Krishnamurti Subtitles home


BR72DT2.0 - A flame of seriousness
Brockwood Park, UK - 22 September 1972
Discussion with Teachers 2.0



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s discussion with teachers at Brockwood Park, 1972.
0:09 Krishnamurti: This is what I wear in India - it’s called bundi.
0:29 What shall we talk about?
0:39 (Pause) I wonder if I am a student here, what I would like?
1:05 If a parent sent me as a student, what is your responsibility?
1:24 I would expect, as a parent, that you educate me, not only academically but in many other ways.
1:56 (Pause) I would entrust my child to your care, hoping that you would cultivate his brain and his intelligence - academically; a moral responsibility to society; a feeling of concern with the world; and not be self-centred, and therefore be concerned with the whole of mankind.
3:23 That I would expect, if I am an intelligent teacher, a parent, I would expect.
3:35 Can you be responsible for that?
3:42 (Pause) Not ideationally: ‘we must create an idea or an ideal for the student to follow’ - because all that’s finished; nobody accepts all that silly stuff anymore.
4:08 So how will you, if you feel it is your responsibility, and I’m sure it is your responsibility because they are here, it is their home for the next six months or eight months — so what is your response to this?
4:40 Or put it round the other way: what is my response if I was a member of the staff here, if I was one, if I stayed here, what is my responsibility?
4:59 You see, it’s going to be awfully difficult to…
5:30 Because physically I want them to be good at games. Because I was yesterday at a dentist, sitting in his chair for two hours, and he was talking about his golf score, playing golf.
5:56 He was 12 and he asked me and I said… he asked me did I ever play golf.
6:05 I said yes. He said, ‘What’s your score?’ You know what it is? I said plus 3. You know what plus 3 is? No. You know scratch, par? Golf course is par or scratch. Say a golf course is 60, 72 — that is, a good scratch player would go round the course in 72 strokes.
6:36 And the dentist took 84 strokes, that’s 12 over and when I used to play, I took 3 under.
6:49 So, when I told him that, he said, ‘My God, you’re my hero!’ (laughter) and he laughed and we laughed and I think… and my relationship… his relationship with me totally changed after he found that I was… (laughs) I’m saying this because I think we ought to be good at games, you know?
7:22 That gives you such a feeling of… I don’t know if you can do it here. Then if I was here I would see that the boys were spotlessly clean. Now how is this to be done? Good food, punctuality, very good manners, good at games.
7:57 You know, bright, physically bright, not, oh, heavy, lumpy.
8:04 Now how, if I was a teacher here, staff, how do I set about it, knowing it’s my responsibility?
8:15 How would I bring this about?
8:24 Without compulsion, without exercising my authority, without saying, ‘This is the ideal, you must…’ because none of them will do it then.
8:34 They’ll say, oh, we are square or whatever it is, and just forget you.
8:41 But I would want to do this. How shall I do this? Come on, sirs, you must discuss with me. How am I, as a teacher here, what are we going to do? Good at games, physically very fit, bright — you know? Because they have very good food here, balanced, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t be very bright physically, sharp, you know, alive and active.
9:16 Come on, how will you do it?
9:23 How will you set this about, bring it about? Questioner: I have to bring it about in myself first.
9:28 K: No, no - I understand that but are we… do I begin there?
9:35 I have to naturally begin with myself, but in my relationship with the student how do I bring this about?
9:43 If I am dirty, if I am squalid, if I am unpunctual, if I am unconcerned, if I am thinking about myself all day long, right kind of food I’m eating, am I sleeping right hours — you know?
9:54 — myself, myself, myself - if I go and tell him, ‘Look, get up early,’ he’ll smile at me, naturally. He’ll say, ‘Go and jump in the lake,’ or something.
10:08 But how do I, admitting that I am punctual, that I am very clean, physically healthy, vital, now how do I bring this about?
10:21 Because they are not physically very bright. I don’t know - some are, some aren’t.
10:34 Right? Sloppy. I think it has tremendous importance, having a good, physical, sharp mind.
10:44 Physical — you follow? — physical body that’s active. How do I… how do we bring this about in the student?
10:58 Come on, sirs, it’s your job, it’s not mine.
11:17 I’m leaving in a fortnight or three weeks’ time. I’m leaving, so it is your job — what will you do?
11:24 Q: Sir, first surely we have to discuss with them the importance of being physically fit.
11:42 K: I know you have discussed ad nauseam. (Laughs) You know? You’ll discuss with them and they say, ‘Quite right, sir,’ and then forget all about it. How will you act in this? Please, come on, sir. I know what I would do but I’m not going to — you tell me. Let’s talk it over together and let’s all work together in this. How do you do it, Miss Cook? Come on, sir. If that’s what you think is necessary — and I’m sure you do, must; logically it is so.
12:23 A good body. I mean, the way they walk. I’ve seen them walking around, all so…
12:37 Come on, please, how do you set about this?
12:44 First of all, do you feel it is important?
12:58 Apart from yourself, apart from your own cleanliness, your sharp — if you are — I don’t know if you are active physically — do you think it’s important enough to see that the student, these people, the boys and girls that are here, have this quality?
13:15 Q: First of all, I feel that it is very important.
13:28 I feel that in each student there may be something that may be hindering him from seeing the importance.
13:40 I think if…
13:41 K: Mrs Greene, how do you set about it? What will you do?
13:45 Q: Isn’t it the wrong question to ask how we set about it?
13:48 K: All right Q: Because if you ask how we set about it, we all start thinking up answers.
13:51 K: No, I know, I don’t mean...
13:52 Q: …come to conclusions.
13:54 K: That’s terrible. But what will you do? Here are these boys and girls. What will you do?
14:01 Q: Well I’m sure that my enthusiasm, my interest in it, will convey itself to them if I…
14:11 K: That’s what I’m… Have you got this? Have you? Do you feel responsible enough to create in these boys this feeling?
14:21 You know what happens? By the time they are 50 they are finished. They’re ready for the heap. You know?
