6. LEARNING

 Continuing on the summarizing through excerpts from “Talks and Dialogues” JD Krishnamurti.

What is learning and how do we learn? Do we learn from experience? Do we learn from accumulation of knowledge? Look at the number of wars there has been in the history since being recorded. Have we learned from these experiences that war is not good and it should stop? Or is learning a matter of time? But in all these thousands of years, we have not learnt that war – the organized killing of another is appalling! So time and accumulation of knowledge has definitely not taught us. Then what will teach us?

What is learning and how do we learn? We need to understand humility when we talk about learning. If I want to learn something, then my mind must not have reached any conclusion about it, it must not have any opinion or previous knowledge. It is an the innocent mind that can enquire into the question of humility. By innocence we mean ‘not knowing’ and such a mind is capable of a great deal of freedom. So it is obvious that learning has nothing to do with accumulation of knowledge or experience or tradition and it only a mind that is free that can be in a state of humility – only such a mind can learn. So when we begin to understand what humility is – where the mind is not cluttered up with opinion, judgements, knowledge, then there is a state in which we are capable of learning. And such a mind can begin to approach the complex problem of fear.

So is learning a matter of time? Can humility be acquired gradually? Can it be cultivated? Humility is freedom. The moment humility is cultivated or gathered it ceases to be humility. It is a matter of instant perception. But when you make humility an idea – it stops that instant perception.

What is idea? You hear that it is only a clear, innocent mind that can learn, and you want to learn about fear. It has already become an idea – you want to be free from fear, and you hear that you must learn about it and one can only learn if your mind is very clear, simple – this structure has already become an organized thought – an idea. From that idea you hope to learn, but you are not learning at all, you are merely carrying an idea into action. And between idea and action there is conflict. You do not instantly see the truth of learning, the truth of humility. Seeing instantly is the action. Let us look at this in different ways.

Why do we have ideas and opinions at all? By ideas – we mean psychological ideas, not technical ones! Why do we form an image (an image being an idea)? Why does thought function through ideas – ideas of nationality, ideas of right and wrong, ideas of killing and of God, family, non family, etc. We have ideas – why? Are ideas a means of self protection, a resistance to any form of change, to any form of movement, to life? Do ideas bring about clarity of action? OR are these ideas always the past – is not past always acting in the present and continuing in the future? I learn a trade, then I proceed to apply what I have learnt. And then that which I have learnt and according to which I act, becomes mechanical, repeated over and over again. That gives me a sense of security, in which there is no disturbance. I can add more to it, but it will always be mechanical.

Do we learn ideas, conclusions and having learnt them, apply them in action? And is there idea separate from action at the moment when you are acting? All ideas are always in the past, therefore, when I am functioning according to ideas, I am living in the past, therefore I am dead (discussed in earlier post – past is dead).

Learning requires sensitivity, and there is no sensitivity if there is an idea, which is of the past, dominating the present. Only a sensitive mind can learn, and sensitivity is denied when there is domination of an idea. Because the ideas, the mind is not quick, not pliable, not alert – hence learning cannot happen. So learning implies not only humility and sensitivity, but also a state of mind which is not achieving. The moment you achieve you cease to have that quality of innocence and humility. There can be such a mind which is sensitive – both physically and psychologically, sensitive to all the implications of life.

Let us go back to understand fear. Learning about fear is also to learn about sorrow and pleasure. To understand sorrow, we need to understand passion. Most of us are consciously or otherwise in sorrow of some kind or another. We are sorrowful human beings who have not a moment of bliss uncontaminated by thought, not a moment of real deep enjoyment untouched by any thought or memory. We are a battlefield from the moment we are born until we die. There is never order, never peace, never a sense of tranquillity and bliss. All this is sorrow and conflict.

Let us understand passion, to help us understand sorrow. Love is not desire or pleasure. Because from previous discussions we see that desire – becomes pleasure through thinking about something which has given you pleasure, enjoyment and you think about it more and more – that thought is not love. Thinking about you, whom I love is not love – it is pleasure that I have derived from you being sustained by thought. I think about you, and the moment thought enters, love goes away. What we know about love, as desire, pleasure and passion has nothing to do with the passion which we are talking about – a passion which is not the product of thought.

An example of a passion which is product of thought – If I become passionate about you or an idea, it has stimulation in it, it has motive in it, the motive being “I am going to derive pleasure”, or it might lead us to sorrow. But real passion implies that - thought and idea - have been totally abandoned. And when there is that passion, that intensity, that drive – which is always in the present, not tomorrow or yesterday – then we can come upon this question of sorrow and see whether it can ever end.

Is it possible to completely end sorrow? The sorrow of loneliness, of death, of not having love or being loved, not being able to fulfil, not being a great man, all the quantities of sorrows we accumulate through life. Is it possible to be free of the sorrows that we accumulate through life? It is possible only when there is that passion to find out about myself. Not according to someone else, like Freud, Jung, psychologists and all. I must have that passion to find out about myself without any moment of accumulation from which I learn. Myself is a constant movement, of yesterday through to today and tomorrow, a single movement, endless. If my mind is free from all previous conclusions, then I can learn about myself like that. To see that on the instant, to see this whole movement, we need passion. When you listen to the thunder without any idea or thought, then there is not space between that thunder and you. See the complete, total movement of life as yourself, on the instant – and for that you must have passion. There is no passion when there is fear, you do not have passion when there is love (desire or pleasure).

On a different note :- Comparison - when you compare what takes place? You have an idea that you are dull, and you have an idea that somebody else is very intelligent. The two images, the one about yourself and the image about another are in competition. Can you observe yourself as being dull without comparison? Or do you know only through comparison? Do you know that you are hungry, because you were hungry yesterday or because you are actually hungry? You know through comparison and you don’t really know or do you know because it is so? This is a very important question because throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another – but when I do that I am destroying myself. When in school one boy is compared with another, what is happening? You are destroying that child. Can we live without comparison with anybody this means there is no inferior or superior. You are actually what you are and to understand what you are, to look at yourself and to see actually what you are, this process of comparison must come to an end. I only compare in order to gain, in order to achieve, in order to become – but when I don’t compare, I am beginning to understand what I am. Beginning to understand what I am is far more fascinating , far more interesting, it goes beyond all this stupid comparison.