“The intellect is the central factor of the degeneration of humanity throughout the world, for the intellect is only a part of the human condition and capacity. When the part is extolled, praised and given honors, when it assumes all importance, then one’s life, which is relationship, action, conduct, becomes contradictory, hypocritical, then anxiety and guilt come into being. Intellect has its place, as in science, but humanity has used scientific knowledge not only for their benefit but at the same time it has brought about instruments of war, pollution of the earth. The intellect can perceive its own activities which bring about degeneration but it is utterly incapable of putting an end to its own decline because essentially it is only a part.
As we said, education is the essence of learning; learning about the nature of the intellect, its dominance, its activities, its vast capacities and its destructive power is education. To learn the nature of thought, which is the very movement of the intellect, not from a book but from the observation of the world about you, to learn what exactly is happening without theories, prejudices and values, is education. Books are important but what is far more important is to learn the book, the story of yourself, because you are all humankind.
To read that book is the art of learning. It is all there: the institutions, their pressures, the religious impositions and doctrines, their cruelty, their faiths. The social structure of all societies is the relationship between human beings with their greed, ambitions, their violence, their pleasures, their anxieties. It is there if you know how to look. The look is not inward. The book is not out there or hidden in yourself. It is all around you: you are part of that book. The book tells you the story of the human being and it is to be read in your relationships, in your reactions, in your concepts and values.
The book is the very center of your being and the learning is to read that book with exquisite care. The book tells you the story of the past, how the past shapes your mind, your heart and your senses. The past shapes the present, modifying itself according to the challenge of the moment. And in this endless movement of time human beings are caught. This is the conditioning of humanity. This conditioning has been the endless burden of humanity, of you and your brother and sister.
The philosophers, the theologians, the saints, have accepted this conditioning, have allowed the acceptance of it, making the best of it; or they have offered escapes into fantasies of mystical experiences, of gods and heavens. Education is the art of learning about this conditioning and the way out of it, the freedom from this burden.
There is a way out which is not an escape, which does not accept things as they are. It is not the avoidance of the conditioning, it is not the suppression of it. It is the dissolution of the conditioning.”
J. Krishnamurti
The Whole Movement of Life is Learning
Chapter 25