What Are You Seeking ?

J Krishnamurti

• Publisher: Krishnamurti Foundation America
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781912875184
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie de la philosophie

The answer to the question, 'What are you Seeking?', is simple: We want to find truth, God, everlasting peace. The real question, says Krishnamurti, is: 'Why do you seek at all?' Knowing conflict, repression, self-doubt, and fear as consistent companions, we naturally wish for them to come to an end. So begins the search for relief, the search for everlasting peace--through ideas, religions, self-help, self-analysis, etc., and we think of this search as a right action towards finding what we are looking for. But do we know what we are looking for, or are we merely seeking relief from what is happening presently? Are we seeking at that point only an idea, the supposed opposite of the emotion that we are experiencing now? It is the search that maintains the present emotion and its projected opposite in a state of mutually co-existent conflict, inherently.

India, 1954

First Talk to Students at Rajghat School, Banaras

I suppose most of you understand English, although it does not matter if you do not, as your teachers and your elders understand it. Perhaps you would ask them afterwards to explain what I have been talking about; make a point of asking them, won’t you? Because, what we are going to discuss for the next three or four weeks is very important; we are going to discuss what is education and what are its implications, not just passing examinations, but the whole implication of being educated. So, as we are going to talk about that every day, if you do not understand what I am saying now, please ask your teachers to explain it carefully. Also, after I have talked, perhaps you would ask questions. These talks are meant primarily for students, and if the older people want to ask questions, they should only ask questions that will help the students to understand, that will explain further the problem. To ask questions about their own personal problems will not help the students.

Don’t you ask yourself why you are being educated? Do you know why you are being educated, and what that education means? As we know, education is to go to school, to learn how to read and write, to pass examinations, and to play a few games; and after you leave school, you go to college, there again to study very, very hard for a few months or a few years, pass an examination and then get a job; and then you forget all about what you have learned. Is that not what we call education? Do you understand what I am talking about? Isn’t that what we all do?

If you are girls, you pass a few examinations, B.A. or M.A., marry, and become cooks or something else, and then have children; and all the education that you have had for a number of years is useless. You know how to speak English, you are a little more clever, a little more tidy, a little more clean, that is all, is it not? And the boys get a technical job or become clerks or get some kind of government job, and that finishes it, does it not?

You see, what we call “living” is to get a job, to have children, to raise a family, and to be able to read newspapers or magazines, to discuss, to argue cleverly about something or other. That is what we call education, is it not? Have you noticed your own parents, your own elder people? They have passed examinations, they have got jobs, and they know how to read and write. Is that all that education means to us?

Education is something much more, is it not? It is to help you, not only to get a job in the world, but also to meet the world, is it not? You know what the world is. In the world there is competition. You know what competition means—each man out for himself, struggling to get the best, pushing the others aside. In the world there are wars, there are class divisions and the fight between them. In the world every man is trying to get a better job, to keep on rising; if you are a clerk, you try to get a little higher, and so fight all the time. Have you not noticed it? If you have a car, you want a bigger car. So, there is that constant fight going on, not only within ourselves, but with all our neighbors. then, there is a war which kills, which destroys people, like the last war, when millions were killed, wounded, or maimed.

Our life is all this political struggle. And also, life is religion, is it not? What we call religion is rituals, going to temples, putting on something like the sacred thread, mumbling some words, or following some guru. Life is also, is it not, the fear of dying, fear of living, fear of what people say and do not say, fear of not knowing where one is going, fear of losing a job, fear of opinion. So, life is something extraordinarily complex, is it not? You know what that word complex means? It is very intricate, it is not something simple, which you just follow; it is very, very difficult, a great many things are involved.

So, education is, is it not, to enable you to meet all these problems. You have to be educated so as to meet all these problems rightly. That is what education is—not merely to pass a few examinations in some silly subjects in which you are not at all interested. Proper education is to help the student to meet this life so that he understands it and won’t succumb, won’t be crushed under it as most of us are. People, ideas, public opinion, country, climate, food—all that is constantly pushing you in a particular direction in which society wants you to go. Your education must enable you to understand this pressure, not to yield to it, but to understand it and to break through it, so that you, as an individual, as a human being, are capable of a great deal of initiative, and not merely traditional thinking. That is real education.

