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Understanding the causes of psychological
problems #1
Question: I have parents who are orthodox and who depend on me, but I myself
have ceased to believe in their orthodoxy. How am I to deal with such a
situation? This is a real problem to me.
Krishnamurti: Now, why has one ceased to be orthodox? Before you say, `I
have ceased to be orthodox', must you not find out why, for what reason? Is it
because you see that orthodoxy is mere repetition without much meaning, a
framework in which man lives because he is afraid to go beyond and discover?
Or, have you abandoned orthodoxy as a mere reaction, because it is the modern
thing to do to reject the ancient, the old? Have you rejected the old without
understanding it? - which is merely a reaction. If that is the case, it is
quite different, it brings about quite a different issue. But if you have
ceased to be orthodox because you see that a mind caught in tradition, in
habit, is without understanding, then you know the full significance of
orthodoxy. I do not know which you have done: Either you have left it in
protest; or, you have abandoned it - or rather, it has fallen away from you
naturally - because you understand it. Now, if it is the latter, then what is
your responsibility to those people around you who are orthodox? Should you
yield to their orthodoxy because they are your mother and father, and they cry
and give you trouble at home, calling you an undutiful son? Should you yield
to them because they create trouble? What is your responsibility? If you
yield, then your understanding of orthodoxy has no meaning; then you are
placatory, you don't want trouble, you want to let sleeping dogs lie. But
surely, you must have trouble, a revolution is essential; not the bloody kind
of revolution, but a psychological revolution - which is far more important
than mere revolution in outward effects. Most of us are afraid to have a
fundamental revolution; we yield to the parents saying, `There is enough
trouble as it is in the world, why should I add more?' But surely, that is not
the answer, is it? When one has trouble, it must be exposed, opened up and
looked into. Merely to accept an attitude, to concede to the parents because
they are going to give you trouble, kick you out of the house, does not bring
out clarity; it merely hides, suppresses conflict, and a conflict which is
suppressed acts as a poison in the system, in the psychological being.
If there is tension between you and your parents, this contradiction has
to be faced if you want to live creatively, happily; but as most of us do not
want to lead a creative life and are satisfied to be dull, we say, `It is all
right, I will yield'. After all, relationship with another, especially with a
father, mother or child, is a very difficult thing, because relationship with
most of us is a matter of gratification. We do not want any trouble in
relationship. Surely, a person who is looking for gratification, satisfaction,
comfort, security in relationship, ceases to have a relationship that is
alive; he makes that relationship into a dead thing. After all, what is
relationship? What is the function of relationship? Surely, it is a means
by which I discover myself. Relationship is a process of self-revelation; but
if the self-revelation is unpleasant, unsatisfactory, disturbing, we do not want
to look any further into it. So, relationship becomes merely a means of
communication, and therefore a dead thing. But if relationship is an active
process in which there is self-revelation, in which I discover myself as in a
mirror, then that relationship not only brings about conflict, disturbance, but
out of it comes clarity and joy.
The question, then, is: `When you are not orthodox, what is your
responsibility to the person who is dependent on you?' Now, the older you grow,
the more orthodox you become; that is, because you know you are soon coming to
the end of your life and you don't know what awaits you on the other side, you
seek safety, security, on both sides. But a man who believes without
understanding is obviously stupid; and should you encourage stupidity? Belief
creates antagonism, the very nature of belief is to divide: You believe in one
thing, I believe in another; you are a communist, I am a capitalist, which is
merely a matter of belief; you call yourself a Hindu, I call myself a Musalman -
and we slaughter each other. So, belief is obviously a device which sets man
against man; and recognizing all these factors, what is your responsibility?
Can one advise another as to what to do? You and I can discuss; but it is for
you to act, after looking into it. To look into it you must pay attention, and
you must face the consequences of your decision, you cannot leave it to me or to
anybody else. That means you understand and are quite willing to face trouble,
to be thrown out, to be called an ungrateful son, and all the rest of it; it
means that for you orthodoxy does not matter, but that truth, which is the
understanding of the problem, matters immensely, and therefore you are prepared
to face trouble. But most of us do not want the clear happiness that truth
brings; want mere gratification, and therefore we concede and say, `All right,
I will do what you want me to do; but for God's sake, leave me alone.' That way
you will never create a new society, a new culture.