14:29 Q: But if one has… one has to give them time because to know a child you must be with the child. You must know why the child is not… (inaudible) K: What will you do?
14:41 How… No, here they are — tell me. Here they are under you, about 40 boys and girls. We’ve got 40 boys and girls. How will you… what will you do now you’ve got them? They are your prisoners or your whatever - you’ve got them here. Mary Zimbalist: Krishnaji, are you suggesting that the object would be to get them to see the importance of physical activity and then let them find their own, either…
15:19 K: Ah, ah, they don’t understand it!
15:23 MZ: No, but then it is organised and…
15:26 K: No, what will you do? I want to find out what am I to do? If I am a teacher here, what am I to do with all those boys and girls who have no idea of order, discipline, care, cleanliness — you follow?
15:41 The feeling of it. Nobody had to tell me when I was at one of these rotten schools in England, ‘Get up.’ I got up, I worked in the garden, collecting wood — you follow what I mean?
16:00 – I played games, everything. And apparently these boys don’t feel that way. They’d rather sit in front of a television or radio, whatever it is, and carry on, day after day, day after day?
16:13 Q: There’s a certain amount of structure here which would help us in this if there really is a caring and a cooperation.
16:21 Use the structure…
16:22 K: That’s right, sir.
16:23 Q: …the environment, the relationships.
16:25 K: What are you going to do?
16:26 Q: We have to start with the first day they come to… if we’re clear as to what we think is very important for them, then from the very first day we must take…
16:41 K: That’s what I mean. They’re going to be here tomorrow - right? That’s why it’s important we, all of us, should meet, be very clear what we are doing.
16:49 Q: Absolutely, from the start.
16:50 K: Now first of all… I mean, this is their home — right? — much more than the home they come from. Now how will you make them feel at home? Not how. Goodness! If it is their home, what is their attitude and your attitude that it is their home?
17:15 What does home mean?
17:16 Q: They can feel welcome. Get close to them.
17:20 K: What does home mean to you, sir?
17:28 If this is your home and those are your children — 40 of them, my God! (Laughs) Q: Well they must feel at ease.
17:37 K: No, no, no, no, just think it out, sir. 40 children. You have 40 children and you want to make them feel at home. What does that word home mean to you? Home, to you.
17:56 Q: Security.
18:00 Q: Care.
18:03 K: What does it mean to you? You’re not only secure – it’s much deeper. Much deeper. Dorothy Simmons: Krishnaji, I think they don’t think of it as home so much. They feel pleased to come away from home and they have all come with a feeling they want to be here straightaway. They’ve all written, or their parents have written, except for the two very young ones…
18:27 K: Of course, naturally.
18:29 DS: …they all want to be here and they are saying: how is it we set about living differently?
18:34 K: Yes.
18:35 DS: We’ve left the messiness of our homes and I feel that, although this will become a home, home is not the…
18:43 K: All right, don’t let’s use that word. An environment. (Laughs) An environment where they want to be.
18:53 DS: Yes.
18:54 K: Now what does that environment mean? I mean, to me home means freedom.
19:05 Freedom and a feeling that I’m protected.
19:13 Right? Protected, not the parents’ protection but feeling that I am protected here because you really care, that you have tremendous affection for me, so that I feel free and happy and — you know?
19:33 No? Many: Yes.
19:35 MZ: I don’t think the older ones want to be told they are being protected.
19:41 K: Ah, no, no, no. They will say, ’Go to hell’, to me. If you say that, they will say, ‘Who are you to protect me?’ I’m not… I mean, the feeling I am talking… They are not here, so we must be clear what that word, instead of home, environment means.
20:01 The ambiance, the environment, the circumstances, the place — what does Brockwood mean to them?
20:11 Put it any way you like.
20:14 DS: But in their living here isn’t there a discovery as you meet each day and you’ve got to find the order?
20:38 You can’t say that we’re going to have this prototype of how and when to behave.
20:42 K: No, not a prototype.
20:43 DS: On the day you’ve got to find the…
20:46 K: Look, Mrs D, let’s look at it. I would like, when I come when here, a totally different atmosphere — instead of environment, call it what you like — a totally different atmosphere in which I feel I am at home.
21:03 Not their home – here at last I’ve found a place where I can be… where I can do things.
21:14 Montague Simmons: Well we get letters from them and the word they most commonly use is friendly.
21:20 K: Friendly - all right.
21:21 MS: This is a friendly place.
21:23 K: Right — a friendly place. I don’t care what word you use. A friendly place. What does that mean?
21:30 Q: Well I think the child that feels that you are wanting to understand him will feel that it a friendly place, but understanding in a sense of doing for him what you feel is best for him to experience this freedom.
21:49 K: Ah, ah. Best for him to experience — he wants to experience taking drugs.
21:54 Q: Yes, but you do for him what you feel is best, but he has to feel that you want to understand and do for him.
22:09 For him.
22:10 K: No, that doesn’t sound…
22:13 Q: Not for Brockwood but for… (laughs) K: No, I use Brockwood as a place which is different from other schools — let’s put it that way - which is concerned with a totally different… bringing about a totally different kind of human mind — right?
22:32 — a mind that will survive, that will be creative, that will be - you know?
22:40 — active, irrespective of any environment they live in.
22:52 Or put it round the other way: they’ll be here tomorrow and you’re going to meet them.
23:08 How do you meet them? Not how — oh, Lord! When you meet these children, what is your relationship with them?
23:22 Q: Hopefully I can communicate with them, first of all, by…
23:31 K: Not hopefully — actually, what takes place between you and them?
23:38 Actually. The word hopeful and all that means…
23:45 Q: (Inaudible) K: How do you…
23:51 DS: You meet them.
23:54 K: Meet them with what?
23:55 DS: Talk to them. Expose yourself and you get to know each other, and then as they reveal themselves, and they reveal a lot that they’ve brought with them from their homes or from wherever, and go into why this here - I mean, he wants to come here to live differently.
