This is the second post discussing some of my reflections from reading the book ‘Can the mind be quiet? - Living, Learning and Meditation’ by J. Krishnamurti. In the first post, I touched on living, as discussed in the first part of the book. This post will explore learning, an equally interesting matter. In a world where the pursuit of success is often considered inseparable from knowledge, our perception of what it means to learn risks being distorted. For knowledge does not merely relate to that read in books or heard, but instead, it’s accumulated through the experience of living. Even then, the Western conception that knowledge is power should be questioned, particularly if such knowledge cannot be shared equally and, more timely, if the outputs of this knowledge contributes to societal and ecological collapse. These are some of the thoughts that this section of the book provoked within me. What’s the purpose of learning? Have we lost track of this purpose? Here’s my, once again, disjointed commentary on such questions, where my goal is not to present a black and white picture, but instead to make you think about these things a little more, just like the book made me think.

The importance of discipline

If you’ve dug deep enough into the strange world of self-help, you’ll have likely come across something along the lines of discipline = freedom. When I first heard someone say this, I had mixed views on it, mainly due to the context in which it was being applied. It was in relation to some sort of strenuous physical activity, where one must have the discipline to push through even when times are tough, and only then will they taste freedom. I mostly agreed with this, but I was more interested in its applicability to life in general, than to achieving any particular goal, such as a large feat of endurance. It became apparent to me that discipline is a necessary component in the path towards freedom, but that it can take many different forms. But what does discipline even mean?

Discipline relates to being attentive, for paying attention provides a gateway to discipline. Consequently, one cannot begin to develop true discipline if they lack attentiveness in their life. Without paying attention to one’s actions in life, there’s no way to continue working on something difficult. Lack of awareness also negates steps on the path to discipline, as it’s a key component to developing the self-control necessary to achieve discipline. More often than not, we expect to be able to practice discipline in one part of our lives, despite lacking attentiveness in that same part of life. Take, for example, making a sketch. Producing a complete work of art requires discipline. However, if one is not attentive with their brush strokes, their choice of colours, and their vision, then discipline becomes inaccessible, affecting the outcome through neglect of the process.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed how discipline, or a lack of it, manifests in all aspects of our lives. For example, if we wish to focus on a task at work for a prolonged time, it requires paying attention and developing focus. Otherwise, the quality of our work begins degrading, and the quantity of time taken to perform a given task increases. A lose-lose scenario. But, at the same time, despite wanting to be more disciplined at work, we may lack the discipline to eat healthily and to exercise regularly. This lack of discipline and attentiveness will undoubtedly spill over to our work, as life is one unified thing - no separation. The purpose is not, however, to try to make everything perfect, the way we want it to be. It’s this realisation of the imperfect nature of the world that allows us to start paying attention, acknowledging why and when disorder is present as a way towards discipline.

The book summarises this nicely as follows:

If you want to paint your house you must begin in an orderly manner; you can’t splash paint all over the place.

In my view, the house is us. Or, more precisely, our deepest consciousness. Moreover, I believe that this logic can be extended to both the outside of our house, that is to say, our physical actions - the expression through the body - but also to inside our house, that is to say, the psyche. By this logic, it’s obvious to me that one must start by painting their inner self in an orderly manner, as the physical self is merely a manifestation of the former. Meditation is, therefore, a crucial step towards discipline. To meditate is to observe disorder objectively, thereby beginning to understand how the world works without simply splashing paint with passivity, which is the default operating mode of one’s mind.

Barking at the wrong tree

Continuing with the discussion on discipline, Krishnamurti touches on something particularly interesting to me. He talks about how our current social and moral structure is predominately based on forms of discipline derived from the imposition of rules that, if followed, lead to reward and, conversely, if broken, lead to punishment. One only has to take a look at the current education system in our country. Examinations are used as a form of reward and punishment, whether intentional or not. This is dangerous, as it leads to schools and higher education institutions becoming mere factories that breed students who think mechanically as a consequence. This then persists for the rest of their lives, stripping away freedom and creativity of thought from a young age.

We can all agree that to learn requires attention, and that attention is a form of order. In a school setting, we believe that the imposition of order and discipline will allow students to learn. However, unless the work given interests a student, they will find it difficult to pay attention, and they may end up daydreaming and staring at the trees outside the window. So, we continue ‘disciplining’ such students by reminding them of the punishment that follows if they lack concentration, this being doing poorly in their examinations or perhaps not being able to pursue a ‘meaningful’ career. But this is where we’re wrong. Where the current system is flawed. It succeeds in creating mechanical students, failing miserably at developing true discipline. Instead, if a teacher were to allow the student to observe what’s happening outside of the window with full concentration, they would begin to notice the presence of disorder and the simple beauty of nature. By paying attention to the trees, the colours of the leaves, and the dance of the wind, a student develops attentiveness and attention that can be translated across to the classroom. In other words, if one allows freedom and non-judgement for attention to be cultivated naturally through observation of nature, then paying attention to other tasks will be easier. Order is a “natural outcome of the daily observation of disorder about us and in us”.

