Professor Samdhong Rinpoche’s talk at Centre for Learning, Bangalore
August 1st, 2015
Dear friends, I must seek your forgiveness to be with you, speaking with you. A few limitations with me. The first limitation is my poor knowledge of English which is the medium to communicate with you this morning. The second limitation is I have lost my voice. 
I had to undergo surgery on the 13th of July, just two weeks ago, because of a thyroid disorder, which disturbs my vocal chords. I have a very unpleasant voice, so naturally I should refuse to be with you and to speak with you because of these limitations.
In spite of that I chose to come because I have a great admiration for this centre. I visited here more than a decade ago, maybe sometime in the nineties, when it was in a very beginning status. And, since then, the surroundings, the nature, the beauty of rocks and the landscape, and also the enthusiasm and the commitment of the teachers, parents and children: I always keep watching how this centre grows.
Dear children, teachers and parents, now it has completed twenty-five years. In Indian culture, twenty-five years is a very important time for any growing and changing phenomenon. Human beings at this time believe that we are in the age of a hundred years of lifespan, and Indian culture says these hundred years should be divided into four ashramas, four stages. The first twenty-five years is for learning and education. The second twenty-five years of human life is for leading a household and earning livelihood. The third stage is to guide one’s own children and to help the next generation to stabilise or establish and the last stage is for spiritual practise or sannyas ashram.
Of course in a school, we don’t have the other stages, yet in the first twenty-five years, one fourth of a century, a shataka, any institution, any organisation will take its own identity, shape. If you are not able to establish identity within the twenty-five years of time, then you may not be able to achieve anything thereafter, unless you have a drastic change thereafter.
So therefore, the first twenty-five years is for thinking, planning, growing, development, to achieve a kind of identity and to understand what institution is aimed at, what the objectives to be attained from the institution are. How these objectives are to be achieved, what the methods are, and how the organisation is to be run are to be considered, experimented with and decided within these twenty-five years. Therefore this Centre For Learning, during the last twenty-five years, has had lots of experiences, ups and downs, challenges, which were very ably faced, and now it has its own identity and all the times to come you can go ahead with confidence, with experience.
So therefore to celebrate the completion of twenty-five years is meaningful, so I heartily congratulate all of you, the children first of all, the parents, the teachers. Any educational institution can build up in cooperation of these three units, the parents, the teachers and the student. If any of these three segments are not cooperating, are not in agreement with the method of the work, the institution cannot function properly. So during last twenty-five years, you have achieved a great understanding between the children, teachers and parents. That’s how this has grown and established in the way, the direction, given by Jiddu Krishnamurti, one of the greatest thinkers, philosophers and teachers of our age.
I was told to talk about the education system or something about the compassionate mind which is the core teaching of Buddhism, but I would like to speak something different today, the happenings of our generation, that means my generation, my parents’ generation, my grandparents’ and great grand- parents’ generation.
The last four to five generations, or two hundred years of our time have brought unimaginable changes to humanity, and which are a kind of a two-edged sword, which have some apparent benefit, and un-seeable unapparent benefit, damage and challenges. The last two hundred years was one of the most changing periods of human history, and we shall have to review this period, seriously, and in depth. My generation and the earlier generations have done a great damage to nature, to the culture and to the traditions, and we have left nothing for your generation.
Now you have to build your world by your own because whatever my generation and earlier generations were able to consume, the kinds of resources we have consumed, are enormous, and we have not shown any way how to restore these natural resources. So, you are now inheriting a very damaged and injured planet earth. So, this injured and damaged planet earth, how it can sustain itself in future for you, for your good living, and for a happy life, is a big question.
There are so many religious and spiritual traditions that have appeared in this world and have disappeared in essence and only remain the name and institutions of those traditions, and which become a cause of division and bondage for humanity. If we look at the history of various religious traditions, all these institutions are mostly started by a seer, a sage, or a teacher who was enlightened. Then what was experienced by himself is being taught to his followers, and they are two different concepts. Revelation from the ultimate source itself, or the revelations from the messenger.
So by this way, the authentic teachers of dharma, teachings of religion appear in this world from time to time, and each of them appear when it is needed due to, at that time, the conditions of humanity, the conditions of the world. And whenever there are some great challenges to humanity, the teacher appears. The teacher taught a great way of thinking, great knowledge and perception to his contemporaries and, thereby, resolved a lot of challenges and problems of humanity. Those teachings and insights usually do not remain for a long time. After a few generations, it begins to corrupt and they begin to decay, and then disappear.