24:19 It begins to sort of shape itself, show itself.
24:23 MZ: Do we want to make it different from what they’ve known or just forget what they’ve known but say this is what we are together here, as a group of people…
24:34 K: All right, put it that way. What are we here for, all of us? All of us, here we are, 20 of us or more — what are we here for?
24:52 What is it you’re trying to do? Don’t look at her — what is it you’re trying to do?
24:56 Q: Well I feel every child has a terrific potential that he doesn’t know anything about.
25:04 So I’m trying to discover what it is that would free him for that potential.
25:16 It’s difficult to put into words, but I’m very interested in seeing who that child...
25:25 trying to discover what he needs, how he functions, what his background has been, where he and I can communicate in words that…
25:46 K: I mean, I saw you coming in this morning with that boy, with Whisper and that boy. I don’t know who that boy is, it doesn’t matter. Probably he’s a new boy. How — no - what did he feel?
26:07 Q: Well he began to feel a relationship with… (inaudible) K: No, what did he actually feel?
26:17 What did he say?
26:19 Q: We were talking about the dog and how we train the dog.
26:34 So he felt that he’d like to take the dog out and so I said we would take him out.
26:44 K: Did he feel — I’m just asking, I’m not… — did he feel that this place is different from his home, from he’s used to, from all that — you know?
26:56 Did he feel, by Jove, there’s something… Or did he feel, ‘Oh my God, this is another of these damn schools’?
27:15 Q: We can only see if he feels at ease and if he feels open and curious, and that’s a sign perhaps of this, but... (inaudible) K: All right, sir.
27:28 All right. And from there, how do you bring this about? What do you do with this material you have?
27:47 Q: Well I think that children… they accept the environment in which they…
28:22 I think he felt, this little child, felt very happy being out, in the morning taking the dog…
28:29 K: Yes, I saw him. Yes, he looked shy and, for the first time, and you know, nervous, but happy to be out with the dog and all that.
28:37 That’s all right but what are you going to do with that material?
28:44 What are you going to do with that child?
28:46 Q: I want to get to know him.
28:49 DS: Surely you can only do that in the course of living with him, can’t you?
28:56 Now say that tomorrow at the school or on Sunday at the school meeting we’ll have to sort of make clear to them: look, this is how, to date, we have found… you need some order in this place, and so we’ll say at certain times… we’ll make them feel at ease in the sort of running and routine of the place.
29:10 And in the course of putting that into action you begin to form relationships. You say, look, this is what we do here, this is how we’ve discovered, to date, you can make different suggestions, as you live here, and make your contribution — you must bring something to this place.
29:25 I mean, it’s only what we are, all of us, staff and students. And so you’ll say, look, this is how we order this day, and from there we begin to sort of do our individual things, finding out what classes you want to take, who draws towards this sort of interest and so on, and who likes to take the dog out for a walk or whatever, help in the kitchen — you begin to know him, having first put the minimum of structure into the place.
29:54 But you must make clear that you are making some sort of demand here.
30:01 I mean, we’ve started by saying, look, we’re international, we’re vegetarian, we’re co-educational. So we go down and define it more. And in the defining of it and yet keeping our freedom, we begin to relate to each other or have relationship with each other.
30:17 Q: Would it make any difference if all of us are not entirely with the same point of view about what should take place here?
30:29 DS: Well it will, I think.
30:32 Q: I mean, there are differences of opinion.
30:35 DS: Could you specify sort of how you see it?
30:43 Q: In this approach to the student, I can’t give a particular instance but there have been doubts, you know, on one or two occasions, as to what one should do, and when it’s been spoken about there has been revealed quite a divergence of opinion.
31:07 K: All right, sir. Are you trying to say this: that, when we’re all sitting discussing or feeling, going over, you feel or X feels different about order, about discipline?
31:24 Let’s take that word discipline. You may feel discipline means one thing and I may feel discipline means another and therefore we go off.
31:36 Right? You go one way and I go another way. Right? Is that what you’re trying to say? Now take that word discipline. Do you want discipline here? What does that word mean, discipline? Lay down the law? Do this, do this, do this, do this?
31:56 Q: It has been said it means ‘to learn.’ K: No. Yes. Wait a minute. For you, does discipline imply regularity, imitation, conformity, obedience and all the rest of disciplining — that word discipline means, generally.
32:14 Does it mean that to you or do you say, look, discipline means something entirely different - let’s find out together?
32:21 Then there can be no difference of opinions about it.
32:28 If I am fixed in my idea that discipline must be this, and you feel differently, then there is — you follow? — then we go off.
32:38 Whereas if you say, look, discipline, let’s find out what it means. Let’s learn about it first and then translate it to the other children. I don’t know…
32:58 You see, I feel personally, atmosphere matters immensely. Right?
33:05 Q: Yes. I agree.
33:09 K: Now, what is that atmosphere?
33:17 Q: It’s like a feeling of deep sharing.
33:21 K: No, lady, look, I’m asking you a question, which is, I feel very strongly — and to me this is real, not just verbal — that there must be marvellous atmosphere here so that, when they come in they feel, ‘By Jove, this is something extraordinary to be here.’ You follow?
33:45 Now, what does that word mean to you?
33:50 Q: Sir, I think it comes when people are working together.
33:59 When there’s understanding and respect between people. This is the start.
34:06 K: You know, sir, have you ever been into a monastery?
34:08 Q: No. A Buddhist monastery?
34:12 K: No. No, no, a Christian, Jesus-wedded monastery. (Laughs) I was in several of them in Italy, and the moment you enter there is a certain atmosphere, of restraint, of feeling the abbot is the boss — they all have to, you know, regular life, get up at two o’clock in the morning, pray — you follow? — it’s all cut and dried and very, very subjective and controlled - you know? — and you feel it when you enter there.
34:51 It’s a kind of terrible — you know? — this sense of overpowering obedience.
34:58 And to me that’s a horror, but there is a feeling there, there is an atmosphere.
