K School – Students Talk 1, Rishi Valley, 13 January 1970

Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about? I’m afraid I only speak English, so I can’t speak Telugu, Tamil or whatever it is, or Hindi; so I’m afraid, as I speak only English, you have to understand it. You know, you are going out from this place, probably so-called educated, pass some exams and go out into the world. The world — not this place — is like a jungle, where everybody is against another; each person, each human being is fighting the other human beings and a society is built around that. Our social relationship is based on this everlasting struggle between man and man. And you are going to be thrown out into that world. You will go to college, pass… to university, get a degree and get a job, get married and all the rest of it, children, but around you, in your office, everywhere, there is this human battle going on. It’s really like a jungle. You know what a jungle is? Where there is every kind of animal ready to destroy, to kill, be violent, brutal. And man is like that. Only sometimes they are very polite in their killing, with gloves on, but their attitude, their work, everything they do is more or less based on this violence, this brutality.

So you are going to be thrown into this, jungle, pushed out; and how does one prepare oneself to live in this jungle? That’s really a very important educational question. Knowing that the world is like this: one family against another family, one community against another community, one tribe against another tribe, one nation against another nation, one business group against another business group, one politician against another politician, and so on and on and on. And you are going to enter into this really terrible world; I don’t think you know what it means. Happily, you don’t now, because you’re living in this beautiful valley, quiet, peaceful, where you can play, enjoy yourself. But as you grow older and as you leave this place, you will be faced with this, with this world that’s very destructive. They think they are very religious, they are not; they pretend, they are hypocrites. There is tremendous trouble in the world, the great sorrow, great misery, great confusion, and that’s the world you’re going to be thrown in.

So how do you prepare to meet this world? You understand my question? How do you, after passing through your examinations and college and all the rest of it, how do prepare yourself, how do you get ready to meet all this? Either you’re going to be absorbed into the society and fit into it and you become another wild animal in the form of a human being, or you rebel against it, you fight it and form your own little groups, and within that little group there is also war going on. So how does one prepare or prepare yourself to meet this world? Do you understand my question? You will be married, you will have children, you and your wife will be fighting, you and your neighbours will be fighting, you and your government will be fighting with each other, your politician, local or otherwise, is exploiting you and you are exploiting him. This is going on right through world. How do you meet this?

So one asks, what is education meant for? What does it mean to be educated? Do you want me to…? Are you…? Is this too serious? There is general silence; I don’t know what. Is it too serious?

(Pause)

Well, you don’t tell me, therefore I must go on. Why are you being educated? To meet this world? To meet this competitive, brutal, violent world? To understand it? Why do you get… why are you educated? Why do your parents educate you, to a school like this, in a marvellous place, with beautiful hills, lovely trees and an extraordinary atmosphere of beauty and quietness and great silence…? You come here and you are educated. You read some books, get information, memorise, and you pass some examinations, get a degree, and if you are lucky you get a job; and if your parents have pull, they use… they pull wires and get you a little better job than somebody else.

So why are you being educated? Is that what is education meant for? Or is education also to prepare you to meet the world, to help you to understand the world, and not merely to adjust yourself to the world but to understand it, to be different from the world? You know, each generation — that is, the past… your parents — have built a world, their parents have built a world — and so on, back and back and back — and you are young, fresh, innocent, alive, full of curiosity, and you enter into a world that your past generation has prepared, which is a terribly ugly world they have prepared for you. And what will you do? How will you meet it? And I think education is meant, primarily at least, to prepare you to meet this world; not merely to pass exams and get a job — which is perhaps necessary — but primarily to see that you are intelligent enough — intelligent, not informed — intelligent to meet the world.

So what is *intelligence*? You understand? What is *intelligence*? Is it being thoroughly informed about the various fields of human activity, be informed about science, biology, mathematics, social structure of society, be informed about medicine, about how to run electronic machines? You can have a tremendous lot of information: how to get to the moon, how to live under the sea, what to do when you’re ill and so on; so you can have a tremendous lot of information — all the encyclopaedias in the world are filled with it. And being so well-informed, is that intelligence; to be able to argue, to be able to be an excellent scientist in the laboratory but a shoddy little human being outside it?

So what is intelligence? Is it to be informed? Is it to have the capacity to argue, to assert your own particular opinion over another, your own prejudice against another? Is it merely to earn a great deal of money in different, crooked ways? Or is it to be able to meet every challenge adequately and without conflict? You understand my English? Or am I using a lot of big words? You know what *challenge* is?

Many: Yes sir.

K: No?

Many: Yes sir.

