K School – Students Talk 1, Bombay, 13 February 1954
54.02.13 CHILDREN’S TALK (Discussion)
No. I.
4.35 p.m. to 5.45 p.m.
13.2.1954.
I suppose most of you speak English. Do you understand English? Do you? (Students say yes). Alright Sir. And if you don’t understand everything that I say, please I hope you will ask questions afterwards. Will you?
Audience: Yes Sir.
Krishnaji: Good. (Pause…) I wonder why you are being educated? Do you know? Why you are being educated? You know the parents have children, and as they grow to 5 years old they send them to school, and they do not know why they send them to school, nor do you know why you go to school, but all that you know is to go to school, that you must go to school and be educated. You say: I want be educated. Now, what does it mean “to be educated?” Have you ever thought about it — to be educated? — What it means? Does it mean merely to pass some examinations, and afterwards get married, to have a job, you know some sort of job, and then throughout life continue with that job, which you don’t like? Is that education? You understand, Sirs, what I am talking about?
Audience: Yes.
Krishnaji: You are in various schools, aren’t you? And you are being educated there, i.e., you learn mathematics, algebra, geometry, history, geography and so on, and science; for what? Have you ever wondered why? Is it to get a job afterwards — of course for girls, to marry and be rich and go in big expensive cars to clubs (laughter), and if you have no cars, wish that you had a big car and marry someone who has a big car (laughter). Is that education? Or is education something entirely different? Not merely passing the examinations, and putting after your names a few letters, but it may be something entirely different. May it not? Because you know, if you look around the world you will see what an awful mess it is in. Have you looked at the world when you walked down, when you came to this hall? Did you see the poor who have very little to eat, no holidays, but working from morning till night and your parents going to the club in expensive cars and enjoying themselves there? That is life. Isn’t it? The poor and the rich; those who are ill and those who have very good health, and you know what is happening in the world? There are wars, there are miseries, there is every kind of trouble, and we do not know any one of them while we are young. We should not? But you see we are never prepared to meet all that expanse of life, all that extraordinary struggle, misery, suffering, wars; you are never prepared in our schools how to meet them. Well, nobody talks to us about it, and if they do, it is the current history. You know what current history is? Just telling you the facts, but that is not good enough? So education is something, is it not, which helps you to prepare for life; not just get yourself a job which you loath, because job is nothing. To become a clerk or to become a Governor or to become a politician, a scientist, that is not the whole thing of life. There are all kinds of things in life. (Pause…) You know, you see the sea, don’t you? Have you ever watched the sea, the sea is not just what you see on the surface, is it? The sea is enormously deep with all kinds of teeming life, varieties of fish, big and the small; the small living on the smaller, and the big living on the small, all that with enormous currents, depths, fishes, small and enormously big, all that is the sea, so is life with all kinds of enjoyments, pleasures, pains, extraordinary inventions, system of meditation, mass-search for happiness, all that is life; and you see we are not prepared for it. At school nobody talks to us about all those things. There are too many boys and girls in the schools and the teacher is only helping you to pass the examinations; he is not interested in clarification of your minds; it is not merely stuffing the information. If you know how to read you can pick up any encyclopaedia and get whatever you want. So education is not merely learning to read and write and pass few examinations, but I think education is something entirely different.
You see, as long as we are afraid we are not educated. You know what fear is? Do you? Do you know what fear is? Oh yes you do, alright. No?
Audience: Yes.