You know that, for most of us, education consists in learning what to think. Your society tells you, your parents tell you, your neighbors tell you, your books tell you, your teachers tell you what to think. The machinery of “what to think” we call education, and that education only makes you mechanical, dull, stupid, un-creative. But if you knew how to think, not what to think, then you would not be mechanical, traditional, but live human beings; you would be great revolutionaries—not in the stupid sense of murdering people to get a better job or to push through a certain idea, but the revolution of knowing how to think rightly. That is very important. But, when we are at school, we never find out about all these things. The teachers themselves do not know. They only teach you how to read or what to read, and correct your English or mathematics. That is all their concern, and at the end of five or ten years, you are pushed out into this life about which you know nothing. Nobody has talked to you about it; or, if they have talked, they push you in certain directions—either to be a socialist, a communist, a congressite or some other—but they never teach you or help you to understand and how to think out all these problems, not just at one moment during a certain number of years, but all the time—which is education, is it not? After all, in a school of this kind that is what we must do, help you not merely to pass some stupid examinations, but to be able to meet life when you go out of this place, so that you are intelligent human beings, not mechanical, not Hindus or Muslims or communists or some such thing.

It is very important how you are educated, how you think. Most of the teachers do not know how to think; they merely get a job and settle down. They have families, they have worries, they have fathers and mothers who say, “You must follow certain rituals, you must do this, you must do that”; they have their own problems, their own difficulties. They leave all those at home, come to school and teach a few lessons, but they do not know how to think, and we do not know how to think. In a school of this kind, surely, it is very important for you, for the teachers, for all of us who are living here, to consider all the problems of life, to discuss, to find out, to investigate, to inquire, so that our minds become so very alert that we do not just follow somebody. You understand what I am talking about? Is not all that education? Education is not just until the age of 21 but until you die. Life is like a river, it is never still, it is always moving, always alive and rich. When we think we have understood a part of a river and hold to that part, it is only dead water, is it not? Because, the river goes by. To watch all the movement of the river, all the things that are happening on the river, to understand, to be faced with it—that is life, and we all have to prepare for it.

So, education really is not merely passing a few examinations but being able to think of all these problems so that your mind is not mechanical, traditional, so that your mind is creative, so that you do not merely fit into society but break it, create anew out of it—not a new thing according to the socialist, the communist, or the congressite, but a completely new thing—which is real revolution. And, after all, that is the meaning of education, is it not, so that you grow in freedom, so that you can create a new world. The old people have not created a beautiful world; they have made a mess of the world. Is it not the function of education, of the educator, to see that you grow in freedom so that you can understand life, so that you can change things and not just grow dull, weary, and die, as most people do?

So I feel, and most of us do feel who are serious about these things, that a place like this should provide an atmosphere in which you are given every opportunity to grow, uninfluenced, unconditioned, untaught, so that when you go out of here you can meet life intelligently, without fear. Otherwise, this place has no value; it will be like any rotten school, perhaps a little better because it happens to be in a beautiful place, people are a little kinder, they do not beat you, though they may coerce you in other ways. We should create a school where the student is not pressed, is not enclosed, is not squeezed by our ideas, by our stupidity, by our fears, so that as he grows, he will understand his own affairs, he will be able to meet life intelligently. You know what all this requires—not only an intelligent student, a student who is alive, but also an educator, the right kind of educator. But the right kind of educators and the right kind of students are not born; we must struggle, discuss, push until the thing comes about. You know, to grow a beautiful rose you require a great deal of care, don’t you? To write a poem you must have the feeling, you must have the words to put it in. All that requires care, considerable watching. So, is it not very important that this should be such a place? If it is not such a place, it is nobody’s fault but your own and the teachers’. Do not say, “The teachers do not do this. It is the teachers’ fault if they do not create this place.” Nobody else is going to create it; others are not going to create it. You and I and the teachers must do it. That is real revolution—to have the feeling that it is our school, which you and I and the teachers and all of us are building together.

