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What is Krishnamurti Education ?

by Prof. P. Krishna

Rector, Rajghat Education Centre, Krishnamurti Foundation India, Varanasi221001, India

Several persons, both in India and abroad, have expressed an interest in starting a`Krishnamurti School ' in their town. Since Krishnaji did not specify any particulartechnique of education, the question arises, " What are the essentials of aKrishnamurti School ?" It is not easy to answer that question and one needs toinquire deeply into this. Through this article I wish to share a few thoughts withthose who feel interested in education. To me, a Krishnamurti school representsan experiment in right living, without anyone dictating to anyone else what thatmeans and without accepting any formula, any prescription, any authority thatmust be followed unquestioningly. It means to live rightly, not just accept theanswer from someone else and try to practise it or repeat it. Unless we learn tolive rightly, we can not teach the children to live rightly; therefore it is our firstand highest responsibility to find out what it means to live rightly. One can learn if one begins with saying, "I do not know but I am going to find out." Then one canlearn along with the student - not merely hand down words by way of teaching.So that is the first thing - not to have one's mind filled with conclusions, withanswers, with certainties and not to attach too great an importance to one's ownopinion, one's own view-point. To doubt it, question it and be willing to learn atall times; never to be so sure that one cannot even listen to another or consider adifferent point of view. That is being receptive and not just t olerant.

Our life has four broad aspects to it - the physical, intellectual emotional andspiritual. Right living demands excellence in all aspects, and a healthydevelopment of all of them. We must therefore create an environment in theschool which makes this possible for the child without over emphasising any oneaspect. Since such education is intended to cover all aspects of life and not onlythe intellectual, it is desirable to have a residential school, in which the teachersand students live and work together and have a wider interaction with each other.

Right physical development requires care of the body cleanliness, exercise, rightkind of food, adequate sleep and occasionally medicine. We must teach thechildren to bathe everyday, put on neat and clean clothes, keep their hair andnails clean, take regular exercise and not overeat. The body must be kept agileand alert like a race-horse so t hat there is no dearth of physical energy. Gamesand sports must be an integral part of school life. Highly spiced food, tobacco,alcohol and other things injurious to both physical and mental health musttherefore be avoided. We must live in our body like a guest, carefully look after it,not ignore or ill treat it and at the same time not be too attached to it.

Intellectual excellence requires cultivating right reading habits, creating aninterest in the academic subjects, insisting on high language ability, goodexpression, a knowledge of current affairs, a love of Science, MathematicsLiterature, Art and Poetry. Doing well at the examinations must be a by-product

of the intellectual development of the child and not an end in itself. We mustexpose the child to all types of intellectual scientific and literary pursuits and helphim to discover where his own interests and talents lie. A good library and thedesire to use it are essential for intellectual development. Debates, discussions,essay writing, extension lectures should be regular features of school life.

The emotional development of the child requires the greatest attention. The childmust live in an atmosphere of care and affection so that he feels secure and is freefrom fear. Fear is the greatest enemy of all intelligence and creativity. The childmust feel free to tell us his problems and anxieties without fear of being scoldedor punished, like he would in a good home. Right conduct and order must beenforced without the use of fear or punishment and this is the greatest challengefor the educators and the parents. If we do have to take recourse to fear andpunishment, it represents our failure, not an achievement. The child must behelped to understand his feelings of fear, envy, greed, jealousy, anger, insult and

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violence as and when they are noticed, without looking down on him or makinghim feel humiliated. For this it is necessary that we, the teachers, understand thecause of these emotions in ourselves. It is a lack of proper understanding of thisaspect of our development that causes innumerable problems of indiscipline,rivalry, inferiority and hatred throughout our life.

The spiritual and cultural development of the child include love of nature, of music, art, dance and drama. We must help the child to realize that we are a partof nature, that trees and animals are our friends, not just to be utilized for ourpleasure. The feeling of respect for all life is an integral part of a Krishnamurtischool and needs to be tenderly nurtured and cultivated in the child. Sensitivity to

the beauty of nature, to the beauty of rivers, mountains, the sky and the sunset areas essential as sensitivity to fellow human beings. The child picks these up from usnaturally, without being taught formally, if we have it in ourselves. We must havein the school Nature Clubs, Drama clubs and Hobby classes for all kinds of music,dance and art, where the child can cultivate these interests.

Science and religion have unfortunately been divorced from each other in oureveryday life in society. They need to be integrated. The quest for truth is thehighest religion and the quest for the happiness of the spirit in man is the highestspirituality. These are not to be found in worship or in temples, they are theby-products of self-knowledge, as are love and compassion. The scientific tempermust be a part of our everyday life and of the spiritual quest. There must be timeto be with oneself, to experience silence, to reflect upon the meaning and purposeof life. Too much activity is unhealthy for our spiritual development and one mustnot get lost only in activity. There is no prescription, no formula for striking theright balance between the different aspects of our life. It is our task to find that

balance for ourselves and thereby discover what is right living. In fact thisdivision of life into different aspects is artificial, made for the convenience of discussion. In reality the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual aspects areso interconnected and interwoven in our life that they constitute one integratedinseparable whole. It is not possible to live rightly in one aspect without livingrightly in all the others.