Krishnaji: Exactly. You know you are afraid; the children are afraid, the grown-up people are afraid; you are all afraid; and if we are afraid we are not educated. We have intelligence. So education is not merely stuffing the brain the mind with information, but to help the student, each one of us, to understand this great complexity of life without fear. You are afraid of your teachers and parents. Aren’t you? Of your elder brother, your aunt or somebody. Are not you? Because the older people have the power to punish you, to ask you to go to your own room and to push you away, and so gradually in school as well as at home we are trained to fear; our life is moulded in the shape of fear and so from childhood till we die we are afraid. And you know what fear does? Have you ever watched what fear does? Have you watched yourself when you are afraid. How your tummy tightens up; how you perspire, how you get nightmares, how you don’t like to be with those people of whom you are frightened, you want to run away like an animal that is threatened. You see, with that fear we go in life; we go to college and then meet this extraordinary thing called life after we leave college or schools, this vast stream with enormous depth which you call life. So the first thing it seems to me in education is to be free, is to see that we are educated to be free from fear, because fear dulls our minds; fear cripples our thinking, fear makes for darkness, so if you are frightened you will not create a new world. Do you understand what I am talking about? Or am I talking of which you have not heard before? (Pause…)
You know in the world outside Bombay, outside the little family, outside your house, in Europe, America in Russia, they are preparing enormous instruments of war, of great destruction, and the world is going through an awful period and all the politicians, all the leaders are very confused — though they say we are not confused — they are really very confused because they are always having wars, always some kind of trouble; so the world is not a beautiful place, so the world is not a lovely thing to live in, a happy place, and if you, who are very young, if you are not rightly educated, you will create a world equally unhappy, equally miserable, equally confused; So is not it very important to see how you should be educated so that you can create a different world, a different place where we can all live happily, not the rich and the poor, not the big politician, having all the power, position, the glamour and the poor having nothing in life, but work, work till they die; it is you that will have to create a new world. You understand? Not the old people; the old people cannot create a new world. They are finished, they have ended, they cannot create a new world because they are making an awful mess of it. But if you are rightly educated you can create a new world; it is in your hands not in the politician’s hands, not in the priest’s hands, but in your hands, and if you are rightly educated you will create a marvellous world, not a world of India or Europe, but it is “our” world, yours and mine. You will then say “our earth” in which to live happily and that depends on you, and I assure you it depends on you and not on anybody else; and therefore it is very important how you are educated, and what kind of teachers you have, because if the teacher is afraid he will have students who are also afraid. If the teachers are narrow, petty, small, merely passing on information to you, you will grow up without knowing what life is, without understanding what life is, with minds very small. So it is very important to be educated rightly which means really to grow up in freedom, and you cannot be free if you are frightened of your parents, frightened of your teachers, of public opinion, what your grandmother, father would say. If you are frightened you can never be free, and you notice in schools they have never thought this question about fear because the moment you have any kind of compulsion — you understand what that word means, to make you do something, either by the so-called kindness or by any system — some form of compulsion does create fear. Does not it? If I am the teacher and I make you do something, I make you study, I make you do this and that, I say you are not intelligent as that boy or that girl; when I compare, when I compare you with some other boy and girl I destroy you, don’t I? You understand what I am talking about? So in schools we have examinations which breed fear, we have systems of gradation, I, II, III, and IV and Matric, which means you are always being compared with somebody else and therefore you are not important, but the clever boy or girl is important. The boy who is very smart at study, which means what, he has a peculiar capacity to pass examinations, and he may be stupid in other directions — probably he is. Your marks, gradation, comparison and any form of compulsion, either through kindness or through fear, breeds this thing that we call “fear,” and so while we are young, in this fear we are caught and all the rest of our life we struggle. So the older generation, by their attitude towards life, create an education which is merely the repetition of the old, so there is no new way of living. So I think it is very important while we are very young like this, to think about all these matters. Even if you don’t understand what I am saying you should ask your teachers, if they will permit it, and to see if you can really be free from fear; because do you know that when there is no fear you study much better, that when you feel you are not being compelled to do something, then you will find what you are interested in? Which is much more important than becoming a beastly clerk, to do something which you do love to do the rest of your life, which you love to do with your hands and mind, not because your parents, your teachers, or your society says: you must do this. That is all nonsense; but if you really love to do something, then through that love you will create a new world, but you cannot create a new world if you are frightened, and therefore there must be, while you are young, this spirit of revolt. You understand what revolt is? (Pause…) You know as we grow from childhood to adulthood, and to manhood, life, which is, the parents, the society, the tradition, the neighbour, the culture, all that encloses you like a prison and it compels you to do what it all wants. So you are never yourself; and so is not it very important that real education — not this thing called education which is not at all education, which is really nonsense — is not it very important that education should help you to be free, so that there is no fear, so that you can think, you can live, you can love, you know what love is? (Pause…) No, I am afraid, you don’t, because no parent loves or at least very few do, because if the parents really loved you they would see that you are free, free to be, to live without fear and grow without fear and be happy; but there are no such parents in the world, because they say that you must be like this, you must not do that, you must be a lawyer like me, or a policeman or a merchant or whatever it is. But you see it is very difficult to understand all these complex problems, you can only understand it as you grow and with this understanding, with this, intelligence should come while we are young, which means really the teacher must understand all this. But there are very few teachers who understand all this. It is a job to think all this; they cannot get another job and they say this is a good job where they can make money or something of the kind, so they are not interested in educating you, nor in education. So you as a boy and girl, you have to find this out, you cannot just be a tame human being, domesticated human being like an animal domesticated. I hope you are understanding what I am talking about and probably teachers understand what I am saying, and if they do, they will throw me out (laughter) because they think which I am talking about is really very difficult and requires a great deal of thinking on the part of the teachers. You know because the world is going to pieces, disintegrating, going to the dogs, I am not saying all this because I am an old person, because there are wars, but there is nothing. So it is in your hands, but you cannot create a new world if there is no spirit of revolt in you, and you cannot have this spirit of revolt if there is fear, and if there is no intelligence. (Pause…)
Alright Sir, now you ask me questions.
