The Philosophical Underpinnings of Holistic Education

You find an article in the Journal of the Krishnamurti Schools here

Learning about oneself and inattention

Questioner: Could you describe how you are aware that you are inattentive?

KRISHNAMURTI: I am learning about myself,
not according to some psychologist or specialist.
I am watching and I see something in myself
but I do not condemn it, I do not judge it,
I do not push it aside - I just watch it.
I see that I am proud. Let us take that as an example.
I do not say, 'I must put it aside, how ugly to be proud'
but I just watch it. As I am watching, I am learning.
Watching means learning what pride involves,
how it has come into being.

I cannot watch it for more than five or six minutes
- if one can, that is a great deal.
The next moment I become inattentive.
Having been attentive and knowing what inattention is,
I struggle to make inattention attentive.
Do not do that, but watch inattention,
become aware that you are inattentive - that is all.
Stop there.

Do not say, 'I must spend all my time being attentive',
but just watch when you are inattentive.
To go any further into this would be really quite complex.

There is a quality of mind that is awake and watching all the time,
watching though there is nothing to learn.
That means the mind is extraordinarily quiet, extraordinarily silent.
What has a silent, clear mind to learn?

J Krishnamurti, The Impossible Question, Penguin Arkana, @
Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, U.K.
http://www.journal.kfionline.org/article.asp?issue=14&article=0

One world: the need for a new world view (Bohm interview 1989)

Journal of the Krishnamurti Schools

http://www.journal.kfionline.org/

The Challenge of Change

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

documentary on K

The Elephant

It was six men of Hindostan
To learning much inclined,
who went to see the elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant,
And happening to fall
Against its broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl,
'God bless me! but the elephant
Is very like a wall!'

The second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, 'Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an elephant
is very like a spear!'

The third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake;
'I see,' quoth he, 'the elephant
Is very like a snake!' .

The fourth reached out his eager hand
And felt about the knee;
'What most this mighty beast is like
Is mighty plain,' quoth he;
"Tis clear enough the elephant
Is very like a tree!'

The fifth who chanced to touch the ear
Said, 'E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an elephant
Is very like a fan!'

The sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
'I see,' quoth he, 'the elephant
Is very like a rope!'

And so these men of Hindostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
They all were in the wrong.

J. G. Saxe