you don't have that, the Centre becomes just a passage, people coming and going, work and activity and all that.'
'It must not become an exclusive community... Something separate, sectarian and enclosed for idealistic and Utopian purposes. It must be a place of integrity, deep honesty and the awakening of intelligence in the midst of the confusion, conflict and destruction that are taking place in the world. And this depends... on the awareness, attention and affection of the people who are there... So each one must contribute.'
'The flowering of goodness is not an ideal to be pursued or sought after as a goal in the future. We are not set ting up a Utopia but rather dealing with hard facts. You can make all this into something to be achieved in the future - but the future is the present.'
'It is a place where one is not only physically sustained but there is a continuous movement of learning; and so each one becomes the teacher and the disciple. It is not a place for one's own illumination or one's own goal or fulfillment, artistically, religiously, or in any way, but rather sustaining each other and nourishing each other in flowering goodness.'
‘This place must be of great beauty with trees, birds and quietness, for beauty is truth and truth is goodness and love. The external beauty, external tranquility, silence, may affect the inner tranquility, but the environment must in no way influence the inner beauty. Beauty can only be when the self is not; the environment, which must have great wonder, must in no way be an absorbing factor like a toy with a child. Here, there are no toys - but inner depth, substance and integrity that is not put together by thought.'
'This is not a place for romanticists or sentimentalists... This requires a good brain, which does not mean an intellectual approach, but a brain that is objective, fundamentally honest to itself, and which has integrity in word and deed.'
‘As one comes to the place, each one in his work - working in the garden or doing something else - may discover something... and he communicates and has a dialogue with the others - to be questioned, doubted and to see the weight of the truth of his discovery. So there is a constant communication and not a solitary achievement, a solitary enlightenment or understanding. It is the responsibility of each one to bring it about in this sense - that for each one of us, if something basic, new, is discovered it is not personal, but it is for all the people who are there.'
‘A dialogue is very important. It is a form of communication in which question and answer continue till a question is left without an answer. Thus the question is suspended between the two persons involved in this answer and question. It is like a bud with untouched blossoms. If the question is left totally untouched by thought, it then has its own answer because the questioner and the answerer as persons have disappeared.
'This is something terribly serious, I am put ting my life into this... If I went there, I would want what K says... to be in my blood... so that it is entirely part of me... In the very studying of it I am absorbing it, through my pores, through my eyes, through my ears...'
'First of all I want to be quiet... for the first couple of days... then I would go into the library and say, 'This is a study... therefore I have to study what K is talking about'...'
'By reading, by listening to the tape, by seeing the videos, I begin to absorb... I would have to be sensitive enough to receive. And I would like - at lunch, or when walking or being with others in the sitting room - to discuss... So it will be a moving thing.'
'I never allow myself to be trapped by what is being said. I am enquiring all the time... if the teaching seems right I would ask 'Why do I feel it is right?'... I am open to that, so that in reading I am expanding the intelligence which is beginning to be awakened.'
‘A collection of mediocrities does not make a religious centre. A religious centre demands the highest quality in everything that one is doing, and the highest capacity of the brain. The full meaning of mediocrity is a dull heavy brain, drugged by knowledge.'
'The depth of this question brings its own right answer. All this is not an intellectual entertainment, a pursuit of theories, etc. The word is the deed. The two must never be separate. Where the word is the deed, that is integrity.'
'Intelligence can only be where there is love and compassion. Compassion can never exist where the brain is conditioned or has an anchorage.'
These writings have been drawn from the following books:
Krishnamurti's Notebook
Beginnings of Learning
The Awakening of Intelligence
Beyond Violence
You Are the World
The Flight of the Eagle
The Impossible Question
The Only Revolution
Freedom From the Known
Meditations 1969
Talks with American Students
~~~
The flowering of love is meditation.
~~~
Man, in order to escape his conflicts, has invented many forms of meditation. These have been based on desire, will and the urge for achievement and imply conflict and a struggle to arrive. This conscious, deliberate striving is always within the limits of a conditioned mind and in this there is no freedom. All effort to meditate is the denial of meditation.
Meditation is the ending of thought. It is only then that there is a different dimension which is beyond time.
~~~
Meditation at that hour was freedom and it was like entering into an unknown world of beauty and quietness; it was a world without image, symbol or word, without waves of memory. Love was the death of every minute and each death was the renewing of love. It was not attachment, it had no roots; it flowered without cause and it was a flame that burned away the borders, the carefully built fences of consciousness. It was beauty beyond thought and feeling; it was not put together on canvas, in words or in marble. Meditation was joy and with it came a benediction.
~~~
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life--perhaps the greatest, and one can not possibly learn it from anybody. That is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy--if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation.
So meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing of birds or looking at the face of your wife or child.
