Monday, May 30, 2011
Talk to teachers, Chapter 9, part 2
What is it you want the student to discover for himself? Are these vain questions? If you consider them seriously what would be your reaction? Machines are going to take over. The perfect teacher, who is really excellent in his subject, can teach a class and his instructions can be recorded through tapes and distributed throughout the world and the ordinary teacher can utilize them and instruct the student. So, the responsibility for good teaching may be taken out of individual hands, though you may need a teacher. You may say that what happens in fifty years is not your immediate problem. But a really good educator must be concerned not only with the immediate but be prepared for the future - future not in the sense of the day after, or a thousand days after tomorrow, but the tendency of this extraordinary development of the mind.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Talk to teachers, Chapter 9, part 1
Talk To Teachers. Chapter 9: On The Negative Approach
Krishnamurti: What do you think is right education, not for any particular group of children, the children of the rich or the poor, the children of the village or of the town, but children? How would you bring up a child knowing that walls of destructive nationalism divide people?
Machines are taking over man's labour and man is going to have more leisure. There will be electronic brains, machines which will run by themselves. Man is going to have a great deal of leisure, perhaps not immediately, but in fifty or a hundred years time. Taking into account the advance of technology, growing systematization, the acceptance of authority and tyranny in the world, what do you consider is the direction of education? What would you consider is the direction of the whole development of man?
Krishnamurti: What do you think is right education, not for any particular group of children, the children of the rich or the poor, the children of the village or of the town, but children? How would you bring up a child knowing that walls of destructive nationalism divide people?
Machines are taking over man's labour and man is going to have more leisure. There will be electronic brains, machines which will run by themselves. Man is going to have a great deal of leisure, perhaps not immediately, but in fifty or a hundred years time. Taking into account the advance of technology, growing systematization, the acceptance of authority and tyranny in the world, what do you consider is the direction of education? What would you consider is the direction of the whole development of man?
Talk to teachers, Chapter 8, part 2. End of chapter 8.
This is not going from the vast to the ridiculous, for this school is a miniature of what is taking place in the world and, seeing the destructive chaos, misery, suffering, I feel there is only one answer and that is the creation of a new mind. What is essential is a different mind that will look at all problems and find a solution and not create new problems. I think the right kind of education does bring about the good mind, the total development of man, and it seems to me that is the major issue not only in this valley but also in the rest of the world.
How can one bring about a good mind, a mind that sees all these co-relations, not only at the superficial level but a mind that can penetrate inwardly? It seems to me that the problem of education is to see whether it is possible to cultivate an intelligence which is not the result of influence, an intelligence which is not the learning of certain techniques and the earning of a livelihood. They are part of education but surely they are not the only function of education? Now how do you educate a child so that he is able to face life and not merely conform to the established patterns of society, to certain modes of conduct? So that he can go much further, deeper into the whole problem of existence?
I do not know if you have ever considered what a good mind is. Is it a good mind that has the capacity to retain what it reads, and functions from memory? The electronic brain is doing this marvellously. It calculates at astonishing speed some of the most complicated mathematical problems. It functions, I have been told, in the same way as the human brain, doing the desired calculations.
Is a good mind one that repeats, like a gramophone, what it has been told? That is our education, isn't it? The learning of facts, dates, to repeat them once a year when a boy takes his examination. Can this be called cultivating a good mind? And yet is this not what most of us are doing when we are teaching? So the mere addition to knowledge, which is really the cultivation of memory, is just an additive process. it does not engender a clear, good mind, does it? Negatively, one can see that the mere cultivation of memory does not bring about a good mind although most of our existence is based on this. And yet, one must have memory, one must have a very good memory to remember certain things, to be a good technician. So, at what point does memory interfere with a good mind capable of explanation, investigation and discovery? At what point does memory interfere with real freedom?
I do not know if you have ever considered the man who invented the jet aeroplane. He had first to understand the whole problem of the piston-propeller engine. He had to know it, but after knowing it, he had to put it away in order to discover something new. The specialists, until they really discover something new, merely continue a better and more complicated technique, but if a man is to invent something new he has to let go of the old.
Teacher: Sir, you have said that perception of a fact leads to knowledge in the right direction, whereas ideals lead to escapes. Can you make the statement clearer?
Krishnamurti: How do ideals come into being, and what is the need for ideals? The ideal of what should be, which is away from the fact, limits the mind and makes it static. If a child merely conforms to certain ideals, to the words of certain teachers, to the words of his father, grandfather, uncle and so on, that restrains energy and limits knowledge, does it not? All conformity limits knowledge. If I am an art teacher and I teach children to copy, which is imitation, it does not really help creative perception or expression, does it? Now let us see what happens when there is perception of the fact. I perceive that I am stupid. There is perception, realization, awareness of the fact that I am stupid. That is, I do not give explanations or offer an opinion about my stupidity and thereby escape through explanation. The observation of a fact without justification or condemnation releases tremendous energy. Now is there a release of energy through conformity, through motive, through mere acceptance? And can one function in the framework of that acceptance?
Teacher: Physically, there is.
Krishnamurti: Is physical energy released by conforming? What is the motive behind this extraordinary urge in most of us to conform to a pattern? What is the compulsive urge behind this? Obviously it is the desire to be secure, is it not? Security in your relationship with your wife, with your husband, in the good opinion of the public or a friend. All this indicates the desire not only for economic security but inward mental security or certainty, does it not?
Teacher: The demand for security is the desire to have peace of mind.
Krishnamurti: I need a certain amount of security. I must have a job. If I am uncertain of my next meal I would not be sitting here talking. Does the desire for peace mean that we should have a mind that will never be disturbed? And why should we not be disturbed? What is wrong if we are disturbed? Much of the world is disturbed. Why should we not be disturbed? And, is not the mind which says, "I must not be disturbed", really a dead mind? There can be no state of mind which says, "l am perfectly safe," there can be no mind which is so certain that it will never be disturbed. I think that is the kind of mind most of us want and that is why we conform endlessly. If you had a son, you would want him to conform to the pattern of society because you do not want him to be a revolutionary. So, I am asking what is behind this demand for security, certainty, this hope in which despair is included?
We will come back to it in different way. I am just asking myself, why this urge? Is it fear? I am afraid of not being able to take care of my family and therefore I hold on to my job. I am afraid my wife may not care for me, or my husband may not care for me. I possess property. I am afraid that property may be taken away from me. Behind that threat there is a sense of fear, a desire to be secure.
Teacher: We can only be secure when there is no fear.
Krishnamurti: Wait a minute. Is that possible? You know what fear is. If most of us were free from all fear, you know what would happen? We would do exactly what we want to do. Fear restrains us, is that not so? But we are asking if a mind that is afraid, anxious, is it ever secure? I may have a good job, I may love my wife or husband, but am I secure when this fear is going on in me? To have no fear, which is an extraordinary state, is to be free of the problem of security. Is it possible for this mind to understand fear and be free from fear? Whatever such a mind does, being free, is right action.
How will you educate a group of children to be fearless? Which does not mean that they can do what they like - but to be free from the sense of all apprehension, anxiety? Will this not release an enormous amount of energy?
How do you set about educating the child? You are afraid and you see that fear is most disturbing. It is the worst form of destruction. How do I educate a boy to be without fear? What is it a teacher can do to translate this into action? Is it to allow the child to think freely? You see the importance of being without fear, because it is death to live in a state of fear. Whether it is conscious or unconscious fear, it troubles your mind. How will you help a child not to be afraid and yet to live with others? He cannot do whatever he likes, he cannot say, "I need not go to the class because I am fearless." Then what makes a child, a student, free? What gives him the deep impression that he is free, not to do what he likes, but free. If a child feels that you are really looking after him, that you care for him, that he is completely at home with you, completely secure with you, that he is not afraid of you, then he respects you and he listens to you because you are looking after him and he has complete confidence in you. He is then at peace with what you tell him. So open the door to him to be without fear. How else will you proceed?
First of all you have to establish a relationship with the student, let him know that you really care for him, that he can really feel at home with you and therefore he can be completely at ease and feel secure. It is not a theory, it is not an idea. What will you do if your student fails in an examination? One boy may not be as quick as the other boy and yet he must learn. How will you encourage learning without fear? If you say one boy is better than another, it engenders fear. How will you avoid all this and yet help the child to learn? The child comes from a home where he has been brought up differently. His whole life is geared to achievement, success, and he comes here with all his background of fear and competition. How are you to help him?