Q: I have everything to make me happy while others have not. Why is that so?
Krishnaji: I have everything to make me happy, others have not, why is that so? (Pause…) Why do you think it is like that? You may have a kind mother, kind father, and you may be in very good health and good brains — you may have good health, kind parents, good brain, and you think you are happy and whereas somebody who is ill, whose parents are unkind who has not got too much of a brain, he feels he is unhappy; and why is that so? That is the question. Now, why are you happy and why I am unhappy. Is that? Why are you unhappy and somebody else happy? Does your happiness consist in having cars, good houses, having clean food, kind parents, is that what you call happiness? Cars, riches, and somebody who has no car, no kind parents, lives in dust, squalor and feels unhappy — and is he unhappy? So, what do you mean by happiness? Is not it? That is important to find out, is not it? Now, does happiness consist in comparing? You understand what I am talking about? When I say I am happy, is that happiness born out of comparison? — “well, you are not happy, but I am happy.” You understand what I am talking about? Is it too difficult, Sirs, don’t you know, have you not heard your parents talking about so and so is not well off as we are, not such good cars and good houses as we have — comparison makes them feel as though they have something. Don’t they? And that gives them a sense of satisfaction, does not it? If I am clever and I compare myself to him who is not so clever, I feel very happy, don’t I? You understand what I am saying? We think we are happy through envy. Is this is so difficult? And a man who is happy by comparing himself to him who has a little less is a most miserable human being, because there is somebody above him who has got still more, so it goes on, higher and higher, that is not happiness, comparison. Happiness comes with something else, happiness is something entirely different. Happiness comes when you are doing something which you really love, out of which you don’t get reward by yourself. You love something to do and you do it, not because it gives you riches, or makes you prominent, a famous person, the doing of something which you love, from that doing comes happiness, happiness is not something to be sought after. It is too difficult, is not it?
Q: Suppose now: is there any necessity according to your theory that I have to accept a limitation for time? Fear implies any limitation?
K: Sir, if you will kindly allow the students to ask questions, than asking questions which come out of a mature mind. You understand what I am talking about? You should ask questions, not the elder people; this is not an occasion for that.
May I ask a question?
Student: What is the way of getting rid of the fear we have?
Krishnaji: She asks may we know how to get rid of fear? How am I to get rid of fear. First you must know what you are afraid of, must not you? Do you know what you are afraid of? Are you listening to what I am saying? To be free of fear? I must know what I am afraid of? Am I afraid of my parents, of the teachers, of passing an examination? Of what my sister, brother, my neighbour says about me or fear that I am not as good, or as clever as my father who has a big name, who is a big man? There is every kind of fear. I must know first what fear it is. Now do you know what you are afraid of? If you do, then find out why you afraid. Then find out, don’t run away from that fear. You understand what I mean by running away? For instance, I am afraid of my father or my brother, I want to know how to deal with the problem of getting rid of it. If I want to get rid of it I must not run away from it, I must look at it. I must not escape from it, I must look at it, must not I? Now, the very looking at it helps you to be free from that fear. Because we are running away from that fear we do not look at it, but the moment we look, we stop and look, the fear goes away. You understand what I am talking about? If I am frightened of you, I run away, because you are a big man who has a big noise and you are somebody; but if I say: alright I want to see why I am frightened, and I won’t run away from you, then I look at you, then fear begins to go away; but if I run away, the very running away is the fear, not stopping and looking at it. You understand what I am saying? Because I run there is fear, but if I stop and look at it, there is no fear. (Pause…) You must be teeming with questions, are not you? Or you are shy? (Pause…) May I ask you a question? Alright.