Consequently, it’s necessary that we move away from hypocrisy originating from a teacher’s lack of understanding of the disorder within themselves and their surroundings. For only then a student can be exposed to true life, not only a small, superficial fragment. A teacher’s responsibility is the highest - to help cultivate discipline in an unimposing manner. Only then can we begin to shift away from creating violent, competitive, and conforming students to ones full of love, deep human care, and affection.

Deep dialogue

So, I’ve explained how imposing order only acts to catalyse the deterioration of our society’s fabric, but another nuance is just as important. Imparting knowledge is not an effective or good way of teaching. There must exist a sustained and explorative dialogue between student and teacher. I believe that one reason for the division often seen between student and teacher is the authoritarian atmosphere created by teachers simply imparting knowledge onto a student. At least in our country, I think this derives from the hierarchical nature of both the educational system and society as a whole. This creates a situation where educational institutions’ collective psychology is strongly weighted towards one of one-way interactions, where the goal is for the teacher to spoon feed the student ‘knowledge’. This strips away any sensitivity in the relationship, removing the honesty and care that are so crucial. It is only when the authoritarian spirit is dissolved and when sensitivity is developed that order can surface from true intelligence. The author suggests sitting in silence at the beginning of each class for a few minutes as a way of allowing sensitivity to arise from the students’ self-recollection. This quality of sensitivity is then developed by both parties and can be reflected upon before starting the normal teaching, which will now be done in the air of sensitivity.

This principle can be applied to anything in our daily lives. By taking time to sit in silence before a discussion of importance, we can converse through dialogue that’s free from violence or resistance and which stems from a deeper understanding of life.

Loving the fact, not the idea

Somewhat related to the principle of not merely imparting knowledge to students is the principle of cooperation. But it is of utmost importance that a teacher does so from a place of deep-rooted desire to cooperate with the student. Simply translating the idea of cooperation across to the students, explaining what it means and why it’s important, will succeed in doing nothing. One must act from a place where love is felt for the fact, the act of cooperation, not simply the idea. Krishnamurti says, “We indulge in explanations and apparently they seem to satisfy. The description of a long cool drink to a thirsty man has no value at all. He wants water”. This means that a teacher needs to truly want to work together with a student, for without this, the same superficial hypocrisy that we see in many schools and educational institutions will remain.

A teacher must discuss this matter with a student, and only then will a student begin realising that this desire to cooperate stems form a place of care and, now, they will want to work with the teacher. But they must first overcome the barrier that is not cooperation, for not cooperating is far easier than cooperating for the conditioned mind. This is no mean feat, and we might brush past it as we believe that time invested in imparting more knowledge and expanding the curriculum and syllabus is more important. However, cooperation is crucial. It’s the central component to a mutually beneficial, effective education system. It is more than worth its weight in gold to invest the time to cultivate a shared appreciation for the vital importance of cooperation.

We’re bound by the intellect

The intellect can never be free for thought is the response of the past which is the accumulation of the known.

In my first post discussing the first section of this book, I touched on the arising of comparison from societal conditioning. This conditioning is shaped by the intellect, which cultivates over time and, therefore, is predisposed to conform to the status quo. When our behaviours derive solely from the intellect, they become imitative. This is not to say that thought can be free of the intellectual fragment. However, if this one component dominates over others, unnecessary conflict, confusion, and contradiction will arise. This is what happens when we become slaves to the comparison trap. It’s a trap, as so long as the intellect is the dominant fragment, no matter how one approaches the matter, competitiveness will remain. For if one resists and opposes competition, this in itself leads to competition. Be it internal, inside oneself, or external.

I’ve certainly experienced this in my life many times - when you are against something, often due to imitation of others. If still bound by the intellect, this in itself becomes competition, which is a great waste of energy. The difficulty arises, however, from the fact that competitiveness is the essence of conformity and since society sustains those who conform, it can be difficult to avoid this competition. However, in my view, it’s about ensuring that the intellectual fragment is counterbalanced by fragments tied to the soul, to our deepest consciousness. Then, one can view things objectively with the understanding that conformity and non-conformity breed comparison, therefore, allowing one to begin reducing conflict in oneself. It’s about realising the superficial, fleeting nature of the mind, which steers the intellect.