Teacher: You can help him learn according to his individual capacity.
Krishnamurti: Let us go slowly. How is it to be done? This school is in your hands. You have to create something out of it. Teaching is a creative thing, it is not merely something you can learn and repeat. How are you going to teach the children in your class for whom you have a feeling of love. Remember they are not interested in learning. They want to have a good time. They want to play cricket, watch birds, and occasionally look at a book. The fact is they want to do the easiest thing. If you leave it to them the more they are secure with you, the more they will exploit you. How will you help them to learn? You have to find ways to teach them and that is going to release your energy to devise mean of making subjects interesting for the child.
Before you proceed with a child, what is the state of your mind which wants to help the child to learn subjects in which he is not interested?
Teacher: It is the urge to share your learning with the child.
Krishnamurti: I want these children to learn because learning is part of existence and the child can only learn if there is no fear. I must teach the child so that he learns without fear, which means I have to explode with this feeling of wanting to share with that boy. Do you know the state of mind that wants to share with another? That itself seems to be the right feeling. Do you know what that implies? The fact is I know more, the child knows less, and I have a feeling that he must learn, that he must be capable of sharing. We both are learning, which means we are going through an experience together. The child and I are then already in a state of communication. Once I have established the right relationship or communication between myself and the child, he is going to learn because he has confidence in me.
Teacher: The teacher may be very fond of the child, but still the child is not willing to learn, the child is not interested.
Krishnamurti: I question it. When the child has confidence in you, do you think he will not learn any subject you want him to? What we are trying to do is to establish relationship. If that is possible, then will I not convey to the child the importance of learning a subject?
This morning when we began to talk there was no communication between the speaker and the audience. Now we have established some kind of communication and we are trying to work the thing out together. Can we not do the same thing with children?
How can one bring about a good mind, a mind that sees all these co-relations, not only at the superficial level but a mind that can penetrate inwardly? It seems to me that the problem of education is to see whether it is possible to cultivate an intelligence which is not the result of influence, an intelligence which is not the learning of certain techniques and the earning of a livelihood. They are part of education but surely they are not the only function of education? Now how do you educate a child so that he is able to face life and not merely conform to the established patterns of society, to certain modes of conduct? So that he can go much further, deeper into the whole problem of existence?
I do not know if you have ever considered what a good mind is. Is it a good mind that has the capacity to retain what it reads, and functions from memory? The electronic brain is doing this marvellously. It calculates at astonishing speed some of the most complicated mathematical problems. It functions, I have been told, in the same way as the human brain, doing the desired calculations.
Is a good mind one that repeats, like a gramophone, what it has been told? That is our education, isn't it? The learning of facts, dates, to repeat them once a year when a boy takes his examination. Can this be called cultivating a good mind? And yet is this not what most of us are doing when we are teaching? So the mere addition to knowledge, which is really the cultivation of memory, is just an additive process. it does not engender a clear, good mind, does it? Negatively, one can see that the mere cultivation of memory does not bring about a good mind although most of our existence is based on this. And yet, one must have memory, one must have a very good memory to remember certain things, to be a good technician. So, at what point does memory interfere with a good mind capable of explanation, investigation and discovery? At what point does memory interfere with real freedom?
I do not know if you have ever considered the man who invented the jet aeroplane. He had first to understand the whole problem of the piston-propeller engine. He had to know it, but after knowing it, he had to put it away in order to discover something new. The specialists, until they really discover something new, merely continue a better and more complicated technique, but if a man is to invent something new he has to let go of the old.
Teacher: Sir, you have said that perception of a fact leads to knowledge in the right direction, whereas ideals lead to escapes. Can you make the statement clearer?
Krishnamurti: How do ideals come into being, and what is the need for ideals? The ideal of what should be, which is away from the fact, limits the mind and makes it static. If a child merely conforms to certain ideals, to the words of certain teachers, to the words of his father, grandfather, uncle and so on, that restrains energy and limits knowledge, does it not? All conformity limits knowledge. If I am an art teacher and I teach children to copy, which is imitation, it does not really help creative perception or expression, does it? Now let us see what happens when there is perception of the fact. I perceive that I am stupid. There is perception, realization, awareness of the fact that I am stupid. That is, I do not give explanations or offer an opinion about my stupidity and thereby escape through explanation. The observation of a fact without justification or condemnation releases tremendous energy. Now is there a release of energy through conformity, through motive, through mere acceptance? And can one function in the framework of that acceptance?
Teacher: Physically, there is.
Krishnamurti: Is physical energy released by conforming? What is the motive behind this extraordinary urge in most of us to conform to a pattern? What is the compulsive urge behind this? Obviously it is the desire to be secure, is it not? Security in your relationship with your wife, with your husband, in the good opinion of the public or a friend. All this indicates the desire not only for economic security but inward mental security or certainty, does it not?
Teacher: The demand for security is the desire to have peace of mind.
Krishnamurti: I need a certain amount of security. I must have a job. If I am uncertain of my next meal I would not be sitting here talking. Does the desire for peace mean that we should have a mind that will never be disturbed? And why should we not be disturbed? What is wrong if we are disturbed? Much of the world is disturbed. Why should we not be disturbed? And, is not the mind which says, "I must not be disturbed", really a dead mind? There can be no state of mind which says, "l am perfectly safe," there can be no mind which is so certain that it will never be disturbed. I think that is the kind of mind most of us want and that is why we conform endlessly. If you had a son, you would want him to conform to the pattern of society because you do not want him to be a revolutionary. So, I am asking what is behind this demand for security, certainty, this hope in which despair is included?
We will come back to it in different way. I am just asking myself, why this urge? Is it fear? I am afraid of not being able to take care of my family and therefore I hold on to my job. I am afraid my wife may not care for me, or my husband may not care for me. I possess property. I am afraid that property may be taken away from me. Behind that threat there is a sense of fear, a desire to be secure.
Teacher: We can only be secure when there is no fear.
Krishnamurti: Wait a minute. Is that possible? You know what fear is. If most of us were free from all fear, you know what would happen? We would do exactly what we want to do. Fear restrains us, is that not so? But we are asking if a mind that is afraid, anxious, is it ever secure? I may have a good job, I may love my wife or husband, but am I secure when this fear is going on in me? To have no fear, which is an extraordinary state, is to be free of the problem of security. Is it possible for this mind to understand fear and be free from fear? Whatever such a mind does, being free, is right action.
How will you educate a group of children to be fearless? Which does not mean that they can do what they like - but to be free from the sense of all apprehension, anxiety? Will this not release an enormous amount of energy?
How do you set about educating the child? You are afraid and you see that fear is most disturbing. It is the worst form of destruction. How do I educate a boy to be without fear? What is it a teacher can do to translate this into action? Is it to allow the child to think freely? You see the importance of being without fear, because it is death to live in a state of fear. Whether it is conscious or unconscious fear, it troubles your mind. How will you help a child not to be afraid and yet to live with others? He cannot do whatever he likes, he cannot say, "I need not go to the class because I am fearless." Then what makes a child, a student, free? What gives him the deep impression that he is free, not to do what he likes, but free. If a child feels that you are really looking after him, that you care for him, that he is completely at home with you, completely secure with you, that he is not afraid of you, then he respects you and he listens to you because you are looking after him and he has complete confidence in you. He is then at peace with what you tell him. So open the door to him to be without fear. How else will you proceed?
First of all you have to establish a relationship with the student, let him know that you really care for him, that he can really feel at home with you and therefore he can be completely at ease and feel secure. It is not a theory, it is not an idea. What will you do if your student fails in an examination? One boy may not be as quick as the other boy and yet he must learn. How will you encourage learning without fear? If you say one boy is better than another, it engenders fear. How will you avoid all this and yet help the child to learn? The child comes from a home where he has been brought up differently. His whole life is geared to achievement, success, and he comes here with all his background of fear and competition. How are you to help him?
Teacher: You can help him learn according to his individual capacity.
Krishnamurti: Let us go slowly. How is it to be done? This school is in your hands. You have to create something out of it. Teaching is a creative thing, it is not merely something you can learn and repeat. How are you going to teach the children in your class for whom you have a feeling of love. Remember they are not interested in learning. They want to have a good time. They want to play cricket, watch birds, and occasionally look at a book. The fact is they want to do the easiest thing. If you leave it to them the more they are secure with you, the more they will exploit you. How will you help them to learn? You have to find ways to teach them and that is going to release your energy to devise mean of making subjects interesting for the child.
