Category: Philosophical
Whats the Point in Any of It?
Does the purpose of our lives change with age; does the life of a thirty-something have more point to it, than say a fifty-year-old, a sixty-year-old; indeed is there any real ‘point’ to either, and how would we discover what it is?
To many of us ‘The Cow’ is the best pub in London. On a quiet balmy Wednesday in June, I met a fellow middle-aged man for a beer, a bite, and, much to my surprise, what turned out to be some searching existential chatter. What, my friend asked – after a beer or two – is the point to me: the purpose of my life, and by extension of others like me?
It is a great and fundamental question, perhaps the great and fundamental question, and ought to be widely discussed and seriously investigated. It flows naturally into and out of the question ‘Who Am I’, but in a world where simply surviving consumes every moment and ounce of energy for the majority, well, who has the inclination, intellectual space and mental resources for such essential enquiries?
Conditioning
Our lives and the prism through which we see life are largely defined by our psychological and sociological conditioning. By adopted ideas of self, inherited ideals and prejudices; by circumstance and position, by nationalism and through the adoption of a belief system – Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Socialist, Capitalist, etc. etc.
Unconsciously absorbed, these constructs – many and varied – all similarly inhibiting, form the foundations of what we take to be ‘us’. We become ‘that’, usually ‘that’ which we are told, directly or indirectly, to be. And whilst such narrow images are artificial and deny freedom, and with it love (not emotional, romantic ‘love’, but love free from all desire), there appears to be comfort in such social conformity, and we quickly become attached to our particular self-image and world-view. We wrap this psychological blanket tightly around us: a cosy comforter which is in fact a suffocating prison, and wander through life, maintaining and defending, to the death if necessary, our cherished, fragile viewpoint.
The ‘point of our lives’ is thus defined by the various ideologies held dear, conditioned ideals unconsciously absorbed. We are drawn to people who hold similar ideals and beliefs and exclude those who don’t. To these ‘others’ we are intolerant and critical, ‘they’, and their contrary image – also narrow and built by thought – constitute a threat to our noble views and so ‘they’ are excluded, sometimes violently attacked, often ridiculed.
We believe that our choices and views are reached through the operation of intelligent examination, that the thoughts crowding our minds take place consciously and through the exercise of ‘free-will’. But it is our unconscious conditioning that largely informs such thinking, controls our reactions, our choices, and crucially determines who and what we believe we are.
This process is well understood by those who seek to influence our behaviour, and strategies of persuasion are designed and executed to do so. The ‘manufacturing of consent’ as Noam Chomsky and Edward Hermann described it in their landmark bookof the same name. The mass media, one of the major weapons of coercion they make clear, acts to “inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society.” This of course is psychological conditioning, with the media acting on behalf of their corporate interests, which feed into and serve a larger socio-economic ideology. A cynical ideology, which espouses a deeply materialistic view of life, maintaining that ‘the point of life’ is to maximise pleasure, avoid all forms of pain and fulfil personal desires, which as the Buddha pointed out in the ‘Second Noble Truth’, are in fact the source of all suffering, as well as being insatiable and endless (if repetitive and unimaginative).
Creating the conditions for dissatisfaction and agitation however is one of the aims of the Neo-Liberal project, dependent as it is on consumerism, which is fuelled by desire. This unwholesome materialistic purpose, or ‘point of life’ is a construct that the socio-economic shadow under which we live relentlessly promotes and encourages. ‘Desire is good’, the deluded, dishonest disciples of Neo-Liberalism say, ‘buy, buy’, ‘consume, consume’ – ‘because you’re worth it’! Pleasure is your right, excess and greed is natural, and therefore healthy; competition is part of the human condition, and is sewn into our DNA.
Such messages of mischief are poured into the minds of men, women and children every minute, of every day. Our cities and towns are flooded with faceless, ubiquitous shopping streets and huge consumer islands – shopping malls, ugly, bland, populated by corporate bodies that control so much, but care so little. These Cathedrals of Neo-Liberalism offer to satisfy the longings created in a congregation conditioned into consumerism, discontent and desire.
Living in this collective amnesia, the human being is lost, depressed and suffering, on a planet that is slowly choking to death. And, glimpsing the madness, but not seeing the alternative, many ask, as my friend did, ‘what is the point’? There must be more to life, we must be more than this, surely?
Who Am I
We might not know who we are, but we know what we ‘do’ and what we ‘believe’ – even though we may not be clear why we believe it. We have a sense of how we fit into the world around us, and desperate for some sense of security we cling to this paradigm, and are traumatised when it is threatened, or shattered. Identifying the self with the physical body and the constructs of the mind, we believe, as the French philosopher Descartes proclaimed, that we are ‘what we think’: ‘I think therefore I am’, he famously decreed. Never questioning ‘who’ the thinker is. ‘I think therefore I suffer’, I would say, is closer to the truth.
In a baffling world, within a Universe without beginning or end, this identification with thought and the time-based process of becoming, appears natural and seems to provides a certain structure and order – a point to life if you will. It is an illusory security though, rooted in thought and time. Inevitably the brittle self-constructed image cracks, causing a crisis of identity, and, as time passes, having never truly lived, the mystery of death cries out in the shadows triggering fear and regret.
The Self
Within the deep history of Indian society, life and the point of life, is understood in various stages from childhood to old age. And although the primary ‘point’ remains consistent, responsibilities change with time. Once the role of ‘householder’ is fulfilled and all family duties have been met, the man – and it is usually a man (although his wife sometimes follows) – may choose to withdraw, and renouncing all personal attachments, enter into an intense period of self-enquiry, to live the life of the Sannyasin. All that pertains to the personality life is given up – all constructs of purpose and position, all desires, relationships and attachments are allowed to fall away. So too the sense of ‘ownership or doer-ship’, that is, the identification with oneself as the doer, the one who acts.