35:05 MZ: Surely atmosphere, any place reflects the people in it, their state of mind.
35:12 K: That’s what I mean. Of course. So, together, what is the atmosphere we are creating? Are we united? Are we saying, look, this is the only thing that matters?
35:28 Q: If everybody is concerned with learning then the opinions don’t count.
35:36 The opinions sort themselves out.
35:37 K: Ah, they don’t count at all. Why should I have an opinion about discipline?
35:47 I want to learn what it means.
35:49 Q: Well where there is fear you can’t have that atmosphere.
35:56 K: Beg your pardon?
35:57 Q: Fear.
35:58 K: Fear. That’s what I mean. That’s what I say. For me, atmosphere is the real thing – you follow? — in which they come and move with it.
36:08 I don’t know if I’m explaining well. And I say: what is that atmosphere we want to create here?
36:31 That we are serious people?
36:33 Q: Serious about certain things.
36:36 K: No, not about a certain thing. Serious. I can be serious about drugs. You follow? I can be serious about going to town. But the quality of seriousness. You know? You understand? That we have that quality which, when applied, will go to the end of it.
37:04 I don’t know… I’m serious, say, about golf and I want to play it and be good at it and I’ll stick to it till I’m good at it, not drop in the middle of it.
37:15 If I want to learn — what? – guitar, I’m going to the end of it - I’ll be a top guitarist.
37:25 If I want to learn — it doesn’t matter – language, I’ll apply myself to it. The quality of seriousness.
37:34 Q: Which means also balance, because you’re not serious about one thing at the expense of anything else.
37:41 K: That’s what it means. I’m serious, therefore whatever I apply to is serious.
37:51 You follow? Does that quality exist? Sorry to push it. (Pause) I mean, I’ve lived with people in houses all over the world who are serious about something — you know?
38:25 — either about their religion or about their earning money, about becoming… - serious.
38:32 I don’t mean that quality of serious. The flame of seriousness which burns and operates, functions, whatever it is doing.
38:51 Have we got that feeling of seriousness and, if we have, the student will feel it. You follow what I mean? ‘By Jove, these people are really serious. They mean what they say.’ You know that feeling?
39:08 Q: It goes with a kind of… with an attention.
39:15 K: Are you serious? Are we serious? That’s one thing. Then, in an atmosphere of this kind, that we are really all together. You follow? You’re not flippant and I’m serious, or you’re serious, I’m flippant. You know? That we’re all serious together. Oh, come on. Therefore we don’t tell the boy, say, ‘Well, you can stay,’ — you know? – ‘do what you like.’ You know? That we’re all together in this, therefore we all together say, ‘Look, this is what we mean.’ When we say this, we mean it all together.
39:57 You can’t go to you and say, ‘Look, sir, can I get something because they don’t give…’ (laughs) You follow?
40:07 Because then you create such an atmosphere of distrust.
40:17 So, seriousness together, and responsibility.
40:38 You feel that, responsible? That means responding to every child — not according to what I want them to be or according to an ideal I have, but feeling responsible, feeling that I must respond to each child – you follow?
41:05 – differently. Because each child is different. Therefore I feel responsible – you follow? — how I respond. I don’t know…
41:15 Q: But I feel that… I may say, I feel that with children, one… because I feel very much this way about each child, I feel that each child will have a different response to what, for instance, the few things that have to be done here.
41:39 K: No, madame, that’s not I mean. I’m sorry. What I mean by responsibility — I feel responsible, for the garden, for the estate, for the bee - I feel responsible how this house is kept going, whether it’s clean, whether it’s nice, whether it is… everything is proper.
42:03 I feel responsible. Therefore, because I feel responsible, that very responsibility will bring the right response out of the child.
42:18 I don’t know if I’m making myself clear. Do you understand, sir, what I’m saying?
42:22 Q: His own response, sir, not a prejudged response that...
42:26 K: Because my response is total, because I’m concerned with the whole thing, not just one aspect of it.
42:38 I don’t know if I’m…
42:41 Q: But supposing this responsibility is missing. This is what I meant by divergence of opinion. The lack of responsibility comes out in opinion. For instance, if you take a factual thing like work parties, we’ve agreed that it’s good…
43:02 K: …to have work parties.
43:03 Q: …for the students to work one hour a week, but not all of us are in accord with this point of view.
43:09 K: Why not? Why not? Let’s find out. What’s wrong… why shouldn’t…
43:15 Q: We break up into groups and there’s a group leader, usually a member of the staff...
43:21 K: Sir, wait a minute. Is it right that all the students, once a week, should do something with the earth?
43:31 Right?
43:32 Q: It’s a shame to me to feel that once a week for an hour they do something with the earth.
43:40 They should love to work with the earth.
43:41 K: I’m taking that. Once a week or ten times a week, it doesn’t matter - something to do with the earth. Don’t we feel they should, all of us?
43:52 Q: From my experience, I don’t know what this thing… I suppose you can call it intelligence, but it’s called common sense among…
44:01 K: Call it common sense, sir — good enough.
44:02 Q: There’s a great lack of this and only by coming into touch with earth and practical things, can you acquire it.
44:09 K: No, wait. Don’t we all agree to this, that boys should have… students should take part with the earth, things of the earth?
44:21 No? Who objects to this?
44:24 DS: I don’t think anybody does.
44:28 K: Wait. Then how will you help the student to take part in it? You know? What will you do? When the student says, ‘Sorry, sir, I don’t want to go, it will make my hands dirty. I’m bored with it,’ what will you do?
44:45 Q: Well, if the student feels it’s a rule…
44:49 K: No, no. We all agree together that the student should take part in everything, including the earth, keeping the weeds out, you know, looking after everything.
45:06 How will you - not how - what will you do if the majority of the students are lazy, especially at that age – you follow? — and so on, so on — what will you do with them?
45:20 That’s his point, isn’t it, sir? Common sense, as he calls it. How will you exercise that common sense?
45:27 Q: Well if they really feel that this place is part of their doing, then I think they will be very happy to do...