Before you proceed with a child, what is the state of your mind which wants to help the child to learn subjects in which he is not interested?
Teacher: It is the urge to share your learning with the child.
Krishnamurti: I want these children to learn because learning is part of existence and the child can only learn if there is no fear. I must teach the child so that he learns without fear, which means I have to explode with this feeling of wanting to share with that boy. Do you know the state of mind that wants to share with another? That itself seems to be the right feeling. Do you know what that implies? The fact is I know more, the child knows less, and I have a feeling that he must learn, that he must be capable of sharing. We both are learning, which means we are going through an experience together. The child and I are then already in a state of communication. Once I have established the right relationship or communication between myself and the child, he is going to learn because he has confidence in me.
Teacher: The teacher may be very fond of the child, but still the child is not willing to learn, the child is not interested.
Krishnamurti: I question it. When the child has confidence in you, do you think he will not learn any subject you want him to? What we are trying to do is to establish relationship. If that is possible, then will I not convey to the child the importance of learning a subject?
This morning when we began to talk there was no communication between the speaker and the audience. Now we have established some kind of communication and we are trying to work the thing out together. Can we not do the same thing with children?
Monday, May 23, 2011
Talk to teachers, Chapter 8, part 1
Talk To Teachers. Chapter 8: On The Good Mind
Krishnamurti: I think that most of us have a fairly comprehensive view of what is happening in the world. Looking at the historical process, the appalling travesty of peace, one must have ask oneself what life is all about. There is the enslaving of whole masses of people; there is corruption and talk of democracy; religions have failed, only superstitions remain. There is the dead weight of tradition, the innumerable gurus, soothsayers, monks, astrologers. There is poverty, degradation, the squalor of existence. And there is also a sense of deep despair. So, seeing this immense suffering, what is our answer to it all? There are people who say that what is needed is not a new system or a new philosophy, but rather a new type of leadership, a new type of man who has immense authority not only in the state but in his own idealistic strength. But do we want new leaders? What we need is freedom from leaders.
When we see this vast confusion, economic strangulation and imbalance, and come to Rishi Valley, what is it that a school of this kind can do, and should do? Can we discuss this? Not as an ideal, for ideals of any kind are very detrimental. Ideals prevent us from looking at facts, and it is only a concern with facts and the understanding of facts which releases an energy that is the movement in the right direction. Ideals merely engender various forms of escape. Let us consider all this and see what we can do here in this school.
Krishnamurti: I think that most of us have a fairly comprehensive view of what is happening in the world. Looking at the historical process, the appalling travesty of peace, one must have ask oneself what life is all about. There is the enslaving of whole masses of people; there is corruption and talk of democracy; religions have failed, only superstitions remain. There is the dead weight of tradition, the innumerable gurus, soothsayers, monks, astrologers. There is poverty, degradation, the squalor of existence. And there is also a sense of deep despair. So, seeing this immense suffering, what is our answer to it all? There are people who say that what is needed is not a new system or a new philosophy, but rather a new type of leadership, a new type of man who has immense authority not only in the state but in his own idealistic strength. But do we want new leaders? What we need is freedom from leaders.
When we see this vast confusion, economic strangulation and imbalance, and come to Rishi Valley, what is it that a school of this kind can do, and should do? Can we discuss this? Not as an ideal, for ideals of any kind are very detrimental. Ideals prevent us from looking at facts, and it is only a concern with facts and the understanding of facts which releases an energy that is the movement in the right direction. Ideals merely engender various forms of escape. Let us consider all this and see what we can do here in this school.
Talk to teachers, Chapter 7, part 3. End of chapter 7.
Teacher: That seems to be a vicious circle. The mind is involved in getting rid of a pattern of thinking and in order to understand the process of thinking it needs a certain sensitivity which the mind does not have.
Krishnamurti: Take a thought, any kind of thought. Go into it. See why you have such a thought, what is involved in it, understand it, do not leave it till you have completely unearthed all the roots of it.
Teacher: That can only be done if the instrument which is doing it, is sensitive.
Krishnamurti: As you go into one particular thought you are beginning to understand the instrument which is examining that thought. Then what is important is not the thought but the observer who is examining the thought. And the observer is the thought which says: "I do not like that thought, I like this thought." So you attack the core of thought and not just the symptoms. And as you are a teacher, how will you create this or bring about this attentive observation, this examination without any judgement, in a student?
If I may ask: How do you teach? What is the environment, the condition, the atmosphere, in which teaching and learning are possible? You teach, say, history, and the student learns. What is the atmosphere, the environment, the quality in the room in which teaching and learning are taking place?
Teacher: There is a special atmosphere when the teacher and the student are both attending.
Krishnamurti: I do not want to use the word "attention". If you learn anything from the teacher, what is the nature of that communication, of receiving and learning? For a flower to grow it must have rain, do you understand?
Teacher: Could we approach it negatively.
Krishnamurti: In any way you like. I am asking you to teach science. What is the atmosphere in the room where you teach science? Where the teacher and the student are learning, teaching? What is the quality necessary, what is the atmosphere, the smell, the perfume?
Teacher: A quiet and calm environment.
Krishnamurti: You are idealistic and I am not. I have not one ideal inside me, I just want to know the fact. You are moving away from the fact, that is what I object to. When you teach and they learn, in the class room, what is the atmosphere? The atmosphere is the fact.
Teacher: Friendliness between the teacher and the student.
Krishnamurti: You are not facing the fact. You teach and you also know and when the student is to learn, there must be a certain quality, and I am asking what is that quality? Have you actually experienced the quality where this communication is mutual, where the learning is the teaching?
Teacher: In the beginning I thought that when I teach, I am handing over some facts to the students, but now I understand that when I am teaching there is also a learning. This happens at rare moments when there is exploration, when both the teacher and the student are exploring together.
Krishnamurti: What is the state when that exploration together takes place? What is the atmosphere, the relationship? What is the word you would use to express that state in which communication is possible?
Teacher: Curiosity.
Krishnamurti: What do you teach?
Teacher: Hindi.
Krishnamurti: The children are anxious to know and you are anxious to teach. Now, what atmosphere does it create? What takes place?
Teacher: The children listen to me.
Krishnamurti: You say children listen to you. You want to tell them something. What has happened, I wish you would examine this.
Teacher: There is a state of alertness.
Krishnamurti: I want to go a little bit more into the matter. The moment you say it is alertness you have already put it in a framework. I am trying to prevent you and myself from defining it.
Teacher: When the object is there, the object of learning and teaching, both operate; from this there is a fluidity, a movement; and temporarily, this state is slightly different from the other states I know.
Krishnamurti: There is attention when the teacher and the taught, both have a drive to learn and to teach. You have to create a feeling, an atmosphere, in the room. Just now we have created an atmosphere - because I want to find out and you want to find out. Is it possible to maintain this atmosphere, in which alone teaching and learning are possible?
We started by asking how to communicate this sense of enquiry into thinking, into motive, to the student. I asked you, how do you teach, that is, how do you convey anything? And I asked what takes place when you actually teach. What is the atmosphere when you are teaching? Is it a slack atmosphere or a tense atmosphere? Now, if you have not examined your thinking, the mechanism of thinking, to convey the sense of enquiry to the student is impossible. But if you have done it in yourself, you are bound to create the atmosphere. And I feel that atmosphere, that attention, is the essential quality of teaching and learning.
Teacher: You have said that definition of a fact is something quite different from the experiencing of that fact. Now in all this there seems to be a gap between the definition and the actual doing of something. You also asked: Have you ever done something for its own sake because you love it? How does one, without examining one's motives, without all these ramifications, get to the heart of something?
Krishnamurti: That is just what I was trying to get at. To see something totally is the ending of time or the comprehending of it. Can one see if there is a motive in teaching and learning at any level? Life is a constant process of teaching and learning: To teach and to learn is not possible if there is a motive, and when we have a motive the state of teaching and learning is not possible. Now, watch this carefully: In the very nature of teaching and learning there is humility. You are the teacher and you are the taught. So there is no pupil and no teacher, no guru and no sishya, there is only teaching and learning, which is going on in me. I am learning and I am also teaching myself; the whole process is one. That is important. That gives vitality, a sense of depth, and that is prevented if I have a motive. As teaching-learning is important, everything else becomes secondary and therefore, motive disappears. What is important drives away the unimportant. Therefore it is finished: I do not have to examine my motives day after day.
Teacher: It is not very clear to me, sir.
