THIS MATTER OF CULTURE CHAPTER 26 part1 You know it is so nice just to be very quiet, to sit up straight with dignity,

w ith poise - and that is as important as it is to look at those leafless trees. H ave you noticed how lovely those trees are against the pale blue of the morning sky? The naked branches of a tree reveal its beauty; and trees also have an extr aordinary beauty about them in the spring, in the summer and in the autumn. Thei r beauty changes with the seasons, and to notice this is as important as it is t o consider the ways of our own life. Whether we live in Russia, in America, or in India, we are all human beings ; as human beings we have common problems, and it is absurd to think of ourselve s as Hindus, Americans, Russians, Chinese, and so on. There are political, geogr aphic, racial and economic divisions, but to emphasize the divisions only breeds antagonism and hatred. Americans may be for the moment far more prosperous, whi ch means that they have more gadgets, more radios, more television sets, more of everything including a surplus of food, while in this country there is so much starvation, squalor overpopulation and unemployment. But wherever we live we are all human beings, and as human beings we create our own human problems; and it is very important to understand that in thinking of ourselves as Hindus, America ns, or Englishmen, or as white, brown, black, or yellow, we are creating needles s barriers between ourselves. One of our main difficulties is that modern education all over the world is chiefly concerned with making us mere technicians. We learn how to design jet p lanes, how to construct paved roads, how to build cars or run the latest nuclear submarines, and in the midst of all this technology we forget that we are human beings - which means that we are filling our hearts with the things of the mind . In America automation is releasing more and people from long hours of labour, as it will presently be doing in this country, and then we shall have the immens e problem of how to utilize our time. Huge factories now employing many thousand s will probably be run by a few technicians; and what is to become of all the ot her human beings who used to work there and who will have so much time on their hands? Until education begins to take this and other human problems into account, our lives will be very empty. Our lives are very empty now, are they not? You may have a college degree, you may get married and be well off, you may be very clever, have a great deal o f information, know the latest books; but as long as you fill your heart with th e things of the mind, your life is bound to be empty, ugly, and it will have ver y little meaning. There is beauty and meaning in life only when the heart is cle ansed of the things of the mind. You see, all this is our own individual problem, it is not some speculative problem that doesn't concern us. If as human beings we don't know how to care f or the earth and the things of the earth, if we don't know how to love our child ren and are merely concerned with ourselves, with our personal or national advan cement and success, we shall make our world hideous - which is what we are alrea dy doing. One country may become very rich, but its riches are a poison as long as there is another country which is starving. We are one humanity, the earth is ours to share, and with loving care it will produce food, clothing and shelter for us all. So, the function of education is not merely to prepare you to pass a few ex aminations, but to help you understand this whole problem of living - in which i s included sex, earning a livelihood, laughter, having initiative, being earnest and knowing how to think deeply. It is also our problem to find out what God is , because that is the very foundation of our life. A house cannot stand for long without a proper foundation, and all the cunning inventions of man will be mean ingless if we are not seeking out what is God or truth. The educator must be capable of helping you to understand this, for you hav e to begin in childhood, not when you are sixty. You will never find God at sixt y, for at that age most people are worn out, finished. You must begin when you a

