"The ignorant man is not the unlearned, but he who does
not know himself, and the learned man is stupid when he relies on
books, on knowledge and on authority to give him understanding. Understanding
comes only through self-knowledge, which is awareness of one's total
psychological process. Thus education, in the true sense, is the
understanding of oneself, for it is within each one of us that the whole
of existence is gathered."
- Krishnamurti from Education and The Significance
of Life
(1953, page 17)
How do we move beyond our own conditioning? How do we create schools
for the young that do not instill in them our own fears and prejudices?
According to Krishnamurti, you create an education that is not a "system" but
built around the attitudes and qualities of the teacher and child, and
how they relate to one another.
Krishnamurti Schools
What exactly constitutes a Krishnamurti School? What are the intentions
and aims of these schools? These questions are addressed directly in
Krishnamurti's own words at: http://www.kinfonet.org/Community/schools/about_schools.htm
Also, in a 1997 presentation at the first holistic education conference,
Scott Forbes, former principal of the Brockwood
Park Krishnamurti Educational Center in England, shared his views
about "Krishnamurti's
Insights into Education: Education as Religious Activity."
There now appear to be two kinds of Krishnamurti Schools. First are
those supported by the Krishnamurti
Foundation (whose intention is to ensure the teachings of Krishnamurti
remain as pure as possible). Then, there are also a handful of Krishnamurti-inspired
schools that are not sponsored by the Foundation. The schools are still
relatively small in numbers and located around the world with the vast
majority in India. For anyone interested in learning about specific Krishnamurti
Schools, you can find a listing with contact information and brief descriptions
of the current Foundation-sponsored as well as several non-Foundation
schools located on the Krishnamurti Information Network: Community web
pages: http://www.kinfonet.org/Community/
When you begin to inquire about "methodless" schools, you
will find that each school has evolved quite differently because there
was no set technique that they followed. These schools are each unique,
some with an academic focus, others with spiritual emphasis and others
with a psychological foundation for student development.
Here are a couple of other resources on specific Krishnamurti Schools:
- There is an out-of-print book called Life at School by Meenakshi
Thapan (Oxford U. Press, Delhi, 1991) that James Peterson recommends
which outlines daily routines at Krishnamurti's school in Rishi Valley,
India.
- Rishi Valley School also has a growing alumni web site at: http://www.rvs.org/welcome.htm that's
interesting to explore too.
- Brockwood Park has a video that was compiled by students (described
in more detail below), available from the Krishnamurti Foundation, http://www.kfoundation.org/.
Krishnamurti's Teachings
The core of Krishnamurti's teachings revolve around truth as a "pathless
land." These teachings were briefly summarized by Krishnamurti himself
in October 1980, and are posted in their entirety at:
http://flp.cs.tu-berlin.de:1895/excerpts/core.html
As I assume many of the people reading the Paths of Learning article
by James Peterson may be new to Krishnamurti's teachings, I would like
to share some of my personal experiences as I was introduced this year
to Krishnamurti.
In November 1999, I began to learn about Krishnamurti Schools after
receiving a copy of a small book called "Letters to the Schools:
Volume one" from a friend deeply interested in Krishnamurti's
lifelong teachings. Within a week, I met Scott Forbes who had directed
one of the few Krishnamurti Schools in the world (Brockwood Park in England).
About a month later, I visited Scott again and he lent me the video about
Brockwood Park.
What struck me most when reading Letters to the Schools, meeting
Scott, and watching the video (created by students) about Brockwood Park
was the clarity of thought and mindfulness (to use a Buddhist term) of
each. Each word, paragraph, and concept in the Letters to Schools was
carefully chosen and defined, not defined academically but inquiring
into the real meaning within the readers and the significance of the
meaning to Krishnamurti as well. It was not an imposition of ideas to
be instilled in the readers, but an inquiry for the readers. As Krishnamurti
wrote, "digest it so that it is yours and not the
writer's."
As you might guess from reading Peterson's article, the letters aren't
about methods at all; they are about coming to understand the flowering
of the mind, goodness, relationship, facing fear, responsibility, and
moving SLOWLY into the meanings within our own lives rather than rushing
through new ideas or concepts. Likewise, when speaking with Scott, I
felt very much an internal peace, the clarity of his beliefs, and his
attentiveness to me as the listener. The video too, was not about telling
the world how to educate; in fact there was no narration at all--it was
a beautiful visual depiction of life at Brockwood Park through music
and footage. It was not a half-hearted crudely-made video but a high
quality video put together by students to SHOW the meaning in their lives
at the school through day to day activities, illustrating the emotions
and moods as much as the learning.
As I learn more about Krishnamurti's works and teachings, I find myself
overwhelmed by the sheer volume, yet in no hurry whatsoever to drink
them in. Rather, he inspires me to slow down my thinking and the pace
of my life, to read less, and to question more the conditioning of my
own life. At the same time, there are days when his ideas feel so contrary
to everything that I have known until now in my life, a rejection of
my ideals and values, that his words are as difficult to hear as they
are inspiring on other days.