Krishnamurti: First of all, life is a process of learning. It is not saying "I have learned" and a settling back. Life is a process of learning and I cannot learn if there is a motive. If that is very clear, that life is a process of learning, then motive has no place. Motive has a place when you are using learning to get something. So the essential fact drives away all the unessential trivialities, in which motive is included.
Teacher: Should there be a concern for the essential, as a fact?
Krishnamurti: But the fact is the essential. Life is the essential. Life is "what is". Otherwise it is not life. If motive is not, "what is" is. If you understand the fact of sorrow, the "other" comes into being. You cannot come to the "other" without understanding motive, the unessential.
Teacher: So there cannot be concern for the essential.
Krishnamurti: Understand the fact, which is important, and go into it. If you are ambitious, be completely ambitious. Let there be no double thinking. Be either ambitious or see the fact of ambition. Both are facts, and when you examine one fact, go into it completely. If you go into the fact completely, the fact will begin to show what is involved in ambition. The fact of ambition will begin to unravel itself and then there is no ambition.
Most religious people have invented theories about facts. But they do not understand "the fact". Having established a theory they hope it will ward off the actual fact; it cannot. So do not try to establish any essential fact. See how you slip into wrong action. There is no essential fact, there is only fact - you see the point? And one fact does not conform to another fact. The moment it is conforming, it is not a fact. If you look at the fact with a referent, with what you can get out of that fact, then you will never see the fact. To look at the fact is the only thing that matters. There is no fact that is superior or inferior, there is only fact. That is the ruthless thing. If I am a lawyer, I am a lawyer. I do not find excuses for it. Seeing that fact, going into it, seeing the motives, the fact and its complexities are revealed, and then you are out of it.
But if you say, "I must always the truth", that is an ideal. That is a false assumption. So do not move from what you consider the unimportant fact to what you consider the more important fact. There is only fact, not the less or the more. It really does something to you to look at life that way. You banish all illusion, all dissipation of energy of the mind, the brain, at one stroke. The mind then operates in precision without any deception, without hatred, without hypocrisy. The mind then becomes very clear, sharp. That is the way to live.
Krishnamurti: Take a thought, any kind of thought. Go into it. See why you have such a thought, what is involved in it, understand it, do not leave it till you have completely unearthed all the roots of it.
Teacher: That can only be done if the instrument which is doing it, is sensitive.
Krishnamurti: As you go into one particular thought you are beginning to understand the instrument which is examining that thought. Then what is important is not the thought but the observer who is examining the thought. And the observer is the thought which says: "I do not like that thought, I like this thought." So you attack the core of thought and not just the symptoms. And as you are a teacher, how will you create this or bring about this attentive observation, this examination without any judgement, in a student?
If I may ask: How do you teach? What is the environment, the condition, the atmosphere, in which teaching and learning are possible? You teach, say, history, and the student learns. What is the atmosphere, the environment, the quality in the room in which teaching and learning are taking place?
Teacher: There is a special atmosphere when the teacher and the student are both attending.
Krishnamurti: I do not want to use the word "attention". If you learn anything from the teacher, what is the nature of that communication, of receiving and learning? For a flower to grow it must have rain, do you understand?
Teacher: Could we approach it negatively.
Krishnamurti: In any way you like. I am asking you to teach science. What is the atmosphere in the room where you teach science? Where the teacher and the student are learning, teaching? What is the quality necessary, what is the atmosphere, the smell, the perfume?
Teacher: A quiet and calm environment.
Krishnamurti: You are idealistic and I am not. I have not one ideal inside me, I just want to know the fact. You are moving away from the fact, that is what I object to. When you teach and they learn, in the class room, what is the atmosphere? The atmosphere is the fact.
Teacher: Friendliness between the teacher and the student.
Krishnamurti: You are not facing the fact. You teach and you also know and when the student is to learn, there must be a certain quality, and I am asking what is that quality? Have you actually experienced the quality where this communication is mutual, where the learning is the teaching?
Teacher: In the beginning I thought that when I teach, I am handing over some facts to the students, but now I understand that when I am teaching there is also a learning. This happens at rare moments when there is exploration, when both the teacher and the student are exploring together.
Krishnamurti: What is the state when that exploration together takes place? What is the atmosphere, the relationship? What is the word you would use to express that state in which communication is possible?
Teacher: Curiosity.
Krishnamurti: What do you teach?
Teacher: Hindi.
Krishnamurti: The children are anxious to know and you are anxious to teach. Now, what atmosphere does it create? What takes place?
Teacher: The children listen to me.
Krishnamurti: You say children listen to you. You want to tell them something. What has happened, I wish you would examine this.
Teacher: There is a state of alertness.
Krishnamurti: I want to go a little bit more into the matter. The moment you say it is alertness you have already put it in a framework. I am trying to prevent you and myself from defining it.
Teacher: When the object is there, the object of learning and teaching, both operate; from this there is a fluidity, a movement; and temporarily, this state is slightly different from the other states I know.
Krishnamurti: There is attention when the teacher and the taught, both have a drive to learn and to teach. You have to create a feeling, an atmosphere, in the room. Just now we have created an atmosphere - because I want to find out and you want to find out. Is it possible to maintain this atmosphere, in which alone teaching and learning are possible?
We started by asking how to communicate this sense of enquiry into thinking, into motive, to the student. I asked you, how do you teach, that is, how do you convey anything? And I asked what takes place when you actually teach. What is the atmosphere when you are teaching? Is it a slack atmosphere or a tense atmosphere? Now, if you have not examined your thinking, the mechanism of thinking, to convey the sense of enquiry to the student is impossible. But if you have done it in yourself, you are bound to create the atmosphere. And I feel that atmosphere, that attention, is the essential quality of teaching and learning.
Teacher: You have said that definition of a fact is something quite different from the experiencing of that fact. Now in all this there seems to be a gap between the definition and the actual doing of something. You also asked: Have you ever done something for its own sake because you love it? How does one, without examining one's motives, without all these ramifications, get to the heart of something?
Krishnamurti: That is just what I was trying to get at. To see something totally is the ending of time or the comprehending of it. Can one see if there is a motive in teaching and learning at any level? Life is a constant process of teaching and learning: To teach and to learn is not possible if there is a motive, and when we have a motive the state of teaching and learning is not possible. Now, watch this carefully: In the very nature of teaching and learning there is humility. You are the teacher and you are the taught. So there is no pupil and no teacher, no guru and no sishya, there is only teaching and learning, which is going on in me. I am learning and I am also teaching myself; the whole process is one. That is important. That gives vitality, a sense of depth, and that is prevented if I have a motive. As teaching-learning is important, everything else becomes secondary and therefore, motive disappears. What is important drives away the unimportant. Therefore it is finished: I do not have to examine my motives day after day.
Teacher: It is not very clear to me, sir.
Krishnamurti: First of all, life is a process of learning. It is not saying "I have learned" and a settling back. Life is a process of learning and I cannot learn if there is a motive. If that is very clear, that life is a process of learning, then motive has no place. Motive has a place when you are using learning to get something. So the essential fact drives away all the unessential trivialities, in which motive is included.
Teacher: Should there be a concern for the essential, as a fact?
Krishnamurti: But the fact is the essential. Life is the essential. Life is "what is". Otherwise it is not life. If motive is not, "what is" is. If you understand the fact of sorrow, the "other" comes into being. You cannot come to the "other" without understanding motive, the unessential.
Teacher: So there cannot be concern for the essential.
Krishnamurti: Understand the fact, which is important, and go into it. If you are ambitious, be completely ambitious. Let there be no double thinking. Be either ambitious or see the fact of ambition. Both are facts, and when you examine one fact, go into it completely. If you go into the fact completely, the fact will begin to show what is involved in ambition. The fact of ambition will begin to unravel itself and then there is no ambition.
Most religious people have invented theories about facts. But they do not understand "the fact". Having established a theory they hope it will ward off the actual fact; it cannot. So do not try to establish any essential fact. See how you slip into wrong action. There is no essential fact, there is only fact - you see the point? And one fact does not conform to another fact. The moment it is conforming, it is not a fact. If you look at the fact with a referent, with what you can get out of that fact, then you will never see the fact. To look at the fact is the only thing that matters. There is no fact that is superior or inferior, there is only fact. That is the ruthless thing. If I am a lawyer, I am a lawyer. I do not find excuses for it. Seeing that fact, going into it, seeing the motives, the fact and its complexities are revealed, and then you are out of it.