K: Yes? Do you?

Many: Yes sir.

K: You are saying… (Laughs) You see, I ask you what is the highest altitude of this valley; I ask you something: what is the altitude of this valley? That’s a challenge, isn’t it? Ah? (Laughs) What do you think about your country? That’s a challenge. I ask you if there is God or if there isn’t God — that’s a challenge. Now, to respond, to answer to this challenge rightly, without fighting it; to answer every challenge rightly, without conflict, is intelligence. You understand what…? (Laughs)

You meet a snake, suddenly you come across a snake — that’s a challenge. And to respond, to answer to that challenge of meeting the snake rightly is intelligence. You meet violence, somebody gets angry, says harsh words and to meet that challenge rightly is intelligence. To meet violence — you know what *violence* is? — killing, saying hard things, being brutal, being aggressive; when you meet that — which is a challenge — to answer it rightly, truly, adequately, is the function of intelligence. You’ve got it? (Laughs) Do you understand that?

Now, how to bring about this intelligence.

(Pause)

I’m afraid this is too difficult, all this, isn’t it? Do you understand what I’m talking about? Oh Lord. Do you? You see the mountain in the early morning light, the sun just touching the tops — how do you respond to it? That’s a challenge. Do you say…? Do you turn…? Probably, you don’t even look. If you did look, how do you respond to it? What do you say? Your father, your mother, your teacher, somebody gets annoyed, irritated with you — how do you answer it? Do you get frightened, do you get nervous? And if you do, that’s not an adequate response to the challenge. If society says, ‘You must go and join the army and kill,’ what is your response? Will you join, will you go and kill? Or will you find out what is the most intelligent thing to do?

So intelligence is not your particular prejudice responding to a challenge, your particular idiosyncrasy, your particular cultural structure in which you have been brought up, but responding to violence of any kind — whether from the parent, from society, from the animal, from anybody — responding to any violence completely adequately is intelligence. That’s a new definition, but anyhow. (Laughs) It’ll be good enough for this morning. So how will you, living in this school, in this beautiful valley, how will that intelligence come about? You understand my question? Or are you getting bored with it?

(Pause)

How is one to come upon this intelligence? We said this intelligence is not information or mere accumulation of knowledge, or merely being well-trained in a particular field of human existence, either in scientific, engineering or in the business world or in any other field — you’re… (laughs). This is too difficult.

(Pause)

So we say intelligence is something that can meet all these fragments of life, completely, totally. So can education bring about this intelligence in you?

(Pause)

How to meet life, not as a scientist, or as a businessman or as an engineer, but meet the whole of this life completely; not as a Hindu, not as a Muslim, not as a Christian, not as a… living in a potty little town called Madanapalle or this or that, but to meet this extraordinary, complex life with great intelligence so that you live without conflict.

You know what love is? Love is intelligence, and that’s the only thing that is intelligent — love. When you have that, you will meet everything completely. So what is love? Do you love your parents?

Many: Yes sir.

K: Yes?

Student: Yes sir.

K: I’m so glad. Do your parents love you?

Many: Yes sir.

K: I wonder.

(Laughter)

You know what it means to love somebody? To care for them. You know, when you plant a tree, a little… small tree, you look after it, don’t you? You protect it. You water it. You see that it has got enough sunlight but not too much, so you care for it. And do your parents care for you? Yes?

Many: Yes.

K: Which means what? They look after you?

Many: Yes sir.

K: Which means they educate you properly?

Many: Yes.

K: Which means that you grow up into human beings, not jungle people. Ah? Now you become little more quiet, don’t you? (Laughs) If they loved you, they would see the world is completely different, that there would be no wars, no killing, no violence, no division between the Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and so on. You understand? Do they see to that? Do your parents love you?

Many: Yes sir.

K: (Laughs) Or do they want you to fit into the structure of a society which they have built? Which is greedy, competitive, fighting, wars — that’s what they want you to do; that’s what they call love. No? So do your parents love you?

S: No sir.

Many: Yes sir.

K: ‘Yes sir. Yes sir.’ (Laughs)

(Pause)

No sir, your parents don’t love you. I’m sorry. If they did — oh! — it would be a marvellous world; it would be a really happy world. Not only your parents, but the parents in America, parents in Russia, parents in Europe. Do you know what a world that would be? Then we’d have no army.

S: (Inaudible)

K: Beg your pardon?

S: Our parents, they don’t think the world greedy or competitive.

Teacher: The parents don’t think the world is greedy or competitive.

K: Oh, they don’t think the world is greedy or competitive.