What do you want to be, when you grow, do you know? Of course, the girls, for them it is simple, they want to get married (laughter); wipe off that, that is understood. We will go into that. What do you want to do? Even if you get married, does not mean that it is the end of life? You know. Is that too difficult to answer? Are you ambitious? Are you? Do you know what ambition is? (Pause…) You know “to be somebody,” to become somebody, a man who has an ideal says: I am going to be like Rama, Sita, Gandhiji, he is still ambitious. You understand? Are you ambitious in some way?
Students: Yes.
Krishnaji: Good.
Now, what does that mean? Why are you ambitious? Is that too difficult a question? No? This is one of the problems of life and you ought to be thinking about it, and I see that you have not thought about it at all, because I will tell you why? You know we are all ambitious. Every one is ambitious in his own way. You know what it does. Then each one is fighting the other. You know what that means? Each one of us is ambitious and so each one of us against the other, because I want to be greater than you, and you want to be greater than me. So we are always struggling, struggling, struggling to be something, to be rich, to have name, to have fame, to have more brains, more clever. So ambition means really trying to be something which you are not. You understand what I am talking about? What is important is not to be something which you are not, but to be what you are. First to be what you are, and then begin from there. You understand what I am talking about? Do you see? Most of us, most people who are idealists are hypocrites. You understand, idealists are hypocrites, because they are always trying to be something which they we not. And what is important is to be what you are and then begin from there. If I am, look, if I am stupid, and if I try to become clever, everybody thinks that is marvellous thing. I must be clever, I must be ambitious, to be clever. I strive to be clever. A stupid person can never be clever; all that he can do is to learn the tricks of being clever. But if I know I am stupid then that very knowledge that I am stupid, then it is the beginning of intelligence; it is much better than being clever. Is this all too difficult, Sir? Am I talking Chinese? (laughter)… Take a very simple thing, and look at it, like stupidity; I am stupid, but I am trying to be very clever because my brother, my father, somebody is much cleverer than me, and in the class I am being told I am stupid boy, and I am at the end of the class where my teacher has put me, which is disgraceful to put you in the end for the teacher (laughter), because I am important as anybody else. It is the stupid teachers that are stupid, who have kept me at the end of the class by comparing me with the clever boy or girl, because in comparing they are destroying me. On that basis the whole education, all our culture, is based. It destroys you and me. So I am stupid — they never tell me I am stupid. But they say: Oh, you are stupid and brush me aside; they are always saying to me “you must be as clever as that boy or that girl,” so I strive, struggle to be as clever as that boy or girl, and what happens then to me? I get more and more worried, physically ill, mentally worn out, but I will say: look boy, don’t call me stupid; be what you are. Let us find out what you are interested in, what your capacities are. Be what you are, don’t try to be somebody else, don’t try to become like Gandhiji, Sita or Nehru, but be yourself, what you are, and then from there begin. Then you are important, not Rama, Sita or Gandhiji; who cares, they are all dead people anyhow. What is important is you, and by comparing you with somebody, they belittle you, they make you smaller, they make you more stupid. Whereas if they say: Look be what you are, and then let us find out what you are; and they cannot find out what you are if they are comparing you with somebody else. So comparison destroys you, don’t you compare with anybody. You are as good as anybody. But be what you are, and from there begin to find out how to be more complete, more fully, more freely, more expansively what you are. (Pause…)
I am afraid this is all too difficult for you?
Question: You said: if your parents really loved you they do not stop you from doing anything. Now, does it mean, suppose a child is not clean and it does not want to be clean, it eats something which is bad, it is in an unclean manner. Do we not stop him?
