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BR80DSS2.1 - Is it possible to grow up without any kind of fear?
Brockwood Park, UK - 28 September 1980
Discussion with Staff and Students 2.1



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s first discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1980.
0:11 Krishnamurti: I can’t see some of you. Can you all see me? Not that it matters.
0:28 When we started this educational centre at Brockwood, some of us had in mind to bring about a group of students and teachers who are not afraid, who, in their life, as they grow up, were not confused, uncertain, and they had some kind of deep integrity, and that was and is the intention of this educational centre. That is, considering what is happening in the world - the world is literally going to pieces: there is terrorism, bombing, killing hundreds of people, war, and all the struggle economically right through the world. Some parts of the world are worse than the others. Some societies are affluent, rich, well to do and others are very, very poor, the rich trying to exploit the poor, the poor trying to exploit the poorer. You must probably… you know all this or you have read about it, you have been told about it, or your parents and others are caught in this chaos in this world. And so, when we, some of us, started this school, this centre of education, both for the adults and for the young, that was our intention and still is, so that human beings grow up without fear, and as they live perhaps fifty, sixty, eighty years, that they should have no confusion in their life, be clear, not contradictory, and to have deep integrity. That is, as you may have observed or you may have known or you may have seen, how human beings are broken up, fragmented, contradictory in themselves, say one thing and do another, think one thing and say quite the opposite. So in themselves they are very dishonest. In themselves they have no sense of integrity. The word integrity means to be whole, to be complete. And one wonders, living here as we have done, some of us for the last eleven years - new students coming and the old students going away; the constant turning over and repeating the same thing over and over and over again to the new students, to the new group - one wonders if it is at all possible that you grow up without any kind of fear, both physically as well as psychologically, inwardly. That’s a great problem, great necessity in life, not to be afraid, because when one is afraid, one shrinks both physically and inwardly.
6:23 You must know what fear is. When you pass… when you try to pass examinations there is a great fear of not passing and you know what happens to your own… physically you become rather sick and inwardly uncertain, quivering, anxious, and whether here at Brockwood, we can eliminate altogether fear. Fear exists when one is… when one of the educators tries to compare you with somebody else or when you yourself are comparing yourself with somebody who is more clever, more bright, more intelligent, and in that comparison there is anxiety. And when the mind is anxious, it’s incapable of learning; or when you are trying to imitate another, conform to a certain pattern set by the school, by this place or by society, or by your parents and if you are conforming to that pattern there is also great anxiety and fear. Probably some of you know all this. But knowledge doesn’t help one to be free of fear. I hope you understand what I’m talking about. I may know that I shouldn’t smoke, but I’ve established a habit of smoking and it becomes extremely difficult to put away that habit. So we have cultivated many, many habits and one of the habits is fear. Fear of your friends, what they might say; fear of a group - and I hope there are no groups in this... at Brockwood, this group, that group, the other group - because that brings about separation and therefore conflict.
9:42 That’s what is happening in the world; there are the Iraqis and the Iranians fighting each other, the Muslim world fighting the Christian world and so on. So I hope that, if I may suggest, that we don’t form groups here. We’re all living together in a house and if we form groups, one group will be against another group. It will be like the rest of the world. So, I… it is necessary, I think, that from the beginning of this term that we are… we see certain things clearly, that there should be no fear of what… whatsoever, at least here. You may have fear outside of people outside, but for the present you are living here in a beautiful place, quiet, somewhat isolated, and we’re all living together in the same building. We ought to get to know each other and then perhaps we shall learn together not to be afraid. One has to learn about it as you learn mathematics or physics or biology. You have to learn what is fear. It’s a very complex affair. It requires as much study as any other subject and not to have… as you grow up, not to have any kind of confusion, to see things clearly. I’m not advising you. This isn’t a sermon; we’re just pointing out to you. Either you look at it, study it, learn about it, or you neglect it, and most people do, and so throughout their life as they grow they keep this fear going. And when one studies fear, the very studying of the subject is its own discipline. I hope I’m making this clear, am I? If I’m studying mathematics and the educator is explaining to me the whole theory of mathematics, in the very listening to it that very listening becomes a kind of discipline. We mean by discipline not conformity, not subjugating yourself to a pattern, but to learn. The real meaning of that word in Latin and so on means to learn. Discipline means to learn, not to conform. Am I conveying something? Are we moving together or am I talking to myself? Probably all this is new to you, perhaps some of you. So if it is something new to you, please have the goodness to listen; and those of you who have been here previously for couple of years or more also, if I may, request them to listen. Because we learn a great deal through listening, not only from a book, but the art of listening and that art demands certain discipline. That is, to learn what it means to listen.
