Krishnamurti Education Centres
To bring about right education, we must obviously understand the meaning of life as a whole, and for that we have to be able to think, not consistently, but directly and truly. A consistent thinker is a thoughtless person, because he conforms to a pattern; he repeats phrases and thinks in a groove. We cannot understand existence abstractly or theoretically. To understand life is to understand ourselves, and that is both the beginning and the end of education.
Education was always one of Krishnamurti's chief concerns. He felt that if only the young and the old could be awakened to their conditioning of race, nationality, religion, tradition and opinion - which inevitably leads to conflict, they might bring a totally different quality to their lives.
His concern found expression in the establishment of Education Centres - schools for the young and study centres and retreats for adults. Today there are the Rishi Valley Education Centre (near Madanapalle in Andhra Pradesh), the Rajghat Education Centre in Varanasi, The School-KFI in Chennai, Palar Education Centre (Pathashaala) near Chennai, The Bangalore Education Centre and the Sahyadri Education Centre near Pune. Outside India, there are the Krishnamurti Education Centre at Brockwood Park, Hampshire, England, and the Oak Grove School at Ojai, California. Dedicated to nurturing excellence of spirit and a deep love of life, the Krishnamurti Education Centres take special care to enrich the many spheres of school life, academic and otherwise.
When Krishnamurti spoke to the school children, his language became lucid and simple. He explored with them their relationship to nature and to one another, and to psychological problems like fear, authority, competition, love and freedom. With the teachers, he revived and gave new content to the etymological meaning of school as a place of leisure, a place where, amid academic pursuits, the teacher and the taught have the time to look into themselves. To him the schools were a milieu in which the larger existential issues could be explored in an atmosphere of freedom and responsibility.
The cultivation of a global outlook, a spirit of enquiry and concern for man and environment has been integral to the intentions of the Krishnamurti Education Centres.
His concern found expression in the establishment of Education Centres - schools for the young and study centres and retreats for adults. Today there are the Rishi Valley Education Centre (near Madanapalle in Andhra Pradesh), the Rajghat Education Centre in Varanasi, The School-KFI in Chennai, Palar Education Centre (Pathashaala) near Chennai, The Bangalore Education Centre and the Sahyadri Education Centre near Pune. Outside India, there are the Krishnamurti Education Centre at Brockwood Park, Hampshire, England, and the Oak Grove School at Ojai, California. Dedicated to nurturing excellence of spirit and a deep love of life, the Krishnamurti Education Centres take special care to enrich the many spheres of school life, academic and otherwise.
When Krishnamurti spoke to the school children, his language became lucid and simple. He explored with them their relationship to nature and to one another, and to psychological problems like fear, authority, competition, love and freedom. With the teachers, he revived and gave new content to the etymological meaning of school as a place of leisure, a place where, amid academic pursuits, the teacher and the taught have the time to look into themselves. To him the schools were a milieu in which the larger existential issues could be explored in an atmosphere of freedom and responsibility.
The cultivation of a global outlook, a spirit of enquiry and concern for man and environment has been integral to the intentions of the Krishnamurti Education Centres.
Education should help us to discover lasting values so that we do not merely cling to formulas or repeat slogans; it should help us to break our national and social barriers, instead of emphasizing them, for they breed antagonism between man and man. Unfortunately, the present system of education is making us subservient, mechanical and deeply thoughtless; though it awakens us intellectually, inwardly it leaves us incomplete, stultified and uncreative.
Without an integrated understanding of life, our individual and collective problems will only deepen and extend. The purpose of education is not to produce mere scholars, technicians and job hunters, but integrated men and women who are free of fear; for only between such human beings can there be enduring peace.