Total freedom is the goal: freedom from time, from thought, from all mental constructs and ideals, from all ‘isms; and through intense observation, union with the Self, or Atman. It is the Self, which the Upanishads and teachers of the East, such as Shankaracharya and Ramakrishna, repeatedly assert to be our Real nature, the realisation of
which, they make clear, is the true and fundamental ‘point of our lives’, no matter what else we may do – however worthwhile. The experience of the Self will, they teach, come about effortlessly, naturally when the obstacle to the Self, namely the ego, is laid aside.
The Great 19th Century India Sage Ramana Maharshi (whom Carl Jung described as “the whitest spot in a white space [India]”) said in various ways on numerous occasions, “what exists in truth is the Self alone”. The Self “is that where there is absolutely no “I” thought. That is called “Silence”. He taught that the way to shatter the thought-constructed image of self – the ego – is through self-enquiry. Ask yourself ‘who am I’, he would counsel. You will find you identify yourself either with the physical body, the emotional life, or the activities of the mind. But Ramana, and many others have made clear that we are none of these; we are in fact the Self, a divine being – beyond description or limitations. The awareness and realisation of which is the fundamental point of life.
And one day, in one life, when the attractions of the sensory world have lost their charm, when we begin to see the truth of the Buddha’s words – that desire is the cause of all suffering; when television, video games, sex, drugs and alcohol fail to fill the inner emptiness; when we sit in a pub with a friend and ask aloud, what the point of it all is. Then is the opportunity to turn away from transient sensory things, to be still, to enquire ‘who am I’, and to ‘draw the mind back to its source’, which, as Ramana Maharshi explained, is the Self itself.
September 2015
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/25/whats-the-point-in-any-of-it/
Education: Time to Redefine its Purpose
Given the catalogue of calamities raging round the world, one could be forgiven for concluding that we are a civilisation in terminal decline. The socio-economic system, which promotes negative divisive ideals, dominates all areas of life and is the cause of much of our difficulties. It is an outworn, unjust way of organising society; does not serve the majority of people – the 99.9%; and is causing far-reaching damage to the planet that, unless radical action is taken, may well prove irreparable.
The environmental crisis is the greatest of a range of interconnected problems facing humanity, the answers to which are not to be found within the existing inflexible, unimaginative paradigm, based as it is on false values and misguided conclusions. And as they repeatedly prove, the current batch of politicians lacks the intellectual imagination, vision and wisdom to meet the worldwide challenges.
A new awareness is needed, systems re-designed based on altogether different values to the existing ones; and a fair and just economic model inculcated. Values that unite people, cultivate cooperation, tolerance and understanding, in place of competition, prejudice and ignorance. Values that will allow a sense of unity and social responsibility to naturally flower. New systems, imbued with perennially accepted values of goodness – sharing, freedom and social justice – would take much of the stress and fear out of life, allowing people to trust one another. Under such circumstances peace may even be possible.
At the heart of the required changes – which need to be both gradual and radical – must be education – formal and non-formal.
Like all our current structures, education throughout the world is in crisis, and fundamental change is badly needed. Reform is under discussion in many countries and governments are debating how to alter the existing, inadequate methods. All to often, however, these discussions are limited by the existing ideologies: restructurings are motivated by the obsessive desire for economic growth, a narrow nationalistic approach to life and a simplistic view of the needs of the individual.
Despite the negative umbrella within which formal education is taking place, there are of course many good schools with great teachers, but their work is made infinitely more difficult by ideologically driven policies issued by government education departments.
New methodologies are needed that inculcate true individuality and creative independent thinking. That is to say, thinking freed from sociological and psychological conditioning, which is essential if the children of today are to find within themselves the resources needed to save our planet (S.O.P.) and re-shape society in a harmonious way that meets the needs of the people.
Education and purpose
Maria Montessori, who devised a groundbreaking way of teaching ‘uneducable’ children in the early 20th century (children we might now describe as having ‘special educational needs’), felt that traditional education neglects the child’s most basic needs, – what she described in The Child, as “the exigencies of his spirit and his soul. The human being that lives within the child remains stifled therein.” Perhaps we could think of the ‘human being’ within the child – within us all – as a flower; a beautiful flower at the center of a garden. The flower contains within itself all that is good, all that is innate – the persons ‘potential’ as John Dewey called it; the flower is freedom and joy, intelligence and peace. However all around the flower is rubbish, psychological detritus that accumulates with time (starting pretty much from birth) and forms a virtually impenetrable barrier to its realisation and expression. This suffocating waste is made up of various inter-twinned forms; sociological/psychological conditioning, fear, competition and selfish desire are some of the more noxious restrictive elements.
The work to be done then is two fold; identify and remove the obstacles that block the free expression of the “‘human being’ that lives within the child”, as Montessori puts it, and furthermore, stop polluting the garden. This is a pragmatic deconstructive work rooted in certain clearly defined philosophical ideas.
Currently, institutionalised education emphasizes, what the great Indian teacher J. Krshnamurti in Education and the Significance of Life (ESL), called “secondary values, merely making us proficient in some branch of knowledge.” Education though “is not merely acquiring knowledge, gathering and correlating facts; it is to see the significance of life as a whole.” Dominated as it is by conformity and competition, and seen by governments everywhere as little more than a supply chain for employers, such an integrated viewpoint within education is made extremely difficult. Schools and Universities have been tailored, Noam Chomsky makes clear, to “meet the requirement of the market,” with students, being “trained to be compliant workers”. This distortion of function, into a system of conditioning and indoctrination is far from the purpose of education, which Krishnamurti says, “is not to produce mere scholars, technicians and job hunters, but integrated men and women free from fear.’
Fear inhibits, physically, emotionally and mentally; it suffocates the ‘human being within the child’, the flower within the garden the life within the form. It is the antithesis of human freedom, which together with the consciousness of this freedom, Jacques Rouseau maintained is nothing less than, “the essence of human nature”. The removal of those elements that create fear, that deny and inhibit – that poison the garden – would allow freedom – ‘the essence of human nature’, to naturally flow, and with it independent thinking, creativity and initiative.
The human right to think and act freely (providing it is responsible and harmless) is made virtually unattainable in the current environment, where conditioning, together with competition and reward and punishment are employed to stifle independent thought, curtail creativity, and motivate and distort action.
