FUTURE OF HUMANITY

V. G. K. Murty

A Managing Director who had recently retired was told by his doctor that his heart was showing signs of strain and so he should be careful and daily take some mild exercise. One day, over a drink, he remarked to me: “In this competitive and industrial society, you have to die a thousand deaths before you get sick and after that another thousand deaths before you actually die because the medicines which are also part of the industrial society will keep the agony going. Ah, but this is a great society”.

This reminded me of a book I read long ago, J. Krishnamurthy on Education. In this book JK said, “A great society is not necessarily a good society”. So what are we going to do to change the conditions of this ‘great’ society? What is the role of teachers in this connection? In a good society there will be freedom living side by side with order. Freedom means the absence of authority of ANY kind - whether religious or political or economic or traditional. Order means intelligence and sensitivity of perception. A good teacher should be able to inculcate in the student a sense of both this freedom and order at the same time. So, now the question is: “How are we going to be able to bring about such an ‘education’ for the young?

The question appears to be simple, giving the impression that this education is a matter of policy and organization. You can learn algebra in a few years. But can you learn ‘freedom and order’ like this? In this market-oriented society one gets the impression that everything can be made or manufactured and purchased. Can you make or manufacture or purchase ‘freedom and order’? Moreover, What is the purpose of Education? We need to be very clear about this. We need to be very clear also about our CONCEPT OF MAN. What kind of man do we want to produce? Is education intended to increase the capability of the person or the ‘goodness’ of the person? These are two quite different things. Aren’t they?

And to my mind, an even more important question is: “Does increasing the capability of a person increase the ‘freedom and order’ in the person in the sense that we have been discussing?

And so, arising from this, the question is: IS EDUCATION IN THE SENSE WE ARE DISCUSSING AT ALL POSSIBLE IN THE SOCIETY AS WE KNOW IT? J. Krishnamurti himself has complained that the schools he had been running at Rishi Valley and the one in Northern India had not produced at least ONE educated person of his conception in all the several decades that they were running. Surely this observation is of great significance.

In a long talk which Krishnamurti had with David Ohm (If I remember right), the question was discussed as to what was to be done because some thing had to be done and that urgently, seeing the chaos that was going around the world today. Krishnamurti then thought that the only way was education. That was why he started those schools. But, even the schools did not produce the desired results. The difference between animals and human beings is that human beings can be educated. Animals act by instinct. Man’s mind is capable of being educated into seeing reason and he can be educated so as to open up his own intelligence. Since the earliest time, man has developed the idea of education to make the human being a better human being. Man’s mind is capable of receiving information and reacting to it and it is even capable of inspiration. Reason and intelligence are the chief characteristics of man’s mind. When the resigning capacity and intelligence are fully opened up, man can be superman. A Yogi is said to be such a person. The mind of Yogi at rest, we are told, reflects the universe.

But then the question arises: “If man really has such a supermind, why is there so much conflict”? The following are the reasons:

1. Conditioning.

2. Nature of the common man.

3. The character of any society at a given time.

A state of mind that has ‘freedom and order’ implies the freedom from all binding factors. The binding factors are inherent in all the three above. In fact, these binding factors are the “natural condition of the common man”. Since each one is bound by his own likes and dislikes, there is conflict in society when people have to deal with each other. The supermind and the superman can exist only when the binding factors are removed. The superman might be able to see the binding factors in himself and be able to set them aside. The common man cannot. We often hear people saying: “You can’t expect everyone to be a YOGI”. The common man acts according to tradition, habit and the norms set up in society. He also acts according to his likes and dislikes created by his conditioning often on impulse. The price of onions can make him shift loyalty though it may have nothing to do with the political parties or national interest.

So, now we have these two facts. (1) The superman does not need the education in the sense we are talking about. (2) Education in the sense we are talking about cannot be imparted to the common man in schools and colleges because the common man is bound by too many factors to receive that kind of communication in schools and colleges. Moreover, the teachers, being themselves common men, cannot communicate such message.

Let us study the principle by an example. You can study law in a college but you cannot study Dharma in the same way because Dharma is not text-book concept. The common people of India understand Dharma though they may not know law. Dharma is a moral concept, but law is only a legal concept. People understand moral issues connected with life. However, you will find that the idea of Dharma still survives in the villages of India, but not very much in the cities. An illiterate beggar or a trader or a farmer can speak of Dharma in the villages. They all understand the significance of Dharma. How does this happen? It happens because people understand the significance of the word by long usage, perhaps over centuries. It is so to speak the current coin among the people. In the Upanishads after completion of education which was mostly religious, the Guru tells the student when he is about to go out into the world as a householder: DHARMAM CHARA, SATHYAM VADA (Tell the truth, Do your Duty). Dharma as a word in usage in India has very ancient origins. Generation after generation the meaning of the word in all its aspects becomes clear to the young student by example and practice of the elders and by common usage. It gets hold of the mind and becomes a moral law and moulds the mind.

Education has essentially two aspects - learning skills for the practice of a trade or work for earning a livelihood and secondly the formation of character. The former can be learnt in schools and colleges. But the latter is a matter of culture and can be moulded over the course of many generations of certain accepted norms in society. In today’s world of politics, competition and materialism, you cannot possibly impart any kind of education for formation of character because the norms themselves accepted in society do not emphasise character. I for one cannot possibly think of combining political, economic and scientific education with “character.”