16:07 We think we listen. Probably you are all thinking you are listening to what is being said, but I question it whether you are actually listening, which means that you are paying attention. Not that you must pay attention to what the speaker is saying, but to learn what it means to hear, to listen, because we very rarely listen completely. To listen to that noise that is going on - probably aeroplane - to listen to it completely without any resistance. You know, when you resist, you don’t learn; you’re caught in your own narrow little groove or little circle, and so you don’t listen at all. So as you’re going to learn a great deal here, history, geography, mathematics, biology, physics and so on, to learn means to listen. And if you listen very carefully and find out for yourself what is fear, why fear arises, why so many people in the world have this burden, this darkness in which they live from the moment they are born till they die. Here at Brockwood, it is the intention of both the educator and all of us that you… when you leave this place that you have no fear whatsoever. And it is the responsibility of the educator who is going to teach you mathematics, history, geography and all the rest of it, to also to see that you don’t live in fear, fear of what public says, fear of what another thinks, fear of not being what you want to be. You know, fear is very, very complex and one has to go into it very carefully, learn all about it, and in the very learning about it there is an ending to it, so completely that when you live here you are a free man.
20:06 Freedom, if I may point out, is not to do what you want to do. That’s what the whole world is doing. Each person in the world does what he wants. I don’t know if you have noticed it. And so each one is fighting the other. You want to do this and I want to do this, something else, so we are always opposing each other. So freedom means the understanding and the learning all about the implications of freedom. Freedom demands great deal of learning and that very learning is discipline. I hope you understand what I’m talking about. Look, suppose I am afraid. I’m not quite sure that I know what fear is. I’m afraid of falling down; I’m afraid of what people might say about me; I’m afraid I might not pass examinations properly; I’m afraid of my parents; I may be also afraid of my teacher. So I begin gradually to observe my own fears, and the function of a good educator is to help me to understand my fear, not only mathematics, but my deep-rooted fears. And I have to learn about it. I can only learn about fear in my… through my reactions. You understand what I’m saying? Are we following each other or am I like Don Quixote saying into something there is nothing?
23:06 And also as we grow up, to be very clear, so as not to be confused. It’s very difficult to be clear in one’s thinking. So to be very clear, one has to be very… first, one has to be very logical, reasonable, exercising our minds carefully, not always thinking about ourselves and our opinions, our values, but to understand objectively how to think. I do not know if you have not noticed that most of us think from a particular narrow groove of experience, of memories, of opinions; from there we start. I believe in something and from there I begin to explore, I begin to think. I’m committed to say, communism, and that’s… from there I start to live. Do you understand what I’m saying? Yes? If I am a Catholic, that’s my background, that’s my culture, that’s my belief, that’s my upbringing, and from there I operate, I function. So all that brings about a great deal of confusion. So one has to be free from one’s Catholicism or Hinduism or some kind of ‘ism’, so as to think objectively, clearly.
25:54 Then to have integrity. Probably that’s one of the most difficult things because we are never completely honest to ourselves. We say one thing and do another, think one thing and act totally from what you think. As we said, integrity means to be whole, to be complete in oneself. That means to have no contradiction in oneself. It’s very difficult. I want to do something and society, friends, this place says, ‘Don’t do it,’ so I have a conflict. That conflict indicates that one… you are fighting another, one desire against another desire, so gradually the sense of fragmentation goes on. Do you understand what I’m saying? Do you understand what I’m talking about?
