Abstract
The Setting
This book is the outcome of talks and discussions of Krishnamurti held in India. Krishnamurthi has visited Rishi Valley School in Andhra Pradesh in giving talks on education with the students and teachers. Krishnamurti regards education as the source of transformation of the human mind and the creation of new culture. He is believing in constant awareness, sensitivity and being observant of self and nature. The role of education is to create a sensitive mind which can sense every movement that takes place internally in the mind and externally in nature.
He strongly alleged that scientific attitude and the religious spirit can only create a new mind. He discusses two instruments for the creation of a new mind. First, the instrument of knowledge that helps human beings to gain mastery over technical skills. The second is intelligence by which a human being is born. Intelligence plays an important role to cultivate the skill of observation and self-knowing. It is the task of education to discover the areas where knowledge and intelligence can be cultivated.
He emphasized the issue of freedom and order at the same time. He explains how a child grows in freedom and creates a deep sense of inner and outer order. Freedom and order cannot exist simultaneously. One must compromise the freedom for the order, and one must compromise order to get the freedom. It is a challenge for the current education system to shape the future of the new generation which gives them the freedom to be creative and which helps them to set in the existing order too.
Freedom of thought helps the students to cultivate the technical skill to invent new things. It also helps to create a new mind. On the other hand, if he is cultivated in the boundary of order, then he will be socially confined, but it cannot create a new culture. But the issue is whether the new mind can be set in the society or not. Besides the creation of new culture, the acceptance of it by society is also an important aspect of education. The role of an educationist is to balance freedom and order in education.
Introduction
The book is divided into two parts: i.e., talks to students and talks to the teacher. The nine chapters are dedicated to discussion with the students and 11 chapters are dedicated to the discussion with the teacher.
The talks begin with the concern of Krishnamurti on education. He told the student that true education cannot be learned from the books memorizing some facts. On the contrary, he suggests the students look, how to observe and how to listen. The approach of Krishnamurti is truly secular and, at the same time, has a deep sense of religious dimension. There is a significant variation in the teaching of Krishnamurti from the traditional approach where the relationship between teacher and student is hierarchical. In the traditional approach, a teacher who knows something and a student who does not know. The role of education is to impart knowledge to the students through a teacher. But in the context of Krishnamurti, the role of teacher and student is at the same level. A teacher is communicating with students by asking questions and counter-question until both are reaching the depth of the problem and exposed it; understanding is revealed by illuminating the mind.
He also makes the students aware of what is happening in the world. There is the situation of war where a nation is divided against another nation. He is also sensitizing students to create harmony with human beings, animals, birds and all the creation of God. He clears that society is nothing but the things that have been created by you and me. If education wants to change society, then it must throw the world of confusion, jealousy, war, envy and hate.
Talks to Students
In an introductory talk, Krishnamurti critically discusses the purpose of education. He asks students to retrospect the purpose of true education. The purpose of education is not only to pass the examination or get a good score on the marksheet. True education brings a sense of fullness. The reason for losing the quality of fullness is due to the self-concerned approach to education.
He has given a beautiful answer to the question raised by students ‘the world is full of callous people, indifferent people, cruel people and how can we change those people?’ He replied gently by asking why you want to change others, rather focus to change other starts to change yourself. Additionally, he asks what is it we change into? A beautiful rose cannot become a lotus and a lotus cannot become a rose, but they both can become a beautiful flower. Therefore, instead of focusing on changing others try to bring change in yourself.
Furthermore, he illuminates the students about the religious mind and the scientific mind. The scientific mind is very factual and realistic in the sense. The mission of the scientific mind is to discover a new thing and create a new culture. He clears that the scientific mind has nothing to do with the existing condition of caste, creed, religion, nationalism, race or prejudice. It investigates the structure of the earth and of the stars and the planet to explain the purpose of life.
On the contrary to the scientific mind, there is a religious mind. A truly religious mind does not belong to any group, caste, creed, religion or nationalism. The religious mind is innocent in the true sense. It is a young mind that is an extraordinarily pliable and shuttle, and it has no anchor. It is the state of mind that realizes the ultimate reality of this universe that is not measurable. It is also a creative mind. It is not connected to the past, but it is exploded in the present.
In the middle of the discussion, he clears the concept of knowledge and intelligence. It explains what knowledge is and what is intelligence. Intelligence can think objectively, clearly, sanely and healthily. In this state, there is no personal bias or involvement of emotion, prejudice, inclination and the absence of opinion. Knowledge accumulates the facts and information from the past and present. On the contrary, intelligence is the quality of the mind that is very sensitive, very alert and very aware which converts information to the concept. Hence, every knowledge is knowledge through the concept. The role of education is to transform the mind to cultivate a new concept that is unconditional. True intelligence brings sensitivity towards human existence. The role of education is not only to provide information or facts but also to cultivate intelligence to be sensitive towards facts and information.
It also explains the importance of constant awareness in life. When there is a pain in the thumb, we are aware there is pain. You need to require others to tell that there is pain. We know it. In the same way, do we know that we are conditioned into thinking that we belong to a particular race, nation or religion? The role of education is to cultivate the skill to be aware of the movement that is happening here and there. The education brings constant awareness and sensitivity towards the environment as well as every movement of thoughts and feelings that is harmonious.
He explains sensitivity and how does it come about. He also explains the importance of sensitivity for the creation of a new mind. The mind that is created in technological knowledge is very narrow and of short period. Moreover, it is bound to a great deal of sorrow and misery. Education should cultivate the mind to feel very strongly about everything.
As we know that all the people want to get away from the fear. Krishnamurti explains what fear is and why do we want to get away from the fear. Is the fear good or bad? How education helps the student to understand the fear rather than get rid of it. He clarifies that fear is always in time. To eliminate fear, we must consider thoughts in time and then inquire into this whole process of thinking.