~~~
It had rained heavily during the night and the day, and down the gullies the muddy stream poured into the sea, making it chocolate-brown. As you walked on the beach the waves were enormous and they were breaking with magnificent curve and force. You walked against the wind, and suddenly you felt there was nothing between you and the sky, and this openness was heaven. To be so completely open, vulnerable--to the hills, to the sea and to man--is the very essence of meditation.
To have no resistance, to have no barriers inwardly towards anything, to be really free, completely, from all the minor urges, compulsions and demands, with all their little conflicts and hypocrisies, is to walk in life with open arms. And that evening, walking there on that wet sand, with the sea gulls around you, you felt the extraordinary sense of open freedom and the great beauty of love which was not in you or outside you--but everywhere.
We don't realize how important it is to be free of the nagging pleasures and their pains, so that the mind remains alone. It is only the mind that is wholly alone that is open. You felt all this suddenly, like a great wind that swept over the land and through you. There you were--denuded of everything, empty--and therefore utterly open. The beauty of it was not in the word or in the feeling, but seemed to be everywhere--about you, inside you, over the waters and in the hills. Meditation is this.
~~~
After the rains the hills were splendid: They were still brown from the summer sun, and soon all the green things would come out. It had rained quite heavily, and the beauty of those hills was indescribable. The sky was still clouded and in the air there was the smell of sumac, sage and eucalyptus. It was splendid to be among them, and a strange stillness possessed you. Unlike the sea which lay far down below you, those hills were completely still. As you watched and looked about you, you had left everything down below in that little house--your clothes, your thoughts and the odd ways of life. Here you were traveling very lightly, without any thoughts, without any burden, and with a feeling of complete emptiness and beauty. The little green bushes would soon be still greener, and in a few weeks' time they would have a stronger smell. The quails were calling and a few of them flew over. Without knowing it, the mind was in a state of meditation in which love was flowering. After all, only in the soil of meditation can this flower bloom. It was really quite marvelous and, strangely, all through the night it pursued you, and when you woke, long before the sun was up, it was still there in your heart with its incredible joy, for no reason whatsoever. It was there, causeless, and quite intoxicating. It would be there all through the day without you ever asking or inviting it to stay with you.
Meditation is not concentration, which is exclusion, a cutting off, a resistance and so a conflict. A meditative mind can concentrate, which then is not an exclusion, a resistance, but a concentrated mind can not meditate.
~~~
In the understanding of meditation there is love, and love is not the product of systems, of habits, of following a method. Love cannot be cultivated by thought. Love can perhaps come into being when there is complete silence, a silence in which the meditator is entirely absent; and the mind can be silent only when it understands its own movement as thought and feeling. To understand this movement of thought and feeling there can be no condemnation in observing it. To observe in such a way is a discipline, and that kind of discipline is fluid, free, not the discipline of conformity.
That morning the sea was like a lake or an enormous river--without ripple, and so calm that you could see the reflections of the stars so early in the morning. The dawn had not yet come, so the stars, the reflection of the cliff and the distant lights of the town were there on the water. And as the sun came up over the horizon in a cloudless sky it made a golden path, and it was extraordinary to see that light of California filling the earth and every leaf and blade of grass.
As you watched, a great stillness came into you. The brain itself became very quiet, without any reaction, without a movement, and it was strange to feel this immense stillness. "Feel" isn't the word. The quality of that silence, that stillness, is not felt by the brain; it is beyond the brain. The brain can conceive, formulate or make a design for the future, but this stillness is beyond its range, beyond all imagination, beyond all desire. You are so still that your body becomes completely part of the earth, part of everything that is still.
And as the night breeze came from the hills, stirring the leaves, this stillness, this extraordinary quality of silence, was not disturbed. The house was between the hills and the sea, overlooking the sea. And as you watched the sea, so very still, you really became part of everything. You were everything. You were the light, and the beauty of love. Again, to say "you were a part of everything" is also wrong: the word "you" is not adequate because you really weren't there. You didn't exist. There was only that stillness, the beauty, the extraordinary sense of love.
~~~
The words "you" and "I" separate things. This division in this strange silence and stillness doesn't exist. And as you watched out of the window, space and time seemed to have come to an end, and the space that divides had no reality. That leaf and that eucalyptus and the blue shining water were not different from you.
Meditation is really very simple. We complicate it. We weave a web of ideas around it--what it is and what it is not. But it is non of these things. Because it is so very simple it escapes us, because our minds are so complicated, so time-worn and time-based. And this mind dictates the activity of the heart, and then the trouble begins. But meditation comes naturally, with extraordinary ease, when you walk on the sand or look out of your window or see those marvelous hills burnt by last summer's sun. Why are we such tortured human beings, with tears in our eyes and false laughter on our lips? If you could walk alone among those hills or in the woods or along the long, white, bleached sands, in that solitude you would know what meditation is.