45:33 K: All right.
45:34 Q: How are we going to get them to feel that?
45:38 K: That’s your responsibility. That’s what I’m saying.
45:40 Q: Right.
45:41 MZ: Well if at the very beginning when they come tomorrow and there is a meeting of everybody, this quality of us all being together…
45:48 K: Together — that’s what I’m saying! That’s what I’m talking.
45:52 MZ: Then it follows that there are x things that have to be done, just as you allocate within the house so and so tidies up this and so and so is responsible for something else, similarly, outside, from time to time, that x things need to be done.
46:08 K: That’s what I’m saying — do we feel responsible all together for the whole place, including the children?
46:17 Q: Well I feel that the children want to feel responsible too and they don’t feel that they feel responsible.
46:25 We may feel responsible and then… for they lack the sense of feeling responsible.
46:31 K: Then what will you do if they lack the sense of responsibility? For the whole - you follow?
46:37 Q: Yes. I want to give it to them. I mean, I want to allow them to feel… (inaudible) K: All right. If they don’t feel it, what will you do? As most of them won’t feel this. You see, I’ve seen them come with dirty feet in here, and don’t know even that it’s dirty feet.
47:02 Others come, wipe their shoes carefully and come and sit down.
47:06 DS: Cups. To sum it up, last term with cups. I mean, did we mention cups on the piano, cups in the rooms, cups all over the place? Cups mean everything that we fail to be sensitive about.
47:19 MZ: I’m ignorant about this. Is there a student who is, say, in charge of cup picking up?
47:25 Q: Yes.
47:26 MZ: If you get the students to regulate each other, isn’t that more pulling together and less sense of authority?
47:33 DS: We have that, but then what happens when… What we found happened was that those with a sense of responsibility did go around collecting cups…
47:42 Q: No, no, not the others.
47:43 DS: Yes, but the fact is they don’t and so you have to talk it… point it out to them, show them what they’re doing until they understand it, and when they begin to understand it then perhaps they will add their energy to it too.
47:57 But at the time they don’t and so hence you have to have somebody responsible for doing these things.
48:01 Q: No, and also it isn’t enough to have…
48:03 Q: Why can’t children do it?
48:04 MZ: Well I think student government…
48:05 Q: I have a feeling that Mary has what I feel is very essential for these students to feel one with Brockwood, and that is that they have a governing… a sense of responsibility as strong as we have.
48:20 And they won’t, because I know children - if the adult is forever telling them what – quote – ‘to do’, what they think, but if they tell each other what to do, I have a feeling that they have a greater sense of togetherness that this is their home.
48:36 K: I think they do - quite.
48:39 Q: And I feel that it’s a very important thing that they have an active part, that they feel that they have an active part here.
48:50 Because they have felt, I think, very strongly that there’s a difference between the adults and them.
48:57 And how to break this down? This is their school. We’re interested in them. It’s they that are to bloom and see what this place offers them.
49:10 K: That’s why, Mrs Greene, I’m saying the atmosphere matters tremendously.
49:14 Q: Tremendously – I agree.
49:16 K: That means, as we said, seriousness, responsibility, a feeling of affection — you follow? — all that’s involved in the atmosphere.
49:24 Q: But we have to trust that they are part of this so wholly that they are going to do it.
49:31 K: You can’t trust them yet.
49:32 MZ: But don’t we have to point this out. After all, they are coming to a place that…
49:34 K: They know nothing about it.
49:35 Q: But with an atmosphere that we create, they will follow through.
49:40 K: That’s what I’m saying.
49:41 DS: They didn’t, is the fact, and that was our difficulty. The fact is that when we…
49:45 Q: Well that was very early on though, Dorothy.
49:49 DS: Look, let’s be realistic. At half past ten, we all said, we agreed we’d go to bed.
49:54 K: For the love of Pete!
49:55 DS: Now how do you set about it? I mean, if we leave it to them to have a sense of responsibility, they are up, as you know, until about midnight, playing records or whatever they’re doing.
50:07 Q: No, no, I don’t mean that. Because, you see, if you just leave it vaguely, these children don’t understand that...
50:16 My interest in…
50:17 Q: It isn’t about your interest. It’s our interest.
50:19 K: That’s right.
50:20 Q: If all of us feel that it’s essential to go to bed at ten thirty, they’ll get it. But if they say, ‘Oh, Mrs Simmons, look out, she’s some round, get to bed quick, she’s spotted,’ and everybody sort of says, ‘Dorothy will do it,’ then of course they won’t get it.
50:36 But if everybody feels…
50:37 K: That’s right, sir. That’s what I meant by responsibility.
50:40 MZ: But more particularly that something in between, say Dorothy’s authority and everybody spontaneously doing the right thing, if there were a student authority whose job it is to go and check that everybody’s gone to bed and if not, say, ‘Go,’ I think then…
50:57 Q: (Inaudible) MZ: But won’t they accept it if much more from their own? Doris Pratt: We’ve always had that. We’ve always had a student involved.
51:05 MZ: And what happened?
51:06 DP: Well sometimes the students get tired.
51:09 Q: We haven’t really, Doris.
51:11 Q: We’ve always had a student…
51:13 MZ: We leave it always with Dorothy. (Many voices) K: No, no, I think we’re going off the wrong end. Sorry, forgive me for interfering. I feel, as I said, an atmosphere, seriousness. Together we’re all responsible. All of us here, not Mrs Simmons only. All of us are responsible. Look, I feel responsible for creating the cloisters. You know? We call it now - what is it? - the Court, the new building.
51:42 DS: No… (inaudible) K: All right, we haven’t fixed a name yet, don’t let’s quarrel about it.
51:47 DS: The new building.
51:49 K: I felt responsible. I went at it. You follow? I talked to people. I said, ‘Give me money for that.’ We’ve got money now.
52:01 Not because I’m collecting it - I’m nobody. I said it is good to have a place where people can come and discuss, and I felt responsible for that.
