Krishnamurti – Education and the Significance of Life

The beginning of the second chapter stars with this sentence:

“The ignorant man is not the unlearned but he who does not know himself and the learned man is stupid when he relies on boks, on knowledge and on authority to give him understanding.”

This small book by Jiddu Krishnamurti goes straight to the roots of our society, or our societal and personal beliefs, it shakes those roots of the dirt they have gathered (not moss but thick dirt), examines them and then Jiddu provides his opinion.  Here are some excerpts from this book which I highly recommend:

“The exclusive cultivation of technique has produced scientists, mathematicians, bridge builders, space conquerors; but do they understand the total process of life?  Can any specialist experience life as a whole?  Only when he ceases to be a specialist.”

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“The man who knows how to split the atom but has no love in his heart becomes a monster.”

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“We choose a vocation according to our capacities; but will the following of a vocation leaad us out of conflict and confusion?  Some form of technical training seems necessary; but when we have become engineers, physicians, accountants – then what?  Is the practice of a profession the fulfilment of life?”

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“The right kind of education, while encouraging the learning of a technique, should accomplish something which is of far greater importance: it should help man to experience the integrated process of life.  It is this experiencing that wil put capacity and technique in their right place.”

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“If we are fully aware of what is, we shall understand it and so be free of it; but to be aware of what we are, we must stop struggling after something which we are not.”

“Ideals have no place in education for they prevent the comprehension of the present.  Surely, we can be aware of what is only when we do not escape into the future.  To look to the future, to strain after an ideal, indicates sluggishness of mind and a desire to avoid the present.”

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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.”

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“Only love can bring about the understanding of another”

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“There can be no integration as long as one is pursuing an ideal pattern of action; and most teachers who are idealists have put away love, they have dry minds and hard hearts  To study a child, one has to be alert, watchful, self-aware, and this demands far greater intelligence and affection than to encourage him to follow and ideal.”

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“Ideals are an actual hindrance to our understanding of the child and to the child’s understanding of himself.”

“Ideals are a convenient escape, and the teacher who follows them is incapacble of understanding his students and dealing with them intelligently; for him, the future ideal, the what should be, is far more important then the present child.  The pursuit of an ideal excludes love, and without love no human problem can be solved.”

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“Freedom can never come through discipline, through resistance; freedom is not a goal, an end to be achieved.  Freedom is at the beginning, not at the end, it is not to be found in some distant ideal.”

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“Most parents and teachers are afraid of discontent because it is disturbing to all forms of security, and so they encourage the young to overcome it through safe jobs, inheritance, marriage and the consolation of religious dogmas.  Elders, knowing only too well the many ways of blunting the mind and the heart, proceed to make the child as dull as they are by impressing upon him the authorities, traditions and beliefs which they themselves have accepted.”

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“To understand a child we have to watch him at play, study him in his different moods; we cannot project upon him our own prejudices, hopes and fears, or mould him to fit the patter of our desires.”

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“Individual enlightenment does affect large groups of people, but only if one is not eager for results.  If one thinks in terms of gain and effect, right transformation of oneself is not possible.”

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“To understand ourselves, we must be aware of our relationship, not only with people, but also with property, with ideas and with nature.”

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“Relationship based on sensation can never be a means of release from the self; yet most of our relationships are based on sensation, they are the outcome of our desire for personal advantage, for comfort, for psychological security.”

“Relationship is a mirror in which the self and all its activities can be seen; and it is only when the ways of the self are understood in the reactions of relationship that there is creative release from the self.”

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“We may find a remporary release by joining groups, by studying methods of social and economic reform, by enacting legislation, or by praying; but do what we will, without self-knowledge and the love that is inherent in it, our problems will ever expand and multiply.”

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“Ignorance is lack of knowledge of the ways of the self, and this ignorance cannot be dissipated by superficial activities and reforms; it can be dissipated only by one’s constant awareness of the movements and responses of the self in all its relationships.”

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“The urge to conform, which is the desire for security, breeds fear and brings to the fore the political and religious authorities, the leaders and heroes who encourage subservience and by whom we are subtly or grossly dominated; but not to conform is only a reaction against authority, and in no way helps us to become integrated human beings.  Reaction is endless, it only leads to further reaction.”

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“To be free from all fear, we must be awake to its darkening influence, and only constant watchfulness can reveal its many causes.”

“Authority is created by our desire to be right, to be secure, to be comfortabel, to have no conscious conflicts or disturbances…”

“To have peace, one must employ peaceful means; for if the means are violent, how can the end be peaceful?  If the end is freedom, the beginning must be free, for the end and the beginning are one.  There can be self-knowledge and intelligence only when there is freedom at the very outset; and the freedom is denied by the acceptance of authority.”