The ecstasy of solitude comes when you are not frightened to be alone--no longer belonging to the world or attached to anything. Then, like that dawn that came up this morning, it comes silently, and makes a golden path in the very stillness, which was at the beginning, which is now, and which will be always there.
~~~
Meditation is a movement in and out of the unknown. You are not there, only the movement. You are too pretty or too great for this movement. It has nothing behind it or in front of it. It is that energy which thought-matter cannot touch. Thought is perversion, for it is the product of yesterday; it is caught in the toils of centuries and so is confused, unclear. Do what you will, the known cannot reach out for the unknown. Meditation is the dying to the known.
~~~
It's curious how all-important meditation becomes, there's no end to it nor is there a beginning to it. It's like a raindrop: in that drop are all the streams, the great rivers, the seas and the waterfalls; that drop nourishes the earth and man; without it, the earth would be a desert. Without meditation the heart becomes a desert, a wasteland.
~~~
Meditation is to find out whether the brain, with all its activities, all its experiences, can be absolutely quiet. Not forced, because the moment you force, there is duality. The entity that says, "I would like to have marvelous experiences, therefore I must force my brain to be quiet"--will never do it. But if you begin to enquire, observe, listen to all the movements of thought, its conditioning, its pursuits, its fears, its pleasures, watch how the brain operates, then you will see that the brain becomes extraordinarily quiet; that quietness is not sleep but is tremendously active and therefore quiet. A big dynamo that is working perfectly hardly makes a sound; it is only when there is friction that there is noise.
~~~
Silence and spaciousness go together. The immensity of silence is the immensity of the mind in which a center does not exist.
~~~
Dawn was slow in coming; the stars were still brilliant and the trees were still withdrawn; no bird was calling, not even the small owls that rattled through the night from tree to tree. It was strangely quiet except for the roar of the sea. There was that smell of many flowers, rotting leaves and damp ground; the air was very, very still and the smell was everywhere. The earth was waiting for the dawn and the coming day; there was expectation, waiting and a strange stillness. Meditation went on with that stillness and that stillness was love; it was not the love of something or someone, the image and the symbol, the word and the pictures. It was simply love, without sentiment, without feeling. It was something complete in itself, naked, intense, without root and direction. The sound of that faraway bird was that love; it was the direction and distance; it was there without time and word. It wasn't an emotion that fades and is cruel; the symbol, the word can be substituted but not the thing. Being naked, it was utterly vulnerable and so indestructible. It had the unapproachable strength of that otherness, the unknowable, which was coming through the trees and beyond the sea. Meditation was the sound of that bird calling out of the emptiness and the roar of the sea, thundering against the beach. Love can only be in utter emptiness. The greying dawn was there far away on the horizon and the dark trees were even more dark and intense. In meditation there is no repetition, a continuity of habit; there is death of everything known and the flowering of the unknown. The stars had faded and the clouds were awake with the coming sun.
~~~
Always to seek for wider, deeper, transcendental experiences is a form of escape from the actual reality of "what is," which is ourselves, our own conditioned mind. A mind that is awake, intelligent, free, why should it need, why should it have, any "experience" at all? Light is light; it does not ask for more light.
~~~
Meditation is one of the most extraordinary things, and if you do not know what it is you are like the blind man in a world of bright color, shadows and moving light. It is not an intellectual affair, but when the heart enters into the mind, the mind has quite a different quality; it is really, then, limitless, not only in its capacity to think, to act efficiently, but also in its sense of living in a vast space where you are part of everything.
Meditation is the movement of love. It isn't the love of the one or of the many. It is like water that anyone can drink out of any jar, whether golden or earthenware: it is inexhaustible. And a peculiar thing takes place which no drug or self-hypnosis can bring about: it is as though the mind enters into itself, beginning at the surface and penetrating ever more deeply, until depth and height have lost their meaning and every form of measurement ceases. In this state there is complete peace--not contentment which has come about through gratification--but a peace that has order, beauty and intensity. It can all be destroyed, as you can destroy a flower, and yet because of its vulnerability it is indestructible. This meditation can not be learned from another. You must begin without knowing anything about it, and move from innocence to innocence.
The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order, and from there move endlessly. But if you are concerned only with making order, then that very order will bring about its own limitation, and the mind will be its prisoner. In all this movement you must somehow begin from the other end, from the other shore, and not always be concerned with this shore or how to cross the river. You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is.
~~~
Meditation is not something different from daily life; do not go off into the corner of a room and meditate for ten minutes, then come out of it and be a butcher--both metaphorically and actually.
Meditation is one of the most serious things. You can do it all day, in the office, with the family, when you say to somebody, "I love you," when you are considering your children. But then you educate them to become soldiers, to kill, to be nationalized, to worship the flag, educating them to enter into this trap of the modern world.