But if you say, "I must always the truth", that is an ideal. That is a false assumption. So do not move from what you consider the unimportant fact to what you consider the more important fact. There is only fact, not the less or the more. It really does something to you to look at life that way. You banish all illusion, all dissipation of energy of the mind, the brain, at one stroke. The mind then operates in precision without any deception, without hatred, without hypocrisy. The mind then becomes very clear, sharp. That is the way to live.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Talk to teachers, Chapter 7, part 2
Teacher: That is not thinking, sir, it is a repetition.
Krishnamurti: But that is how we live, that is our life. That is all we want. Everything is repetition and the mind gets duller and more stupid. Is that not a fact, sir? We do not want to be disturbed, we do not want to shatter the pattern.
What makes us shatter the pattern or break through the pattern? And is it possible not to fall into a groove? But why should I end the making of patterns? I begin to think about ending them when the pattern does not satisfy me, when the pattern is no longer useful to me or when there are in the pattern certain incidents like death, the husband leaving the wife, or losing a job. In the breaking of that particular pattern there is a disturbance called sorrow and I move away from that into another pattern. I move from pattern to pattern, from one framework into which circumstances, environment, family, education have put me, to another. The disturbance makes me question a little, but I immediately fall into another groove and there I settle. That is what most people want, what their parents want, what society wants. Where does this idea of ending thought come in?
Teacher: Sir, there are times when one is discontented with the whole pattern and everything in it.
Krishnamurti: What makes us see the futility of this pattern? When do I see it and what makes me see it? A pattern is set if there is a motive. If I break from this pattern with a motive, the motive will mould the new pattern.
Now, what makes me change, what makes me do something without a motive?
Teacher: It is very difficult to be free from motive.
Krishnamurti: Who tells you to be free? If it is difficult, why bother about breaking the pattern? Be satisfied with a motive and continue with it, why bother if it is difficult?
Teacher: It leads me nowhere, sir.
Krishnamurti: But if it led anywhere, would you pursue it?
Teacher: Which means there is a motive again.
Krishnamurti: What makes you break through and give up the motive? What do you mean by motive? You teach here because you get some money, that is a motive. You like somebody because he can give you a position or you love god because you hate life. Your life is miserable, and love of god is the escape from that. These are all motives.
Now, what makes a mind, a human being, live without a motive? If you can pursue that and go into it, I am sure you will find the answer to your question.
Teacher: The question, "Do I know my motives?" seems to come before the question "Do I do something without a motive?"
Krishnamurti: Do we know our motives? Why do I teach, why do I hold on to a husband, wife? Do I know my motives, and how do I find out? And if I do find out, what is wrong with having motives. I love somebody because I like to be with that somebody physically, sexually, as a companion, what is wrong with that?
Teacher: When I teach because I must have money, motive is not a hindrance. I must have money, so I must take to some profession, and I take to teaching.
Krishnamurti: First of all, do we know our motives, not only the conscious but the unconscious motives, the hidden motives? Do we do anything in our lives without a motive? To do something without a motive is love of what one is doing, and in that process thinking is not mechanical; then the brain is in a state of constant learning, not opinionated, not moving from knowledge to knowledge. It is a mind that moves from fact to fact. Therefore, such a mind is capable of ending and coming to something it does not know, which is freedom from the known.
You asked at the beginning: "How do we end thought?" I said: "What for?" We do not even know what thinking is, we do not know how to think. We think in terms of patterns. So, unless we have investigated or understood all that, we cannot possibly ask that question: "How do we end thought?"
Teacher: How can we enquire into thinking and how to think?
Krishnamurti: Not only enquire into how to think but also into what is thinking. Can I, as a human being, as an individual, find out what is the way of my thinking? Is it mechanical, is it free? Do I know it as it is operating in me?
To end thought I have first to go into the mechanism of thinking. I have to understand thought completely, deep down in me. I have to examine every thought, without letting one thought escape without being fully understood, so that the brain, the mind, the whole being becomes very attentive. The moment I pursue every thought to the root, to the end completely, I will see that thought ends by itself. I do not have to do anything about it because thought is memory. Memory is the mark of experience and as long as experience is not fully, completely, totally understood, it leaves a mark. The moment I have experienced completely, the experience leaves no mark. So, if we go into every thought and see where the mark is and remain with that mark, as a fact - then that fact will open and that fact will end that particular process of thinking, so that every thought, every feeling is understood. So the brain and the mind are being freed from a mass of memories. That requires tremendous attention, not attention only to the trees and birds but inward attention to see that every thought is understood.
Krishnamurti: But that is how we live, that is our life. That is all we want. Everything is repetition and the mind gets duller and more stupid. Is that not a fact, sir? We do not want to be disturbed, we do not want to shatter the pattern.
What makes us shatter the pattern or break through the pattern? And is it possible not to fall into a groove? But why should I end the making of patterns? I begin to think about ending them when the pattern does not satisfy me, when the pattern is no longer useful to me or when there are in the pattern certain incidents like death, the husband leaving the wife, or losing a job. In the breaking of that particular pattern there is a disturbance called sorrow and I move away from that into another pattern. I move from pattern to pattern, from one framework into which circumstances, environment, family, education have put me, to another. The disturbance makes me question a little, but I immediately fall into another groove and there I settle. That is what most people want, what their parents want, what society wants. Where does this idea of ending thought come in?
Teacher: Sir, there are times when one is discontented with the whole pattern and everything in it.
Krishnamurti: What makes us see the futility of this pattern? When do I see it and what makes me see it? A pattern is set if there is a motive. If I break from this pattern with a motive, the motive will mould the new pattern.
Now, what makes me change, what makes me do something without a motive?
Teacher: It is very difficult to be free from motive.
Krishnamurti: Who tells you to be free? If it is difficult, why bother about breaking the pattern? Be satisfied with a motive and continue with it, why bother if it is difficult?
Teacher: It leads me nowhere, sir.
Krishnamurti: But if it led anywhere, would you pursue it?
Teacher: Which means there is a motive again.
Krishnamurti: What makes you break through and give up the motive? What do you mean by motive? You teach here because you get some money, that is a motive. You like somebody because he can give you a position or you love god because you hate life. Your life is miserable, and love of god is the escape from that. These are all motives.
Now, what makes a mind, a human being, live without a motive? If you can pursue that and go into it, I am sure you will find the answer to your question.
Teacher: The question, "Do I know my motives?" seems to come before the question "Do I do something without a motive?"
Krishnamurti: Do we know our motives? Why do I teach, why do I hold on to a husband, wife? Do I know my motives, and how do I find out? And if I do find out, what is wrong with having motives. I love somebody because I like to be with that somebody physically, sexually, as a companion, what is wrong with that?
Teacher: When I teach because I must have money, motive is not a hindrance. I must have money, so I must take to some profession, and I take to teaching.
Krishnamurti: First of all, do we know our motives, not only the conscious but the unconscious motives, the hidden motives? Do we do anything in our lives without a motive? To do something without a motive is love of what one is doing, and in that process thinking is not mechanical; then the brain is in a state of constant learning, not opinionated, not moving from knowledge to knowledge. It is a mind that moves from fact to fact. Therefore, such a mind is capable of ending and coming to something it does not know, which is freedom from the known.
You asked at the beginning: "How do we end thought?" I said: "What for?" We do not even know what thinking is, we do not know how to think. We think in terms of patterns. So, unless we have investigated or understood all that, we cannot possibly ask that question: "How do we end thought?"
Teacher: How can we enquire into thinking and how to think?
Krishnamurti: Not only enquire into how to think but also into what is thinking. Can I, as a human being, as an individual, find out what is the way of my thinking? Is it mechanical, is it free? Do I know it as it is operating in me?
To end thought I have first to go into the mechanism of thinking. I have to understand thought completely, deep down in me. I have to examine every thought, without letting one thought escape without being fully understood, so that the brain, the mind, the whole being becomes very attentive. The moment I pursue every thought to the root, to the end completely, I will see that thought ends by itself. I do not have to do anything about it because thought is memory. Memory is the mark of experience and as long as experience is not fully, completely, totally understood, it leaves a mark. The moment I have experienced completely, the experience leaves no mark. So, if we go into every thought and see where the mark is and remain with that mark, as a fact - then that fact will open and that fact will end that particular process of thinking, so that every thought, every feeling is understood. So the brain and the mind are being freed from a mass of memories. That requires tremendous attention, not attention only to the trees and birds but inward attention to see that every thought is understood.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Talk to teachers, Chapter 7, part 1
Talk To Teachers. Chapter 7: On Teaching And Learning
Teacher: We realize that we cannot see a fact unless the mind is empty of thought. But even if it is empty for a while, thought seems to arise again. How do we end thought? Can we discuss this?