It is time the existing inhibiting practices were abandoned in favour of a new, creative approach that facilitates independent thinking, fosters cooperation and tolerance and encourages freedom and broad social participation. It is not necessarily the subjects taught that present the obstacles to freedom (although the arts and humanities need to be given more time), it is the methods employed to teach them and the ideology that underlies them that need reforming. Methods, – like competition, reward and punishment, the corrosive examination system – that sit within a socio-economic framework built on a particular ‘ism, which promotes false, destructive values.
Such a system encourages the individual to focus on their own progress, success and material acquisition over the wellbeing of the group; works against social unity and feeds division. In such a world “we all want to be on top,” Krishnamurti says, “and this desire creates constant conflict within ourselves and with our neighbour; it leads to competition, envy, animosity and finally war.” All of which runs contrary to the reality of our true being, to the ‘the exigencies of his [the child’s] spirit and his soul’, as Montessori put it, and one of the underlying goals of education, which, Noam Chomsky explains, is “to produce human beings whose values are not accumulation and domination, but instead are free association on equal terms.” A righteous ideal that seems fantastical in today’s socio-economic world, where inequality of income, wealth, opportunity and influence are greater than they have ever been.
Cooperation and Unity
The inculcation of cooperation in place of competition within education will facilitate sharing, fostering trust. This would help to bring about a sense of the underlying unity of life, and the individuals place within the whole.
We are part of a collective called humanity, and as the writer Benjamin Crème states, education should “show the child that it is a member of a world family… that we are not living alone in one large or small country, but in a world shared by 5.7 billion people. The child, above all, should be taught that this is the fundamental position of his/her life on Earth: that they are one of a group, a family.” The realisation that each and every one of us is part of a ‘family’, as Crème puts it, would decentralise individuals, encourage social responsibility and selfless actions – service, which John Dewey felt is a natural human quality experienced by all children. He states in Democracy and Education that “the child’s natural desire [is] to give out, to do, and this means to serve.” Something that is clearly less likely to happen when people are conditioned into thinking about their own success and welfare over and above those of others. Such conditioning pervades schools and universities and suits the ruling elite; they do not want a united compassionate society, rich with independent thinkers. For as Dewey made clear “anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy.”
If we are to discover the answers to our social, economic and environmental problems, and create a new harmonious way of living; freethinking and self-awareness are crucial. Inhibiting ideological patterns of thought must be completely dismantled in all areas of education in order for these natural qualities to grow.
The radical thinkers of the enlightenment understood that the role of education was to allow the individual to reveal what, and who, they are, – ‘the flower’, the ‘human being inside’. Education was not, they believed, a process of filling a vessel with water, but rather assisting a flower to grow in its own way. Such natural development and understanding is impossible where there is any form of psychological or sociological conditioning – within education there is no room for ideals or ‘ism’s of any kind.
Education free from conditioning, competition and conformity will revolutionise learning environments – including the home – and take away the most stifling of all psychological conditions: fear. The pressure placed on young people everywhere to succeed, to achieve, to meet expectations and to conform to a stereotypical image is intense. The results for the majority are inhibition and stress, which flow from, and are expressions of, fear. If freedom of thought is to become a central purpose of education, all fear-inducing methods, such as competition, reward and punishment, conformity and conditioning must be completely absent.
Freedom of thought, unpolluted by ideological contamination or selfish motives will purify actions, allow intelligence to naturally blossom (much as the intellectual forces of the Enlightenment envisioned), creativity to flow and make possible the fulfilment of innate potential. The realisation of which must surely be a fundamental purpose of any education system worthy of the name.
July 2015
http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/07/23/education-time-for-a-new-purpose/
The Pain of Modern Life: Loneliness and Isolation
Humanity is a group. As Mohandas Gandhi famously said: “All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family.” This is not a sycophantic religious concept, but the fact of our inherent nature; a nature that the current World socio-economic order systematically works against, forcing us to live in unnatural, unhealthy, un-fulfilling, and unjust ways.
The negative inter-related consequences of living under such a perverse system are many and varied – painful all: disharmony, depression, anxiety, and loneliness are some of the effects of the resulting dis-connect – with ourselves, with others, and with the natural environment.
An Epidemic
Loneliness, particularly in developed countries, has been growing year on year. John Cacioppo, author of Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connectionrelates that in the 1980s “scholars estimated 20% of people in the US felt lonely at any given time, now it’s thought to be over 40%”. Worldwide, according to Psychology Today, the numbers suffering from loneliness are at epidemic levels, and, with an aging population throughout the west, are expected to continue to rise.
The suffocating condition of loneliness is the consequence of feeling isolated, disconnected, and adrift, not of being alone. It is related to loss – of a loved one, of a childhood, of an undefined relationship with oneself. It is extremely painful, erodes trust, and according to Cacioppa, can cause lonely people to “feel others around them are threats rather than sources of cooperation and compassion.”
Like many associated mental health illnesses, loneliness is stigmatized and seen, Cacioppo relates, as “the psychological equivalent of being a loser in life, or a weak person.” In a world where being tough, successful and ‘driven’ are championed, weakness (particularly in men) and other such inadequacies are frowned upon. As a result people deny loneliness, which is a mistake, as this suffocating condition can increase the risk of an early death by a staggering 45%, higher than both obesity and excessive alcohol consumption.
Materiality and division
Materialistic values characterise the present, all pervasive socio-economic model; governments of all political persuasions are the docile servants of the system, the partners of the corporations who run it. Together they form the contemporary elite. A contented, united and happy populace is the last thing they want. The ideal social unit for the benefit of the ‘Masters of the Universe’, as Adam Smith famously called them, is “you and your television set”, Noam Chomsky has said; in a world devoid of community spirit, where selfishness is encouraged, “If the kid next door is hungry, it’s not your problem. If the retired couple next door invested their assets badly and are now starving, that’s not your problem either.” Social unity and human compassion are the enemies of the elite and an unjust system, which promotes values of greed and indifference.