Watching all that, realizing your part in it, all that is part of meditation. And when you so meditate you will find in it an extraordinary beauty; you will act rightly at every moment; and if you do not act rightly at a given moment it does not matter, you will pick it up again--you will not waste time in regret.
Meditation is part of life, not something different from life.
~~~
A meditative mind is silent. It is not the silence which thought can conceive of; it is not the silence of a still evening; it is the silence when thought---with all its images, its words and perceptions--has entirely ceased. This meditative mind is the religious mind--the religion that is not touched by the church, the temples or by chants.
The religious mind is the explosion of love. It is this love that knows no separation. To it, far is near. It is not the one or the many, but rather that state of love in which all division ceases. Like beauty, it is not of the measure of words. From this silence alone the meditative mind acts.
~~~
What an extraordinary thing meditation is. If there is any kind of compulsion, effort to make thought conform, imitate, then it becomes a wearisome burden. The silence which is desired ceases to be illuminating; if it is the pursuit of visions and experiences, then it leads to illusions and self-hypnosis. Only in the flowering of thought and so ending thought does meditation have significance; thought can only flower in freedom, not in ever-widening patterns of knowledge. Knowledge may give newer experiences of greater sensation but a mind that is seeking experiences of any kind is immature. Maturity is the freedom from all experience; it is no longer under any influence to be or not to be.
Maturity in meditation is the freeing of the mind from knowledge, for it shapes and controls all experience. A mind which is a light to itself needs no experience. Immaturity is the craving for greater and wider experience. Meditation is the wandering through the world of knowledge and being free of it to enter into the unknown.
~~~
One has to find out for oneself, not through anybody. We have had the authority of teachers, saviors and masters. If you really want to find out what meditation is, you have to set aside all authority completely and totally.
~~~
Meditation is not the mere control of body and thought, nor is it a system of breathing in and breathing out. The body must be still, healthy and without strain; sensitivity of feeling must be sharpened and sustained; and the mind with all its chattering, disturbances and groping must come to and end. It is not the organism that one must begin with, but rather it is the mind with its opinions, prejudices and self-interest that must be seen to. When the mind is healthy, vital and vigorous, the feeling will be heightened and will be extremely sensitive. Then the body, with its own natural intelligence which hasn't been spoiled by habit and taste, will function as it should.
So one must begin with the mind and not with the body, the mind being thought and varieties of expressions of thought. Mere concentration makes thought narrow, limited and brittle, but concentration comes as a natural thing when there is an awareness of the ways of thought. This awareness does not come from the thinker who chooses and discards, who holds on to and rejects. This awareness is without choice and is both the outer and the inner; it is an interflow between the two, so the division between the outer and the inner comes to an end.
Thought destroys feeling--feeling being love. Thought can offer only pleasure, and in the pursuit of pleasure love is pushed aside. The pleasure of eating, of drinking, has its continuity in thought, and merely to control or suppress this pleasure which thought has brought about has no meaning; it creates only various forms of conflict and compulsion.
Thought, which is matter, cannot seek that which is beyond time, for thought is memory, and the experience in that memory is as dead as the leaf of last autumn.
In awareness of all this comes attention, which is not the product of inattention. It is inattention which has dictated the pleasurable habits of the body and diluted the intensity of feeling. Inattention cannot be made into attention. The awareness of inattention is attention.
The seeing of this whole complex process is meditation from which alone comes order in this confusion. This order is as absolute as is the order in mathematics, and from this there is action--the immediate doing. Order is not arrangement, design and proportion: these come much later. Order comes out of a mind that is not cluttered up by the things of thought. When thought is silent there is emptiness, which is order.
We hardly ever listen to the sound of a dog's bark, or to the cry of a child or the laughter of a man as he passes by. We separate ourselves from everything, and then from this isolation look and listen to all things. It is this separation that is so destructive, for in that lies all conflict and confusion. If you listened to the sound of those bells with complete silence you would be riding on it--or, rather, the sound would carry you across the valley and over the hill. The beauty of it is felt only when you and the sound are not separate, when you are part of it. Meditation is the ending of the separation not by any action of will or desire.
Meditation is not a separate thing from life; it is the very essence of life, the very essence of daily living. To listen to those bells, to hear the laughter of that peasant as he walks by with his wife, to listen to the sound of the bell on the bicycle of the little girl as she passes by; it is the whole of life, and not just a fragment of it, that meditation opened.
~~~
Perception without the word, that is, without thought, is one of the strangest phenomena. Then the perception is much more acute, not only with the brain, but also with all the senses. Such perception is not the fragmentary perception of the intellect nor the affair of the emotions. It can be called a total perception and it is part of meditation. Perception without the perceiver in meditation is to commune with the height and depth of the immense. This perception is entirely different from seeing an object without an observer, because in the perception of meditation there is no object and therefore no experience. Meditation can, however, take place when the eyes are open and one is surrounded by objects of every kind. But then these objects have no importance at all. One sees them but there is no process of recognition, which means there is no experiencing.