The talks to the students concluded by the discussion of the role of education to shape the behaviour of the individual. He talks about violence, image-making and behaviour at the last. There is a great deal of violence in the world. He is talking about both physical and psychological violence. You must be educated so that you become a beautiful, healthy, sane, rational human being, not a brutal man with a very clever brain who can argue and defend his brutality. He warns students about future violence that they are going to be faced. He makes the sense that the student used to forget the lesson that they learned and used to catch in the stream of society. They also become like the rest of the work and forget to bring about a new society and a new culture.
Finally, he talks about image creation. How are we making our image out of the experience, knowledge, struggle, conflicts and miseries of our life? As we become older, the image becomes stronger and larger. The role of education is to help the students to make the image unconditionally which is clear without any conflict. We used to understand the world in the context of the image created by ourselves. We do not see things in themselves, but we see the things that we mean to see. The most difficult challenge of education is to find a way of behaviour that is not conditioned by external circumstances. He explains what it is to love people. Love is a feeling in which there is no possessiveness, there is no jealousy or ambition. There is kindness, softness, sensitivity and deliberation, in which there is beauty.
Talks to Teachers
The 11 chapters are dedicated to the talks and discussions with the teachers. Krishnamurti is discussing right education, long vision, action, competition, fear, teaching and learning, good mind, positive and negative approach, flowering, meditation and education.
He is explaining the role of teachers in the transformation of the mind and the creation of new culture. He warns the teachers against education in a competitive environment. He explains how education helps to flower the mind of students. He elucidates that there is not a particular method of education. The students want to be successful in their professional career and at the same time he also wants to be peaceful men. The education imparted through or techniques creates a contradiction in their life. Education should not only cultivate the technological mind but also discover the deeper layers of the human mind. Technology cannot produce a perfect society. A great society may not be a good society. Technology can create a society where there is no poverty, where there is material equality, but it may not create a good society where human beings are living peacefully.
He argues that students must be free to be creative and sensitive. He also differentiates the learning and acquiring knowledge. The accumulation of knowledge ceases learning. The next is the immediacy of action. Education should not become an end. To educate the mind to have a long vision, a wide comprehension of life. It is not possible if the education is based on the author.
Education should awaken the mind and keep the mind alive. A mind can be kept alive through knowledge. The knowledge which is acquired in a time is also a limited mind. But a mind which is not functioning in time is extraordinarily alive, alert, is tremendously alive and it can impart aliveness to a mind which is innocent, objective and clear.
In the middle of the discussion, he talks about the problem-solving approach. He suggests that when a problem arises, one should solve it immediately. For that, you must understand the problem first. The understanding of problems should not be a matter of time; otherwise, it will create a conflict and contradiction within us. Perception and understanding are not matters of time rather the perception is a matter of the intense intensity of observation and looking the things holistically. The capacity to see things holistically gives the energy to deal with something immediately.
He also clarifies the difference between sensitivity and sensation. A mind that is the slave of thought, feeling and emotion is the residual mind. The mind created out of these would be conditional. The role of education is to create the mind without residue, or the marks created from the experience, emotion and of the past.
He preaches the philosophy of no naming here. Instead of giving the name to the beauty of flowers we should see that flower, feel it, see the beauty, the intensity and its extraordinary brilliance. The names make it ugly. The challenge of education is to translate what you have understood to the students. He stresses his discussion on the education that derived from the competition. It is the inborn attitude of an individual to be competitive and aggressive. This is not only limited to economic and social life but also found in religious life. It is the challenge of education to proceed with it where the students learn away from the attitude of competition and comparison.
He suggests that instead of verbalizing the things let us teach the students to experience the things. The role of education is to teach the students in this manner. The role of education is to create a real human being, not a machine.
He warns again the teacher not to transmit your fear to the students. He suggests teachers about helping the students to be free from fear. Help them to look at themselves, help him to be aware of nature, and to turn them into the world where he feels more conscious of the fear.
In the lesson of teaching and learning, fearlessness does not mean that the students can do what they like but it is to be free from the sense of all apprehensions and anxieties. Teaching is a creative thing. It is not merely something that we can learn and repeat.
The philosophy on flowering is the cherry on the cake of his philosophy. One must allow blossoming their emotion to be alive, to be physically alive, to be in very good health, to be sensitive emotionally, to feel, to have a quality of sympathy and to have a very good mind. Let it grow and expand so that it withers and dies without touching it. The crux of real education is to be flowering an idea. Do not see the fact, the symptom and the course, and allow that cause to blossom right now. Let it flower and let us see what happens. Then it would discover. We must investigate the idea.
Finally, he emphasizes the importance of meditation in education. Meditation is the process of concentration of mind and the purification of mind. It helps both teachers and students to be alive. The first thing in the meditation is the quietness of the body followed by the quietness of the mind.
Conclusion
The action speaks louder than the world. The life of J Krishnamurti is the reflection of his talks and philosophy. He has sacrificed the most attractive offers of being a world preacher (Jagat guru) for the sake of his philosophy. He dissolved the theosophist society and spent the rest of his life enlightening the people. His talks and discussions were highly interactive where he is trying to reach the source of the problem and reveal the understanding of reality. The focus of his learning was the transformation of the mind which is not born out from past experiences, emotions, thoughts and prejudices. He strongly emphasizes that an unconditional mind can only create a new world without any kind of chaos, comparison, competition or boundaries. The thoughts on the religious mind and scientific mind learning and acquiring knowledge and knowledge and intelligence are highly appealing in the current context. The role of education is to bring harmony between the human being and nature, that is, it should cultivate reverence for mankind, reverence for animals and birds, reverence for nature and reverence for all creations of God.