52:13 I feel responsible for the whole of Brockwood. So I am very keen to see that those weeds are gone, that trees are kept properly – you follow? — and the students eat properly, go to bed.
52:29 You follow? I feel responsible totally, for the whole thing. Do we all feel that way? That’s what Mr Simmons was saying. Do we, all of us here, do we feel responsible as human beings for this place, and therefore for the students?
52:48 Which they will feel instantly if we all work… and therefore they will respond rightly.
52:55 I don’t know… Phew! Seriousness, responsibility, and of course affection.
53:10 I mean, without that you can’t be serious. You can’t be…
53:12 DS: That is affection really, isn’t it?
53:15 K: I’m trying to put it differently. Affection then becomes sentimental: ‘Oh, please go to bed when you like, get up when you like, old boy.
53:25 I love you.’ Together, feeling of responsibility for the whole place, for all the children, how they behave, how they eat, how they learn — you follow? – the whole thing together.
53:42 DS: And dealing with it as it happens, not sort of waiting till it comes to a school meeting.
53:50 But I saw somebody this morning just doing bread and butter. Just point it out nicely. Just say, ‘Look, that’s not the right way to eat.’ K: Ah, here, please don’t tell me how… that’s appalling. I am brought up…
54:02 DS: How do you mean? You mean you’d let it go?
54:07 K: No.
54:08 DP: Because it seems to me that we, as persons, are the most important environment the child has, even more important than the beautiful grounds.
54:17 K: I agree. That’s what I’m saying.
54:19 DP: To every person to whom the child refers, he must find an equal quality of total attention and affection.
54:27 K: That’s what I’m saying.
54:28 DP: Not leave it to one or two who think they can interpret and…
54:30 K: Then it becomes…
54:31 DP: Every single person is part of the environment of the child.
54:36 K: Now, do we feel responsible for the whole thing here, each one of us?
54:43 If not, why not? If not, what are we all trying to do?
54:48 Q: It seems that we do while we’re here in the meeting but later on something seems to happen and it just doesn’t work for some people.
55:00 K: Why? Why? You know, when I go to India, as I’m going in November, there are two schools there.
55:11 When I get there I feel, my God, I’m responsible for this. I talk to them, to the teachers, to the students. The moment I leave: ’Thank God he’s left.’ They’ve told me, ‘You come here like a storm and we’re glad when the storm is over.’ You follow?
55:33 This, I mean…
55:38 Q: But I feel in a school like this, if something… for instance, I have a feeling that maybe we could try something with the students, have the students have their meetings and talk things over so that they can get it clear also...
56:00 K: Then you meet them all, because we all are responsible, therefore we all have the same responsibility to see that we all feel alike — you know? — we have the same thing in us.
56:17 Suppose, Mrs Greene, you think that they should go to bed at – what?
56:24 – eight thirty or nine, whatever it is, and they sit up till 12. What will you do? Let them do it?
56:32 Q: No, not if I feel that they should go to bed.
56:36 K: No, no, it’s your responsibility. It’s all our responsibility. We see that young children should be in bed by nine, or whatever time we decide with them — and then they don’t.
56:50 You know they don’t. Children are that way. They say, ‘Please let me stay half an hour longer.’ Q: Well I think consistency is one of the very…
57:00 K: How will you… what will you do with them? Will you correct them or shall I come along and say, ‘Please go to bed, for God’s sake’?
57:09 Q: You can put them even in their room and you can even turn out the light, and you can go back and back but a child…
57:16 K: Will you? Who? Do we feel altogether responsible to see to this, that the child goes at nine o’clock to bed?
57:25 DS: It isn’t only, say, Elena who is responsible for the younger ones, but whoever happens to be around.
57:32 K: Oh for the love of…
57:33 DS: They say, ‘Look, it’s nine o’clock, don’t you realise?’ Just remind them. Because it isn’t just one person’s job — you’ve got your little pet thing that you do, but the whole thing is…
57:44 K: That’s what I’m saying.
57:46 MZ: Also that this one little thing of going to bed isn’t just for the sake of going to bed, which may seem silly to the child, but that it is part of a whole that we’re all engaged in together, that we’re trying to make right, to make work, to make proper, so that the going to bed is one little piece, but it’s important not just arbitrarily going to bed at a certain time.
58:13 K: Look…
58:14 Q: From the child’s point of view, if they see one member of the staff who doesn’t care, and that is the… that brings down.
58:22 K: Oh, rather.
58:25 DS: Exactly.
58:27 K: That’s deadly. So, seriousness, responsibility - do we feel this together?
58:42 All together, for all the place, for the children? You follow, sir? They don’t know what politeness is.
58:55 Let’s take that. They don’t know it. What will you do?
59:06 Q: I think it requires meetings with them and talking.
59:14 K: No, no. Endless business. In the meantime they are impolite.
59:18 Q: Catch them on it. Make them aware of the impoliteness and the difference.
59:28 K: God, you are… Do you know how we were brought up as children? I’ve forgotten it. I couldn’t speak in front of my father and mother. When they got into the room we all had to get up. Prostrate to them morning and evening. You know, prostrate? Go flat on the floor, touch their feet. Eat right with… You know, it was some… You know? A Brahmin family of that time was impossible. And to see these children not care a damn who comes in, who goes out.
59:57 Q: But one of the interesting things is that we who have had that kind of upbringing have a sense of responsibility.
1:00:08 K: Please, what will you do to bring this sense of consideration for people?
1:00:29 I saw the other day, Mrs Simmons comes along and the boys were sitting like this – you know? — and I said, ‘Good Lord!’ I didn’t say anything.
1:00:41 I don’t know if she noticed it, but — you know? So, how do we… what do we do with this thing, to be really considerate for somebody?
1:01:07 DS: And sensitive.
1:01:08 K: No, but how — yes, madame, use that word sensitive. Sensitive means also be polite. When somebody comes in, I get up, naturally.
1:01:19 DS: Yes, but they…
1:01:21 Q: But they haven’t been brought up that way.