What meaning has such meditation? There is no meaning; there is no utility. But in that meditation there is a movement of great ecstasy which is not to be confounded with pleasure. It is the ecstasy which gives to the eye, to the brain and to the heart the quality of innocency. Without seeing life as something totally new, it is a routine, a boredom, a meaningless affair. So meditation is of the greatest importance. It opens the door to the incalculable, to the measureless.
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Meditation is never in time; time cannot bring about mutation; it can bring about change which needs to be changed again, like all reforms. Meditation that springs out of time is always binding, there is no freedom in it and without freedom there is always choice and conflict.
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We have to alter the structure of our society, its injustice, its appalling morality, the divisions it has created between man and man, the wars, the utter lack of affection and love that is destroying the world. If your meditation is only a personal matter, a thing which you personally enjoy, then it is not meditation. Meditation implies a complete radical change of the mind and the heart. This is only possible when there is this extraordinary sense of inward silence, and that alone brings about the religious mind. That mind knows what is sacred.
~~~
Beauty means sensitivity--a body that is sensitive, which means the right diet, the right way of living. Then the mind will inevitably and naturally, unknowingly, becomes quiet. You can't make the mind quiet, because you are the mischiefmaker, you are yourself disturbed, anxious, confused--how can you make the mind quiet? But when you understand what quietness is, when you understand what confusion is, what sorrow is and whether sorrow can ever end, and when you understand pleasure, then out of that comes an extraordinarily quiet mind; you don't have to seek it. You must begin at the beginning and the first step is the last step, and this is meditation.
~~~
To meditate is to be innocent of time.
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Meditation is not an escape from the world; it is not an isolating, self- enclosing activity, but rather the comprehension of the world and its ways. The world has little to offer apart from food, clothes and shelter, and pleasure with its great sorrows.
Meditation is wandering away from this world; one has to be a total outsider. Then the world has a meaning, and the beauty of the heavens and the earth is constant. Then love is not pleasure. From this all action begins that is not the outcome of tension, contradiction, the search for self-fulfillment or the conceit of power.
~~~
If you deliberately take an attitude, a posture, in order to meditate, then it becomes a plaything, a toy of the mind. If you determine to extricate yourself from the confusion and misery of life, then it becomes an experience of imagination--and this is not Meditation. The conscious mind or the unconscious mind must have no part in it; they must not even be aware of the extent and beauty of meditation--if they are, then you might just as well go and buy a romantic novel.
In the total attention of meditation there is no knowing, no recognition, nor the remembrance of something that has happened. Time and thought have entirely come to an end, for they are the center which limits its own vision.
At the moment of light, thought withers away, and the conscious effort to experience and the remembrance of it is the word that has been. And the word is never the actual. At that moment--which is not of time--the ultimate is the immediate, but that ultimate has no symbol, is of no person, of no god.
~~~
Meditation is to find out if there is a field which is not already contaminated by the known.
~~~
Meditation is the flowering of understanding. Understanding is not within the borders of time; time never brings understanding. Understanding is not a gradual process to be gathered little by little, with care and patience. Understanding is now or never; it is a destructive flash, not a tame affair, it is this shattering that one is afraid of and so one avoids it, knowingly or unknowingly. Understanding may alter the course of one's life, the way of thought and action; it may be pleasant or not but understanding is a danger to all relationship. But without understanding, sorrow will continue. Sorrow ends only through self-knowing, the awareness of every thought and feeling, every movement of the conscious and that which is hidden. Meditation is the understanding of consciousness, the hidden and the open, and of the movement that lies beyond all thought and feeling.
~~~
It was one of those lovely mornings that have never been before. The sun was just coming up and you saw it between the eucalyptus and the pine. It was over the waters, golden, burnished--such light that exists only between the mountains and the sea. It was such a clear morning, breathless, full of that strange light that one sees not only with one's eyes but with one's heart. And when you see it the heavens are very close to earth, and you are lost in the beauty. You know, you should never meditate in public, or with another, or in a group: you should only meditate in solitude, in the quiet of the night or in the still, early morning. When you meditate in solitude, it must be solitude. You must be completely alone, not following a system, a method, repeating words, pursuing a thought, or shaping a thought according to your desire.
This solitude comes when the mind is freed from thought. When there are influences of desire or of the things that the mind is pursuing, either in the future or in the past, there is no solitude. Only in the immensity of the present this aloneness comes. And then, in quiet secrecy in which all communication has come to an end, in which there is no observer with his anxieties, with his stupid appetites and problems--only then, in that quiet aloneness, meditation becomes something that cannot be put into words. Then meditation is an eternal movement.