S: They don’t think that, sir, when we grow up that we’ll be greedy and competitive.

K: What?

T: They don’t think that when these children grow up, their parents don’t think that they will be greedy and competitive.

K: The parents don’t think when you grow up you will be greedy or competitive. Right? Is that it? Aren’t you competitive in the school?

S: We have to be.

K: Ah! You have to be. (Laughs)

(Laughter)

You know, in your class, doesn’t somebody say, ‘A is far cleverer than B,’ don’t they? Isn’t that competitive? What does that mean? A is cleverer than B, what happens to B?

S: He works harder than he did before.

K: He works harder in order to compete with A. So what is happening to B? Look, you are much cleverer than me — what happens to me? I am competing with you; I am destroying myself in order to be like you. No? (Laughs)

S: (Inaudible)

K: Anything wrong with that? Oh. Y ou don’t think that’s wrong?

S: No.

K: I’ll show you where it’s wrong, may I? May I? What happens? I am stupid and you are very clever. The parent or somebody says to me, ‘You must be like that person.’ And I’m dull, I’m not as clever as you are, so I fight, study but I’m still stupid, because I haven’t learnt how to understand myself before I compete with you. Oh, this is too complex. Look, I’ll show it to you. When a little boy is compared with the bigger boy, the little boy feels very inferior, doesn’t he?

S: It depends on the person.

K: Depends on the person. Of course. It depends on the person, but most people are that way. If you compare yourself with a bigger person, you feel a little less, don’t you? And our whole society is based on that. You have a bigger house than I have, you have a bigger car, you have more money, you have more power, more position, so I am also wanting that bigger power, bigger car, bigger house, so we fight — right? — and that’s how we live. And do you think that’s right? Isn’t there a different way of living? Shouldn’t we find out a different way of living, instead of this way of living? You see, we accept this way of living; we think that’s perfectly normal, natural. But is it?

We say, ‘To kill in war is all right, noble; you are protecting your country.’ Is that right? Your government says, ‘Go, get ready and kill, because your country must be protected,’ and your religious books say, ‘Don’t kill.’ Right? What are you to do? Though I believe some books, like the *Gita*, say you must kill for righteousness, for duty and all that nonsense. But is it right to kill another human being? And society says that’s perfectly right, that’s perfectly moral; you become a hero if you can kill more people. Is that right? And competition will inevitably lead to war, not only economically but in every other way; competition must lead to war: bigger nations, bigger… and so on, so on, so on. So are you being educated to accept the world as it is, or to meet the world as it is with intelligence? And what is intelligence then? Intelligence then means not to accept things as they are, but to find out; not to accept competition, not to accept hatred and war, not to accept the division between people: you a Christian, I’m a Hindu, he… and so on. What were you going to say? Sorry.

S: (Inaudible)

K: *Je n’ai* *pas compris.*

T: He said the young people who have revolted against society in America are intelligent.

K: Are the people who have revolted against society in America — students — are they intelligent? C ertainly not. I said that — mere revolt is not intelligence. I said that. I said that to understand the structure of society as it is and respond to it adequately, truly, is intelligence, but mere revolt is not intelligence, or mere revolution is not intelligence.

(Pause)

Do you think it is intelligence just to accept things as they are? The father and the mother says, ‘You must marry that girl,’ and you say, ‘All right, Daddy, I’ll marry that girl.’ You say, ‘I am a Hindu.’ ‘All right, I’m a Hindu,’ or a Muslim, or a Christian — just to accept things as they are, is that intelligence? We say to accept things as they are is not intelligence, to revolt against the things as they are is not intelligence, and we said intelligence is the adequate response to any challenge, and that means not to revolt, to find out how to respond rightly.

S: Sir, if we act as we feel, (inaudible) …if you act as you feel but then people will think you’re crazy, sir, because you never (inaudible).

T: If you act this way, people will think you’re crazy.

K: Ah! If you act this way, people will think you are crazy. Are we inside the cage or outside the cage? Oh sorry, I was trying to be funny; you don’t understand (laughs). People will think you are crazy. Does it matter very much what people think?

S: No sir, you never get your way that way.

T: You never get anywhere that way.

K: Which way?

T: Your way.

T: You will never get your way that way.

K: I don’t quite understand this. You never get your way, if you act intelligently?

S: No, if you listen to people.

K: But does it matter?

S: How will I act and how will I live?

K: I will live; I’ll find out how to live intelligently. You see, you’re already so tame, aren’t you? (Laughs) You say, ‘How am to live? What will people think of me? They will think I am crazy.’ You are already caught in the world. Does it matter very much what people think — just think it out — does it matter what I think or what anybody thinks, if you think what you do is right?