Krishnamurti: I wonder if all of us understand the importance of the role of thinking? Is thought important, and at what level is it important? What is thinking? What makes us think? Where is thought important and where is it not important, and how do you answer that question? And what is the machinery that is set going when a question is asked?
Is thinking merely the habitual response to a habitual pattern? You live here in this school in a certain groove, with certain patterns of thoughts, habits, feelings. You live, you function in those habits, patterns and systems, and the functioning of the brain, thought is very limited. And when you go out of the valley you live in a little wider field. You have certain grooves of action and you follow them. It is all a mechanical process really, but in that pattern of mechanical activity there are certain variations. You modify, change, but always in that pattern, wherever you are, whatever position you may have - minister, governor or doctor, or professor - it is always a groove with varying changes and modifications.
You function in patterns. I am not saying it is right or wrong, I am just examining it. You have beliefs but they are in the background and you go on with your daily activities, with your envy, greed, jealousy. Whenever your beliefs are questioned you get irritated but you go on. Children are being educated to think, to form grooves of habits and to function in those habits for the rest of their lives. They are going to get jobs, they are going to be engineers, doctors, and for the rest of their lives, the pattern will be set. Any deviation from that is what is disturbing. That disturbance is lessened through marriage, responsibility, children; and so gradually the mould is set. And all thinking is between what is convenient, what is not convenient, what is beneficial, what is worthwhile - it is always within that field.
Teacher: We realize that we cannot see a fact unless the mind is empty of thought. But even if it is empty for a while, thought seems to arise again. How do we end thought? Can we discuss this?
Krishnamurti: I wonder if all of us understand the importance of the role of thinking? Is thought important, and at what level is it important? What is thinking? What makes us think? Where is thought important and where is it not important, and how do you answer that question? And what is the machinery that is set going when a question is asked?
Is thinking merely the habitual response to a habitual pattern? You live here in this school in a certain groove, with certain patterns of thoughts, habits, feelings. You live, you function in those habits, patterns and systems, and the functioning of the brain, thought is very limited. And when you go out of the valley you live in a little wider field. You have certain grooves of action and you follow them. It is all a mechanical process really, but in that pattern of mechanical activity there are certain variations. You modify, change, but always in that pattern, wherever you are, whatever position you may have - minister, governor or doctor, or professor - it is always a groove with varying changes and modifications.
You function in patterns. I am not saying it is right or wrong, I am just examining it. You have beliefs but they are in the background and you go on with your daily activities, with your envy, greed, jealousy. Whenever your beliefs are questioned you get irritated but you go on. Children are being educated to think, to form grooves of habits and to function in those habits for the rest of their lives. They are going to get jobs, they are going to be engineers, doctors, and for the rest of their lives, the pattern will be set. Any deviation from that is what is disturbing. That disturbance is lessened through marriage, responsibility, children; and so gradually the mould is set. And all thinking is between what is convenient, what is not convenient, what is beneficial, what is worthwhile - it is always within that field.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Talk to teachers, Chapter 6, part 3. End of chapter 6.
Let us become a little more practical. How do we set about to help the student actually to be free from fear?
Teacher: I wouLd see that my relationship with the student is friendly. It would be stupid to discuss fear if I were not friendly with him. I would create situations, both practical and intellectual, where he would understand what fear actually means, intellectually explain the causes and effects of fear because the mind needs to be sharpened, and I would see if I could make him experience this wholeness of outlook and feeling.
Krishnamurti: Be factual. In the class, how will you teach? How will you help the student to understand? There is a gap between the child and the total feeling, how would you lead up to that?
Teacher: It should be possible to awaken in him a curiosity which is of a subtle type. The next thing I would like to do with him is to get him to appreciate quality in work, in playing a game, in mathematics or other subjects. I would find out what his interests were, how he reacted, and if I were able to progress further, I would see whether something more happened between me and the student.
Krishnamurti: You have done the obvious things which are necessary. You would talk to him, you would show him how fear comes into being and all that. What next? Factually how will you help the student to be free from fear? I think that is the real issue. When there is an opportunity, would you be in a meditative, reflective self-recollected state which might help the student to see clearly what fear is? You see that is the necessary thing, but you leave that thing hanging.
What would you actually do? What would you do factually?
Teacher: Meditation would help the mind to deal with the situation.
Krishnamurti: I may have a feeling for all this. Now how am I to translate it into action? What am I to do with those dozen children?
Teacher: The feeling will translate itself. It is a link of love with the children which will help.
Krishnamurti: First have affection, then use every occasion to help the student to be free from fear, explain to him the causes of fear and use every incident to show how he is afraid, In the class, in the very teaching of history, mathematics, talk to him about it. But what next? Proceed.
Teacher: In doing all this I am also watchful to see that what I am doing to him is not also being undone.
Krishnamurti: What is the total effect on the child of what you have said, the fact of your affection, your explanations? Is it not making him turn inward, and what does that do?
Teacher: It helps him face some immediate problems.
Krishnamurti: You have helped the student to look at himself, you have helped him to be aware of this fear and to turn inward in the sense that he feels more conscious of the fear. You have to balance it by something else.
Teacher: Do you mean, sir, that this process of internal introspection is likely to lead to some complications in the child?
Krishnamurti: It is bound to lead to a kind of self-conscious feeling. "Am I doing the right thing or the wrong thing?" There would be nervousness or self importance, or the showing off in "How fearless I am!" How will you balance that? Think it out, use your mind very carefully. At this stage I think the problem again requires a different kind of approach. Otherwise you will be helping the child by concentrated attention to become self-conscious, self-assertive, arrogant, and with an authoritarian outlook.
Teacher: There should be an opportunity for the child to be sensitive to other things which are not within.
Krishnamurti: It appears to me, you will unconsciously strengthen egotism, a sense of self-importance, a sense of being offensive, aggressive, rude.
You have so far dealt with the movement of the mind. The tide is moving in, the tide also moves out. If it remains inward it is like the backwaters of a bay, but if the tide has a movement inward, then it has to have an outward movement. You have dealt so far only with an inward movement. How will you help the student to move out?
Teacher: When you spoke of the outward movement, I felt I was not looking from the point of the whole but from the development of the partial movement.
Krishnamurti: If I had not kept on pushing and therefore made you realize it was only a partial answer, you would not have moved. You only talk of the inner movement but it is a movement of the tide both inward and outward. It is a movement you have created in one direction and you do not know how to treat the inner and the outer as one movement.
Teacher: Is it not possible right from the beginning to move both inward and outward?
Krishnamurti: What is the outward movement that is going to give the balance?
Teacher: Not only the balance, but a sense of humility that comes now and then.
Krishnamurti: There are hills, trees, the river, the sands. That is the outward movement. The perception, the seeing, that is the outward movement. Nature has provided you with the beauty of all this, the rivers, trees, the arid land. So there has to be movement both outward and inward, the everlasting movement.
Teacher: I wouLd see that my relationship with the student is friendly. It would be stupid to discuss fear if I were not friendly with him. I would create situations, both practical and intellectual, where he would understand what fear actually means, intellectually explain the causes and effects of fear because the mind needs to be sharpened, and I would see if I could make him experience this wholeness of outlook and feeling.
Krishnamurti: Be factual. In the class, how will you teach? How will you help the student to understand? There is a gap between the child and the total feeling, how would you lead up to that?
Teacher: It should be possible to awaken in him a curiosity which is of a subtle type. The next thing I would like to do with him is to get him to appreciate quality in work, in playing a game, in mathematics or other subjects. I would find out what his interests were, how he reacted, and if I were able to progress further, I would see whether something more happened between me and the student.
Krishnamurti: You have done the obvious things which are necessary. You would talk to him, you would show him how fear comes into being and all that. What next? Factually how will you help the student to be free from fear? I think that is the real issue. When there is an opportunity, would you be in a meditative, reflective self-recollected state which might help the student to see clearly what fear is? You see that is the necessary thing, but you leave that thing hanging.
What would you actually do? What would you do factually?
Teacher: Meditation would help the mind to deal with the situation.
Krishnamurti: I may have a feeling for all this. Now how am I to translate it into action? What am I to do with those dozen children?
