Krishnamurti on education. Selected quotes.

-Why do we go through the struggle to be educated? Is it merely in order to pass some examinations and get a job? Or is it the function of education to prepare us while we are young to understand the whole process of life? Surely, life is not merely a job, and occupation. Life is something extraordinarily wide and profound. If we merely prepare ourselves to earn a livelihood we shall miss the whole point of life. And to understand life is much more important than merely to prepare for examinations and become very proficient in mathematics, physics, or what you will.

-Have you ever asked yourselves what you are going to do when you grow up? In all likelihood you will get married, and before you know where you are, you will be mothers and fathers. And you will then be tied to a job, or to the kitchen, in which you will gradually wither away. Is that all that your life is going to be? Have you ever asked yourselves this question? If your family is wealthy you may have a fairly good position already assured, your father may give you a comfortable job, or you may get richly married, but there also you will decay, deteriorate. Do you see?

-Where there is fear there is no intelligence. Is it not possible for all of us, while we are young, to be in an environment where there is no fear but rather an atmosphere of freedom - freedom, not just to do what we like, but to understand the whole process of living?

-Not to imitate but to discover, that's education, is it not? It is very easy to conform to what your society  or your parents and teachers tell you. That is a safe and easy way of existing. But it is not living, because in it there is fear, decay, death. To live is to find out for yourself what is true, and you can do this only when there is freedom, when there is continuous revolution inwardly, within yourself.

-It is only those who are in constant revolt that discover what is true, not the man who conforms, who follows some tradition. It is only when you are constantly inquiring, constantly observing, constantly learning, that you find truth, God, or love. And you cannot inquire, observe, learn, you cannot be deeply aware, if you are afraid. So the function of education, surely, is to eradicate , inwardly as well as outwardly, this fear that destroys human thought, human relationship and love.

-Do you know what it means to learn? When you are really learning you are learning throughout your life and there is no one special teacher to learn from .Then everything teaches you: a dead leaf, a bird in flight, a smell, a tear, the rich and the poor, those who are crying, the smile of a woman, the haughtiness of a man. You learn from everything, therefore  there is no guide, no philosopher, no guru. Life itself is your teacher, and you are  in state of constant learning.

-The teacher tells you to pay attention. What does it mean? The teacher compels you to pay attention, which is not attention at all. Attention comes when you are deeply interested in something, for then you love to find out all about it. Then, your whole mind, your whole being is there.

Should not education help you find out what you really love to do so that from the beginning to the end of your life you are working at something which you feel is worth while and which for you has deep significance? Not knowing what you really want to do, your mind falls into a routine in which there is only boredom, decay and death. That is why it is very important to find out what it is you really love to do. And this is the only way to create a new society.

-The man who is trying to become something is ugly, insensitive.

-Happiness does not come when you are striving for it. It comes when you are not seeking it. When you are not making and effort to be happy , then unexpectedly, mysteriously, happiness is there, born of purity, of a loveliness of being.

-If you are really not afraid of anything, then you will find -when you woke up of a morning, or when you are walking alone-, that suddenly a strange thing happens: uninvited, unsolicited, unlooked for, that which may be called love, truth, happiness, is suddenly there.

-As long as you are learning, there is no teacher. It is only when you have stopped exploring, discovering, understanding the whole process of life, that the teacher comes into being, and such a teacher has no value. Then you are dead, and therefore your teacher is also dead.

-To find out what you love to do demands a great deal of intelligence. If you are not frightened, if you refuse to be pushed into the groove of tradition by your parents, by your teachers, by the superficial demands of society, then there is a possibility of discovering what it is you really love to do. So, to discover, there must be no fear of not surviving.

-To be a student is to learn all the time. And as long as you are learning, there is no teacher, is there? The moment you are a student there is no one in particular to teach you, because you are learning from everything.

-You can learn from books, but that does not take you very far. A book can give you only what the author has to tell. But the learning that comes through self-knowledge has no limit, because to learn through your own self-knowledge  is to know how to listen, how to observe, and therefore you learn from everything: from music, from what people say and the way say it, from anger, greed, ambition.