So, it is very important, is it not, to understand what we mean by education—not ideals of education; such ideals are all nonsense. We must begin as we are, understand things as we are, and out of that, build. You do not have a ready-made garden or school; you take the soil as it is, you till it, manure it, water it, and so create something out of nothing. As there is nothing, you will have to create, to build together.

Is it not very important for each one of us to know how to think rightly, not what to think, not what the books say, but how to think? That is what I would like to discuss with you for the next three or four weeks, namely, how to think, so that you and I at the end of it will have our minds very clear; and with that clarity, with that thinking, with that capacity, we can then go out and meet life.

May I ask you the question, “What do you want to do when you leave the school and when you have been to college?” Do you know what you want to do? Don’t you want jobs, is it not your primary concern to get a job?

You have all become dumb. It is the first day and you are a bit shy. It will be all right in a couple of days. Please do not keep your shyness too long, we shall only be here for a few weeks.

Questioner: What is intelligence?

KRISHNAMURTI: What do you think is intelligence? Not what the dictionary says, not what your teacher or your books have said—leave all that aside and think and try to find out what is intelligence. Not what Buddha, Shankara, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Spencer, or somebody else has said, but what do you think is intelligence? Do you see that the moment you are asked not to think along those lines, you are stunned? Take a man who read Shankara or the communist philosophy or some other authority; he will tell you what intelligence is right off because he will quote somebody. But if you are asked not to quote, not to repeat what somebody else thinks, not merely to read in a dictionary what intelligence is, you are lost, are you not?

What do you think is intelligence? It is a very complex problem, is it not? It is very difficult in a few words to say what intelligence is. So let us begin to find out. The person who is afraid of public opinion, afraid of the teacher, afraid of what people say, afraid of losing his job, afraid of not passing an examination, is not an intelligent person; the mind that is afraid is not an intelligent mind, is it? What do you say? Is that very difficult? If I am afraid of my parents, that they may scold me, that they may do this and that, am I intelligent? I behave, I act, I think according to them because I am afraid to think freely, to act independently. So, fear prevents me, does it not, from being what I am. I am always copying, I am always following, trying to do things which other people want me to do because I am afraid. So, a mind which is imitative, which is copying because it is afraid, is not an intelligent mind, is it? What do you say?

Is it not the function of education to help the student to understand these fears, to show how you are frightened of your teacher, of your parents? So that you may not say, “As I am frightened, I will do what I like”—which is equally stupid. Education should help us to understand these fears and to be free from them. It is very, very difficult. It requires a great deal of digging, understanding, going into it. You know what “to thaw” means? You know it freezes when the weather is very cold, and when the sunshine comes out, it begins to melt.

This morning, we all feel frozen because we do not know each other. You are a little nervous because you may want to ask about something which you are ashamed of, or you may ask something which the teachers say you should not have asked, or you may be frightened of your fellow students. All that is preventing you from thawing, from feeling natural, spontaneous, easy, so that you can ask questions. I am sure you have got lots of questions bubbling inside, but you dare not ask because you are a bit apprehensive the first morning. Perhaps tomorrow the sun will have thawed us, and we shall be able to ask each other questions.

January 4, 1954

Second Talk to Students at Rajghat School, Banaras

I would like to talk this morning on a topic which may be rather difficult, but we will try and make it as simple and direct as possible. You know most of us have some kind of fear, have we not? Do you know your particular fear? You may be afraid of your teacher, of your guardian, of your parents, of the older people, or of a snake or a buffalo or of what somebody says or of death, and so on. Each one has fear, but for young people, the fears are fairly simple. As we grow older the fears become more complex, more difficult, more subtle. I want to fulfill myself in a particular direction. You know what “fulfillment” means? I want to become a great writer. I feel if I could write, my life would be happy. So, I want to write. But anything may happen to me, I may get paralyzed for the rest of my life, and that becomes my fear. So, as we grow older, various forms of fear come into being—fears of being left alone, not having a friend, losing property, having no position, and various other types of fear. But we won’t go now into the very difficult and subtle types of fear because they require much more thought.