Krishnamurti’s book does not explicitly touch on ways in which we can address issues like reducing the contribution of the intellectual fragment. However, for many of these root causes of energy dissipation and conflict, I believe that meditation is a necessary act. Without going into too much spiel about meditation, its essence - at least with Samatha-Vipassana - is to observe things as they are. Not as we would like them to be, but as they are. Such observation, also achieved through other meditation practices, allows one to begin rewiring the deepest level of one’s mind, addressing the subconscious conditioning that has occurred during one’s life. This rewiring, coupled with the exploration of one’s consciousness during deep meditation, will certainly start tipping the scales away from an intellectually predominated mind. Relating to the educational system, the system is the emphasis of the intellect. That’s not to say that we should completely scrap the current system; however, we must notice that the system currently conditions us to imitate and conform in society, not to be expressive and creative. The intellect’s core is imitation, whereas the soul and the heart’s core are love. “The intellect knows pleasure and the pursuit of pleasure but it will never know what love is.” This is why it must be balanced by these other fragments. Otherwise, as mentioned before, educational institutions will only succeed in creating mechanically thinking clones.

Learning as a quality

The author discusses a seeming paradox between education and the meaning of living. Someone suggests that true educators must find the relationship between the whole substance of living and education. For which Krishnamurti explains that by having a purpose or goal for living, a contradiction arises between this purpose and the actual fact of living. Similar to Michael Singer’s viewpoint in his book, The Untethered Soul’, he explains that having a purpose or goal is an invention of the mind. This is to say that they are mind-projections into the future, constrained by the psyche, whose basis is the past. By nature, this in itself creates division, which manifests as conflict as the comparative mind is always comparing one’s current life - the fact of living - with one’s fantasised projections. Moreover, one wastes a tremendous amount of energy, which takes away from the present moment, causing one to live absently. With this in mind, living as an actual fact is far more important than the purpose of living. It is only when living itself begins to have no meaning that we start questioning the purpose of life. But I believe that one cannot define the purpose of life, as it is an intellectual construct. I also think this relates to the pursuit of pleasure and materialistic things, as we’re engulfed in the pursuit of what we believe the purpose of life to be - to climb the social ladder, to own a big house, to raise children - that we become dependent on these pleasures as a way of avoiding the fact of living. It’s like a persistent, never-ending race. One where the intellect and desire-driven psyche is in constant pursuit of the mind-projected future - something that can never be achieved as it is, by nature, an illusion.

What relevance does this have to education? Well, at present, despite our belief that the educational system is designed and exists to aid humanity in freeing itself from the shackles of conflict, violence, pain, and struggle, its overemphasis on the acquisition of technical knowledge acts only to do the opposite. It breeds competition, causing unnecessary suffering that would otherwise be absent. At present, education creates students who are highly skilled in a particular direction. But this one-pointedness and over-focus on one fragment of life results in dullness and ignorance in other, more important, fragments. In this country, the whole education system is designed such that it helps humanity follow a linear progression from birth to a ‘job’, for once an individual contributes to the economy, the ‘goal’ of this disintegrated government is achieved.

But, the truth is, that we can only learn so much and acquire so much knowledge, for there will always be more that we can know. Instead, if we appreciate that true knowledge encompasses more than simply that which we read in a book or hear in a lecture, then we can begin to set ourselves free. In education, it’s about both the educator and student realising the interrelation between one another. It’s only then that they can begin learning about the actual fact of living, about humanity at its core. We must move away from the model of imparting knowledge to students, for them to accumulate this knowledge and apply it later on. This is what acting from knowledge is, which is done with the burden and conditioning of the past. The author says that this is the “negation of action”, and that “learning and action ar synonymous, they are not two separate things. Whereas acting from knowledge brings about a contradiction in the doing.” This succeeds only at producing mechanical students, which is the easiest way for students to live. But with this ease comes great confusion and destruction, for the synonymity of learning and action is lost, causing us to develop a collective blindness and narrow-mindedness. Just look at climate change as a clear example of this…

Ultimately, learning is a state of mind, a movement in the present. Minds that are always learning, although not simply by learning about something, are full of life, vigour, and freshness. It’s this act, or more precisely, this quality of learning that allows decisions to arise. But it’s different to decisions that are acts of will, as decisions stemming from the movement of learning contain no dualism. There is no conflict, only peace and clarity. Learning as such removes the subconscious burden produced when one acts from a place of will - a place which lacks compassion, love, and equanimity. This frees up tremendous time and energy.