I don't know if you have ever meditated, if you have ever been alone, by yourself, far away from everything, from every person, from every thought and pursuit, if you have ever been completely alone, not isolated, not withdrawn into some fanciful dream or vision, but far away, so that in yourself there is nothing recognizable, nothing that you touch by thought or feeling, so far away that in this full solitude the very silence becomes the only flower, the only light, and the timeless quality that is not measurable by thought. Only in such meditation love has its being. Don't bother to express it: it will express itself. Don't use it. Don't try to put it into action: it will act, and when it acts, in that action will be no regret, no contradiction, none of the misery and travail of man.
So meditate alone. Get lost. And don't try to remember where you have been. If you try to remember it, then it will be something that is dead. And if you hold on to the memory of it, then you will never be alone again. So meditate in that endless solitude, in the beauty of that love, in that innocency, in the new--then there is the bliss that is imperishable.
The sky is very blue, the blue that comes after the rain, and these rains have come after many months of drought. After the rain the skies are washed clean and the hills are rejoicing, and the earth is still. And every leaf has the light of the sun on it, and the feeling of the earth is very close to you. So meditate in the very secret recesses of your heart and mind, where you have never been before.
~~~
Meditation is not a means to an end; there is no end, no arrival; it is a movement in time and out of time. Every system, method, binds thought to time, but choiceless awareness of every thought and feeling, understanding of their motives, their mechanism, allowing them to blossom, is the beginning of meditation. When thought and feeling flourish and die, meditation is the movement beyond time. In this movement there is ecstasy; in complete emptiness there is love, and with love there is destruction and creation.
~~~
Meditation is that light in the mind which lights the way for action; and without that light there is no love.
~~~
Meditation is never prayer. Prayer, supplication, is born of self-pity. You pray when you are in difficulty, when there is sorrow; but when there is happiness, joy, there is no supplication. This self-pity, so deeply embedded in man, is the root of separation. That which is separate, or thinks itself separate, ever seeking identification with something that is not separate, brings only more division and pain. Out of this confusion one cries to heaven, or to one's husband, or to some deity of the mind. This cry may find an answer, but the answer is the echo of self-pity, in its separation.
The repetition of words, of prayers, is self-hypnotic, self-enclosing and destructive. The isolation of thought is always within the field of the known, and the answer to prayer is the response of the known.
Meditation is far from this. In this field, thought cannot enter; there is no separation, and so no identity. Meditation is in the open; secrecy has no place in it. Everything is exposed, clear; then the beauty of love is.
~~~
On this morning the quality of meditation was nothingness, the total emptiness of time and space. It is a fact and not an idea or the paradox of opposing speculations. One finds this strange emptiness when the root of all problems withers away. This root is thought, the thought that divides and holds. In meditation the mind actually becomes empty of the past, though it can use the past as thought. This goes on throughout the day and at night sleep is the emptiness of yesterday and therefore the mind touches that which is timeless.
It was really a marvelous river, wide, deep, with so many cities on its banks, so carelessly free and yet never abandoning itself. All life was there upon its banks, green fields, forests, solitary houses, death, love and destruction; there were long, wide bridges over it, graceful and well- used. Other streams and rivers joined it but she was the mother of all rivers, the little ones and the big ones. She was always full, ever purifying herself, and of an evening it was a blessing to watch her, with deepening color in the clouds and her waters golden. But the little trickle so far away, amongst those gigantic rocks which seemed so concentrated in producing it, was the beginning of life and its ending was beyond its banks and the seas.
Meditation was like that river, only it had no beginning and no ending; it began and its ending was its beginning. There was no cause and its movement was its renewal. It was always new, it never gathered to become old; it never got sullied for it had no roots in time. It is good to meditate, not forcing it, not making any effort, beginning with a trickle and going beyond time and space, where thought and feeling cannot enter, where experience is not.
~~~
Meditation is the total release of energy.
~~~
In the space which thought creates around itself there is no love. This space divides man from man, and in it is all the becoming, the battle of life, the agony and fear. Meditation is the ending of this space, the ending of the "me." Then relationship has quite a different meaning, for in that space which is not made by thought, the other does not exist, for you do not exist.
Meditation, then, is not the pursuit of some vision, however sanctified by tradition. Rather it is the endless space where thought cannot enter. To us, the little space made by thought around itself, which is the "me," is extremely important, for this is all the mind knows, identifying itself with everything that is in that space. And the fear of not being is born in that space. But in meditation, when this is understood, the mind can enter into a dimension of space where action is inaction.
We do not know what love is, for in the space made by thought around itself as the "me," love is the conflict of the "me" and the "not-me." This conflict, this torture, is not love.
Thought is the very denial of love, and it cannot enter into that space where the "me" is not. In that space is the benediction which man seeks and cannot find. He seeks it within the frontiers of thought, and thought destroys the ecstasy of this benediction.