S: I don’t mean that, sir. I mean, if you want to act intelligently, you want to do something and you want to do it and someone tells you… (inaudible) …how you do you get what you want?

K: I’m afraid of I don’t… I am not deaf but I don’t quite catch it. (Laughs) If you will speak a little more clearly and loudly, perhaps I would get it. I’m sorry; do say it once more, loudly.

S: You want to act intelligently, you want to act how you feel, what you feel, so… but I feel some people don’t feel that it’s right, so how do you get… (inaudible)?

T: How do you manage to go against society.

K: What is it, sir?

T: Is she really saying, ‘This will make you into an outsider’?

K: Ah, I have said that, but I wonder if… You mean… Do you mean that you will be an outsider, is that what you mean? An outsider. That is, outside the jungle. Uh? You know what you’re saying (laughs), that you will be outside — right? Now, why shouldn’t you be outside? If you think I am mad, if you think I am stupid, if you think I am a brutal person, why shouldn’t you be outside it, outside where I don’t touch you? What is wrong with it?

S: (Inaudible)

K: People don’t think that they are wrong? All right, what am I to do?

S: (Inaudible)

K: Yes, people think that their action, their point of view, their prejudices, their… they are perfectly all right.

S: If they think they (inaudible), then how will they be able to change?

T: If they think they’re all right, how will they be able to change.

K: If they think they are all right, how will you change them? How will I change my grandmother? I can’t.

(Laughter)

K: I can’t change the opinions of the politician — I can’t — because what the politician thinks is peculiar; I can’t change him. I can’t change the point of view of my neighbour. What I can do is to change myself, can’t I? Not what my neighbour, the politician or the priest or the scientist does, I can change myself; and then my changing will obviously affect another.

(Pause)

Are you already conservative? Are you already — what do you call? — accepting the world as it is? Do you accept the world as it is?

S: I don’t know.

K: Do you accept the world as it is?

S: I don’t know, sir.

K: You don’t know? Quite right. You don’t know and that’s perfectly right, but don’t accept it or deny it. ‘I really don’t know but I’m going to find out.’ Right? Now, how will you find out? How will you find out what the nature of society is?

S: Live in society.

T: Live in society.

K: You are living in society. Your parents are living in it. When you live with your parents, you are living in that society. You are part of that society, aren’t you? What you think, what you feel, what your beliefs are and so on, is the society which has produced you. So you are that society, aren’t you? So you have to… How are you going to study society, which is yourself? You have to look at yourself in the mirror, haven’t you? Not the physical face, but what you think, what you feel; why you believe you are a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian; why you’re a Communist, not a Communist; why you are this or that — you have to look at yourself, haven’t you? You are part of that society, so if you look at yourself you will understand society.

(Pause)

Right? Is that enough, sir, for this morning; quarter to ten? No. Yes, quarter to ten. Is that enough or shall we go on? Shall we go on?

Many: Yes sir.

K: Ah?

Many: Yes.

K: (Laughs) What are you all going to be when you grow up? What will you be when you grow up? Girls are all right, they are going to get married (laughs); most of them will, anyhow. But, apart from that, what are you going to be? Like the rest of the world? Get a job, get married, a house, fight for the rest of your life? Is that what you’re going to be? Poor chaps, you are too tired. You’re too bored by all this, aren’t you?

S: No sir.

K: Yes sir? You’re quite right; (laughs) quite right. You know, have you ever tried sitting absolutely quietly? Have you tried? Try it. Try it, try it. Try it. Don’t say, ‘Yes sir.’ (Laughs) Sit very quietly; see what happens. Sit very quietly; don’t move your eyes, your arms, your legs and your head, sit completely quietly.

(Pause)

All right. Then what happens, if you sit quietly like this? What happens? Do tell me.

S: Nothing, sir.

K: Nothing happens? Quite right. (Laughs) You know, when you look at a tree or a cloud or the hills, unless you look very quietly, you don’t see things, do you? You don’t see the hills, you don’t see the trees, you don’t see the lovely shades of different colours, do you, unless you are very quiet. So to look at anything, you must be very quiet.

(Pause)

So to listen to somebody, you must be very quiet. That means, don’t bring your prejudices forward, your… what you think; find out, first, what is being said, why it is being said. Listen to it very carefully. So to listen, you must be very, very quiet. Otherwise, you don’t listen; otherwise, you don’t find out. And if you listen very quietly, you learn much faster. You learn at a greater depth. All right, that’s enough, sir, isn’t it?