Such values divide and separate, creating the conditions in which loneliness is almost inevitable. Selfishness and accumulation are encouraged; individual ambition and the competitive spirit, which “destroys all feelings of human fraternity and cooperation,” Albert Einstein said, and “conceives of achievement not as derived from the love for productive and thoughtful work, but as springing from personal ambition and fear of rejection,” pervade and largely dominate all areas of life.
If humanity is to progress towards a new and peaceful way of living, such values, need to give way to other more positive ideals. Cooperation instead of competition, for example, will cultivate tolerance and understanding where suspicion and selfishness prevail, allowing communities to come together, strengthening unity – a primary need of our troubled times.
Cry for help
The pain of loneliness, John Cacioppo maintains, is an “aversive signal for survival” in the same way as thirst or hunger is. It “is part of a biological machinery to alert you to the threat and damage to your social body,” which, he says, we need to survive. This is an instinctive reaction to being on the social periphery, and therefore in danger, perhaps not physically any more, but certainly psychologically. According to Caccioppo, this sense of threat initiates an instinctive process of self-preservation and defensiveness. The brain goes into a high alert state and releases increased levels of “morning cortisol – a powerful stress hormone,” that can lead to clumsy, intolerant reactions, which further strengthen social alienation.
A recent report into loneliness in Britain – particularly amongst elderly people – described the condition as “a modern ‘giant”. Shame, guilt and a sense of failure often accompany this psychological monster. The lonely ones feel they are somehow inadequate – not attractive, sufficiently interesting or successful enough for this ‘dog eat dog’ world. And despite the emphasis placed on achievement as the elixir of happiness and fulfillment, Psychology Today makes clear that “talent, financial success, fame, even adoration, offers no protection from the subjective experience [of loneliness].”
So what is the answer? A strong social network, purpose and structure, and supportive relationships are crucial, but do these address the underlying emptiness, which triggers the loneliness?
Relationship with Self
As is well documented, our sense of happiness and general well-being is more readily brought about when we feel connected, but what is it we long to connect with? The universal need to feel connected is rooted in a sense of fragmentation, an underlying sense of loss – experienced as loneliness. If we felt complete, whole within ourselves, this perceived need, one assumes, would not be present.
There is a school of thought that says the emptiness and isolation we experience is the result of not being in relationship with our true Self – that centre of peace, or some would say divine seed at the core of our being. That the ache we are constantly trying to quieten is caused by identifying with everything and anything other than the Self, and by constantly distracting ourselves with pleasure, which has to a large degree replaced happiness.
The great Indian teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti said that when we become aware “of loneliness, the pain of it, the extraordinary and fathomless fear of it, you seek an escape.” This would seem natural and understandable, but the distractions, which tend to be sensate in nature, do not, he maintained, bring an end to loneliness, rather they “lead you to misery and chaos”.
Indeed can the emptiness of loneliness be satiated by anything external to oneself? “If we have experienced and found one escape to be of no value, are not all other escapes therefore of no value?” Krishnamurti logically argued.
Silence and the space to look within are rare jewels in our World, particularly in western societies. The current socio-economic model is a noisy, poisonous system based on negative values. It has polluted the planet and is making us unhappy and ill in a variety of ways.
It is a system that ardently promotes material success and the indulgence of personal desi
res, all of which encourages dependence on methods of ‘escape’ of one kind or another – drugs prescribed, (legal and illegal), alcohol, sex, entertainments in all shapes and sizes – including organized religion, to fill the chasm of loneliness, and keep the mind in a constant state of agitation and discontent.
But as Krishnamurti rightly states, such transient distractions will never sufficiently drown out our innate need for union with oneself, with the Self; a realization brought about by self-awareness; by negation – ceasing to identify with the fancies of the mind, and as the 19th century Indian sage Sri Ramana Maharshi taught, by constantly challenging one’s thoughts and feelings with the deconstructive enquiry ‘who am I’. These Men of Wisdom assure us that, with sustained commitment and effort, a relationship can be established with the Self, which reveals separation and isolation to be an illusion, and establishes a deep, non-dependent sense of unity – with others and the world in which ‘we live and breathe and have our being’. Purpose, contact with others and activity are essential to battle loneliness, but if one becomes dependent on these externals and does not, at the same time, seek to overcome the underlying cause, then it seems clear little will have been achieved and the ‘modern giant’ will rise up again.
July 2015
https://opendemocracy.net/graham-peebles/pain-of-loneliness
Education for a New Time: The Purpose of Education
Given the catalogue of calamities raging round the world, one could be forgiven for concluding that we are a civilisation in terminal decline. The socio-economic system, which promotes negative divisive values dominates all areas of life and is the cause of much of our difficulties. It is an outworn, unjust way of organising society, does not serve the majority of people – the 99.9%, and is causing far-reaching damage to the planet that, unless radical action is taken, may well prove irreparable.
The environmental crisis is the greatest of a range of interconnected problems facing humanity, the answers to which are not to be found within the existing inflexible, unimaginative paradigm, based as it is on false values and misguided conclusions. And as they repeatedly prove, the current batch of politicians lacks the intellectual imagination, vision and wisdom to meet the worldwide challenges.
A new awareness is needed; systems re-designed based on altogether different values to the existing ones; and a fair and just economic model inculcated. Values that unite people, cultivate cooperation, tolerance and understanding, in place of competition, prejudice and ignorance. Values that will allow a sense of unity and social responsibility to naturally flower. New systems, imbued with perennially accepted values of goodness – sharing, freedom and social justice, would take much of the stress and fear out of life, and allow people to trust one another. Under such circumstances peace may even be possible.
At the heart of the required changes – which need to be both gradual and radical, must be education, formal and non-formal. Like all our current structures, institutionalised education throughout the world is in crisis, and fundamental change is badly needed. Reform is under discussion in many countries, ‘new’ educational structures are being looked at and governments everywhere are debating how to alter the existing, inadequate methods. All to often however these discussions are limited by existing ideologies, reforms are motivated by the obsessive desire for economic growth, a narrow nationalistic approach to life and a simplistic view of the needs of the individual.
