Introduction

Quotes from J. Krishnamurti 

From Letters to the Schools and a public talk at Saanen 1977.

Academic excellence without competition/comparison.

Is it possible to eliminate altogether the comparative evaluation, academically or ethically?  Is it possible to help the student not to think competitively in the academic field and yet to have excellence in his studies, his actions and his daily life?  Please bear in mind that we are concerned with the flowering of goodness which cannot possibly flower where there is any competition.  Competition exists only when there is comparison, and comparison does not bring about excellence. These schools fundamentally exist to help both the student and the teacher to flower in goodness.  This demands excellence in behavior, in action and in relationship.  This is our intent and why these schools have come into being; not to turn out mere careerists but to bring about the excellence of spirit.

Quality of love with all its excellence.

In what manner then can you help the student to feel this quality of love with all its excellence?  If you do not feel this yourself profoundly, talking about responsibility is meaningless.  Can you as an educator feel the truth of this?

Seeing the truth of it will bring about naturally this love and total responsibility.  You have to ponder it, observe it daily in your life, in your relations with your wife, your friends, your students.  And in your relationship with the students you will talk about this from your heart, not pursue mere verbal clarity. The feeling for this reality is the greatest gift that man can have and once it is burning in you, you will find the right word, right action and correct behaviour.  When you consider the student you will see that he comes to you totally unprepared for all this.  He comes to you frightened, nervous, anxious to please or on the defensive, conditioned by his parents and the society in which he has lived his few years.  You have to see his background, you have to be concerned with what he actually is and not impose on him your own opinions, conclusions and judgements.  In considering what he is it will reveal what you are, and so you will find the student is you.

And now can you in the teaching of mathematics, physics, and so on - which he must know for that is the way of earning a livelihood - convey to the student that he is responsible for the whole of mankind?  Though he may be working for his own career, his own way of life, it will not make his mind narrow.  He will see the danger of specialization with all its limitations and strange brutality.

Compassion and clarity → excellence and skill (not the other way)

So we are demanding of ourselves the highest form of excellence.  And that excellence can only come into being when there is compassion, clarity, and from this compassion and clarity comes skill - not the other way round.  And that is what we are trying to do: to develop a skill and have clarity and then compassion.  We are saying quite the contrary.

Discontent that cannot be smothered 

So can discontent never be smothered?  Never.  Though you may have children, wife, never that flame wither away, die, become ashes….That's one problem: whether it is possible to keep the discontent at its highest excellence.