In this two-part series, we look at the education philosophy of J. Krishnamurti and why it is critical today.
AI is stealing jobs. Mental health is at an all-time low. Countries are at war over boundaries. The stress of education and work is costing people their lives.
50 years ago, this is not how we imagined the future. We thought technology would increase our leisure and make our lives better, right?
Well, we thought wrong. The future (today) was a disaster in the making, according to J. Krishnamurti:
“It is because we have acquired technical knowledge without understanding the total process of life that technology has become a means of destroying ourselves. The man who knows how to split the atom but has no love in his heart becomes a monster.”
We worked so hard on external things like fancy degrees, money, and cramming our brain with facts, that we forgot to look at our internal self. What did that lead to? Lust, anger, greed, delusion, jealousy, and arrogance becoming global phenomena.
But there is a better way: the education philosophy of J. Krishnamurti. It holds is that our thoughts, education, and work should contribute towards freeing the mind of the conditioning, dogmas, and beliefs that tie it down. Then, we can meet life as it is.
“Education is the cultivation of the mind so that action is not self-centered; it is learning through life to break down the walls which the mind builds in order to be secure, and from which arises fear and all its complexities.”
What Are You Doing With Your Life is a compilation of speeches, essays, and dialogues that offer, among other things, a peek into Jiddu Krishnamurti’s education philosophy.
Where Education Has Failed
If there is one thing modern education should have taught us but hasn’t, it is how to develop our cognitive faculties.
Modern education develops the intellect by bombarding us with theories and explanations but ignores intelligence, Krishnamurti says. (Intellect is thought functioning without emotion, while intelligence is the capacity to maintain harmony between feeling and reason.)
“Therefore we have developed cunning minds to escape from conflict. We are satisfied with explanations that scientists and philosophers give us. The mind—the intellect—is satisfied. . . but intelligence is not, for to understand there must be complete unity of mind and heart in action. . .”
Such ignorance make us slaves to our memories. Thought is necessary—it leads to discreet action. But overthinking and over-reminiscing cause analysis paralysis.
“There is no new thing as long as we are burdened with memories; and life, being everlastingly new, we cannot understand it. Therefore our living is very tedious; we become lethargic, we grow mentally and physically fat.”
Life, Krishnamurti (or K) says, is like a river, “running, swift, volatile, never still. . .” To understand it, we must meet it afresh every day. But we can’t, because we’ve become like the stumps of a dead tree in the river, gathering floating wreckage. Life becomes about accumulation, not about flowing with fresh water.
“Knowledge is accumulation of the past, learning is always in the present. To understand life, you have to learn every minute about it and never come to it having learned.”
Finally, education has failed to teach us how to overcome the fear of change. With age comes the desire for the status quo, for security. We might pay lip service to revolution, to progress. But our action speak the opposite. We don’t just resist change, we also obstruct people who are working for it.
“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. . . It is merely a modified continuity of what has been.”
Yet, we complain that the world is bad, that politicians are not doing more. That’s insanity — doing the same thing and wanting different results. Is education supposed to make us insane?
Where Education Has Succeeded
The successes of modern education further highlight its failures. First, we strive to become better at grades, money, and power. This has created an apathy for intelligence.
“Teachers are concerned only that you should pass examinations and go to the next class, and parents want you to get a class ahead. Neither of them is interested that you should leave school as intelligent human beings without fear.”
The result is that we swap originality for imitation, leaving us with barely any independent, authentic thoughts or feelings. And nowhere is it more prominent than at our jobs, where we just do more of the same day after day. No learning, discovery, or personal growth. Is it any surprise that most people hate their jobs?
“Technical knowledge, however necessary, will not resolve our inner, psychological pressures and conflicts. We choose a vocation according to our capacities, but will following the vocation lead us out of conflict and confusion? . . . Without understanding ourselves, mere occupation leads to frustration, with its inevitable escapes through all kinds of mischievous activities.”