Krishnamurti's Life
Although James Peterson's article in Paths of Learning shared
a brief history of Krishnamurti, I've found that for the most part Krishnamurti
was not interested in sharing his life story with others, because it
diverted attention from his message. To the contrary, as he spoke in
1930:
"Friend, do not concern yourself with who I am; you will never
know. I do not want you to accept anything I say. I do not want anything
from any of you; I do not desire popularity; I do not want your flattery,
your following. Because I am in love with life, I do not want anything.
These questions are not of very great importance; what is of importance
is that you obey and allow your judgment to be perverted by authority.
Your judgment, your mind, your affection, your life are being perverted
by things which have no value, and herein lies the sorrow."
It is almost always in this strong context of not wanting followers
that one finds Krishnamurti's
story is told. In other words, his real story is not about his life
but about the message he left for empowering others by their own judgment.
Other Spiritual, Non Dogmatic Educators
When I asked author James Peterson about other educational leaders similar
to Krishnamurti, he replied, "As far as any other spiritual teacher
echoing some of K's ideas, I would say NO. K never wished to be called
a spiritual teacher and he tried to keep those who turned to him for
advice away from spiritual concepts and systems. Others, such as Hazrat
Inayat Khan, Sri Aurobindo and Rudolf Steiner all based their educational
ideas on their own specific and elaborate spiritual views of the cosmos
and mankind. You might cite, however, cite David
Marshak's book COMMON VISION, in which he compares the educational
ideas of these three teachers. K's ideas are completely different-----that's
why so few have written about his teaching ideas and why I wanted to
take a crack at it."
Resource List
Books to Read
The Krishnamurti Foundation of America has created a
web page especially for educators which describes most of Krishnamurti's
best books related to his philosophies of education. You can link
to this page from: http://www.kfa.org/catalog/
These and many other books by or about Krishnamurti may also be available
at your local library. (If they’re not, you can certainly ask for
them through an interlibrary loan.)
To purchase a book, you can also check directly with the Krishnamurti
Foundation or the International
Krishnamurti Collection.
For general books on education and spirituality, two excellent places
to begin are:
Education and the Significance of Life, by J. Krishnamurti,
NY: Harper and Row, 1953. Schools emphasize intellectual knowledge and
technical mastery, but in themselves these are fragmentary and alienating;
they disconnect the person from the changing and holistic reality of
human experience in the world. As Krishnamurti sees it, the primary purpose
of schooling in the modern age makes the cultivation of wisdom and compassion
impossible: “Our present education is geared to industrialization
and war, its principal aim being to develop efficiency; and we are caught
in this machine of ruthless competition and moral destruction….
Property and ideas have become more important to us than human life.” Essentially,
students are trained to crave personal success and security, and to depend
on the state and other institutions to protect them. (Although this book
is out of print, it is still available at most libraries or from many
used bookstores that you can locate through www.bibiofind.com from
$5 to $25.)
The
Common Vision: Parenting & Educating for Wholeness, by
David Marshak, Peter Lang Publishing,
1997. This book describes in detail the philosophical and spiritual
frameworks for three unique holistic schools that emerged early in
the 20th century and have continued to flourish. The book focuses on
the teachings of: Rudolf Steiner (founder of the Waldorf schools, now
established worldwide), Aurobindo Ghose (founder of the Sri Aurobindo
Ashram in India), and Inayat Khan (Sufi master whose teachings led
to the "Seed Centers" of San Francisco).
Web Sites to Explore
If you don't have a computer or Internet access from home, try your
local library to access these expanding web resources.
Audios and Videos
To receive the Foundation's catalogue of video and audio recordings
or details about the CD-ROM, please write to the Foundation office.
Krishnamurti
Foundation Trust
Brockwood Park
Bramdean, Nr.
Alresford
Hants SO24 0LQ
UK
Telephone:
+ 44 - (0)1962-771-525
Fax: +
44 - (0)1962-771-159
There is also a searchable International Krishnamurti Collection at:
http://www.kinfonet.org/International_Krishnamurti_Collection/index.htm
From Reflection to Action...
Away From Idealism, Toward Integration
"The highest function of education is to bring about an integrated
individual who is capable of dealing with life as a whole. The idealist,
like the specialist, is not concerned with the whole, but only with
a part. There can be no integration as long as one is pursuing an ideal
pattern of action; and most teachers who are idealists have put away
love, they have dry minds and hard hearts. To study a child, one has
to be alert, watchful, self-aware, and this demands far greater intelligence
than to encourage him to follow an ideal." -Krishnamurti in Education
and the Significance of Life (page 24, 1953)
While many teachers, parents, and people in alternative education revere
their ideals and use them as the pivot point for making decisions to
create a "better world" through education, Krishnamurti challenges
this view. For him, education for the environment or for social justice
is not the primary issue of education; indeed, if we let ourselves be
distracted from ourselves and from our own self-knowledge and relationships
with others, that is when conflict and destruction is most likely to
arise. Habits, beliefs, traditions, fears -- these are the mechanical
aspects of our society and our lives that lead only to violence, conflict,
and struggle.
How can you be in true relationship with a child if you have expectations
and images in your head about where that relationship needs to go? The
challenge to action in reading Krishnamurti is to not live by our ideals,
but instead to recognize the limited place of thoughts and discover how
to live without internal division within ourselves. This is the integrated
life, where we find the balance of right action and right thought within
ourselves. It is no small task. There is no "how to" book or
resource with the answers; it is all within yourself.
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