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The insights shared by Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) in the field of education have been revolutionary in a very deep sense. The main objective of today’s education is to prepare a person for a job or profession, help him to be successful, and encourage him to perpetually climb the ladder of success. But isn’t the purpose of education to create a healthy, intelligent and happy human being too?
- Krishnamurti suggests that we learn about our inner nature, observe our thoughts, feelings, and experiences, as well as understand external conditions, so that a change in the human condition can be brought about throughout the world. For this, the teacher at the initial level must consider and understand the obstacles that prevent him from being original and understanding anything in its totality.
Often people in India and foreign countries also want to know what the educational philosophy of Jiddu Krishnamurti is. Krishnamurti Foundation India runs six schools in India which are counted among the best in the country. It seems to me that a Krishnamurti school is an experiment in right living. But it’s a unique experiment in the sense that no formula has been fixed in this experiment. There is no recipe, and there is no authority that tells you what this kind of life is. Unless we know what living rightly is, we cannot even tell our children what it is. So, first of all, it is the responsibility of parents and teachers to find out what is the right life after all.
Education could not be just for intellectual development –so Krishnamurti established residential schools where teachers, students and other people in the school could live together and communicate with each other over questions of education and life.
Krishnamurti explains the mission of the school in this way – “A school is a place where we learn about totality; about the totality of life. It is a place where both the student and the teacher investigate, not only the external world, and the field of knowledge, but also their thoughts, their behaviour. Here they come to know how attached they are to their conditioning and how conditioning is distorting their thinking.
He urged the teachers to become ‘scientists of awareness’. They cultivate sensitivity and wisdom in children. Krishnamurti’s philosophy of education mainly focused on the psychology of learning and living. In his book —Education and the Significance of Life, he says: “It (the school) is a place where we learn to see the world – not through any ideology; we learn about the struggle of all humanity, its search for beauty, its search for truth and its search for a life that in which there is no conflict”.
Krishnamurti emphasized that in school both teachers and students should explore the fundamental questions of life without any coercion. This investigation should start from the outer world, and with understanding, it should enter the inner. Sense perception acts as a bridge between the outer and inner world and therefore both seeing and hearing are of paramount importance.
He urges teachers to create an environment where people can get acquainted with the art of hearing and seeing. Where wisdom can awaken, goodness can blossom. Krishnamurti laid equal emphasis on both Pragya (intelligence) and Goodness.
Art of Listening
Listening to the world of sounds, listening to the spoken word and its meaning, listening to the psychological implications of not being able to listen, listening to misconceptions and barriers to listening—all this should be part of our curriculum. Krishnamurti believes that listening is one of the greatest, highest arts of life. He says that listening is an art that does not come easily. There is beauty and deep understanding in this. We listen from different depths of our being, but this listening is always through a preconceived notion or a particular ideology.
We just don’t listen spontaneously; there is always a veil of thoughts and prejudices interfering. Listening requires one to be quiet within, free from the pressure of achieving something, in a relaxed state of attention. This conscious but passive state can listen to that which is beyond verbal inferences. Words confuse, they are just an external medium of conversation, but if we want to establish a dialogue away from the noise of words, it is necessary to listen, to have a conscious passivity, a passive awareness.
Right listening is part of wisdom. Krishnamurti explains this by saying: “I do not know whether you have ever listened to a bird. To listen to someone, your mind must be still – not mystical stillness, just silence. I am telling you something, and in order to listen to me it is necessary that you be silent, not that all kinds of thoughts keep buzzing in your mind”.
That’s why he considers listening to be one of the most difficult things—listening to a communist, listening to a socialist or a democrat or a capitalist, listening to anyone—one’s wife, children, neighbour, a bus conductor or a bird. Only when one is in direct contact can one listen and then one can understand whether what is being said is true or false.
Art of Seeing
Krishnamurti suggests that if one wants to learn about a leaf – a leaf of the spring or the summer months – one has to see it, its symmetry, its dignity, the variety of this living leaf. A leaf has its beauty, its own vitality, and its own strength. To understand a leaf, a flower, a cloud, a sunset or a human being, you have to look at it with full intensity.
Where does this intensity come from? Is it born out of attention, sensitivity and affection? Does this intensity come from the suspension of an over-zealous, excessively active mind, however temporary?
If any educational institution wants to lay the foundation of an ethical existence, in the true sense wants to bring fundamental changes in society, it has to pay attention to the inner human nature. This nature controls our external activities. It may not be enough in itself, but it is a necessary beginning for a responsible and truly moral education. Right observation is a step in this direction.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.
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