~~~
Belief is so unnecessary, as are ideals. Both dissipate energy which is needed to follow the unfolding of the fact, the "what is." Beliefs like ideals are escapes from the fact and in escape there is no end to sorrow. The ending of sorrow is the understanding of the fact from moment to moment. There is no system or method which will give understanding; only a choiceless awareness of a fact will do that. Meditation according to a system is the avoidance of the fact of what you are; it is far more important to understand yourself, the constant changing of the facts about yourself, than to meditate in order to find god or have visions, sensations and other forms of entertainment.
~~~
In meditation one has to find out whether there is an end to knowledge and so freedom from the known.
~~~
The meditation of a mind that is utterly silent is the benediction that man is ever seeking. In this silence every quality of silence is.
Once you have laid the foundation of virtue, which is order in relationship, there comes into being this quality of love and of dying, which is all of life; then the mind becomes extraordinarily quiet, naturally silent, not made silent through suppression, discipline and control, and that silence is immensely rich.
Beyond that, no word, no description is of any avail. Then the mind does not inquire into the absolute because it has no need, for in that silence there is that which is. And the whole of this is the benediction of meditation.
~~~
Meditation is the action of silence.
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Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it.
~~~
Meditation is destruction of security, and there is great beauty in meditation, not the beauty of the things that have been put together by man or by nature but of silence. This silence is emptiness in which and from which all things flow and have their being. It is unknowable; intellect and feeling cannot make their way to it; there is no way to it and a method to it is the invention of a greedy brain. All the ways and means of the calculating self must be destroyed wholly; all going forward or backward, the way of time, must come to an end, without tomorrow. Meditation is destruction; it's a danger to those who wish to lead a superficial life and a life of fancy and myth.
~~~
The death that meditation brings about is the immortality of the new.
~~~
This is something most marvelous if you come upon it. I can go into it, but the description is not the described. It's for you to learn all this by looking at yourself--no book, no teacher can teach you about this. Don't depend on anyone, don't join spiritual organizations; one has to learn all this out of oneself. And there the mind will discover things that are incredible. But for that, there must be no fragmentation and therefore immense stability, swiftness, mobility. To such a mind there is no time and therefore living has quite a different meaning.
~~~
Meditation is hard work. It demands the highest form of discipline--not conformity, not imitation, not obedience--but a discipline which comes through constant awareness, not only of the things about you outwardly, but also inwardly. So meditation is not an activity of isolation but is action in everyday life which demands co-operation, sensitivity and intelligence. Without laying the foundation of a righteous life, meditation becomes an escape and therefore has no value whatsoever. The righteous life is not the following of social morality, but the freedom from envy, greed and the search for power---which all breed enmity. The freedom from these does not come through the activity of will but by being aware of them through self- knowing. Without knowing the activities of the self, meditation becomes sensuous excitement and therefore of very little significance.
~~~
If you set out to meditate, it will not be meditation. If you set out to be good, goodness will never flower. If you cultivate humility, it ceases to be. Meditation is the breeze that comes in when you leave the window open; but if you deliberately keep it open, deliberately invite it to come, it will never appear.
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Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.
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Meditation has no beginning and no end; in it there is no achievement and no failure, no gathering and no renunciation; it is a movement without finality and so beyond and above time and space. The experiencing of it is the denying of it, for the experiencer is bound to time and space, memory and recognition. The foundation for true meditation is that passive awareness which is the total freedom from authority and ambition, envy and fear. Meditation has no meaning, no significance whatsoever without this freedom, without self-knowing; as long as there is choice there's no self- knowing. Choice implies conflict which prevents the understanding of what is. Wandering off into some fancy, into some romantic beliefs, is not meditation; the brain must strip itself of every myth, illusion and security and face the reality of their falseness. There's no distraction; everything is in the movement of meditation. The flower is the form, the scent, the color and the beauty that is the whole of it. Tear it to pieces actually or verbally, then there is no flower, only a remembrance of what was, which is never the flower. Meditation is the whole flower in its beauty, withering and living.
~~~
Happiness and pleasure you can buy in any market at a price. But bliss you cannot buy--either for yourself or for another. Happiness and pleasure are time-binding. Only in total freedom does bliss exist. Pleasure, like happiness, you can seek, and find, in many ways. But they come and go. Bliss--that great sense of joy--has no motive. You cannot possibly seek it. Once it is there, depending on the quality of your mind, it remains-- timeless, causeless, a thing that is not measurable by time. Meditation is not the pursuit of pleasure or the search for happiness. Meditation, on the contrary, is a state of mind in which there is no concept or formula, and therefore total freedom. It is only to such a mind that this bliss comes-- unsought and uninvited. Once it is there, though you may live in the world with all its noise, pleasure and brutality, they will not touch that mind. Once it is there, conflict has ceased. But the ending of conflict is not necessarily the total freedom. Meditation is the movement of the mind in this freedom. In this explosion of bliss the eyes are made innocent, and love is then benediction.