New methodologies are needed that inculcate true individuality and creative independent thinking. That is to say, thinking freed from sociological and psychological conditioning, which is essential if the children of today are to find within themselves the resources needed to re-shape society in a way that better meet the needs of the majority and save our planet
Defining lasting purpose
It seems logical that the aims of education should be consistent with the purpose of life. This fundamental question as to purpose is one that most of us rarely consider, or have not the time or energy to look at. “To most of us, the meaning of life as a whole is not of primary importance,” Krishnamurti stated, “and our education emphasizes secondary values, merely making us proficient in some branch of knowledge.” He continues, “Education is not merely acquiring knowledge, gathering and correlating facts; it is to see the significance of life as a whole.”
Unity, relationship, self-awareness, these must be at the heart of all areas of education, Bertrand Russell states that, “any serious educational theory must consist of two parts: a conception of the ends of life, and a science of psychological dynamics, i.e. of the laws of mental change.“[8]
In relating the purpose of education to the ‘purpose of life’ we appear to create an intractable problem, there being various contradictory views compounding the subjectivity of the investigation. However we may make certain generally accepted statements, which whilst they may offend the offended, will allow sufficiently broad interpretations and creative expression to be investigated in all areas of educational work. For education must concern itself with life as a whole, as Krishnamurti made clear – “to bring about right education, we must obviously understand the meaning of life as a whole.”
Once fundamentals are established, not tabulated, but revealed, and broadly accepted, for they infringe not on common sense, being based on its simplicity, forms in which such purposes may be made manifest will quite naturally follow.
Formal education for the most part is seen as a feeding system for employers, a means to train and indoctrinate young people to become people who will do as they are told. Efficient workers who will strengthen the nations accounts and enhance its ability to compete on the ‘world stage’. Krishnamurti: “we are turning out, as if through a mould, a type of human being, whose chief interest is to find security, to become somebody important, or to have a good time with as little thought as possible,”
With conformity colouring all areas of schooling, from the nursery to the university. Children are rarely seen as individuals, with certain innate gifts and talents, but as [potential] workers or economic assets; encouraged, forced in many cases through economic pressures, and the impulse to ‘succeed’, to move from school to university and into employment as quickly as possible.
Dissent from the state view or company line, whilst seemingly tolerated, is not really allowed, being cleverly suppressed. Methods of control are swiftly enforced, debt being a primary weapon in the armoury of control. Individuality is subdued under the weight of anxiety, fuelled by fear engendering competition and the mantra that success is all that matters – no matter the impact, psychologically, physiologically and/or environmentally.
This distortion of function, into a system of conditioning, indoctrination and manipulation is far from the purpose of education and it is time these inhibiting methods were abandoned in favour of a new, creative approach to education and social living. One that facilitates independent thinking, fosters cooperation and tolerance, and encourages free expression and broad social participation.
Unity of Life
The individual and society are not separate, but interrelated, interconnected, whether that society is a family, a classroom or school, a neighbourhood, town, city, country or planet. All are the collective expression of those individuals that live within it and all who live in any particular society are responsible for it.
Each and every one of us is an integral part of a whole. That whole we call humanity – we are brothers and sisters of one humanity – and that whole forms part of the planetary life with its various kingdoms. And that living totality, which we call planet Earth forms a part of a larger whole known as the solar system, which is but a part of the Universe. And on and on into infinity stretches this extraordinary unity.
Life is one; a totality toward which and within which, men, women and children everywhere should be made aware; encouraged to contribute their particular colour and tone, to share their gifts with the group, the society of which they are an integral part. The decentralisation of the individual; the realisation of unity; and the cultivation of relationship with the group should be seen as one of the key purpose’s of all aspects of education.
In Education in the New Age, Alice A Bailey[1] makes clear that “through education self-consciousness must be unfolded until the man recognises that his consciousness is a corporate part of a greater whole. He blends then with the group interests, activities and objectives. They are eventually his and he becomes group conscious. This is Love. It leads to wisdom, which is love in manifested activity. Such should be the major objective of all true educational endeavours. Love of self (self-consciousness), becomes love of those around us (group-consciousness), become love of the whole (God consciousness). Such are the steps.” The movement in conscious awareness outlined by Bailey, gradually shifts the individual’s identification away from the little separate self, weakening selfish behaviour and building awareness of the whole, thereby encouraging selfless-ness, social responsibility and service.
Relationship and Awareness
In ‘Education and the Significance of Life’, Krishnamurti says that, “the purpose of education is to cultivate right relationship, not only between individuals, but also between the individual and society.” Not only is relationship central to education, but as Krishnamurti points out, ‘right relationship’. Present educational methods and social values emphasis separation and division, being based as they commonly are on competition, and nationalism.
This distorting method of motivation has pervaded every area of education. in such and atmosphere right relationship, in which harmlessness is an expressed quality, and where seeing, free from bias is made extremely difficult. Values that emphasis unity, cooperation, and tolerance will aid the establishing of ‘right relationship’. These should be cultivated in all areas and at all stages of education.
Relationship and awareness are closely related; the cultivation of self-awareness or self-knowledge, aids ‘right relationship’ and helps to bring about a sense of integration within the individual. Alice Bailey affirms that “the new education will primarily be concerned with the scientific and conscious bridging between the various aspects of the human being, thus producing coordination and synthesis.” Integrated individuals at harmony with themselves will feed into and create a society at ease. Harmony and order within, manifesting as peace without. As Krishnamurti states, “the individual is made up of different entities, but to emphasize the differences and to encourage development of a definite type leads to complexities. Education should bring about the integration of those entities-for without integration life becomes a series of conflicts and sorrows. Of what value is it to be trained as a lawyer if we perpetuate litigation, what significance has technical and industrial capacity if we use it to destroy one another”?
In an interview on Education Benjamin Creme states his view that, ”education, in the first place, has to show the child that it is a member of a world family. Children need to be shown that we are not living alone in one large or small country, but in a world shared by 5.7 billion people. The child, above all, should be taught that this is the fundamental position of his/her life on Earth: that they are one of a group, a family.”[2] Awareness of the group: classmates, family, community and ultimately humanity as a whole, and the environment in which ‘we live and move and have our being’ by definition encourages a sense of responsibility.