Teacher: The feeling will translate itself. It is a link of love with the children which will help.
Krishnamurti: First have affection, then use every occasion to help the student to be free from fear, explain to him the causes of fear and use every incident to show how he is afraid, In the class, in the very teaching of history, mathematics, talk to him about it. But what next? Proceed.
Teacher: In doing all this I am also watchful to see that what I am doing to him is not also being undone.
Krishnamurti: What is the total effect on the child of what you have said, the fact of your affection, your explanations? Is it not making him turn inward, and what does that do?
Teacher: It helps him face some immediate problems.
Krishnamurti: You have helped the student to look at himself, you have helped him to be aware of this fear and to turn inward in the sense that he feels more conscious of the fear. You have to balance it by something else.
Teacher: Do you mean, sir, that this process of internal introspection is likely to lead to some complications in the child?
Krishnamurti: It is bound to lead to a kind of self-conscious feeling. "Am I doing the right thing or the wrong thing?" There would be nervousness or self importance, or the showing off in "How fearless I am!" How will you balance that? Think it out, use your mind very carefully. At this stage I think the problem again requires a different kind of approach. Otherwise you will be helping the child by concentrated attention to become self-conscious, self-assertive, arrogant, and with an authoritarian outlook.
Teacher: There should be an opportunity for the child to be sensitive to other things which are not within.
Krishnamurti: It appears to me, you will unconsciously strengthen egotism, a sense of self-importance, a sense of being offensive, aggressive, rude.
You have so far dealt with the movement of the mind. The tide is moving in, the tide also moves out. If it remains inward it is like the backwaters of a bay, but if the tide has a movement inward, then it has to have an outward movement. You have dealt so far only with an inward movement. How will you help the student to move out?
Teacher: When you spoke of the outward movement, I felt I was not looking from the point of the whole but from the development of the partial movement.
Krishnamurti: If I had not kept on pushing and therefore made you realize it was only a partial answer, you would not have moved. You only talk of the inner movement but it is a movement of the tide both inward and outward. It is a movement you have created in one direction and you do not know how to treat the inner and the outer as one movement.
Teacher: Is it not possible right from the beginning to move both inward and outward?
Krishnamurti: What is the outward movement that is going to give the balance?
Teacher: Not only the balance, but a sense of humility that comes now and then.
Krishnamurti: There are hills, trees, the river, the sands. That is the outward movement. The perception, the seeing, that is the outward movement. Nature has provided you with the beauty of all this, the rivers, trees, the arid land. So there has to be movement both outward and inward, the everlasting movement.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Talk to teachers, Chapter 6, part 2
Teacher: What is the relationship between fear and love?
Krishnamurti: If I am afraid, how can I have sympathy for anybody? An ambitious man does not know about the earth and the brotherhood of man. An ambitious man knows no love. Can a man who is afraid of death, of what his neighbours might say, of his wife, security, job, have sympathy? The one excludes the other.
Teacher: We operate only in parts, we try through parts to apprehend the whole.
Krishnamurti: What will transform fear?
Teacher: Understanding.
Krishnamurti: What brings the transformation and who is to transform? I have observed my mind which says, "I am afraid" and I want to get at what my mind is trying to do. What is effort and who is the maker of effort? Unless one goes into it very deeply, the mere saying "I must get rid of fear" has very little meaning.
There is fear, there is love, and this feeling of immensity. I can analyse fear step by step. I can go into the causes of fear, the effects of fear, I can go into why I am afraid, and who is the maker of effort and whether the maker of effort is different from the thing which is making effort. And I can enquire into whether there is a mind which can observe effort, the maker of effort and the thing upon which he is making an effort, not only objectively but inwardly. At the end of it all, there is still lurking fear. I can go very analytically into this question of religion, dogma, belief, superstition but at the end of this analyzing still where I am. I have learned the techniques of analysis and at the end of it, my mind is so sharp that it can follow every movement of fear. But fear still lurks.
Now what is the nature of the mind that takes in the whole, digests it at one sweep and throws out what is not worthwhile?
There must be an approach which will give one a total comprehension, a total feeling with which one can approach each problem. Can I capture the whole meaning of something, of love, fear, religion, that extraordinary feeling of immensity, of beauty and then approach each problem individually? You have seen trees. Do you take in the whole tree or do you merely look at the branch and the leaves and the flower? Do you see the whole tree inside you? After all, a tree is the root, the branch the flower, the fruit, the sap, the whole of the tree. Can you grasp the feeling, the significance, the beauty of the whole tree and then look at the branch? Such an observation will have tremendous significance.
When you look at a tree next time, see the shape of it, the symmetry of it, the depth, the feeling, the beauty, the quality of the whole thing. I am talking of the feeling of the whole. In the same way you have a body: you have feelings, emotions; there is the mind, there are memories - the conscious and unconscious traditions, the centuries of accumulated impressions, the family name - can you feel the whole of that? If you do not feel the whole of that but merely dissect your emotions, it is immature. Can you feel within yourself this whole thing and with that feeling of the whole being, attack fear?
Fear is an immense problem. Can you approach it with an immensity to meet an immensity?
Teacher: It is not always possible, sir, we often get lost in our immediate problems.
Krishnamurti: But once you have the feeling of this immensity, life has a different colouration, it has a different quality.
Teacher: You are only conscious of this immensity at times.
Krishnamurti: I do not think you have ever thought of it, have you?
Teacher: Yes, I have, once in a way, by detaching myself from the immediate problem and looking at it.
Krishnamurti: I do not mean that. I mean to have the feeling of all time, not today, tomorrow, the day after day, but the feeling of all time. To think in terms of man, the world, the universe is an extraordinary feeling. And with that feeling can one approach the particular problem? Otherwise we are going to land in an intellectual or emotional chaos.
What is the difficulty in this? Is it the incapacity, the narrowness of the mind, the immediate occupation, the immediate concern for the child, the husband, the wife which so takes up your time that you have no time to think of it? Take the word, "immediate". There is no immediate, it is an endless thing. You make it into an immediate problem; that problem is the result of a thousand yesterdays and a thousand tomorrow's. There is no immediacy. There is fear, love and man's urge for the immense. Can you capture some of the quality of the feeling and say, "Let me look at fear"?
What significance has fear, and how will you proceed to help the student? You should prepare the student for the whole of life, and life is an extraordinarily vast thing. And when you use the word "life" it is all the oceans and the mountains and the trees and all of human aspirations, human miseries, despairs, struggles, the immensity of it all. Can you help the student to apprehend that immensity of life? Must you not help the student to have this feeling?
Do any of you meditate? Not only to sit still, not only to examine the ways of the mind but also to invite the conscious and the unconscious and to push further into silence and see what happens further and further. If you do not do this, are you not missing a lot in life?
Meditation is a form of self-recollected awareness, a form of discovery, a form of cutting loose from tradition, from ideas, conclusions, a sense of being completely alone, which is death. With that sense of the total, can you meet the immediate?
Krishnamurti: If I am afraid, how can I have sympathy for anybody? An ambitious man does not know about the earth and the brotherhood of man. An ambitious man knows no love. Can a man who is afraid of death, of what his neighbours might say, of his wife, security, job, have sympathy? The one excludes the other.
Teacher: We operate only in parts, we try through parts to apprehend the whole.
Krishnamurti: What will transform fear?
Teacher: Understanding.
Krishnamurti: What brings the transformation and who is to transform? I have observed my mind which says, "I am afraid" and I want to get at what my mind is trying to do. What is effort and who is the maker of effort? Unless one goes into it very deeply, the mere saying "I must get rid of fear" has very little meaning.
There is fear, there is love, and this feeling of immensity. I can analyse fear step by step. I can go into the causes of fear, the effects of fear, I can go into why I am afraid, and who is the maker of effort and whether the maker of effort is different from the thing which is making effort. And I can enquire into whether there is a mind which can observe effort, the maker of effort and the thing upon which he is making an effort, not only objectively but inwardly. At the end of it all, there is still lurking fear. I can go very analytically into this question of religion, dogma, belief, superstition but at the end of this analyzing still where I am. I have learned the techniques of analysis and at the end of it, my mind is so sharp that it can follow every movement of fear. But fear still lurks.
Now what is the nature of the mind that takes in the whole, digests it at one sweep and throws out what is not worthwhile?