~~~
There on the perfumed verandah, when dawn is still far away and the trees are still silent, what is essence is beauty. But this essence is not experienceable; experiencing must cease, for experience only strengthens the known. The known is never the essence.
Meditation is never the further experiencing; it is not only the ending of experience, which is the response of challenge, great or small, but it is the opening of the door to essence, opening the door of a furnace whose fire utterly destroys, without leaving any ashes; there are no remains. We are the remains, the yes-sayers of many thousand yesterdays, a continuous series of endless memories, of choice and despair. The big self and the little self are the pattern of existence and existence is thought and thought is existence, with never-ending sorrow.
In the flame of meditation thought ends and with it feeling, for neither is love. Without love, there is no essence; without it there are only ashes on which is based our existence. Out of the emptiness love is.
~~~
I do not know if you have ever noticed that when you give total attention there is complete silence. And in that attention there is no frontier, there is no center, as the "me" who is aware or attentive. That attention, that silence, is a state of meditation.
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Meditation is the freedom from thought, and a movement in the ecstasy of truth.
~~~
It was very quiet so early in the morning and not a bird or leaf was stirring. Meditation which began at unknown depths, and went on with increasing intensity and sweep, carved the brain into total silence, scooping out the depths of thought, uprooting feeling, emptying the brain of the known and its shadow. It was an operation and there was no operator, no surgeon; it was going on, as a surgeon operates for cancer, cutting out every tissue which has been contaminated, lest the contamination should again spread. It was going on, this meditation, for an hour by the watch. And it was meditation without meditator. The meditator interferes with his stupidities and vanities, ambitions and greed. The meditator is thought, nurtured in these conflicts and injuries, and thought in meditation must totally cease. This is the foundation for meditation.
~~~
To meditate is to transcend time. Time is the distance that thought travels in its achievements. The traveling is always along the old path covered over with a new coating, new sights, but always the same road, leading nowhere--except to pain and sorrow.
It is only when the mind transcends time that truth ceases to be an abstraction. Then bliss is not an idea derived from pleasure but an actuality that is not verbal.
The emptying of the mind of time is the silence of truth, and the seeing of this is the doing; so there is no division between the seeing and the doing. In the interval between seeing and doing is born conflict, misery and confusion. That which has no time is the everlasting.
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Meditation is the seeing of what is and going beyond it.
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To me, meditation is something entirely different from what your books and
your gurus have taught you. Meditation is the process of understanding your own
mind.
Krishnamurti, Think on these Things, p. 189
~~~
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) is regarded internationally as one of the great psychological philosophers and religious teachers of all time. For over sixty years he traveled throughout the world, and gave public talks to increasingly large audiences. He has published over fourty books and founded schools in England, the United States and India. Information about his publications and recordings can be obtained from:
Krishnamurti Foundation America
P.O.Box 1560
Ojai, California 93024
Tel: (805)646-2726
www.kfa.org
~~~
The following is written by Mark Lee -- so take it with a grain of salt. He's fabricated other things to K which turned out to be false.
I asked Krishnamurti how to meditate. I was not satisfied with his talks where he said that it wasn’t this, it wasn’t that, so I asked him to teach me.
His reply and his lesson, as it was just as simple as that, was as follows:
A.) Are you ready to meditate? Are you capable? Do you have the discipline? (Most Americans have no discipline.)
B.) Sit comfortably. Sit still. Is your body quiet?
C.) Close your eyes. Don’t move your eyes while they are closed.
D.) Do you hear everything around you? Do you smell everything around you? Can you feel your body sitting?
E.) Ask yourself what is happening in your mind. Do you see thought watching thought?
F.) Do you recognize the space between two thoughts? Is it thought that sees the space or is it awareness?
G.) Meditation is when the space grows and grows and the thinker has stopped and all that is left is awareness."
- Mark Lee
~~~
MISC NOTES ON MEDITATION:
Oct 2004 - Rose wrote:
> I believe you meditate - what was it that drew you to starting it in the first place?
I learned about meditation first in a yoga class in college.
But later learned that systems of meditation are wrong.
System implies method - 1 - 2 - 3 - and you get there. But "there" is not a fixed point.
To repeat makes the mind dull.
Quietness comes naturally when the mind understands thought's limitation.
> I'm asking because I feel males in general don't engage in the practice as willingly as
> females and I'd like to understand why..
I guess in western culture where the motto is go - go - go - achieve - be aggressive - sitting quietly doesn't come too naturally. And less so for men - but I really don't know why more women are attracted to "spirituality" than men - and if that is really the case.
Thanks for asking.
Best wishes
Reza