Mischievous activities like addictions, unfaithfulness, exploiting the weak… the list can go on and on.
But we can only blame the environment so much for who we are. After all, we are the environment. We choose to play along with the values that society imposes on us.
So don’t hold your breath waiting for governments to change policies and institutions to become proactive. Take responsibility for educating yourself and your family.
“Neither the government, nor teachers, nor parents, care to educate you rightly; if they did, the world would be entirely different, and there would be no wars. So if you want to be rightly educated, you have to set about it yourself; and then see to it that your own children are rightly educated.”
This begs the question: What is education?
The Education Philosophy of J Krishnamurti
According to K, education should serve three purposes, the first of which is discovering your vocation.
“You know what ‘vocation’ means? Something which you love to do, which is natural. After all, that is the function of education, of a school, to help children to grow independently so that they are not ambitious but can find their true vocation. The ambitious man has never found his true vocation. . .”
Downplaying ambition—one of most glorified traits today—sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But take a few moments to ponder and it start to make sense.
Ambitious people have wealth, power, and status. But most of them wish they could do something else, something they truly enjoy. And guess what, despite having the means, the money, and the desire, they say, “But I can’t.”
Because the object of their pursuit has enslaved them. A deviation will demand time and effort, which could mean losing what they have. And we humans hate losing more than we love winning.
Don’t pursue ambition, pursue a vocation, something you love doing. Life changes when you find it. The desire for external validation vanishes and getting in a state of flow becomes easier. (Anything that puts you in such a state can be considered for your vocation.)
“If you are an engineer merely because you must earn a livelihood, or because your father or society expects it of you, that is another form of compulsion; and [it] creates a contradiction, conflict. Whereas if you really love to be an engineer, or a scientist, or if you can plant a tree, or paint a picture, or write a poem, not to gain recognition but just because you love to do it, then you will find that you never compete with another. This is the real key: to love what you do.” [Emphasis mine.]
Education encourages experimentation, which helps you discover your vocation. The more you experiment, the more you learn, and the less afraid of failure you become.
The second purpose of education is to help you think right, which is not the same as right thought.
“Right thought is merely conformity to a pattern, to a system. It is static; it involves the constant friction of choice… Right thinking is a movement of self-knowledge from moment to moment… Right thinking can only come when there is awareness of every thought and feeling.”
A thought could appear right, but appearances can be deceptive. For instance, sticking to the status quo is the right thought per society. But apart from stagnation, this breeds problems like pluralistic ignorance—everyone thinks everyone else approves of a wrong behavior and hence keeps quiet. This makes the wrong behavior acceptable. (Think of bullying, pilfering, and driving on the wrong side of the street.)
Right thinking, meanwhile, leads to intelligence, where a thought feels right. It occurs when you can listen without having anything to say, when you can change your mind if the situation warrants, and when you can be discerning while collecting facts. Then, you learn to value your experiences and learnings more than hearsay from so-called authority figures.
“Someone else’s truth sounds like only opinion until you try it out for yourself. You must look through the microscope yourself, or you will be left with the dust of words, not with the actual perception of life.”
The education philosophy of J. Krishnamurti also states that real learning makes you a better, loving human being. It frees you of the mental blocks that stop you from opening up to is.
“It is the function of education to help the individual to discover all these psychological hindrances [that the mind creates through craving its own security], and not merely impose upon him new patterns of conduct, new modes of thought. Such impositions will never awaken intelligence, creative understanding, but will only further condition the individual.”
Summary
Schools may have made us clever, equipped us to earn money, but they haven’t taught us how to be human beings. Au contraire, we have become machines. And now, we’re at the mercy of better machines. Gadgets, social media, AI…
We cannot beat machines at their own game. The way to beat them is to be a human, to be an original.
And how should you do that? How should you become original? And what does being original mean? We will explore these questions based on Jiddu Krishnamurti’s education philosophy in the next post.
[Updated: You can read the second and final part here.]