Conference Proceedings J. Krishnamurti and the Contemporary World Crises: Scholars Panel One Session Three

Abstract

This paper begins with my first introduction to Krishnamurti's writings when I was a doctoral student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. His book Education and the Significance of Life (1953) was very influential as I was beginning my work in humanistic/holistic education. In this paper I identify some of the key ideas from that book and how they are still relevant today. 

For example, Krishnamurti (1953) wrote "We have divided life into so many departments that education has very little meaning" (p. 11). Fragmentation is still a huge problem in education and one which holistic education attemptts to address. One way is seeing life as a whole, requiring our awareness to see things as they are. Krishnamurti (1953) wrote, "The function of education is to create human beings who are integrated and therefore intelligent. Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential, the what is; and to awaken this capacity in oneself and in others is education" (p. 14). 

My paper then focuses on my teaching and how I have asked students to engage in meditation since 1988 in two of my classes. Students are...