Krishnaji: I do not think I said if the parents love you they will let you do as you like. Sir that is a very difficult question, is not it? After all, if I love my son I would see that he has no fear, which is an extraordinarily difficult thing, because as I said, to have no fear the boy must not, or the girl must not, be compared with anyone else. The boy must not have examinations or he may have an examination at the end of 10 years or 15 years. I will see that he has freedom — not to do what he likes, because that is stupid to do what you like. But a freedom in which you have intelligence and the cultivation of that intelligence will tell you what to do. Not what you like to do. But to have that intelligence there must be freedom; and you cannot be free if you are being compared to some hero and the hero is important and not you. Don’t you have tummy-aches when you have examinations, don’t you feel nervous, anxious? Do you know what it does to you through the rest of your life? Year after year facing this terrible thing called “examinations,” and yet all the big people talk about “we must grow without fear;” but by that they don’t mean a thing of it. They are only lot of words without any meaning in it. Because they are cultivating fear, because we have examinations, you are being compared with somebody else, or the traditions you have. These are the things one has to discuss and try to find out.
You see another thing which we really should discuss is what we call “discipline.” You know what I mean by discipline? You are told what to do and “you have jolly well got to do it.” They don’t explain why you have to do that, they don’t take the trouble from childhood to explain. Why you should get up early, why you should be clean, they don’t explain you these things, because parents and teachers have neither love nor time or patience to explain, so they say: you do it, otherwise I shall punish you and they will punish you. So fear is instilled. So education as we know it now is the instilling of fear. You understand? And how can your minds be intelligent when there is fear; how can you have love when there is fear; how can you respect when there is fear. You may respect the people who have big names and cars, but you don’t respect the poor coolie, your servant. You just kick him, but when a big man comes you all salute him and lick his feet, and that is called respect. That is not respect, that is fear that is making you touch his feet. You don’t touch the feet of the poor coolie, do you? You dare not, because what can he give you; he cannot give you anything, and so all our education is nothing but the cultivation or strengthening of fear. That is a terrible thing is not it? And how can we create a new world, we cannot. And that is why it is very important, while you are young to understand this problem of fear, and to see that we are really educated without fear. (Pause…)
Question: Is it not good to have ideals in life?
Krishnaji: It is a good question, because you have all ideals, do not you? Ideals of non-violence, ideals of peace, ideals of persons as Rama, Sita, Gandhiji, or this or that. Have not you?
Students: Yes.
Krishnaji: Which means what? You are not important, but the ideal is very important. Rama is awfully important, not the poor old you. So you are imitating him; all that you are concerned is to copy somebody. Either in person or as an idea, just to copy and as I said a man who is an idealist is a hypocrite; because he is always trying to become, that he should be that and not “be what he is.” You understand what I am talking about?
Because the problem of idealism is really a complex problem, I cannot discuss it with you because you don’t understand it. You see why you would not understand? Because you have never thought about it, or you have never been talked to about it. All the books, all the teachers, all the newspapers, magazines say “we have perfect ideals;” you must be like that, like lot of monkeys or gramophone records who imitate, repeat the same words. But the moment you begin to question everything which you must, question everything, not accept a thing, but question and find out, and you cannot question if you are afraid inwardly. You must question everything, which is to create a new world, and you cannot question without revolt. You see, the teachers, the parents do not want you to be in revolt because they want to control you, they want to shape, mould you into their patterns, and so life becomes an ugly thing. (Pause…) Well, what do you say. Is that enough?
Student: How, if we are so small, how can we create a new world?
Krishnaji: No Sir, you cannot create a new world if you are small. (Pause…) But you are not going to be small all the rest of your life? Are you? You are going to be small all the rest of your life? Small, if you are afraid. You may have big bodies, big cars, big position, but if you are afraid inside you will never create a new world. That is why it is very important to grow with intelligence without fear, to grow in freedom. I mean by freedom, freedom, not discipline to be free. You know all this will take not one talk, but many, many talks. (Pause…)
Question (student): What should be the system of education to make a child fearless?