In a conversation with David Bohm, J. Krishnamurti once asked: “As a scientist, would you say that this ‘infinite understanding’ (obviously a state of mind that arises out of that internal freedom and order) is not possible a longside the culture of science and technology”? to which David Bohm replied: “As a scientist, I don’t see why it should be”. To a scientist well-versed in the problems of sub-atomic physics, it may be evident that there is more to life than industrialisation and scientific theories. To JK whenever he had to earn his living, that infinite understanding may be possible. But what about those who have to work on the shop floor (hell on earth) or to those who have daily to encounter the deceptions, intrigues and the concealed violence in offices and politics and administration? JK himself has said that competition is destructive, fatal. This is where most eminent men make fatal mistakes whether they are religious men or others. They expect the common man to be like them whereas the common man cannot be expected to act even with common decency unless.................

Well, it is that “unless” that we have to find out.

There is an old Telugu saying : “There must be fear or devotion”. If both are absent there will be hell on earth. Men must be decent and understanding to one another. But, if there is competition instead, with all its deceptions and violence, then what?

The point must be clear to the meanest intelligence that you CANNOT have decency between men in a society dominated by political, economic and social competition. Then what is J.K. talking about.

While there is this deadly competition around, a few schools run by JK or anyone else are not going to make men decent towards one another. Education is part of the total culture of any society. You cannot have good education in a bad society. In a market oriented society, how can you have any other kind of education except a market-oriented education? A moral teaching is not possible in an immoral society. The whole thing is ONE package and the different segments of society cannot be separated.

A hundred years ago, Vivekananda said “The world is controlled by half-a-dozen Shylocks”. Today there are hundreds of thousand of Shylocks in the political and industrial field and even among people as consumers. I don’t think that you can possibly miss the point that the kind of education that JK is talking about which creates an internal freedom and order is not possible without getting rid of these Shylocks whose motive in life is not the education of man but only profits and power. I have read many articles by many ‘eminent people’ and heard many speeches on the Radio and the TV. They all deplore the ‘inadequacy’ of education as it is today, but assume that there can be moral education in an immoral society. Unwise persons but and they are great men with roots in the universities, politics and administration. How to get rid of these persons is the most important question. There are others equally foolish who think that just by talking of Saraswati Vandana, things can be changed. And in this as in many other things, the newspapers are totally illiterate. All these are just word peddlers. The world today is overridden by political and economic conflicts between people, groups and nations. Education can no longer be considered as a ‘state subject’. Education today is a WORLD subject. It is a WORLD subject. There must be agreement at world level that certain elements of this kind of ‘moral’ education will be included in the curricula of all schools in the world.

This kind of education must be secular and deeply religious. At the same time, it should have nothing to do with groups or nationalities but should be considered as education for man as man. There is wealth of wisdom in the world’s classics which can form the basis for evolving the elements of such a curriculum, for world education.

A New World Order:

Sensible men and intellectuals have been talking about New World Order for decease now. Some twenty years ago, I read a book entitled “On Just New World Order”, which was a compilation of the ideas of many men around the world. One world leader though that if everybody knew everybody’s language, there could be a new world order. There were many other equally superficial suggestions. But the one who came closest to the problem was a German who wrote that at the bottom of the world’s problems is POWER.

“With the discovery of power began the ruin of mankind”.

We must try to understand the basic meaning of the word “POWER” before we can understand the problem properly. POWER essentially is the instinct of man to exploit another. It is one of those animal instincts that is still inherent in us. In the absence of a good king, says Manu, the strong will roast the weak like ‘fish on a spit’. POWER, EXPLOITATION, TAKING ADVANTAGE OF, CAUSING PAIN TO OTHERS AND ENJOYING. These are the general features of power. Each one of us has this animal instinct. Human means being beyond this animal instinct. A Dog bullies a cat. A Cat bullies a rat. America bullies Iraq. While individuals or nations might derive pleasure from this power in the short run, in the long run, it is destructive of humanity.

Mankind has tried to curb this animal instinct in man –

(1) by religion and religious teaching. But religions have failed and are being rejected.

(2) The Local System creating institutions and organisations and a legal system to punish excessive animal instinct.

Both these have failed to curb this animal instinct. According to J. Krishnamurti, man himself must realise the destructive nature of the animal instinct; he must become virtuous by himself.

The question is: How to evolve a system of education that will help man to become virtuous by himself? And that too, on a global scale. We need a third revolution - a revolution beyond religion and law.

There are those who think that man CANNOT be educated. His nature is like that of a dog’s tail. If you try to straighten it, the dog will turn around and bark. For good or bad man can be made to behave only through fear. The Basic question is how to make man have a deep respect for his own character and for another man as man? And to clearly understand the effect of his thoughts and actions on himself and others. There are those who think that in his present incarnation, all that is not possible. J. Krishnamurti thinks that if you can set aside the past, that is to say your conditioning, mutation of mind is possible.

Perhaps there has to be a PRALAYA or deluge as in the days of NOAH’S ARK to bring about that kind of mutation in man for after such a deluge he has to forget everything and start again. Great men of India, the editors of newspapers, and the media in general must give more thought to this problem in the interests of the future of Humanity.

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