I got an opportunity to participate in the annual
gathering organized by Krishnamurti
Foundation India (KFI) at Rishi
Valley near Madanapalle in Andhra earlier this week. The school, started in
1931, is 3 years older than my father. It was me and my wife’s first visit and
my parents’ second visit to the campus. The gathering folks had organized walks
along the trails in the valley. Watching the sunrise, sunset and the green
valley from the hilltops every day was a joy. For nature lovers, Rishi Valley’s
serene campus was a treat.
The theme for this gathering was: Living responsibly in today’s world. Pofessor Samdhong Rinpoche was one of the speakers at the gathering. He talked about what it
means to live responsibly. Rinpoche highlighted that talking about responsibility and
rights without self-awareness is meaningless. Self-awareness i.e. understanding
“Who am I?” or “What am I?” is one's primary duty. Hence, a human rights movement
which comes out of ignorance (i.e. without an awareness of the true nature of
the self) invariably turns in the wrong direction e.g. becomes violent.
Each day there was a video presentation of one of J
Krishnamurti’s talks. One of the talks (Madras,
December 1980) focused on the nature of corruption. What is corruption? K
said, ”Corruption is not merely at the superficial level, passing money under
the table. But corruption is much more deep, corruption is in the mind, corruption
is the exercise of thought for its own benefit.” Then K further said, “When
thought is attached to a particular idea, experience, to a particular nation,
to a particular belief, dogma, such attachment must inevitably breed corruption.” This definition of corruption is
far more subtle than what we use generally.
So if attachment to an idea or belief is the root cause
of corruption, how does one remove the attachment? This is where K says
something strange. He says, “To remove the cause is to observe the cause, not
try to change the cause. If I am corrupt, I observe what that corruption is”. What
K is suggesting here is to pay attention to the train of thought as it is getting
attached to an idea or a belief. Perhaps it is easier to observe this when I
experience emotions such as hurt, anxiety, anger, pride etc.
Every day we also had small group discussions. One phrase
that caught our group’s attention during our discussion was “hard work”. K says,
“(Paying) close attention (to your train of thought) is hard work.” We found out from
participants what this “hard work” means to them. One participant said that he
needs to be attentive while eating while another one said he needs to be
attentive while sharing the kitchen with his wife. In the kitchen, he tends to
demand the same level of orderliness that he exhibits in his office. For
example, a spoon has to go back to its place etc. Watching all this is indeed
hard work. Perhaps this is a 17x7 job (assuming 7 hours of sleep). Perhaps that
is the serious way of tackling corruption.
We also got an opportunity to visit the Rural Education
Centre (REC) at Rishi Valley which is as old as independent India. REC is
currently championing a multi-grade methodology called Rishi Valley Institute
of Educational Resources (RIVER). While REC has implemented the methodology in thirteen
schools in and around Rishi Valley, it has been adopted in various countries.
After a 20 minute presentation we were taken to a primary school, Vidyavanam. It
was a multi-grade class (1st to 4th grade), teacher was a
facilitator (sitting with one group), black board belonged to the students and
each student was busy doing his/her activity which could be in any subject. Apparently,
Andhra Pradesh is beginning to roll out the RIVER methodology in all its
primary schools across the state. I feel there is a lot to learn from RIVER
approach and I plan to study it further.
image source: samdhongrinpoche.com, thanks to my wife Gauri for the sunset picture