The cultivation of group/social responsibility and unity runs contrary to much current educational practice and methodology. L.Lee Knefelkamp – (Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University) states, “we now suffer from more separation and fragmentation than ever before”, and that “our sense of mutuality has been severely shaken.”[6] With the foundations education, within institutions and society, including the home and the workplace, being built on competition, conformity and schooling for work, divisions have been compounded. Krishnamurti, “our education emphasizes secondary values, merely making us proficient in some branch of knowledge. Though knowledge and efficiency are necessary, to lay chief emphasis on them only leads to conflict and confusion.” The individual is encouraged to value their own progress, success and material acquisition over the well being of the group, often in fact at its expense.
Ambition, the fulfilment of personal material goals and the cultivation of attitudes, which exclude and see others as ‘the competition’ fuels division and separation, leading to conflict and suffering. Krishnamurti expresses it thus; “we all want to be on top, and this desire creates constant conflict within ourselves and with our neighbour; it leads to competition, envy, animosity and finally war.” The emphasis on individual achievement denies social responsibility and sets the individual apart, which as Krishnamurti makes clear ‘creates constant conflict within ourselves and with our neighbour’.
Values and methods that establish group relationships and encourage group awareness would help to create an integrated world community. Social responsibility naturally flows from the awareness of the integrated nature of life, and of ones place within the whole. John Dewey felt the impulse to help others is a natural human quality experienced by all children, in Education for Social Change he states, “the child’s natural desire [is] to give out, to do, and this means to serve”. Service flows from, and generates responsibility for others and ones environment, it naturally comes about as self awareness flowers. As Alice Bailey states “identification with group purposes and plans is the natural attribute of the soul. As this identification is carried forward on mental and soul levels, it produces a corresponding activity on the personal life and this activity we call service.” Service, we might defines as, action undertaken for the benefit of others, for the enrichment of the group, with little or no selfish motive.
Demonstrations of social responsibility flow ‘naturally’ from an awareness of ones place within the whole and help to facilitate a natural realisation of the unity of all life, which encourages values of tolerance, cooperation and understanding of others – Principles of Goodness we could call them.
Spiritual Basis
Such ideas moves us to think of education as that which, amongst other things enables relationship with the ‘Will of Life’ that imbues all form with purpose. Establishing relationship with this – ‘divine purpose’ and cultivating actions consistent with its nature, should be seen as a fundamental purpose of education. Rudolph Steiner explained that, “when we confront education earnestly it is demanded of us not only to acknowledge for the peace of our soul, but to will God’s will, to act the intentions of God. To do this however, we need a spiritual basis for education.”[3]
Education that de-centralises, that places value in service, encourages self-knowledge and ‘right relationship’ with oneself and others, will help create a quite space within, enabling one to respond to what Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (founder of The Theosophical Society in 1875 and author of The Secret Doctrine) described as ‘The Voice of the Silence’, in which echoes, what she called, ‘the intentions of God’. Krishnamurti affirms, “when there is self-knowledge, the power of creating illusions ceases, and only then is it possible for reality or God to be known”.
Illusions flow from all constructs of the self as separate, and reinforce negative aspects of living such as fear and guilt. Separation is regarded as ‘the great illusion’ and is the seed for all mental constructs that veil reality. What higher purpose could education possibly have than to shatter the ‘great illusion’ and respond to divine purpose; to “will Gods Will” as Steiner puts it.
An understanding and awareness of the spiritual basis of all life needs to be at the root of education. To date education has focused on the external, the material, the ephemeral, now it is time to broaden this approach and relate the spiritual to the material, to emphasis the life within the form.
Pragmatic spirituality underpinning all areas of education, formal and non-formal alike, will transform education, placing value and quality as expressions of Being at the heart of all areas of learning and communal living. Such a shift in approach is essential if we are to re-imagine civilisation and bring about the much needed fundamental changes in society.
Central to this revolution in consciousness must be education, which in its current form neglects what Maria Montessori called, “the most basic of all needs of the child – the exigencies of his spirit and his soul. The human being that lives within the child remains stifled therein.”[4] Alice Bailey makes the point even more clearly saying, “the task of the new education is (therefore) the coordination of the personality, eventually bringing about its at-one-ment with the soul.” A living spirituality underpinning all areas of education, understood as that which expands the evolving consciousness into greater awareness, deeper understanding, and more purposeful living, for this to take place there must be freedom, of thought and being.
Ideological identity
For freedom to be realised ideologies – religious, political, economic etc, need to come to an end. The encrusted doctrine of opinions that form ‘isms of all kinds isolate and exclude, and they should be rigorously questioned and challenged. Any such debate is greatly threatening to those seeking to build a world in their making. John Dewey sates, “Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy.” [10]
Participation in the life of a nation, lets call it a democracy, is greatly limited where there is limited or restricted access to formal education, where literacy is poor, where the freedom to think and articulate ones views cogently is discouraged, and where education is largely based on economics. For these reasons the ‘New Rulers of the World’, who differ little from the Old rulers of the world, are against liberal education – no matter the rhetoric and party/State line. Noam Chomsky makes this clear, saying “the anti-democratic thrust of opinion in what are called democratic societies is really ferocious, and for good reason. Because the freer the society gets, the more dangerous the great beast becomes and the more you have to be careful to cage it somehow.”[11] The ‘Great Beast’ is what Alexander Hamilton (a founding father of The United States and chief staff aid to George Washington) called ‘the people’ – the 99.9%. Chomsky again, “as freedom grows, the need to coerce and control opinion also grows if you want to prevent the great beast from doing something with its freedom” – like challenging the status quo.
In order for education to enable democratic participation, which is involvement in every aspect of society, communities, the workplace, schooling – every area, it must be purged of all ideological influences. Specifically, but not exclusively, the ideology of the ‘market’ with its political power; democracy based on the ‘market’ – capitalist based democracy, is a very distorted version of democracy. Education based on corporate politics demands that young people be conditioned in a particular manner; such polluted ideas have no place in the ‘new time’ or the movement of change sweeping through the world and no place in education.