Krishnaji: Now, look what should be the system of education? Listen carefully. What should be the system which will make the child fearless. You understand the question now? A system that would make the child fearless. That is, a system means a method, a process, a way, that it means “to be told” what to do, and how to do it. You understand what I am saying: to be told what to do and you, doing it. Will that make you fearless? Sir, look. Is this too difficult a subject? Is education, can you be educated with intelligence, without fear, through any form of system? Sir look. When you are young you should be free too grow, but there is no system to make you grow. (perturbed). Because the system implies making the mind conform to something, does not it? System means locking you up in a frame-work, does not give you freedom. Does it? Because the moment they are putting you in a frame, you dare not step out of it. The stepping out of it is fear. So there is really no system of education, because what is important is the teacher and the student, not the system, because after all, if I want to help you to be free from fear, I must study you. I myself must be free from fear. I have to watch and tell you: look this is what the world is, explain everything to you, take the trouble, and to do this I must love you, I must have the feeling that you must be, when you leave this college or school, you must be without fear; and I must have the feeling as a teacher. Then I can show you, but if I have not got that feeling, how can I help you. System won’t help you. You have got it, Sir? You understand what I am saying?
Audience: Yes Sir.
Krishnaji: Good.
Question: Is it possible to know the quality of the gold without testing it in a special way, without examination or trial?
Krishnaji: Is it possible to know the capacity of each child without examination? Is that not possible? Do you know the capacity of the child through examination now? I may fail at the examination because I am a nervous boy or a nervous girl. I am fearful of the examination and the other boy or girl may slip through it because he is cleverer. Sir, listen very carefully. Now you ask that question. If I kept a record of that child all the time, week after week, see his character, the way he plays games, the way he talks, the desires, the food, how he studies, if I keep a record of all this then I will know the child; I won’t have to have examination to tell him whether he is capable or not whether he is inefficient, deficient or not, whether he is deficient in a particular thing, but we have never thought of all these things.
Question (student): Sir, what is your idea of a new world? (laughter)
Krishnaji: Look, I have no idea about the new world. The new world cannot be new if I have an idea about it. This is not a clever statement. (laughter.) Don’t laugh at him, it is a fact. If I have an idea about it, the idea is born from my study, is it not? From what I have learnt, from what I have read, what other people have said “the new world should be.” Then if I have an idea then it will be “what it should be.” Sir, new world is never new if it is born out of the mind, because the mind is old. This is too difficult, is not it? Sir, wait a minute. Do you know what is going to be tomorrow? You don’t? Oh, you may know, unfortunately tomorrow is Sunday, you have no schools, you won’t go to schools. But do you know what is going to happen on Monday. You are going to school, but what is going to happen outside the school, what kind of feeling I have, what kind of things you are going to see, all that you don’t know. Do you? But because you don’t know when it happens it will be new, and to be able to meet the new that is important.
Question (the same boy): How can we create anything if we do not know what we are creating?
Krishnaji: You are rather a smart boy! Do you paint? Do you write poems?
Student: No.
Krishnaji: Then you don’t know what it means to create? You mean to say you do not write a poem, you don’t paint? That is a terrible thing, is not it? (Pause…) You mean you just play and study, is that all? Sir, if you do not know how to create, if you do not know what you are creating, is that it: how can be creative? (Pause…) Sir you write a poem, the poem is what your feelings are. You put them into words, what you feel, when you have a feeling. You see the beautiful tree and you write a poem about it, which is describing not the tree but what the tree awakens in you. The feeling, the feeling is that creative thing. Then you put it into words, the words you know — the rhythm and so on; but the feeling when you see a lovely tree, the feeling is the creative thing. But you cannot know it, it must happen to you.
Question: Is it required for the children to take all these serious matters, thus not to enjoy freedom according to their belief?
Krishnaji: You mean you are asking should we take all this thing so seriously and not enjoy ourselves in freedom? Is that it? In other words, you are saying must we be serious? Are not you? You know you cannot be serious all the time, can you? You cannot play all the time, you cannot sleep all the time, you cannot study all the time. But you must be serious at certain times and play at certain times; there is a time to play, there is a time to be serious and this meeting is meant to be serious; but if you do not want to be serious, it is alright, nobody is compelling you. This is not a school, thank God!
(Pause…)
I think I have a question here and I will answer it next Saturday. Alright? Next Saturday there will be a meeting at 3 p.m. and not at 4.30 p.m.