Talk To Students. Chapter 9: On Behaviour
(This is the last chapter in which K is addressing students)
One of the most difficult things in life is to find a way of behaviour that is not dictated by circumstances. Circumstances and people dictate, or force you to behave in a certain way. The way you conduct yourself, the way you eat, the way you talk, your moral, your ethical behaviour depend on where you find yourself and so your behaviour is constantly varying, constantly changing.
This is so when you speak to your father, your mother or to your servant - your voice, your words, are quite different. The ways of behaviour are controlled by environmental influences, and by analysing behaviour you can almost predict what people will do or will not do.
Now can one ask oneself if one can behave the same inwardly, whatever the circumstances? Can one's behaviour spring from within and not depend on what people think of you or how they look at you? But that is difficult because one does not know what one is within. Within, a constant change is going on also. You are not what you were yesterday.
Now can one find for oneself a way of behaviour which is not dictated by others or by society or by circumstances or by religious sanctions, a way of behaviour that does not depend on environment?
Are we raising, addressing, this point in education?
ReplyDeleteAre we raising this point for ourselves?
I was thinking today about this, and I thought not only "which is not dictated by society or by circumstances, by religious sanctions and by the environment", by our inner tendencies, tendencies which come from a longer time than our lifespan, that come from the tendencies of our species, the tendencies shaped by the evolution of life on earth.......
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