Education for Life - Q and A (1986)

0:00 Joy, you know, joy can only spring from giving and sharing. And that, you know, you can see that the affluent Western world really needs to give its wealth rather than make deals. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:17 And that would be a tremendous kind of uplift to the world, you know, to really out of compassion share the wealth, even if it meant a lowering of the standard of living. Report an error in the passage at 0:17 Highlight the passage at 0:17

0:30 And a sacrifice of convenience and privilege for the welfare of others. That would bring joy into the society. Where the fighting for rights and all that might, you know, endless demands on the society and that tend to, you know, there's no end to that, is there? People, some group feeling that they don't have as many rights as some other group. Report an error in the passage at 0:30 Highlight the passage at 0:30

1:01 There's always this fear of being taken advantage of or not being recognized and so that and this anxiety that pervades tends to make our society joyless in the midst of affluence and abundance and in a society in a country that's really a very pleasant country to live in. I mean Britain is a very pleasant country to live in it's not some place that one You know, that one feels that it's not a tyranny, it's quite a reasonable type of society and beautiful country, but the joylessness of affluent Western society is obvious. Report an error in the passage at 1:01 Highlight the passage at 1:01

1:49 It's because human beings are still thinking, holding on to positions, holding on to their wealth, holding on to their views. At the expense of others. And then, of course, that completely eradicates joy from our internal life, from the society itself. Report an error in the passage at 1:49 Highlight the passage at 1:49

2:13 And when you reflect on the span of a human lifetime, when you begin to contemplate your own death, then you start looking at things in perspective again. Somehow, if you just think of yourself only as Report an error in the passage at 2:13 Highlight the passage at 2:13

2:43 you can't think in terms of a lifespan anymore. You're just constantly after security and gratification as quickly, as instantly as possible. so we lose perspective in that. We just become obsessed with heedless actions and indulgences. But with the ability to reflect, standing back and looking at the condition of being a human being and all that implies, then we can get our own lifespan in a perspective where we're not thinking in that kind of mindless, selfish way anymore. Report an error in the passage at 2:43 Highlight the passage at 2:43

3:25 So we can be more aware of what is necessary for survival. What is our duty, our responsibility to our family and to our nation and then we have a perspective to work from so that we're not just being foolishly generous like giving everything away where we have nothing but Report an error in the passage at 3:25 Highlight the passage at 3:25

3:49 we have a way of learning the right amount how to live our life with wisdom and the same with Report an error in the passage at 3:49 Highlight the passage at 3:49

4:05 See the society we're living in too where we might just take it for granted thinking I'm a citizen of Britain and I should have this right and I should have that right and it should be doing this for me and it should be doing that for me and then there's always complainers they're always making themselves heard so there's always something to complain about and some unpleasant thing that's being complained about in mass across the country and so forth so that you you end up with a mind that just is grasping at things and demanding from the society but as you stand back from that let go of that tendency to contemplate the society as a whole which we can do because of this reflectiveness a reflexive mind means that we can look at things in perspective then We begin to see what our real duties and responsibilities are in the society rather than just thinking of our own personal rights and privileges and maintaining those or demanding them. Report an error in the passage at 4:05 Highlight the passage at 4:05

5:12 Then you have a society that is cooperative and would be much more supportive and there'd be more trust, more joy generated within the society itself. And that's from an awakened position, from awakened mind. So this awakening is, again I emphasize that, just like the span from birth to death and then, say, rather thinking in terms of enlightenment in a kind of grand sense of being all-knowing and all-understanding, thinking in terms of awakening as the important experience during the span from birth to death. Report an error in the passage at 5:12 Highlight the passage at 5:12

5:59 Then you have a perspective to work from. In your mind you can see that the education itself, if it were really something leading forth, something really of benefit to the individual as well as the society, then it would be that which would awaken the minds of children or adults or whoever is involved in it. Report an error in the passage at 5:59 Highlight the passage at 5:59

6:28 To me that would be the kind of... Report an error in the passage at 6:28 Highlight the passage at 6:28

6:34 education, than just conditioning my mind with endless facts and figures knowledge from books. Report an error in the passage at 6:34 Highlight the passage at 6:34

6:47 even that doesn't without perspective it becomes just a clutter information that you forget eventually and even though it does help you in some ways to Report an error in the passage at 6:47 Highlight the passage at 6:47

7:02 rational thought and logic and it has certain advantages it needs to be in the context of awakening rather than in the context in of the context of conditioning conditioning. Report an error in the passage at 7:02 Highlight the passage at 7:02

7:16 even the education as we know it now would be much more valuable to us. As Report an error in the passage at 7:16 Highlight the passage at 7:16

7:30 those of us who look back to parents, Report an error in the passage at 7:30 Highlight the passage at 7:30

7:42 where it was fairly universal, a church of some kind did that for the other Report an error in the passage at 7:42 Highlight the passage at 7:42

