Education
Jiddu Krishnamurti quotes
Discipline in schools becomes necessary when
there is one teacher to a hundred boys and girls – then you jolly well
have
to be very strict; but such discipline will not produce an intelligent
human
being. And most of us are interested in mass movements, large schools
with
a great many boys and girls; we are not interested in creative
intelligence,
therefore we put up huge schools with enormous attendances. At one of
the
universities I believe there are 45000 students.
1948 5th Public Talk, Poona, India, code pn48t5
There is no need to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.
When
we grow older and leave school after receiving a so-called education,
we have to face many problems. What profession are we to choose, so
that in it we can fulfil ourselves and be happy? In what vocation or
job will we feel that we are not exploiting or being cruel to others?
We have to face the problem of suffering, disaster, death. We have to
understand starvation, overpopulation, sex, pain, pleasure. We have to
deal with the many confusing and contradictory things in life: the
wrangles between man and man, between man and woman; the conflicts
within and the struggles without. We have to understand ambition, war,
the military spirit – and that extraordinary thing called peace, which
is much more vital than we realize. We have to comprehend the
significance of religion, which is not mere speculation or the worship
of images, and also that very strange and complex thing called love. We
have to be sensitive to the beauty of life, to a bird in flight – and
also to the beggar, to the squalor of the poor, to the hideous
buildings that people put up, to the foul road and the still fouler
temple. We have to face all these problems. We have to face the
question of whom to follow or not to follow, and whether we should
follow anyone at all.
Most of us are concerned with
bringing about a little change here and there, and with that we are
satisfied. The older we grow, the less we want any deep, fundamental
change, because we are afraid. We do not think in terms of total
transformation, we think only in terms of superficial change; and if
you look into it you will find that superficial change is no change at
all. It is not a radical revolution, but merely a modified continuity
of what has been. All these things you have to face, from your own
happiness and misery to the happiness and misery of the many; from your
own ambitions and self-seeking pursuits to the ambitions, motivations
and pursuits of others. You have to face competition, the corruption in
yourself and in others, the deterioration of the mind, the emptiness of
the heart. You have to know all this, you have to face and understand
it for yourself. But unfortunately you are not prepared for it.
What have we understood when we leave school?
Krishnamurti in Life Ahead, p.154-155