J Krishnamurti's Vision: Teaching The Greatest Profession

We have all perhaps had that one teacher in school who has inspired or impacted us. After more than 40 years of graduating from school, if I were to ask my schoolmates who that teacher was, they would invariably say Mrs Manson. What is it that makes us remember a teacher after so many years? What is it that makes a teacher such a remarkable person? In this recent book from Krishnamurti Foundation India, is an offering from the greatest teachers of them all, Jiddu Krishnamurti, who is not just inspirational to teachers but asks hard questions and is relentless in driving home the essence of what a teacher should be. It knocks at the very being of a teacher.

The renowned physicist Richard Feynman in The Meaning of it All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist say

“It is surprising that people do not believe that there is imagination in science. It is a very interesting kind of imagination, unlike that of the artist. The great difficulty is in trying to imagine something that you have never seen, that is consistent in every detail with what has already been seen and that is different from what has been thought of; furthermore, it must be definite and not a vague proposition. That is indeed difficult.” 

Citizen-Scientist is an interesting coinage and perhaps one that can be applied to teachers too: Citizen-Teacher. This book ‘Teaching the Greatest Profession’ also equally difficult, looks at a teacher as never before, is different and very definitive in its proposition of what a teacher should be.

The preface at the very beginning looks at how for Krishnamurti, ‘the educational setting is only a context for exploring the larger issues of human existence and what lies beyond it?’ Nearly hundred years ago, as early as in March 29, 1933, in a discussion in Varanasi, he shows a visionary’s zeal when he says:
 

if you are interested in teaching and also in what I am saying, then you will find out the method of teaching …. You want me to lay down the principles; I cannot do it. But you will find out for yourself how to work, how to draw the principles out of what I have been saying, if you are interested as teachers. For teachers, it is not a peculiar profession. I do not think it is a specialist profession: it is a human profession … 

The preface also draws upon the letters Krishnamurti wrote to teachers in 1970s and 1980s:

Only when the educator feels the dignity and the respect implicit in his work will he be aware that teaching is the highest calling … The Whole Movement of Life is Learning, Chapter 13.

In this book are a series of six unpublished talks of Krishnamurti both in Rajghat Besant School and Rishi Valley School in 1984. These six talks are aesthetically laid out as six chapters with tantalising chapter titles and a brief outline which piques your interest to read further. Each of these chapters is an invitation to the reader to examine and explore not just about the tenets of teaching but the larger question of humanity itself.

The book begins the first discussion with teachers in Rajghat which is eponymous and opens starkly with these words: ‘ I think the greatest profession—if one can use the word—is to be a teacher because the teachers are preparing for a new generation, for a future people who are not caught in the routine of life, but are something much more’. The chapter apart from urging the teachers to be concerned not only with the subjects but with the world too, which he says is ‘extraordinarily wide and open’. He downright dismisses the terrible self-interest one is besought with and evokes in one a strong responsibility—a responsibility towards liberating oneself and the students; responsibility towards humanity; to produce students who are not mediocre. He points out that etymologically, mediocrity is ‘going up the hill half way and never going to the top’. In a world that says, ‘You are merely a teacher’, he asks, “Why are you a teacher here …is it merely a job?”

The second chapter invites you with a very provocative title, ‘ Will you put your heart into this?’ This conversation that he has with the teachers leaves no quarter as he demands the teachers to have a global outlook, to be aware of what is happening ‘technologically,  politically, economically, the wars…’ and not be enclosed in oneself. The tone and tenor here is so incisive that it leaves you no choice but to reckon with yourself:

You have enclosed yourself … That makes your brain – what? It makes the brain very small, all the time concentrating on that little spot.

There is a mirror in the wall and that mirror reflects exactly what my face is like, I can pretend it is white, I can pretend it is black but the face is there. Now is there such a mirror in which I can see myself as I am inside?

If there is a wall. It has to be broken. That is all.

And I say that the moment you realize what you are  -- ‘I am like that’ – there must be the energy to move, not just say, ‘Yes, I am what I am’. 

Recently in Rishi Valley School, in an interaction with Dr Avijit Pathak senior students raised questions about the growing violence in the world and how could they as ‘mere’ students respond to it or even do anything about it. Woven into next chapter titled ‘Not to Have a Shadow of Self-interest’, are also such questions on one’s relationship with the outside world, not only as educators but as human beings. Also included in the chapter is a question-and-answer session, where Krishnamurti engages with some of the best minds. These are not educators who passively listen to all that he says but continuously challenge and provoke him. These conversations maneuver the listener from falling into the trap of intellectual deceit. Some of these questions knock you down to ground level and make you look squarely at issues and not float in some illusory jargon of self-conceit. This and the next three chapters are all talks and conversations that Krishnamurti has held in Rishi Valley School in 1984.

Some of them, educators included, may perhaps think that Krishnamurti’s philosophy of education is somewhat idealistic and removed from the everyday running of school. Nothing can be more delusional. This is specially drawn home in the chapter titled ‘Not Helping the Students But Watching Over Them’ wherein he builds a very cohesive and step by step discussion of what discipline is and how a teacher needs to bring it into practice. Putting himself in the place of a house parent (dorm parent) of 25 students, he builds strength and stature of a teacher as he envisions this role. He repeatedly and relentlessly asks the question of what is the teachers’ relationship with students. He says

Don’t you watch over people whom you love? 

The root meaning of freedom is love. If you haven’t got that, then give up the whole circus. Then you are mere machines. 

In your relationship, is there a sense of love, affection, care—how they walk, how they dress, how they look, how they talk to each other—is there care for them, love means protection, love means watching …

That’s why I am asking you sirs, what your relationship with these students is. Have you any relationship at all? … For God’s sake!

The next two  titles, ‘Don’t Think in Terms of Time’ and ‘Just Observing a Fact or Going Beyond It’ knocks one out with the opening lines, ‘ As human beings what are we? – Intelligent in one direction and stupid in the other’. They take you into the deep woods, sometimes quizzing you, sometimes making you laugh, sometimes complex and sometimes simple but finally leaving you with a sense that ‘you have arrived’:

What has happened to your energy, to your passion …  Sir, don’t we exercise our brains to question, to doubt, to ask, to demand, to find out, to live excellently at the highest level?

Is this book only for teachers? It is for everyone. Each chapter takes you on a journey where you are questioned, needled and nudged but also feel fulfilled and insightful at the end. This book has the potential to spark a deep awakening. While it asks very difficult questions it also leaves you with a renewed energy. While bird watching with the reviewer, once a Class four student on reaching the top of a small hillock burst out : “ It is so beautiful. I can feel the freshness of breeze inside my head”.  That is how this book makes the reader feel.