7:56 children. But because that doesn't happen anymore, nothing's in its place, is it? That's what I mean. It's such a confused time. Because where the unity that once existed as it's to have been a nation of people that agreed on many issues or would identify as being Christian or would be English and... and a culture, a common cultural heritage now that is not true anymore we can't think in those terms we can't go back to that we have to keep going onward and now it's more universal so like religion now is in Britain there's a lot of interfaith movement the Christian church in Britain is much more open and seeking and honest with itself now than I'm sure that it ever has been and you find this in all the different religious groups a kind of opening up and a need because in just this one country almost every religion is represented now and yet all religions are coming together on a common ground more and more so. Report an error in the passage at 7:56 Highlight the passage at 7:56

9:30 Just by the willingness to meet with each other is a beginning. Where before, you know, you would, you know, I was brought up in a situation where Protestants wouldn't meet with the Catholics even. I mean, other Christians, or even the Baptists and the Episcopalians were. If you were Episcopalian, you wouldn't enter a Baptist church for anything. Report an error in the passage at 9:30 Highlight the passage at 9:30

9:52 Or Presbyterian, or anything like that. Just totally cut off in your little sect. And then if you were high church, Anglican, you wouldn't be caught dead in a low church. Report an error in the passage at 9:52 Highlight the passage at 9:52

10:09 The line goes on into being even more meticulous and fussy as that tendency becomes an obsession with my position as being right and everything else wrong. Report an error in the passage at 10:09 Highlight the passage at 10:09

10:26 But the common ground of religion now is being rediscovered. Report an error in the passage at 10:26 Highlight the passage at 10:26

10:33 And I find as talking to some awakened Christians that there's a common, there's a way to have dialogue, a way of meeting now that isn't just being kind of pleasantly tolerant and very nice to each other on a surface, but it's going toward some, to the religious, to what religion really is. And so one sees the possibility that in the future a more universal Report an error in the passage at 10:33 Highlight the passage at 10:33

11:02 ...acceptance of religion where the sectarian-ness and the divisiveness of religion is no longer a problem. And where all religions can contribute to that. Where one is not looking down or favouring or persecuting any religious tradition or convention. Report an error in the passage at 11:02 Highlight the passage at 11:02

11:27 But where even the ones that seem very... Dogmatic and very blind now. Even they would be influenced by that openness eventually. But as long as we fight and resist and condemn and make judgments then we're creating all the time the very conditions for sectarianism and then of course division and blindness and non-awakening. Report an error in the passage at 11:27 Highlight the passage at 11:27

11:54 The same with the political arena like with communism or with capitalism. Report an error in the passage at 11:54 Highlight the passage at 11:54

12:05 Socialism, whatever system you might favour, if you go to the common ground of, you know, what is a government for? What is a political system for? And is it just an end in itself or something to be attached to or is it a means to help the society? And then you begin to see that politics is something to... Report an error in the passage at 12:05 Highlight the passage at 12:05

12:34 See from a position of, not from attachment to a view, but from realizing the needs, what is appropriate to the time and place. Then say democracy would be able to operate in an efficient way, in an effective way. But now, like in democratic systems, they're rather farcical, because they're merely kind of like, Conditioning you to believe in cooperating from prejudice and fixed views and promises. Like an American political presidential election is just who can promise the most and be the most charming charismatic personality. Report an error in the passage at 12:34 Highlight the passage at 12:34

13:21 And then that one will win the election. That I would hate to regard as real democracy. It's like a popularity contest. Contests. Those who've got television and things like that today, there's certainly extent for that because president's personal attraction wouldn't carry over a bit of paper which is all they would have got, you know, a hundred years ago. Report an error in the passage at 13:21 Highlight the passage at 13:21

13:50 Well it's very television very powerful because it and also editing and subliminal conditioning and all it's quite quite be quite deceitful. Report an error in the passage at 13:50 Highlight the passage at 13:50

14:08 Like they can edit now films to make them say what they want. This is where you have to be really careful with that because sometimes they'll do that. They just edit things, put things together where there might have been a context for something said. They can take it out of context and fit it in in a way that they can prove what they want to. Report an error in the passage at 14:08 Highlight the passage at 14:08

14:37 So mass media has... but also see that it has great potential a tool to be used skillfully. Report an error in the passage at 14:37 Highlight the passage at 14:37

14:51 all this takes, you know, to just condemn anything straight out or to blindly prove, those are the two extremes. One thing, somebody said, I went to a conference Bangkok several years ago where one man was condemned. condemning all modern technology and computers something against all computers and was completely against everything that has been developed in technology in the past few years and so even though one can envision a kind of idealist kind of going back to the farm and nature society society Report an error in the passage at 14:51 Highlight the passage at 14:51

15:40 One sees that we have to live with this technology that has been already developed because I don't see anyone really giving it up. Report an error in the passage at 15:40 Highlight the passage at 15:40

15:51 So then the problem lies in learning how to direct the use of that skillfully rather than just unskillfully the way it is being used now. Report an error in the passage at 15:51 Highlight the passage at 15:51

16:07 Because nothing is good or bad in itself. It's always relative to... Report an error in the passage at 16:07 Highlight the passage at 16:07

16:30 I'm not Report an error in the passage at 16:30 Highlight the passage at 16:30

16:39 really a human being. Report an error in the passage at 16:39 Highlight the passage at 16:39

16:50 I'm a plastic man. Report an error in the passage at 16:50 Highlight the passage at 16:50