27:53 We are going to have - if you will agree to it - the students and the speaker and I, we shall… we’re going to meet on Tuesday mornings and we’ll discuss all this. We have been talking these matters over with the teachers, with the educators too, to see that we learn, not only academically, but to learn about ourselves because if you don’t know yourself - you may know a great deal of technological subjects - if you don’t know about yourself what is the meaning of life. You understand? Are you following me, all this, or is it all Greek to you or Russian, Or I don’t know, whatever it is? I’m not sure you’re following me. It doesn’t matter, it’s the first time but don’t get used to me because I’m leaving. At the end of the next month I’m gone. And I go to India. There are five schools there, so I go to some of the schools and talk to the students, to the staff and also public talks, where there are about five thousand, eight thousand people. So it all becomes rather a circus, but perhaps out of that there will be some group of people who are very serious, who want to learn to live differently, to live… having learnt academically everything one can learn, but also to learn a great deal about oneself, because that’s the only way you can flower, that’s the only way you can be really, truly intelligent. So you’re all here for the first time or some of you for the first time and the others have been here perhaps for a couple of years, so what are you going to make of it? You understand? You’ll have classes, studying different subjects, games, art, craft, drama, theatre, all the rest of it.
32:16 I wonder if we’ll have time to study yourself. Shouldn’t that also be a subject? Shouldn’t there be somebody here to help or to learn from each other what it means not to be afraid; what it means to be concerned about another; what it means to be… to have a good mind? An academic mind is not necessarily a good mind. I may know mathematics very well, or physics, but so… that study makes me a specialized person. A specialist in any department of life may not necessarily be a good man, a sane man, an intelligent man. So can we, in this place, combine both academic excellence and a mind that is really capable? Not earning money and all the rest of it, but capable of being… of having a mind that is not self-centred, that’s not always thinking always about itself; this colossal self-centred selfishness. You understand what I am saying? Shouldn’t we learn about both, learn academically and learn also how to live a life without this constant struggle, constant battle with oneself, constant envy, anxiety, uncertainty? Surely, in a place like this we should be able to do both, to learn about ourselves and to learn about mathematics. The two should be combined. I don’t know who is going to do it. I’m looking at some of the educators, but they’re not looking at me. Will you do it, the educator, to set aside a period where you learn about yourself, your fears, your anxieties, your uncertainties; why you smoke, why you are always thinking about yourself, why you are sexually driven; to learn all about…about all that? Will some of the teachers undertake it? Ah? Will there... some teacher will undertake this? Absolute silence. (Laughs)
37:22 Brian Jenkins: Krishnaji, I think it’s something we do informally rather than formally.
37:31 K: I want… sir, I want... please be good enough to answer my question. Will some educator here help each one of us, the students, perhaps the other teachers, to see that we understand this very complex nature of life, very complex… the way we live; why we live this way: the conflicts, the misery, the confusion, this sorrow, the anxiety, and all that? Well, sir? Mrs Simmons, will there be somebody?
38:32 Dorothy Simmons: (Inaudible).
38:38 K: Now, will you set aside a period for this as you have mathematics?
38:51 DS: (Inaudible).
38:52 K: I see it on the board where every student…
38:54 DS: (Inaudible).
38:55 K: Beg your pardon?
38:56 DS: It is going on the whole time.
39:00 K: May be, but isn’t it important for a certain period to go into all this? I doubt if it’s going on all the time.
39:14 DS: (Inaudible)… you can feel it going on, Krishnaji, sometimes.
39:20 K: That means when the students, when each one of us who lives in this place for a couple of years or more and we leave, do we leave with a lighter heart, clearer mind, and not be caught in the maelstrom of society, which is so corrupt? Will there be somebody here who will help in this matter? That is... job, that is a responsibility as much as he… his responsibility is to teach mathematics. Or will you all get bored with it as you are bored with mathematics?
40:26 DS: They are not bored with mathematics Krishnaji.
40:28 K: Beg your pardon?
40:35 DS: I don’t think they are bored with mathematics and I don’t think they will become… I mean, they’re teaching mathematics to a particular person or to…
40:41 K: I’m not sure; I’m not sure that I wouldn’t be bored with mathematics.
40:45 DS: (Inaudible).
40:47 K: If I have to repeat it day after day, day after day go into it, study it, it soon gets rather stale. Because I may not want to learn mathematics.
40:57 Stephen Smith: (Inaudible)… Krishnaji because…
40:59 K: At last somebody is waking up. (Laughter)
41:03 SS: I’ve been awake all the time. And it starts there because... (inaudible) the people you are teaching it to are new and different.
41:14 K: Beg your pardon?
41:15 SS: Because the people that you are teaching it to are new and different in some sense, so although the information may be the same, the contact is not the same. The information is only a part of it.