re very young because then you can lay the right foundation so that your house w ill stand through all the storms that human beings create for themselves. Then y ou can live happily because your happiness is not dependent on anything, it is n ot dependent on saris and jewels, on cars and radios, on whether somebody loves or rejects you. You are happy not because you possess something, not because you have position, wealth, or learning, but because your life has meaning in itself . But that meaning is discovered only when you are seeking out reality from mome nt to moment - and reality is in everything, it is not to be found in the church , in the temple, in the mosque, or in some ritual. To seek out reality we must know how to go about removing the dust of centu ries that has settled upon it; and please believe me, that search for reality is true education. Any clever man can read books and accumulate information, achie ve a position and exploit others, but that is not education. The study of certai n subjects is merely a very small part of education; but there is a vast area of our life for which we are not educated at all, and to which we have no right ap proach. To find out how to approach life so that our daily living, our radios, cars and airplanes have a meaning in relationship to something else which includes a nd transcends them all - that is education. In other words, education must begin with religion. But religion has nothing to do with the priest, with the church, with any dogma or belief. Religion is to love without motive, to be generous, t o be good, for only then are we real human beings; but goodness, generosity, or love does not come into being save through the search for reality. Unfortunately, this whole vast field of life is ignored by the so-called ed ucation of today. You are constantly occupied with books which have very little meaning, and with passing examinations which have still less meaning. They may g et you a job, and that does have some meaning. But presently many factories will be run almost entirely by machines, and that is why we must begin now to be edu cated to use our leisure rightly - not in the pursuit of ideals, but to discover and understand the vast areas of our existence of which we are now unconscious and know nothing. The mind, with its cunning arguments, is not everything. There is something vast and immeasurable beyond the mind, a loveliness which the mind cannot understand. In that immensity there is an ecstasy, a glory; and the livi ng in that, the experiencing of that is the way of education. Unless you have th at kind of education, when you go out into the world you will perpetuate this hi deous mess which past generations have created. So, teachers and students, do think about all this. Don't complain, but put your shoulder to the wheel and help to create an institution where religion, in the right sense, is investigated, loved, worked out and lived. Then you will fi nd that life becomes astonishingly rich - far richer than all the bank accounts in the world. Questioner: How did man come to have so much knowledge? How did he evolve m aterially? Whence does he draw such vast energies? Krishnamurti: "How did man come to have so much knowledge?" That is fairly simple. You know something and pass it on to your children; they add a little mo re and pass it on to their children, and so on down through the ages. We gather knowledge little by little. Our great grandfathers did not know a thing about je t planes and the electronic marvels of today; but curiosity, necessity, war, fea r and greed have brought about all this knowledge by degrees. Now, there is a peculiar thing about knowledge. You may know a great deal, gather vast stores of information; but a mind that is clouded by knowledge, burd ened with information, is incapable of discovery. It may use a discovery through knowledge and technique, but the discovery itself is something original which s uddenly bursts upon the mind irrespective of knowledge; and it is this explosion of discovery that is essential. Most people, especially in this country, are so smothered by knowledge, by tradition by opinion, by fear of what their parents or neighbours will say, that they have no confidence. They are like dead people - and that is what the burden of knowledge does to the mind. Knowledge is useful , but without something else it is also most destructive, and this is being show n by world events at the present time.

Look at what is happening in the world. There are all these marvellous inve ntions: radar which detects the approach of an airplane while still many miles a way; submarines which can go submerged right around the world without once comin g up; the miracle of being able to talk from Bombay to Benaras or New York, and so on. All this is the outcome of knowledge. But something else is missing, and therefore knowledge is misused; there is war, destruction, misery, and countless millions of people go hungry. They have only one meal a day, or even less - and you know nothing about all this. You only know your books and your own petty pr oblems and pleasures in a particular corner of Benaras, Delhi, or Bombay. You se e, we may have a great deal of knowledge, but without that something else by whi ch man lives and in which there is joy, glory, ecstasy, we are going to destroy ourselves. Materially it is the same thing : man has evolved materially through a grad ual process. And whence does he draw such vast energies? The great inventors, th e explorers and discoverers in every field must have had enormous energy, but mo st of us have very little energy, have we not? While we are young we play games we have fun, we dance and sing; but when we grow up that energy is soon destroye d. Have you not noticed it? We become weary housewives, or we go to an office fo r endless hours day after day, month in and month out, merely to earn a liveliho od; so naturally we have little or no energy. If we had energy we might destroy this rotten society, we might do the most disturbing things; therefore society s ees to it that we don't have energy, it gradually smothers us through `education ', through tradition, through so-called religion and culture. You see, the funct ion of real education is to awaken our energy and make it explode, make it conti nuous, strong, passionate, and yet have spontaneous restraint and employ itself in the discovery of reality. Then that energy becomes immense, boundless, and it does not cause further misery but is in itself creator of a new society. Do listen to what I am saying, don't brush it aside, because it is really i mportant. Don't just agree or disagree, but find out for yourself if there is tr uth in what is being said. Don't be indifferent : be either hot or cold. If you see the truth of all this and are really hot about it, that heat, that energy wi ll grow and bring about a new society. It will not dissipate itself by merely re volting within the present society, which is like decorating the walls of a pris on.