By the end of the nineteenth century, most of the major religious traditions had become irreligious traditions, and they became a cause of conflict and division. And it appears that the essence of the teaching has disappeared, no one is practising that teaching but many people become attached to those needs of the religion, and then it becomes a cause of conflict and problem for humanity.
The most clear evidence is that in our modern world we have coined an expression: “religious intolerance”. Today many people feel that religious intolerance is one of the causes of violence, terrorism, wars and destruction and division among humanity, which hinders the loving kindness mindset and causes hate, anger and violence. So this word itself is contradictory.
If you consider it a little seriously, you will find that if anyone is religious-minded, he or she can never be intolerant. And if anyone is intolerant and with a mindset of hate and anger, it is evident that he or she is not religious-minded. But still we accept this expression “religious intolerance”. And we blame the religions as the cause of intolerance and that is the most powerful cause of division and intolerance and violence.
In such circumstances, there is a need to go beyond all these religions and to negate, to deny such traditions, which are not helping humanity for understanding but causing the humanity to go into misconceptions and illusions. In such times, Jiddu Krishnamurti appeared in this world, and he taught humanity for many, many decades in each subject, each question. So the relevance of Krishnamurti in the present world is to awake the humanity from the deep delusion or deep sleep of ignorance in the names of traditions and religions. Unless and until we have been awakened from this illusion, we may not be able to face the problems of the present situation.
As I mentioned before, in the present time we are facing so many different kind of challenges and each one of the challenges is capable of destroying the planet earth and humanity as a whole Among them the first is increase of violence and destruction. Today no one is safe anywhere. If you are travelling by airplane, you will find that each one is suspected of being a terrorist, through the security, particularly in the west, in America, you have to remove your shoes, you have to remove your turban or hat. You can go without removing shoes in the churches and temples, but you have to remove your shoes in the airports’ security check. Getting into the depth of human mind, you always get the feeling of insecurity, the danger of violence is there; violence in the name of declared war, violence in the name of undeclared war. In the twentieth century we have just witnessed two so-called world wars and the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With- in minutes millions of people has perished. All these horrible things we have experienced, we have witnessed.
And the second is the gap between rich and poor, and the exploitation by the rich of the poor has always increased and due to that the world is being divided into capitalism and communism or Marxism. But this situation has not helped. The so-called socialism, communism or Marxism is now almost disappeared. Everyone is into the consumerist market-oriented economic system, which is based on human greed. And due to this human greed, there is the exploitation and the inequality of humanity, which further creates a division of humanity. This is a structural violence that is ever increasing.
Now the scientists know very clearly how much the environment has been damaged, how much the ozone layers has been damaged. There’s no scientific remedy to restore and repair them. Forty years ago, the scientists used to tell us that yes, there is some damage, but we will find some modern scientific method, technology to fight these challenges. But today, everybody raises their hands, they say we have no remedy. Unless the human way of life is altered, we cannot stop the degradation of the environment. This environmental degradation, glob- al warming, if it goes on like this, there are many scientific reports that very soon by 2020s or 2030s, half of the glaciers will melt and the water level will be raised, and there will be a shortage of drinking water, and submergence of the coastal areas. And many problems they are foreseeing for which no one is ready with the remedial procedure.
The last is as I mentioned the religious intolerance, civilizational conflict. In the name of civilization, in the name of religion, we are divided, we are fighting. And the kind of division and violence, which is increasing in the world today in the name of religion, is quite obvious. So how to meet these challenges? We have to realize that humanity or not only humanity, all sentient beings, the living system, the life system on this planet earth may not be able to survive for a long time. Unless we have determined drastic change in our lifestyle these challenges cannot be answered, cannot be faced.
In such times, and such circumstances, Krishnamurti’s teachings go beyond the beliefs and go beyond the faiths to make an understanding, the real understanding on ‘what is’. It is the most relevant and appropriate way to find a means to respond to these great challenges that today the entire living system is facing.
For that matter, real education is most important. In the primitive stage, the natural learning system was something very different from the structured way of today’s education. People had an open mind, not only an open mind, an unconditioned, unpolluted mind to inquire into the unknown, whatever is unknown. Unless and until they find the real understanding, to find ‘what is’, they do not stop themselves by thinking that “I know it”. There were no institutions, there were no organised ways of teaching but the natural way of inquiry into things was there. Several religious traditions were being evolved.
Today the whole education system has become kind of brainwashing and indoctrination. Of course it is apparently just to deliver information. Delivering information is not such an innocent thing. Behind the delivering of information, the people who deliver this information have a hidden agenda.