41:28 K: So, shall we begin this way then? Can we establish a relationship with each other in which both the educator and the student are learning together? Say I’m your educator. I may teach you - what? I don’t know mathematics, I don’t know geography, I don’t know physics (laughs)...
42:09 Questioner: English literature.
42:13 K: I may teach you… ah, God knows what - play the piano - I don’t, but suppose (laughs) - I want to teach you; I want to teach you not mathematics only, but I want to teach you how to think. How to think, not what to think. You see the difference? Do you see the difference? How to think; not what to think about. You’re understanding? I want to teach you. It’s my job, my responsibility being here, as an educator, I want to teach you how to think. Now, which means I have to help you to see what thought is. Right? When you listen to mathematics or history or geography, are you thinking, are you learning, or merely repeating? You understand what I’m saying? You understand? Are you merely repeating or are you learning? Learning means the capacity to pay attention and in that attention to watch, to listen, and absorb. You understand what I’m saying? You’re following what I’m saying? I want to teach you how to think. That’s my responsibility as a teacher here. I’m not concerned about the subjects. I’m not concerned about anything else, but only I’m concerned how to help you to think, whether you are thinking according to what your parents have told you, or according to what you want to think about, or according to what society has told you, according to your religious beliefs, or denying all that, what are you thinking about? You understand what I’m saying? You may be bored, but I’m going to keep on at it day after day, day after day for two months or three months that you’re here. I’m going to see that we learn. That is, do you think always in terms of opinions? ‘I think so; it’s my opinion’ - that’s not thinking; you’re just stating your opinion. You understand what I’m saying? To think means not only observe your opinions, but when you assert your opinions you’ve stopped moving from that point. You understand what Im…? If I say all the time ‘I think so’, I stop. ‘It is my opinion; this is what I want to do’, that’s... you have stopped thinking, haven’t you? You understand? But, if you say, ‘Now, why do I have opinions’? And they are so cheap opinions, you can buy millions with a tuppence. Your opinion is good as my opinion or anybody else’s opinion. But…so why do you have opinions? So think about it. You understand? So, then you ask can you live without opinions? You are following all this? Perhaps not this morning, but as I’m going to be here for the next…for the whole of the term, I’m going to see whether you can learn to live without opinions. And also some of us are aggressive, some of us are rather docile. Now, find out why you are aggressive and why you are so docile.
48:30 You understand? You begin to learn, to observe your own reactions to your own demands, to your own ways of life - American way of life, English way... - you follow? - so you begin to learn, so that your mind becomes extraordinarily active. And also if I’m here as an educator I’m going to find out why you’re unhappy, moody, lazy, unpunctual, careless, indifferent; all that is part of my responsibility: whether you have proper exercise, how you look, because all that makes one aware, observe. So as an educator it’s my responsibility to see that you’re a good human being, a decent human being who has great affection, love, not always frightened.
50:38 Love is not sexual desires. You understand all this? Freedom is not to do what you like, but to find out what is freedom is to learn about it, therefore to go into it, to discover it, not say, ‘I must have freedom.’ You don’t what it means. All that you know is to do what you want to do. That’s not freedom. That’s only your self-centred opinion. But to say what is freedom, to go into it, to learn about it and then you find out for yourself that there is… a quality of freedom, which has nothing to do with what one wants. And also it’s my responsibility if I’m here, to help you to understand what is love. There’s so little of it in the world. Probably we don’t know what it means; to learn about it. An ambitious man doesn’t know what love is. Right? A cruel man doesn’t know what love is. A man who says, ‘I’m attached to you and I love you,’ that very attachment breeds corruption. I would go into all that with you, not just once a week or once a month, I’ll be at it every day so that your mind grows, flowers. That’s what you are going to do with regard to mathematics, history, and geography, but you’re going to neglect all the other side? Bene? So that when you leave here you won’t be caught up in society, you won’t become like the rest of the world – ugly, brutal, violent, selfish. That’s my responsibility as an educator, and the educator is the greatest profession in the world because they’re trying to bring about a new generation of people. This is not a pep talk (laughs). I’m pointing out the realities of life.
54:44 As I’m one of the people who helped to bring Brockwood into being, I want to see this done; not leave it casual; I want it done every day so that your face changes, you look different. Well, it’s half-past twelve, probably you’ll be glad to end this talk but I hope somebody will undertake this, to see that you are a healthy, sane, intelligent human being. Right, sirs, finished.