I think I am what I think
Education, within schools, universities and the home, has been used as a vehicle for the perpetuation of ideology and control. Conformity has been the norm and goal. Much talk is given to independence and fostering a creative spirit and enquiry, whilst subtly, and not so subtly, methodologies are employed that manipulate the child to accept certain ideas; ideas that breed intolerance and prejudice and isolate the individual from the whole.
It is the conditioned identification of the self with an ideology, which is the root of the insistence that a particular set of ideas and the resulting view of life is correct. The ideologue becomes the ism. Each and every ism, or doctrinal construct is as deadly as the next. Self-identification with any belief system traps the one identified and fuels divisive thoughts, words and deeds, Krishnamurti “if in our relationship with ideas we justify one ideology in opposition to another, mutual distrust and ill-will are the inevitable results.”
When we identify ourselves with any ideology, we limit, or trap the self, and set up a brittle basis upon which self-identity and relationship rests. We become protective of the position adopted and fearful of any weakness in its design being revealed. For the ideology to be seen to be ‘wrong’ or limited, proven to be so perhaps, one is seen to have failed. Such failure then is a failure not simply of judgement but of who and what one is.
Through fostering expectation and encouraging ambition, the cultivation of seperative attitudes takes place, instilling negative values apposed to perennial principles of goodness, Krshnamurti “education should help us to discover lasting values so that we do not merely cling to formulas or repeat slogans, it should help us to break down our national and social barriers, instead of emphasizing them.” Self-awareness, which allows for self-knowledge will aid in the deconstruction of ‘isms and the flowering of intelligence. “Understanding comes only through self-knowledge, which is awareness of ones total psychological process. Thus education in the true sense is the understanding of oneself.” The understanding of oneself, of the total make up of the individual, the innate potential, the gifts, as well as the negative tendencies and patterns, is a main purpose of education.
Freedom to Think the Unthinkable
Freedom to think is, in principle, if not in fact, a quality of democracy; democracy is participation, involvement and sharing, Chomsky, “a truly democratic community is one in which the general public has the opportunity for meaningful and constructive participation in the formation of social policy: in their own immediate community, in the workplace, the society at large.” [13] In order for there to be ‘meaningful and constructive participation’, all members of society need to be ‘well’ educated. By which is meant, educated to think freely, or to allow freedom of thought to take place.
Within a so called democratic society freedom of the individual is greatly restricted, unless the expression of said freedom is consistent with the prevailing ideology. Conformity to the ideal is expected, in fact insisted upon and fiercely promoted through the powerful tools of propaganda, the media, advertising, organised religion and educational. To resists the pressure to adopt the prevalent ideology takes great strength and independence of mind. The social pressure to conform and ‘fit in’ is great, within all areas of social living; children (on the whole) yearn to be liked, loved in fact, by their parents and peers, and adopt all manner of behaviour patterns of conformity and self manipulation in order to be so. Krishnamurti says, “to be different from the group or to resist environment is not easy and is often risky as long as we worship success. The urge to be successful, which is the pursuit of reward, whether in the material or in the so-called spiritual sphere, the search for inward and outward security, the desire for comfort-this whole process smothers discontent, puts and end to spontaneity and breeds fear.”
Freedom to be
The purpose of education must be to establish unity of being, within the individual, between people and between mankind and nature. This is an evolving process of recognition; expansions of consciousness, to include greater and greater aspects of reality, widening the experience of life and broadening awareness. Krishnamurti tells us the “right kind of education, which is to foster an understanding of what is.” Self-awareness, free from the pressure to conform or succeed, enables the individual to see him or herself with clarity. To experience the various aspects of their being, mental, emotional and physical, in space and time. To witness they’re becoming.
The observer observes, seeing strengths and failings. In the awareness of potential a sense of that which is latent may be felt and known. Plato viewed education as a revelatory work, of making conscious an ever-present unrealised state; “education means, because the mind is active, a process of eliciting something that in a way we already know.”[18] The manifestation of the limitless within the limited, experienced through self-awareness, should be a concern of education. Alice A. Bailey talked in a similar way, saying that education “must enable him (student) to bridge the various aspects of his own mental nature.” Bailey is here referring to the three aspects of mind, which she states, “constitute the most important part of his {mans} nature,” and further, that “the fundamental necessity which today confronts the educational world is the need to relate the human mentality to the world of meaning, and not to the world of objective phenomena.”
She is suggesting that an important purpose of education is a bridging work. Building connections between the various aspects of mind, and facilitating the undistorted expression of ideas contacted. Plato felt that “mind moves towards the ultimate end of knowledge”, the form [as he called it] of ‘The Good’. “Education culminates in the knowledge of this Form.” (PTEd) The ‘good’ we could say is the nature of man himself, it is the life within the form; the higher seeking expression through the lower, brought about through correct relationship. Knowledge of this form – ‘the good’ will bring about action consistent with its nature, known by its inherent quality –and imbued with meaning. Plato’s thoughts again, “right action implies acting in the light of the knowledge of the Good; knowledge of the Good is the perfection of education.” (PTEd)
Education has therefore as a fundamental purpose, the facilitating of relationship with the higher aspects of mans nature. Conscious apprehension of the place the individual holds to the whole and a realisation of the unity of all life, will grow out of such union, and social responsibility – ‘right action’, will naturally – as John Dewey rightly said – flow from the awareness of this essential unity. Alice A Bailey states that “true education is therefore the science of linking up the integral parts of man, and also of linking him up in turn with his immediate environment, and then with the greater whole in which he has to play his part. Each aspect, regarded as a lower aspect, can ever be the expression of the next higher.” The ‘integral parts of man’ constitute a whole. Bodies of expression for the indwelling life, the observer – who and what he/she in truth is. Aiding the individual in the experience and realisation of his true being, has to be a primary function of education, and is I suggest, consistent with a definition of the purpose of life. Robert Louis Stevenson felt that “to be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”[20]
The removal of elements that seek to mould a person into a particular shape, from all areas of education and society, will allow the individual to quite naturally be themselves, not some kind of constructed idea of self, but a realisation of ones inherent nature. Krishnamurti: “if we begin to understand the individual directly instead of looking at him through the screen of what we think he should be, then we no longer want to transform the individual into something else; our only concern is to help him to understand himself.” This is a concept held dear by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, who maintained that education that allowed the individual to reveal who and what they are was the highest goal in life.