1:01:25 MZ: Yes, they haven’t…
1:01:26 K: No, no, it has… I don’t think it has to do with that. It is the innate respect for things. You know what I mean? Respect for people, respect for that flower, for that tree, for the…
1:01:41 Q: But they come very insensitive, Krishnaji.
1:01:45 K: I know, my darling lady. I understand it. But what do we do with it?
1:01:50 Q: Well get them at two years old and then I’ll tell you.
1:01:54 K: No, no, no, no. We’ve got them here. We’ve got to do something.
1:01:59 DP: They are conditioned too much.
1:02:06 Q: In a small class there may be two or three who feel very comfortable because they’ve come from a background in which they’ve been taught this and they very easily get up and greet a person.
1:02:21 In that same group, there are two or three who have never thought of it before. But when they see the two or three do, they question it. They don’t feel as comfortable as they did.
1:02:29 K: (Laughs) Right.
1:02:30 K: In the same way that if they are in a community where they see people caring, part of it is questioning.
1:02:34 K: So, will you sir — wait a minute, listen to this. I’m a student here, boy, watching you. They watch you. That when Mrs Simmons or your wife or somebody comes in, you just put your legs up and don’t…
1:02:49 You get up. And they say, ‘By Jove…’ You follow? There is this feeling of communication in an atmosphere when there is this — you know? — that you care to be polite, that you are concerned with people.
1:03:11 You see, in a school you go to in India or in America, I used to go, most of the teachers are there to earn a livelihood – you follow? — they’re not there for really teaching.
1:03:36 They’re there because they can’t get jobs elsewhere, and so their brains are not alive.
1:03:48 They will do everything in a routine. If you tell them, ‘Look, you’ve got to do this,’ they’ll do it, but it isn’t a creative, living, boiling thing.
1:04:00 Here we’re not like that. You follow, sir? Here we’re not… I mean, we can get jobs elsewhere, but here we are trying to create something totally different.
1:04:13 And if we aren’t altogether in this, boiling — you follow? — it will just peter out.
1:04:24 And they know it. I mean, if we’re not all together alive and active and - you know?
1:04:34 — moving together, they will know where is the break is and they slip through that.
1:04:46 (Pause) You see, most of them don’t know how to eat properly.
1:05:13 Right? Hold a fork that way and a knife that way – you know? — and it doesn’t look nice.
1:05:21 How will… what will you do with them? Ma que! Do you care how you eat? Come on, sirs. I’m a student watching you. You’ve told me, ’Look, eat properly,’ and I watch you, and I say, ’Oh lord, he talks of one thing and does something else’ – you follow? — and go on.
1:05:59 All your words. You’re saying, ’We love you,’ and everything goes overboard.
1:06:07 That’s what I mean. If we are responsible, we are responsible for everything — for eating, how to… — sir, you follow?
1:06:25 — how we walk, what we say.
1:06:29 Q: Sorry, sir, what did you say just then?
1:06:36 K: (Laughs) What we say. You see, and also in this atmosphere there must be companionship.
1:06:54 You know? Are we feeling companions? I’m afraid not. Oh lord!
1:07:08 Q: I think we do feel companions.
1:07:18 (Inaudible) K: Wait, madame, wait.
1:07:26 I want to see. Do we? Companions. That I trust you, that you’ll do the best for me as I will do the best for you.
1:07:39 You follow? Companions. That I won’t say something, do something which might hurt you, which might do damage.
1:07:48 You follow? Together, feel companionate. You know? I’ve lived in a community, lived in the Theosophical, in India, for many years, and when I first went there after 25 years in Europe there were about, oh, two or three hundred in that place.
1:08:18 Dr Besant said, ‘You have come, do what you want here.’ So I said, ‘Let’s…’ - I got them all together and they said, ‘Let’s be a real community, pool all our...’ — you know?
1:08:35 – ‘everything.’ We all loved the Masters, but not here. (Inaudible) Now do we… that’s what… you see, that’s… we are getting it clear.
1:08:53 Atmosphere means seriousness, responsibility and a feeling of companionship.
1:09:01 Feeling - not that if I walk with you every day, it doesn’t mean that I reject others.
1:09:08 The feeling of companionship – I don’t know if…
1:09:48 (Pause) And therefore not create groups.
1:09:59 You know what I mean? Between ourselves there is no group, and therefore they won’t create groups. You follow?
1:10:09 Q: I think we must be watchful of that among ourselves, creating groups.
1:10:16 K: That will exist if we are not… if we don’t form groups in ourselves.
1:10:19 Q: That’s what I mean, here. I mean, I’m talking about us.
1:10:21 DS: Do you think to have staff meetings, Krishnaji, would cause…
1:10:28 K: …cleavage?
1:10:29 DS: Yes.
1:10:31 K: But how… You must have staff meetings. As a parent, I write to you about my son. I say, ‘Please, he is not behaving properly.’ And you discuss this in front of the boy?
1:10:46 Q: I would privately but I mean everything is discussed in the school meeting.
1:10:52 K: Where staff meets, or in front of the boys?
1:10:54 Q: We don’t really discuss in front of the… in the staff…
1:10:57 DS: But why don’t we? That is the object of it.
1:10:59 Q: Because there are certain things that we shouldn’t discuss.
1:11:02 K: Should you?
1:11:03 DS: Some things are private, obviously.
1:11:04 K: Should you discuss my son in front of other boys?
1:11:08 DS: No, no, but if we’re all here together I think we should be able to trust each other.
1:11:14 K: Therefore you discuss it. You say, ‘Look, what do you think about him?’ Q: Yes. And over a particular aspect of his education one would go to the person concerned.
1:11:27 K: We are all together - you follow?
1:11:29 Q: But say if a person is not coming to the school meetings, not going to bed, not coming with us, then I think the school meeting is the appropriate place to bring that up.
1:11:36 K: What is school meeting, what is staff meeting?