It is very important that we—you young people and I—should consider this question of fear because society and the older people think fear is necessary to keep you in right behavior. If you are afraid of your teacher or of your parents, they can control you better, can they not? They can say, “Do this and do not do that,” and you will jolly well have to obey them. So fear is used as a moral pressure. The teachers use fear, say, in a large class, as a means of controlling the students. Is it not so? Society says fear is necessary. Otherwise, the citizens, the people, will just burst out and do things wildly. Fear has thus become a necessity for the control of man.

You know, fear is also used to civilize man. Religions throughout the world have used fear as a means of controlling man, have they not? They say that if you do not do certain things in this life, you will pay for it in the next. Though all religions preach love, though they preach brotherhood, though they talk about the unity of man, they all subtly or very brutally, grossly, maintain this sense of fear.

If you have a large number of students in one class, how can the teacher control you? He cannot. He has to invent ways and means of controlling you. So, he says, “Compete. Become like that other boy who is much cleverer that you.” So, you struggle, you are afraid; your fear is generally used as a means of controlling you. Do you understand? Is it not very important that education should eradicate fear, should help the students to get rid of fear, because fear corrupts the mind? I think it is very important in a school of this kind that every form of fear should be understood and dispelled, got rid of. Otherwise, if you have any kind of fear, it twists your mind, and you can never be intelligent. Fear is like a dark cloud, and when you have fear, it is like walking in sunshine with a dark cloud in your mind, always frightened.

So, is not the function of true education to help you to understand fear and be free of it? For instance, suppose you go off without telling your housemaster or teacher, and you come back and invent stories, saying that you have been with some people, while you have been to a cinema—it means that really you are frightened, does it not? You may think that if you are not frightened of the teacher, you will do what you like, and the teachers think the same. But to understand fear implies a great deal more than doing exactly what you want to do. You know, there are natural reactions of the body, are there not? When you see a snake, you jump. That is not fear because that is the natural reaction of the body. In front of danger, the body reacts, it jumps. When you see a precipice, you do not just walk blindly along. That is not fear. When you see danger, a car coming very fast, you get out of the way. It is not an indication of fear. Those are the body’s responses to protect itself against danger; such reactions are not fear.

Fear comes in, does it not, when you want to do something and you are prevented from doing it. That is one type of fear. You want to go to a cinema, you would like to go out of Banaras for the day, and the teacher says, “No, there are regulations.” And you do not like these regulations, you want to go. So you go an some excuse. The teacher finds out that you have gone, and you are afraid of punishment. So, fear comes in when there is a feeling that you are going to be punished. But if the teacher talks over quietly why you should not go to town, explains to you the dangers, eating food which is not clean, and so on, you understand. Even if he has not the time to explain to you and go into the whole problem of why you should not go, you also can think, your intelligence can be awakened to find out why you should not go. Then, there is no problem, you do not go. If you want to go, you talk it over and find out.

To do just what you like in order to show that you are free from fear is not intelligence. Courage is not the opposite of fear. You know, in the battlefields they are very courageous. For various reasons they take drinks or do all kinds of things to feel courageous, but that is not freedom from fear.

Should not education help the student to be free from fear of every kind?—which means from now on to understand all the problems of life, problems of sex, problems of death, of public opinion, of authority. We are going to discuss all these things so that when you leave this place, though there are fears in the world, though you have your own ambitions, your own desires, you will understand them, and so be free from fear. Because, you know, fear is very dangerous. All people are afraid of something or other. Most people do not want to make a mistake, do not want to go wrong, especially when they are young. So they think that if they could follow somebody, if they could listen to somebody, they would be told what to do, and by doing that, they would achieve an end, a purpose.

Most of us are very conservative. You know what that word means, you know what it is “to conserve”?—to hold, to guard. Most of us want to remain respectable, and so we want to do the right thing, we want to follow the right conduct—which you will see, if you go into it very deeply, is an indication of fear. Why not make a mistake? Why not find out? But the man who is afraid is always thinking, “I must do the right thing,...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• India, 1953
• India, 1954
• United States, 1954
• India, 1954
• India, 1955
• Questions