Let us consider more deeply this question of living rightly. One cannot live rightlyunless one feels rightly. It is not enough to only think "good" thoughts. That onlymakes for hypocrisy. Thoughts are superficial things that can be acquired fromany book, memorized and then repeated. We actually are what we feel deep downinside us, not what we think. Merely changing one's thoughts gives a feeling of having changed without having transformed internally. If one is serious, one needsto watch out and avoid such self-deception. So it is necessary not to be satisfiedwith verbal answers and explanations. The practice of previously defined " right"actions and "right" thoughts (called virtues) and the suppression of "wrong"actions and "wrong" thoughts (called vices) has been tried by all religions and byseveral disciplinarians and has repeatedly failed to change man. It produces aconflict between what we are and what we think we should be. This conflictwears us out, makes us feel superior or inferior, gives us a sense of achievementor failure, all of which only go to further strengthen the ego. Our minds areconditioning - constantly judging ourselves and others and passing strictures interms of our own mental fixations.

If one sees that clearly, then one does not try to define right and wrong in terms of actions and thoughts but in terms of the way one feels. The same action can beright if it is born out of love, out of compassion out of interest and it can be wrongif it is born out of selfishness, pride, fear or other aspects of one's ego. Thereforenobody else can tell you if it is right or wrong. For example, one can devoteoneself to a deep study of Physics out of an interest in the subject, to understandthe laws of nature or to learn how things work. One can also study it deeply inorder to become a well-known scholar, to win appreciation, get power, position,status, in life. The action is the same but the feeling with which it is being done isvery different. Whenever the motivation behind any action, any effort that wemake is self-centred, it strengthens the ego and is therefore, by definition wrong.Feelings that do not emanate from the ego and therefore do not strengthen it are,by definition, right. To discriminate between the two requires deep awareness of oneself.

Having defined right and wrong in this way, can we now find out how to liverightly? Living rightly then means one is not content with just " practising " somevirtues (if there is any such thing at all) but with feeling rightly. Feelings are notvoluntary things. They don't go away through explanation, throughrationalizations and certainly not through suppression. If you strongly hatesomeone, you will find you cannot get over it by reasoning, explaining orsuppressing the feeling. Unless one perceives the deep-rooted causes that give rise

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to that feeling of hatred in one's psyche and understands how these causesoperate, one cannot be free of that feeling of hatred. If one outwardly tries toconvert it into a feeling of love, it leads to hypocrisy and pretence. It is veryimportant to be totally honest and true with oneself and avoid any trace of hypocrisy or pretence if one wants to understand oneself. It is more important tobe oneself and to learn about oneself than to try to be like anyone else, howevergreat, be it Gandhi, Krishnamurti or Buddha. It is self-knowledge alone thatnaturally alters ones values and outlook on life and thereby cleanses our feelingsat the source.

We must clearly understand that external order and discipline however necessary

and useful they may be, will never bring about order inside. On the other hand, if there is order inside, in our minds, Our feelings, our thoughts, then the outer orderand discipline follow as a natural corollary. To give an example, if a man is notgreedy or self-centred he has no desire to break the queue at a shop or a bus stopand get in before everybody else. You don't need to discipline him or put apoliceman there to keep him in the queue. He will stand in the right placenaturally. On the other hand, if you have a whole set of greedy individuals, youneed a policeman to impose order through fear and the order is retained only solong as the fear is present.

A Krishnamurti School presents this challenge before us. Can we live in naturalorder, without fear, without compulsion ? That is right living. Can we co-operatewith each other without seeking personal advantage, without requiring agreementof opinion and without forming groups ? Can we be friends without seekingflattery or fearing criticism ? Can we work hard like an ambitious man, but not beambitious ? Can we put in our best in a game and be equally happy if our friend

wins ? Can we live without comparison, without feeling superior or inferior toanyone else ? Can we love each other without psychologically leaning on eachother, using each other ? Can we live without illusions, without any crutches andprops, seeing facts for what they are and doing what is right without fear orfavour ? That is the challenge a Krishnamurti School poses before us. If wecannot live like that within the small protected school community how can weexpect our students to live that way in the world outside ? And if we don't educatethem to live that way, then of what value is education ? Is education meant onlyto cultivate certain abilities, use them in the outside world to gain maximummaterial advantages, accept all the greed, violence and corruption of society andcontribute further to it ? Is that all there is to education ? That is the question weall must ask, both individually and a lso collectively.

The greatest hurdle to creating a Krishnamurti School is not the child, nor thetechnique, nor society, nor the educational system. It is a lack of understanding of our own little selves, our own egos. In this respect we are not very different fromthe children and if one observes carefully one would find that their problems arereally the same as ours. Unless we the teachers, are acutely aware of this fact, onecannot create a Krishnamurti School however much one might struggle with theproblems of discipline, educational techniques, achievements, finances andefficiency.

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