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Cover Story

Thus spake Krishnamurti • They want you to be mechanical, to fit in with tradition,

to conform, to believe, to accept authority.
Present-day education is a complete failure
because it has over-emphasised technique. • Each generation revolts against the
“In over-emphasising technique we destroy past generation and hands to the fol-
man. To cultivate capacity and efficiency with- lowing generation a perfect mess, of
out understanding life, without having a compre- war, hatred, division, brutality, violence,
hensive perception of the ways of thought and despair.
desire, will only make us increasingly ruthless,
which is to engender wars and jeopardise our • To educate you so that you do not get
physical security. caught in the whirlpool of existence but
live in the whole river of life — that is the
• Education may have a different meaning alto- whole function of education.
gether — not merely transferring what is printed
on a page to your brain. Education may mean opening the • Right education is not to help you to find careers. It is
doors of perception on to the vast movement of life. It may to help you to find out for yourself what you really, with all
mean learning how to live happily, freely, without hate and your heart, love to do.
confusion, but in beatitude. Modern education is blinding
us; we learn to fight each other more and more, to com- • We are facing a tremendous crisis which politicians can
pete, to struggle with each other. Right education is surely never solve. Nor can scientists understand or solve the
finding a different way of life, setting the mind free from its crisis, nor yet the business world, the world of money. The
own conditioning. turning point is not in politics, in religion, in the scientific
world; it is in our consciousness.
• Teaching is the noblest profession — if it can be called a
profession at all. It is an art that requires, not just intellec- • Take a leaf in the spring—how delicate it is, and yet it
tual attainments, but infinite patience and love. To be truly has extraordinary strength to stand the wind; in summer it
educated is to understand our relationship to all things — to matures and in autumn it turns yellow and then it dies. It is
money, to property, to people, to nature — in the vast field one of the most beautiful things to see. The whole thing is a
of our existence. movement of beauty, of the vulnerable. The leaf that is very,
very tender, becomes rich, takes shape, meets summer,
• When the industry of entertainment takes over, when the and then when autumn comes it turns gold. It is a perpetual
young people, the students, the children, are constantly movement from beauty to beauty. There is fullness in the
instigated to pleasure, to romantic sensuality, the words spring leaf as well as in the dying leaf. Why cannot man live
”
‘restraint’ and ‘austerity’ are pushed away. and die that way?

petition, ranks and rewards. This has tion, and environment damage due to cause Krishnamurti who never pro-
often deterred parents from certain global warming and climate change, fessed, practised or preached any for-
sections of society from sending their the trustees of KFI have undergone mal creed, expressed dissatisfaction
children to study here. Unfortunately, a change of heart and mindset. They with the ubiquitous factory-style, facts
our top rank in EW surveys has cre- have become aware that the education cramming primary-secondary educa-
ated the perception that we are an elite philosophy and teachings of Krish- tion system which robbed children
school despite our emphasis on simple namurti — identified when he was an of the joys of childhood and learning
living, care for the environment, and adolescent as a future World Teacher through leisurely exploration and dis-
empathy for fellow human beings, by English theosophists Charles Web- covery. Moreover, he was perhaps the
rather than excellent sports facilities ster Leadbeater and Dr. Annie Besant first educationist to foresee the conse-
and infrastructure,” says Kumaras- (a founder of the Congress party quences of the extractive and ecology
wamy, director of RVEC established which led India to freedom from the destructive Western industrial devel-
by JK himself. British Raj), but broke with them in opment model, driven by unrestrained
Evidently with religious and sectar- 1929 — have the potential to heal the consumerism and the damage it would
ian conflict on the rise, and incidents grievously wounded nation riven by inflict upon Planet Earth’s environ-
of man’s inhumanity to man multiply- sectarian discord and ravages of cli- ment and natural habitats.
ing even as the country is experienc- mate change and global warming. In the early 1950s, JK described
ing unprecedented industrial pollu- KFI’s coming out is important be- “present-day education as a complete

42 EDUCATIONWORLD JUNE 2022