Education XVII: what we bring from our evolutionary past

My twins are now 1 year and 15 days old. Since they were 9 month old I have observed something in their behaviour which I find very interesting.

One is playing with, say, a small bottle, he is examining it, bringing it to his mouth. Then the other sees that object and comes to take the bottle from the other twin. Then screaming breaks out and the one having the bottle bites the other in the hand or the face or even the head. Sometimes biting is quite hard and painful. Both of them show this behavior. Of course, it does not happen all the time, it is a minority of times, but it happens.

Obviously, they have not seen this behaviour from us....so this reaction is not learned but it has to come in their genes, from their evolutionary past......

Many things are involved in this kind of incidents: a sense of possesion, a sense of me (I am possesing this object and somebody else, separate, comes to take it away), and violence, come in-built in our genes....they are expressions of our evolutionary history.......is a kind of evolutionary conditioning...acting all our life.....

Education XVI: the world is the teacher

I was watching one of my twins trying to climb a rock. He was getting better and better at it, was quite determined about it, and showed a great joy at trying it.

And an idea came to my mind: The real techer is not a person in a school..... the real teacher is the world. All is there.

And then I thought: Yes, two elements are the main teachers, and they are enough to learn it all. One is the world, and the other the capacity to look, not only outwardly, but more importantly inwardly.........

(photograph from: http://parkerlab.bio.uci.edu/nonscientific_adventures/canyonland_arches.htm)

real freedom

I go to work and in the car I listen to D. Bohm and Krishnamurti dialogue number 15, towards the end of it there is a part that I found remarkable:

K: .....................It means he must listen to me, but my brother refuses to listen.

DB: It seems that there are some actions which are not possible. If a person is caught in a certain thought such as fragmentation, then he can't change it, because there are a lot of other thoughts behind it.

K: Of course.

DB: Thoughts he doesn't know. He is not actually free to take this action because of the whole structure of thought that holds him.

And that sparks an idea in my mind: "Maybe real freedom is just to listen, to listen completely, because when you listen completely, there are no thoughts, no influences from my structure, from my past......and in those moments I am free of them..........

tsunami

My afection and solidarity for everybody that is suffering by today's tsunami.....we feel close to you.....

I think we are heading towards a world that feels like a unity....

(lower picture: children in Ahmedabad, India, by Amit Dave)

Education XV: behaviour 2

And keeping reading an answer came, a bit in an unexpected twist:

".....So there has to be affection, a sense of tenderness, kindliness, generosity. If there is such affection, then behaviour is dictated by that affection and is not dependent on environment, circumstance, or people. And to find that affection is one of the most difficult things .......
...... And so to have affection right through life is one of the most difficult things and without it life becomes very empty. You may have children, you may have a nice house, a car and all the rest of it, but without affection life is like a flower that has no scent. And it is part of education, is it not, to come to this affection, from which there is great joy, from which alone love can come?

Education XIV: behaviour

One of the most difficult things in life is to find a way of behaviour that is not dictated by circumstances. Circumstances and people dictate, or force you to behave in a certain way. The way you conduct yourself, the way you eat, the way you talk, your moral, your ethical behaviour depend on where you find yourself and so your behaviour is constantly varying, constantly changing.

This is so when you speak to your father, your mother or to your servant - your voice, your words, are quite different. The ways of behaviour are controlled by environmental influences, and by analysing behaviour you can almost predict what people will do or will not do.

Now can one ask oneself if one can behave the same inwardly, whatever the circumstances? Can one's behaviour spring from within and not depend on what people think of you or how they look at you? But that is difficult because one does not know what one is within. Within, a constant change is going on also. You are not what you were yesterday.

Now can one find for oneself a way of behaviour which is not dictated by others or by society or by circumstances or by religious sanctions, a way of behaviour that does not depend on environment?

(J. Krishnamurti "On Education", chapter 9)

Good point to ask ourselves and to raise in an educational setup

Education XIII

Student: If you have lots of time, how would you spend it, Sir?

Krishnamurti: I would do what I am doing. You see, if you love what you are doing, then you have all the leisure that you need in your life. Do you understand what I have said? You asked me what I would do if I had leisure. I said, I would do what I am doing; which is to go around different parts of the world, to talk, to see people and so on. I do it because I love to do it; not because I talk to a great many people and feel that I am very important. When you feel very important, you do not love what you are doing; you love yourself and not what you are doing. So, your concern should be not with what I am doing, but with what you are going to do. Right? I have told you what I am doing. Now you tell me what you will do, when you have plenty of leisure.

(Krishnamurti in "on education", chapter 8)