Page 100 - JOURNAL OF THE KRISHNAMURTI SCHOOLS

the journal of the krishnamurti schools no.25

and behaviours into students, but should be focused on the root
meaning of the word ‘educate’, which is ‘to draw out’. We have to
draw out the hidden potentials of life and love. It is these that
ennoble facts with meaning.
At a certain point one looks at the world one inhabits and
becomes acutely aware of its problems. For some it results in despair,
for others the problems—personal, societal, environmental—can
seem so overwhelming, and one feels so ill-equipped, that denial
is the preferred response. Others willingly embark on a process of
‘unlearning’—identifying and removing the obscuring imprints of
a lifetime of misdirected education, so that the freshness, openness,
and clear seeing of an unfettered mind can reveal itself.
Modern day education necessarily involves more than unfold-
ment of character, self-confidence, and movement toward hap-
piness. Academic excellence is a requirement, as is the need to
prepare students to function in today’s world—motor skills devel-
opment, conceptual awareness across disciplines, in-depth expo-
sure to arts, sciences, and sports. Most important is the need to
prepare students to meet and redirect the rapidly mounting con-
sequences of our prevailing educational approach which has pitted
people against each other and against the natural world.
What is unlearning? Krishnamurti envisioned a world of psy-
chologically free individuals—people capable of responding to life
in an effortless manner, beyond the laboured, thought-laden pro-
cesses of a thoroughly conditioned mind. Those who found their
way to his teaching normally did so long after the world and its ways
had laid its heavy hand on them, requiring a tremendous effort in
order to become effortless—to simply observe the flight of a bird,
the smell of the rain, the movement of thought. On one occasion
in Saanen, Switzerland, after seeing the same faces in the audience
year after year, K asked, “Why are you still here?” After hearing his
message repeatedly, the question he was asking was, “Why haven’t
you understood it yet?” This is the dilemma of unlearning.

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