There must be an approach which will give one a total comprehension, a total feeling with which one can approach each problem. Can I capture the whole meaning of something, of love, fear, religion, that extraordinary feeling of immensity, of beauty and then approach each problem individually? You have seen trees. Do you take in the whole tree or do you merely look at the branch and the leaves and the flower? Do you see the whole tree inside you? After all, a tree is the root, the branch the flower, the fruit, the sap, the whole of the tree. Can you grasp the feeling, the significance, the beauty of the whole tree and then look at the branch? Such an observation will have tremendous significance.
When you look at a tree next time, see the shape of it, the symmetry of it, the depth, the feeling, the beauty, the quality of the whole thing. I am talking of the feeling of the whole. In the same way you have a body: you have feelings, emotions; there is the mind, there are memories - the conscious and unconscious traditions, the centuries of accumulated impressions, the family name - can you feel the whole of that? If you do not feel the whole of that but merely dissect your emotions, it is immature. Can you feel within yourself this whole thing and with that feeling of the whole being, attack fear?
Fear is an immense problem. Can you approach it with an immensity to meet an immensity?
Teacher: It is not always possible, sir, we often get lost in our immediate problems.
Krishnamurti: But once you have the feeling of this immensity, life has a different colouration, it has a different quality.
Teacher: You are only conscious of this immensity at times.
Krishnamurti: I do not think you have ever thought of it, have you?
Teacher: Yes, I have, once in a way, by detaching myself from the immediate problem and looking at it.
Krishnamurti: I do not mean that. I mean to have the feeling of all time, not today, tomorrow, the day after day, but the feeling of all time. To think in terms of man, the world, the universe is an extraordinary feeling. And with that feeling can one approach the particular problem? Otherwise we are going to land in an intellectual or emotional chaos.
What is the difficulty in this? Is it the incapacity, the narrowness of the mind, the immediate occupation, the immediate concern for the child, the husband, the wife which so takes up your time that you have no time to think of it? Take the word, "immediate". There is no immediate, it is an endless thing. You make it into an immediate problem; that problem is the result of a thousand yesterdays and a thousand tomorrow's. There is no immediacy. There is fear, love and man's urge for the immense. Can you capture some of the quality of the feeling and say, "Let me look at fear"?
What significance has fear, and how will you proceed to help the student? You should prepare the student for the whole of life, and life is an extraordinarily vast thing. And when you use the word "life" it is all the oceans and the mountains and the trees and all of human aspirations, human miseries, despairs, struggles, the immensity of it all. Can you help the student to apprehend that immensity of life? Must you not help the student to have this feeling?
Do any of you meditate? Not only to sit still, not only to examine the ways of the mind but also to invite the conscious and the unconscious and to push further into silence and see what happens further and further. If you do not do this, are you not missing a lot in life?
Meditation is a form of self-recollected awareness, a form of discovery, a form of cutting loose from tradition, from ideas, conclusions, a sense of being completely alone, which is death. With that sense of the total, can you meet the immediate?
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Talk to teachers, Chapter 6, part 1
Talk To Teachers. Chapter 6: On Fear
Krishnamurti: How would you, as an educator, tackle the problem of the eradication of fear in the student? Can you set about it as you would set about teaching mathematics? First, you must understand fear for yourself before you can help another. You have to understand the implication of fear, how fear comes about. Just as you know Hindi or some other subject, you have to know something of fear. Society is doing everything to inculcate fear by laying down standards, religious ideals, class distinctions, ideas of success, the sense of the inferior and the superior, the rich man and the poor man. Society is doing everything possible to breed distorted values.
The question is not only for the teacher to go deeply into fear but also to see that fear is not transmitted and for the student to be able to recognize the causes that breed fear. As teachers, would this not be a problem to you? We have very little love in our lives, not only to receive but to give; love not in any mystical sense but the actual feeling of love, pity, compassion, generosity, an action which does not emanate from a centre. And as you have very little love, what would you do with the student, how would you help him to have this flame?
Does religion mean anything to you? Not ceremonies, but the religious feeling, the religious benediction, the sacredness of something? Religion, fear, love - are they not very interrelated? You cannot understand the one without the other. There is fear, there is this appalling dearth of love - I mean the passion of it, the intensity of it - and then there is this feeling of benediction which is not mere recompense, which is not a reward for righteous action, which has nothing to do with religious organizations.
Do you walk in the evening and have you noticed those villagers crossing the fields? How beautiful it all is? And the villager is totally unconscious of the beauty of the land, of the hills, of the water. For the villager returning to his unhealthy home there is nothing. There is fear, there is the immense problem of love and the feeling of sympathy when you see the poor villager go by. Don't you feel a tremendous surging in yourself, a despair at the colossal misery of it all? What can one do? There is the ability to receive and to give, to feel, and to have generosity, kindness, humility. What does it mean to you? How do you awaken this thing in yourself or awaken it in another? Can there be an approach that is not an isolated critical comprehension but an understanding that is total - of fear, love, the religious feeling?
Now how am I to approach the problem? Am I to take each problem one by one, to take fear, look at it, and then study love? How am I to capture the whole thing? If you have the feeling of a sound, you have the feeling of a song and if you have a feeling for the silence between sounds you have the delight of the movement of a song. Song is not just the word, just the sound, it is the peculiar combination of the sound, the silence and the continuation of the sound. To understand music surely there must be comprehension of the whole thing. And in the same way, is fear an isolated problem which has to be comprehended by itself and love by itself and the religious feeling by itself, or is there an approach to the whole, a total thing?
Have you ever watched a rain drop? The rain drop contains the whole of the rain, the whole of the river, the whole of the ocean. That drop makes the river, makes the ravines, excavates the Grand Canyon, becomes a vibrant thundering waterfall. In the same way can my mind look at fear, love, religion, god, as a movement, rather than as an isolated introspection, an analytical examination, a dissection?
Krishnamurti: How would you, as an educator, tackle the problem of the eradication of fear in the student? Can you set about it as you would set about teaching mathematics? First, you must understand fear for yourself before you can help another. You have to understand the implication of fear, how fear comes about. Just as you know Hindi or some other subject, you have to know something of fear. Society is doing everything to inculcate fear by laying down standards, religious ideals, class distinctions, ideas of success, the sense of the inferior and the superior, the rich man and the poor man. Society is doing everything possible to breed distorted values.
The question is not only for the teacher to go deeply into fear but also to see that fear is not transmitted and for the student to be able to recognize the causes that breed fear. As teachers, would this not be a problem to you? We have very little love in our lives, not only to receive but to give; love not in any mystical sense but the actual feeling of love, pity, compassion, generosity, an action which does not emanate from a centre. And as you have very little love, what would you do with the student, how would you help him to have this flame?
Does religion mean anything to you? Not ceremonies, but the religious feeling, the religious benediction, the sacredness of something? Religion, fear, love - are they not very interrelated? You cannot understand the one without the other. There is fear, there is this appalling dearth of love - I mean the passion of it, the intensity of it - and then there is this feeling of benediction which is not mere recompense, which is not a reward for righteous action, which has nothing to do with religious organizations.
Do you walk in the evening and have you noticed those villagers crossing the fields? How beautiful it all is? And the villager is totally unconscious of the beauty of the land, of the hills, of the water. For the villager returning to his unhealthy home there is nothing. There is fear, there is the immense problem of love and the feeling of sympathy when you see the poor villager go by. Don't you feel a tremendous surging in yourself, a despair at the colossal misery of it all? What can one do? There is the ability to receive and to give, to feel, and to have generosity, kindness, humility. What does it mean to you? How do you awaken this thing in yourself or awaken it in another? Can there be an approach that is not an isolated critical comprehension but an understanding that is total - of fear, love, the religious feeling?
Now how am I to approach the problem? Am I to take each problem one by one, to take fear, look at it, and then study love? How am I to capture the whole thing? If you have the feeling of a sound, you have the feeling of a song and if you have a feeling for the silence between sounds you have the delight of the movement of a song. Song is not just the word, just the sound, it is the peculiar combination of the sound, the silence and the continuation of the sound. To understand music surely there must be comprehension of the whole thing. And in the same way, is fear an isolated problem which has to be comprehended by itself and love by itself and the religious feeling by itself, or is there an approach to the whole, a total thing?
Have you ever watched a rain drop? The rain drop contains the whole of the rain, the whole of the river, the whole of the ocean. That drop makes the river, makes the ravines, excavates the Grand Canyon, becomes a vibrant thundering waterfall. In the same way can my mind look at fear, love, religion, god, as a movement, rather than as an isolated introspection, an analytical examination, a dissection?
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