Krishnamurti - Beginnings of Learning

Beginnings of Learning

Copyright 1975 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd

Beginnings of Learning

KRISHNAMURTI

CONTENTS

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART I: QUOTATIONS

The world is that way, deceptive, the deceiving politicians, the money-minded... If you are not properly educated youll just slip into it. So what do you think is education? Is it to help you to fit into the mechanism of the present order, or disorder, of things? Or do you think it should be something else?

Is our education at Brockwood helping you to be intelligent? I mean by that word to be very sensitive, not to your own desires, to your own demands, but to be sensitive to the world, to what is going on in the world. Surely education is not merely to give you knowledge, but also to give you the capacity to look at the world objectively. The function of education is to help you to face the world in a totally different intelligent way.

When you have that seed, and it is flowering here, then you will keep it going all your life. But if this doesnt operate, then the world will destroy you. The world makes you what it wants you to be: a cunning animal.

PART ONE

Conversations with Students and Staff

at Brockwood Park

Problems of living at Brockwood where there is no authority. Difference between sentiment and affection. The feeling of being at home.

K RISHNAMURTI : Most people work either to avoid punishment or to gain something in the way of possessions, money, fame and so on. So most people work under great pressure. Here at Brockwood there is not that extreme pressure, or any kind of pressure put upon you. Therefore there is a tendency, if I may point out, to slacken, to let go, to become rather empty and lose that vitality that youth generally hasthat feeling of urgency, the flame of doing something. All that gradually disappears and you are left here to be responsible to yourself, which is rather difficult.

Most of us want somebody to lean on, somebody to encourage us, somebody to say, You are doing very well, carry on! And to push us a little when we are slack, drive us when we are indifferent, when we are sleepy, shake us to keep awake so that somebody gradually becomes the authority. Havent you noticed this?

There is no authority here, therefore you are left to yourself and it is very difficult to keep oneself at the highest point of energy, drive, intelligence and affection and not just go off into a kind of daydream, uselessly wasting time. Brockwood is supposed to give youand I hope it doesthe terrain, the environment, the atmosphere in which this self-generating energy can go on. How is all this to be created? Who is going to do it?

Questioner: Everyone here.

K RISHNAMURTI : What does that mean?

Questioner: Self-responsibility.

K RISHNAMURTI : When you use a word be very careful that you know what it means. Do you know what that word responsibility means?not what you think it should mean, but what it means according to the dictionary. We must first understand the meaning of that word. Here is your English teacher, ask her.

Questioner: Doesnt it mean the ability to respond?

K RISHNAMURTI : Thats right, isnt it?the capacity to respond.

Questioner: We often use the word answerable; we say, I am answerable for such and such.

K RISHNAMURTI : If I am inefficient I cant answer, respond properly. So responsibility means to respond adequately to the job or to the environment or to the incidents around me. I must respond to my highest capacity: that is what the word responsible means. See what a lot is involved in that one word.

So who is going to be responsible to bring about the right soil here, the right environment, the right atmosphere, so that you are totally awake, generating the energy for yourself?

Questioner: Each one of us.

K RISHNAMURTI : Can you do this, Gregory? Is each one of us capable of this?

Questioner: All of us together.

K RISHNAMURTI : No. Who is All of us together? Will you be responsible to bring about this soil where you will respond to an incident, to everything that is happening around you completely, adequately? If each one of us does that there is no problem, is there? Then the place will be marvellous and each one of us will have a thousand-watt candle inside him. Is each one of us capable of this? That is, when you say, Ill go to bed at ten oclockor whatever you agree onyou will do it and nobody need tell you. You follow what it implies? When you study you give your complete attention to it, that means an adequate response to the subject, to everything which is your responsibility. Can we all do this together?

Questioner: We are capable of it, but we dont usually do it.

K RISHNAMURTI : Why not? Are you slack or indifferent to what you are doing because you want to be doing something else?

Questioner: First, how can one be responsible if one doesnt know the field in which one is working well enough? I mean, before I can take responsibility for something, I have to know for certain that I can do it.

K RISHNAMURTI : Yes, that you are capable of doing it.

Questioner: But mostly what happens is that people are saying, You are responsible, and its taken for granted that one knows what to do.

K RISHNAMURTI : No, look, Tungki, we have just now defined that word. I am asking you, are you capable, adequate, sufficiently intelligent to deal with something that has to take place here? If we are not, lets be humble about it, lets be sensible and say: we are not. Then how do we bring this about in us? Discuss it, I am not going to answer for you.

Questioner: It has something to do with relationship. When you are responsible, you are responsible in relationship, arent you?

K RISHNAMURTI : I dont knowfind out.

Questioner: I see so many misunderstandings in the school, very often among the students, among the staff. But I realize now that in order to be responsible we have to see first that we have misunderstandings which must be cleared up.

K RISHNAMURTI : Now how do you clear up a misunderstanding? What is the requisite quality necessary to help us to wipe away a misunderstanding? You say something and I misunderstand it and I get hurt. How do you and I wipe away that hurt, that sense of Youve misunderstood me? Or I have done something out of misunderstanding which you think I ought not to have done. How do you clear that up?

Questioner: You go back to the beginning and see what went wrong.

K RISHNAMURTI : Is it necessary to do all that?

Questioner: It needs time.

K RISHNAMURTI : No, it needs a little more than thatwhat else is necessary?

Questioner: A regard, a proper relationship.

K RISHNAMURTI : Which means what? Go on, push.

Questioner: (1) It needs patience and care, a feeling of eagerness.

Questioner: (2) I would say affection.

K RISHNAMURTI : Peter says it needs affectionyou understand? If I have affection I say, Lets look at the misunderstanding and see if we cant get over it. But if I merely examine it intellectually and take time over it, then Ill be hurt by somebody else. So affection is the basis on which one can wipe away misunderstandings. Right?

Questioner: I think if you didnt have an image about yourself you wouldnt be hurt.

K RISHNAMURTI : Yes, but I have an image and he has an image. I get hurt by what you have said; how do I wipe it away? Can I say, Look, I have misunderstood, I am sorry, do let us talk about it again? That requires a certain affection, doesnt it? Have you got that affection? Affection is different from sentimentbe very clear on that point.