Question: It us the universally accepted
conclusion of modern intellectuals that educators have failed. What is,
then, the task of those whose function it is to teach the young?
Krishnamurti: There are several problems involved in this, and to
understand them, one must go very carefully into them. First of all, why do
you have children? Is it mere accident, an unwanted event? Do you have
children to carry on your name, title or estate? Or do you love, and
therefore you have children? Which is it? If you have children merely as
toys, something to play with, or if you arc lonely and a child helps you to
cover up that loneliness - then children become important because they are
your own self-projection. But if children are not a mere means of amusement
or a result of accidents, if you really love them in the profound sense of
that word - and to love somebody means to be in complete communion with them
- , then education has quite a different significance. If as a parent you
really love your children, you will see that they have the right kind of
education. In other words, children must be helped to be intelligent,
sensitive, to have a mind and heart that are pliable, able to deal with any
situation. Surely, if you really love your child, you as a parent will not
be a nationalist, you will not belong to any country, you will not belong to
any organized religion; because, obviously, if you are a nationalist, if you
worship the State, then you inevitably destroy your son, because you are
creating war. If you really love your son, you will find out what is your
right relationship with property; because it is the possessive instinct which
has given property such enormous significance, and which is destroying the
world. Again, if you really love your children, you will not belong to any
particular religion, because belief creates antagonism between man and man.
It you love your children, you will do all these things. So, that is one
aspect.
Then the other aspect is that the educator needs educating. What are
you educating the children for? To become clerks or glorified clerks,
governors, engineers, technicians? Is that all life us, merely a matter of
glorified clerks, technicians, mechanics, human beings made into cannon
fodder? What us the purpose and intention of education? Is ut to turn cut
soldiers, lawyers and policemen? Surely, the occupations of soldier, lawyer,
and policeman, are not right professions for decent human beings. (Laughter.)
Don't laugh it off. By laughing it off, you are pushing it aside. You can
see that these professions do not contribute to the total well-being of man,
though they may be necessary in a society that has already become corrupt.
Therefore, first of all, you have to find out why it is that you have
children, and what it is that you are educating them for. If you are merely
educating them to be technicians, naturally you will find the best technician
to educate your child, and he will be made into a machine, he will discipline
himself to conform to a pattern. Is that all there is to our existence, our
struggle and our happiness - merely to become mechanics, tank or airplane
experts, scientists, physicists inventing new ways of destruction?
Therefore, education is your responsibility, is it not? What is it you want
your children to be, or not to be? What is the purpose of existence? If it is
merely to adjust to a system, to efface oneself for a party, then it is very
simple; then all that you have to do is to conform and fit in. But if life is
meant to be lived rightly, fully, joyously, sensitively, then there must be
quite a different process of education in which there is the cultivation of
sensitivity, of intelligence, and not mere technique - though technique is
necessary.
So, as a parent - and God knows why you are parents - you have to find
out what your responsibility is. Sirs, you love so easily: you say you love,
but really you don't love your children. You have no feeling. You accept
social events and conditions as inevitable; you don't want to transform them,
to create a revolution and bring about a new culture, a new society. Surely,
it depends on you what kind of education your children will have. As the
questioner says, education throughout the world has failed, it has produced
catastrophe after catastrophe, destruction and more destruction, bloodshed,
rape and murder. Obviously, education has failed; and if you look to the
experts, the specialists, to educate your children, the disaster must
continue, because the specialists, being concerned only with the part and not
with the whole, are themselves inhuman. Surely, the first thing is to have
love; for if there is love, it will find the way to educate the children
rightly. But you see, we are all brains and no heart; we have cultivated the
intellect, and in ourselves we are so absurdly lopsided - and then the problem
arises of what to do with the children. Surely, it is obvious that the
educator himself needs educating - and the educator is you; for the home
environment is as important as the school environment. So, you have to
transform yourself first to give the right environment to the child; for the
environment can make him either a brute, an unfeeling technician, or a very
sensitive, intelligent human being. The environment is yourself and your
action; and unless you transform yourself, the environment, the present society
in which we live, must inevitably harm the child, make him rude, rough,
unintelligent.