Human beings have become the raw material, they are not human beings, they are just to be processed, produced and sold in the market. Many years ago , we used to call the Government of India’s Education Department as the Ministry of Education. Now we know it as the Ministry of Human Resource Development. All of you (to the children in the audience) are being considered as a resource, unprocessed, and they will process you after researching the market and what is the demand of the market. Or in other words, what is the suitable and very faithful and obedient servant of the multinational corporations, what kind of human resources are needed. And all the education systems are being oriented to produce you, to process you to make a very obedient servant to the multinational companies for their exploitation to the poor segments of humanity. And thereby they have taken away your unbiased and unconditioned mind and you are being forced to believe in something. Today education does not give you the wisdom and the understanding, it only indoctrinates you to believe something. So the mind knows very less but accepts so many things, it may be science, it may be technology, it may be anything. Many things you are not able to understand, you are not led to understand, but you are being forced to understand.
Today the majority of the information imparted to you is just to force you to believe it, and thereby you do not think of the requirement of knowing, perceiving. Thousands of years ago, Socrates had said many times, “I know one thing, and that is I know nothing” and he realized that what he believed is not through true understanding and he needs to know, he needs to understand. But today the educational and uncultural civilization conditions you to believe that you know in spite of not knowing. You do not know what you do not know. This is the big problem. If you know what you do not know, then there is a way to knowing it. If you do not know what you do not know, then there is no way to knowing it because you already believe that “I know this thing”. But majority of us are being told to believe it. That is why Krishnamurti emphasises not to believe, not to depend on faith. You must try to know for yourself through inquiry, through dialogue, through search. So this is what the learning process is.
If things are to be informed to you, then you need not learn, information is so vast and particularly today you have wonderful and numerous ways of collecting information, the internet and social media, the electronic media, the print media, the radio, whatnot. There are hundreds of ways of collecting. And by this way you think that you know everything, have information on everything. So your capacity to inquire has been encroached, reduced and you are made to believe that this is not necessary. So I like this name “Center For Learning”. To learn means by practice, by inquiring, by analyzing to find out what is, not what was. What is in the present moment you can find. From the accumulation of information, the information is always a thought product and always tells you what was. It can never tell you what is. When the information reaches to you what is has already passed, no more there. And your capacity to inquire, your capacity to analyze is considered to be unnecessary or considered to be irrelevant, because you have all the sources of information.
So I will end my presentation quoting some of Krishnamurti’s words. I always quote it.
Belief is so unnecessary as are ideals. Both dissipate energy, which is needed to follow the unfolding of the fact, that what is, and in escape there is no end to sorrow. The ending of sorrow is the understanding of the fact from moment to moment. There is no system or method, which will give understanding. Only a choiceless awareness of fact will do that. Meditation according to a system is the avoidance of the fact of what you are. It is far more important to understand yourself, the constant changing of the fact about yourself, than to meditate in order to find god, have visions or sensations or other forms of entertainment.
Today most of the so-called religious practices and so-called experiences have become a very cheap form of entertainment. That’s what Krishnamur ti says. So therefore dear children, my request to you this important day is number one; do not lose your independent mind, unconditioned mind. You have by nature a very powerful mind. You can find everything for yourself, you can know everything for yourself. This potential must not be forgotten. And the second thing: the uptake of information through the various medias, kindly does not believe them. When I say do not believe them, for example, when something has happened in Bangalore and somebody has died, definitely that is a fact. I’m saying how to approach our way of life with today’s information is unreliable. Therefore you have to find what is right and what is wrong, what kind of life you should lead and what kind of life you should not lead.
His Holiness The Fourteenth Dalai Lama always says that the secular ethics and the ethic of human behaviour, is only governed by law of nature, governed by the reality, the facts. So you have to find your mindset and how to recover who you are, and remain to be who you are, what you are. And not to be converted through the process of education into something suitable for the market. And you are not marketable, you are a human being, you must understand this. And for that purpose if you need to change your lifestyle, you must have the courage to change your lifestyle in order to benefit the others, the larger population of the planet Earth.
There is no lifestyle for anyone, which cannot be changed. If somebody tells you if you do not change your way of life today, you will have a few weeks’ life and you will not survive, at that point I am sure you will change your lifestyle. There may be very few who refuse to change, who choose death and not change the lifestyle. So therefore we can go back to the source, go back to our nature, the human nature that is love and the compassionate mind. You need not search for the compassionate mind from outside. To know yourself, to know your nature, your mind will automatically be the compassionate one.
Thank you very much for your attention.
(Worlds of Fear: School Cultures)
(Educational conference | December 12th-15th, 2015 | Centre For Learning)