1:11:37 DS: The school meeting is that everybody comes and says, ‘Look, we’ve had another week now and...’ K: Is this a staff meeting, here?
1:11:44 DS: This is a staff meeting.
1:11:45 K: So shouldn’t the staff meeting meet every week? Many: Yes.
1:11:50 DS: There’s a great demand for it but the students have voiced very strongly that they feel it makes the division.
1:11:58 K: No.
1:11:59 DS: I have need - I would like staff meetings.
1:12:01 K: No, don’t… We start right off now, from today, staff meeting. That’s understood. It doesn’t mean a division. You’re older than me, or younger than me — why shouldn’t there be difference?
1:12:16 Q: There are many things that I feel I would like to get clear.
1:12:24 If I am clear I have no question how I act, but I feel that there are many things that I would like to discuss about the children with others so that we can all…
1:12:34 K: That’s what I mean. I should think that is absolutely necessary.
1:12:38 Q: Well I feel that very strongly.
1:12:40 K: No?
1:12:41 Q: Yes.
1:12:42 K: So, why don’t…
1:12:44 DS: All right.
1:12:45 K: But not all right for me, but it is necessary to meet together and say, ‘Look, what are we going to do with that boy?’ Or with that girl who drinks or I don’t know what she does — can’t learn mathematics.
1:13:00 What’s wrong? We discuss it? You can’t do this in front of the rest of the boys.
1:13:06 MZ: Surely there are different areas. If John wants to discuss something about the garden he’s going to talk to those who are concerned with the garden, not to me or somebody.
1:13:17 I mean, there are different areas that are within the whole that are not separations.
1:13:21 K: Do you object to this?
1:13:23 DS: No. Listen, we started with staff meetings and I feel a great need to be counselled and know about it.
1:13:31 I can’t know everything.
1:13:32 K: We’re doing it now.
1:13:33 DS: Yes, but what happened, Krishnaji, was that then the students said, ‘We will have meetings,’ and division came.
1:13:41 It’s not good.
1:13:43 K: Ah, I see what…
1:13:44 Q: What’s wrong with them having meetings?
1:13:46 Q: But it’s a long time ago, Dorothy. Two years ago.
1:13:48 DS: It’s so it’s a long time ago, this is quite so, and it may be different now. Maybe with larger numbers you need it. But there’s nothing to prevent, as we do, our discussing with whomever it concerns, the particular problem that is troubling us.
1:14:01 K: We have a staff meeting, and one meeting a week with all of them in it.
1:14:07 DS: Yes.
1:14:08 K: And say, ‘Look, this is what we are…’ Would that be right?
1:14:12 DS: I think it’d be very good.
1:14:13 K: Then let’s do it.
1:14:15 MZ: Is there anything that prevents the students having their own meeting if they want to?
1:14:22 K: No, because that is danger. That is dangerous because then they’ll say, ‘Look, we are....’ You know, they are children.
1:14:28 DS: Then they do one thing and we do another.
1:14:31 K: No, absolutely.
1:14:32 Q: Not necessarily. I really feel that the students would be benefited tremendously by having meetings every once in a while on their own.
1:14:42 They would be so frank and discuss issues that they could clarify about themselves.
1:14:47 K: No, all right, have it, but see the danger of it. You follow?
1:14:51 Q: There’s no need for us to initiate it.
1:14:52 Q: Oh no, I don’t mean that.
1:14:54 K: Don’t initiate it. If they want to, let them do it. They’ll soon drop out, I assure you.
1:14:59 Q: But I mean that they mustn’t feel that they can’t have.
1:15:03 K: No, no, we are not… No, we are only saying this. We are saying we must have staff meetings once a week. And we are saying that staff and the students together, once a week — say, ‘Look,’ if something goes wrong, ‘why aren’t you…’ etc., etc.
1:15:19 That’s what I mean, when we feel responsible, we… Right?
1:15:23 MZ: Also, surely it’s not just two things, staff and students.
1:15:31 I don’t know what the academic staff wants to discuss hours for classes, I don’t know what, something that pertains only to them, surely those who are busy doing something else aren’t going to feel discriminated against or left out.
1:15:46 It should be everybody doing what is their concern. And that may be a whole group or half a group or six groups or three, whatever it is.
1:15:56 Q: And I don’t… I hope ... I don’t know, I won’t say anything. But if a small group have a concern and like to talk it over they should feel free that they can without feeling that they’re not being part of the whole or something.
1:16:16 I mean, I don’t think they should have any fear of sitting down and having a meeting.
1:16:22 K: Let them have it but we don’t initiate it.
1:16:24 Q: No.
1:16:25 K: But we do initiate these two things, that is, once a week the staff meeting, once a week the whole school and the staff.
1:16:33 Q: Yes. That would…
1:16:35 K: I think that would…
1:16:36 DS: Did you mean staff or did you mean students?
1:16:39 K: No, I meant staff. I meant, just for instance, the kitchen staff or the garden staff or…
1:16:44 DS: Well it comes about, surely.
1:16:46 Q: It does.
1:16:47 DS: It comes about. I mean, we’re not going to say when you can talk, surely. We meet what comes, daily. And sometimes you meet in the kitchen and sometimes in the garden and sometimes in the office, or wherever.
1:16:58 K: No, but once a week, officially, and once a week, officially, all the students and the staff.
1:17:07 So that you beat it out. You know what I mean? (Laughs) Shakuntala Narayan: I think we need the staff meetings also to clarify ourselves.
1:17:19 K: Of course. Of course, of course. Like Miss Porter said, ‘Look, there is difference of opinions.’ So by talking it over it becomes clear.
1:17:41 By Jove, you’ve a lot of work all right.
1:17:49 Q: (Inaudible) DS: I think it’s collapsing already! (Laughter) Q: No, no.
1:18:03 K: We’d better stop. It’s ten to one.
1:18:06 DS: Right, now, there’s a staff meeting this afternoon as well?
1:18:11 Q: Yes.
1:18:12 DS: Two thirty. We’ll go into the details.