Surely, sirs, those who are deeply interested in this problem will begin to
transform themselves and thereby transform society, which will in turn bring
about a new means of education. But you are really not interested. You will
listen to all this and say, `Yes, I agree; but it is too impracticable'. You
don't treat it as a direct responsibility; you are not really, fundamentally
concerned. If you really loved your son and knew the war was coming, as it
inevitably is, do you mean to say yon would not act, you would not find a way of
stopping war? You see, we don't love; we use the word `love' but the content of
that word has no meaning any more. We just use the word without a referent,
without substance, and we live merely on the word; so the complex problem is
there still, and we have to face it. And don't say I have not shown you a way
out of it. The way is yourself and your relationship with your children, your
wife, your society. You are the gleam, you are the hope; otherwise there is no
way out of this at all.
Look at what is happening. More and more governments are taking charge of
education, which means they want to produce efficient beings, either as
technicians or for war; and therefore the children must be regimented, they
must be told, not how to think, but what to think. They are taught to live on
propaganda, slogans. Because those who are in power don't want to be disturbed,
they want to keep the power, it has become the function of government to
maintain the status quo with little alterations here and there. So, taking all
these factors into consideration, you have to find out what is the meaning of
existence why you are living, why you are producing children; and you have to
find out how to create a new environment - for, what the environment is, your
child is. He listens to your talk, he repeats what the older people think and
do. So, you have to create a right environment, not only at home, but outside,
which is society; and you have to create a new kind of government which is
radically different, which is not based on nationalism, on the sovereign State
with its armies and efficient ways of murdering people. That implies seeing
your responsibility in relationship, and you actually see that responsibility in
relationship only when you love somebody. When your heart is full, then you
find a way. This is urgent, it is imminent - you cannot wait for the experts to
come and tell you how to educate your child. Only you who love will find the
way; for, those hearts are empty that look to the experts.
You have listened to all this, and what is your reaction? You will
say, `Yes, very nice, very good, it should be done; but let somebody else begin'
- which means, really, you don't love your child; you have no relationship with
your child, so you don't see the difficulty. The more irresponsible you become,
the more the State takes over all responsibility - the State being the few, the
party, left or right. You yourself have to work it out because we are facing
a great crisis - not a verbal crisis, not a political or an economic crisis,
but a crisis of human degradation, of human disintegration. Therefore, it is
your responsibility; as the father, as the mother, you have got to transform
yourself. These are not just words I am indulging in. One sees this calamity
approaching so closely and dangerously, and we sit here and do not do a thing
about it; or if we do, we look to some leader and turn our hearts over to
him. It is an obvious fact that when you pursue a leader, you choose that
leader out of your own confusion, and therefore the leader himself is
confused. (Laughter.) Don't laugh it off as a clever remark: please look at
it, see what you are doing. It is you who are responsible for the appalling
horror which we have come to, and you are not facing it. You go out and do
exactly the same thing that you did yesterday; and you feel your responsibility
is over when you ask that question about education and pass your child on to a
teacher who teaches and beats him. Don't you see? Unless you love your wife,
your children, and not merely use them as a tool or means for your own
gratification, unless you are really touched by this, you will not find a right
way of education. To educate your children means to be interested in the whole
process of life. What you think, what you do, and what you say, matters
infinitely, because that creates the environment, and it is the environment
which created the child.
1948 3rd Public Talk, New Delhi, India, Available as: Report - 'Poona, Delhi &
Madras 1948, Verbatim Report' and in book form: 'The Collected Works of
J.Krishnamurti, Vol V'
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