Knowledge is not power

When reading this book at the end of last year, a few things stuck with me. One of these things was this: what’s the point of knowledge if it cannot be shared? It played with my mind for some time, as I had felt a sense of disillusionment during my studies about this exact thing. I was learning about quantum mechanics and relativity, but I couldn’t help ignore the fact that the accumulation of knowledge is often useless, especially if the knowledge is superficial and lacking in depth. At the time, I decided that I didn’t want to simply keep pursuing knowledge that had no relevance to the masses, both humans and other living beings included. The status quo is to keep accumulating knowledge throughout one’s life. The more expert or advanced the knowledge, the more precious and employable you are. But I often wonder if most of this incessant pursuing is necessary. A particular passage stuck with me and sums this idea up far better than I can:

We are imparting knowledge and information that is mostly mechanical. We have acquired so much knowledge, especially in the last hundred years, about every subject I can think of. We are adding to it with such astounding rapidity that it is almost impossible to keep up with it. As a teacher I prefer to teach in schools rather than the university and I have often wondered what the place of knowledge is and what is its importance. I am not sure this vast knowledge is not destroying us. I have taken my doctorate but what is the good of it? When I discourse on a subject with pretentious importance, keeping a wide space between myself and the student, I often question the worth of this knowledge.’

We can all think of examples when expert knowledge has led to destruction. Take the atomic bomb, Facebook, or climate change as just three examples. ‘Intelligent’ people who have accumulated knowledge over time, which can more often than not lead to causing more harm than good. This is because of the mechanical nature of most of the knowledge that’s imparted. It’s often so that we can continue accumulating knowledge, as opposed to simply accepting what is. We feel more secure and important the more knowledge we have, developing a sense of bondage. This is different to learning, which is a movement that is free, so long as it isn’t tethered to the post of knowledge. The psyche is constructed upon and contains knowledge, which is always static and within the field of the past. This creates a psychological prison which restricts freedom and the expression of creativity.

This is not to say that knowledge is unnecessary. Quite the opposite. It’s needed to understand how the universe and its subsystems function. But we must realise that action related to that knowledge is mechanical in the absence of other fragments. Since we’re acting largely from this place of knowledge, which is mechanical, we seek things in life that aren’t mechanical in nature - such as entertainment and religious performances. However, so long as the basis for these actions is the organised idea of knowledge, freedom cannot be present; instead, we go through life experiencing great conflict and division. A teacher must draw attention to this fact - that knowledge can be incredibly dangerous, particularly if imparted and acquired from a place of insecurity and fear. By ridding the fragmentation and division between teacher and student, both can begin learning through discussion, dialogue, and investigation. Then they can start understanding the whole movement of life, moving away from the current dialectical education system.

Once we see the danger of the conditioning in society, we begin the act of ending such conditioning. One immediately begins acting, as it’s a primitive instinct to do so. Contrarily, since we see no danger in “a mechanical way of living with its false security…we drift along with it, confused, fearful, and in sorrow.”

The distorted mind cannot see truth

The last thing I’d like to touch on is the fact that only an undistorted mind can see the truth. I’ve experienced in the past, as I’m sure most others have too, sitting around a table having a nice dinner with a group of people. Some friends, some not. Next time, when doing so, notice what the dialogue is about. It may be about politics or about the latest football scores. There’s one thing that is very likely to be true - that there are few, if any, moments during the dinner where there isn’t at least one person talking. I’ve fallen into this camp in the past, and still do very often. Constantly seeking a form of expression due to the restlessness felt in my mind. This is the exact opposite of peace. However, a constantly occupied mind is a “petty mind, going round and round within the walls of its own thoughts.” This is a form of isolation, but one different from aloneness. If we’re alone, we’re free. We have freedom from the known. This is the highest form of intelligence - to be free from the known. Only when we can quieten the incessant internal chatter that leads to such distortion can we set ourselves free from the known and into the unknown.

An example of distortion manifesting in society is one related to religion. We may discuss and ponder about God, theology, and religion, without living truthfully and honestly within ourselves. This creates great hypocrisy, where we only succeed at teaching this hypocrisy to others. During my Vipassana meditation, the teacher touches on a similar thing: blind faith. He explained that much faith, particularly in the Western world, is blind. That’s to say that they do not practice true faith. Instead, we see situations where faith is used to excuse one’s immoral behaviours. Where prayer is used as a ‘tool’ to allow God to forgive one’s sins. But religion is not about this. It is about aspiring to the traits and attributes of a given teacher. To want to develop such traits within oneself through religion and unblind faith. The division that institutionalised religions have brought about only serves to breed antagonism, wars, suspicion and fear. For we ignore and avoid the truth.

The key is to perceive this danger with our hearts, our minds, and our whole being. It requires seriousness and discipline to throw off all of the burdens and shackles that we’ve imposed on ourselves through fear and the entanglements of pleasure. One must simply perceive what is and observe the truth. Then we can start experiencing bliss that’s beyond the superficial enjoyment deriving from pleasure. We can begin feeling true love.

That’s it for now. This is the second post in a series of three discussing the book ‘Can the Mind be Quiet’ by J. Krishnamurti. The first was about living. I enjoyed writing this post, but found it difficult at times to express my reflections on the book. It’s a clear example of the limitations of using words and language. That’s why it’s necessary to go inside, through meditation.