The Making of Sound Education

The wholesome man, the complete individual is one who is well balanced in his development of both the spiritual and the scientific nature of his mind for these are the two aspects of the mind that are of any value while the rest of it is negative and destructive. A conciousness that encorporate both the truly spiritual as well as the scientific aspect of mind will result in a new mindset with the inherent creative intelligence and sensitivity sorely needed in our modernday society. The mergence of these two aspects of the human mind within each individual student is paramount for the development of future generations through education. Splitting or compartmentalizing the two into seperate studies or different schools creates lopsided thinkers and unwholesome minds, minds that are narrow and insensitive, envious and competitive, minds that cannot see the wholesomeness of life itself.
Education today still promote the old set of values which caters towards the making of money, and acquiring great positions, prestige and power through the supriority of knowledge or having the degrees. The human mind has been watered down to function at the level of a payed slave fitting into socital needs and demands and the education system as practiced today helps to churn out these slaves by the very nature of their methods of conforming and conditioning. The student is led to believe in the system that their forefathers has been victims of in the past, that has to a great extent been the factor that led to this decadent modern day society full of stress and strife. The gridlock of this mental bondage can be broken only by the individual student who is awakened through one way or another by his or her own intelligence by looking beyond the knowledge received through modern day education into that which is free from any form of belief or conditioning; an intelligence acquire through self realization.
Now, how does one bring about, through education, a mind that is entirely different, a mind that is not greedy, not envious? How does one create a mind that is not ambitious, that is extraordinarily active, efficient; that has a real perception of what is true in daily life which is after all religion. How do we create 'The perfect man' through our system of education? A human being is a true human being when the scientific spirit and the true religious spirit go together. A person who does not belong to any religious creed, has no class, no authority; no position in society. He is the true, the new human being, who combines both the scientific and the religious mind, and therefore is harmonious without any contradiction within himself. And I think the purpose of education is to create this new mind, which is explosive, and does not conform to a pattern which society has set.
It is extraordinarily difficult to be religious and to have a clear and precise, scientific mind, to have a mind that is not afraid, that is unconcerned with its own security, its own fears. You cannot have a religious mind without knowing yourself, without knowing all about yourself - your body, your mind, your emotions, how the mind works, how thought functions. And to go beyond all that, to uncover all that, you must approach it with a scientific mind which is precise, clear, un-prejudiced, which does not condemn, which observes, which sees. When you have such a mind you are really a cultured human being, a human being who knows compassion. Such a human being knows what it is to be alive.
Not to be ordinary like the rest of men; with their worries, with their corruption, violence, brutality, indifference, callousness. To want a job, to want to hold on to a job, whether you are efficient or not, to die in the job. That is what is called ordinary - to have nothing new, nothing fresh, no joy in life, never to be curious, intense, passionate, never to find out, but merely to conform. That is what I mean by ordinary. It is called being bourgeois. It is a mechanical way of living, a routine, a boredom.
Based on J.Krishnamurti's thoughts on education.