Education & Society
Clearly education has a vital role and responsibility to play in the type of society we create and live in. If we are to achieve peace within society the individuals who make up the society must be in harmony with themselves, this will naturally create living environments free from conflict, for the society is the individual. Krishnamurti expresses this idea “If we want to change existing [living] conditions, we must first transform ourselves, which means that we must become aware of our own actions, thoughts and feelings in everyday life.” The cultivation of Self-awareness must therefore be a fundamental purpose of all education.
Education is about freedom, and the promotion of freedom in which ‘the Good’ may be expressed, or as Krishnamurti puts it in a letter to the schools, “goodness can only flower in freedom”. It is important to understand what we mean by freedom. Can there be freedom within the boundaries of thought, which, moving within the field of time is always bound by its content? The conditioned patterns that move, often unconsciously within our consciousness, animating our actions, determining the direction of our lives and perpetuating the belief systems adhered too.
The dismantling of restrictive patterns of thought – psychological conditioning – is a fundamental purpose of education. Krishnamurti tells us “consciousness is it content”, well, such content is largely unconscious. Self-awareness, borne of observation is (in the first place) the conscious recognition of content, enabling (conscious) action to take place, freed, albeit partially, from conditioning, which forever imposes limitation. Krishnamurti again, “there is an intelligent revolt which comes with self knowledge through the awareness of ones own thoughts and feelings,” and “there is radical transformation only when we understand our own conditioning and are free of it.” With this, education should be concerned, but, as Benjamin Creme, made clear “the fundamental purpose of education, as I see it, is to equip people to demonstrate their divine potential.” The realisation of ‘divine potential’ can only come about when educational environments in which liberation from all that limits and inhibits are cultivated. Crème goes on to say that “education should be the evocation of the potential – whether emotional, mental, or spiritual, of each individual child.“
This focuses the discussion of purpose in education towards a new underlying function; to allow for the demonstration of ‘divine potential.’ It is a function that is compatible with the various purposes stated throughout. Freedom, love, ‘the good’, unity, relationship, all find a common source, it is a point of wholeness without limitation, beyond definition. It is the nature of life itself and in the realisation of such, education needs to concern itself. Let us no longer neglect nor stifle the most basic needs of the human being – the realisation and expression of their ‘divine potential’, but rather design a living approach to education that sees such noble work as key to its puspose.
We hear all too often the truism that education should help the individual fulfil their potential. It is common sense that education should take as a primary purpose the realisation of our nature, which Crème suggests is divine. He of course is not alone in making such an assertion, in Rudolph Steiner’s theories of education, he makes clear, he sees the child as a ‘soul in incarnation’ and that “education becomes an aid to incarnation, to assist and harmonize the growth of the spiritual being into its physical form.”[24]
A key purpose of education then, is to allow for the realisation and expression of that which is innate, to give expression to and aid in the realisation of who and what we as human beings are. Alice A Bailey makes clear, “the increasing of soul awareness, the deepening of the flow of consciousness and the development of an inner continuity of awareness, plus the evocation of soul attributes and aspects upon the physical plane constitute the objective of all education.” (ENA) Whether that which is innate is described as ‘potential’ as Dewey terms it, or what Rousseau called ‘human freedom’, the ‘divine’ according to Benjamin Creme, or the ‘soul’ of which Steiner, Montessori and Alice Bailey speak. Education must be concerned with facilitating the relationship with and manifest expression of this aspect of mans nature, so long overlooked through ignorance and prejudice.
Endnotes
[1] Education in the New Age Alice A Bailey Lucis Trust 1954
[2] Education in the New Age (ENA) Interview with Benjamin Crème by George Catlin http://www.share-international.org/archives/education/ed_gcedu.htm
[3] Spiritual Ground of Education. (SGE) The necessity for spiritual insight Rudolph Steiner. http://wn.rsarchive.org/Education/19220816p01.html
[4] The Child. Maria Montessori
[5] Education in the New Age. (ENA AB) Alice A Bailey.
[6] Faculty and Student Development in the 80s (FSD) L.Lee Knefelkamp
[7] The Educational Theory of Noam Chomsky (ETNC) http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Chomsky.html
[8] Education And Discipline” Bertrand Russell http://www.zona-pellucida.com/essay-russel.html
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology
[10] John Dewey
[11] http://www.chomsky.info/books/warfare02.htm (EII)
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crisis_of_Democracy
[13] The Essential Chomsky. (EC) New York, N.Y.: The New Press
[14] John Dewey Democracy and Education. 1916. http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/Projects/digitexts/dewey/d_e/chapter24.html
[15] http://arash-farzaneh.suite101.com/the-main-objectives-of-the-age-of-enlightenment-a105813 The Age of Reason and Natural Human Rights
[16] Carl Jung Paracelsus the Physician (1942)
[17] http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/Projects/digitexts/dewey/d_e/chapter08.html Dewey. Democracy and Education. 1916.
[18] Plato’s theory of education in The Republic, (PTEd) an introduction by A.B.Finlay
[19] Rudolph Steiner, Spiritual Ground of Education. The necessity for spiritual insight. http://wn.rsarchive.org/Education/19220816p01.html
[20] Robert Louis Stevenson, Familiar Studies of Men and Books
[21] J Krishnamurti. Letters to the Schools. Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd England.
[22] Language and Freedom (LF) – chomsky.info http://www.chomsky.info/books/state02.pdf
[23] The Child. Maria Montessori
[24] UNESCO: International Bureau of Education), vol.XXIV, no. 3/4, 1994, p. 555-572.. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/…/steinere.pdf
The Pain of Modern life: Suicide – a Worldwide Epidemic
Graham Peebles 