Swanwick Star Issue No. 4 (2011)

Listening is the Guru

Excerpt from Listening is the Guru 

–       Dr. JK Siddoo’s Diary; March 8, 1974 (Malibu, California)

Yesterday, we flew from Vancouver to Los Angeles at seven in the morning. It was snowing when we got up and we drove in the snow to the airport. The dawn was breathtaking. A heavy dark cloud hung everywhere except in the east. There was a clear golden sky with the pale blue mountains in the distance. Mount Baker was very clear. At the airport we hired a car and Sarjit drove to the home of Mary Zimbalist. The house overlooked the Pacific Ocean. Krishnaji was staying there as her guest. We joined a group, mostly from Ojai, in the living room awaiting Krishnaji for a discussion about a new school at Ojai. He entered the room quietly and began to speak.

K: To whom are you responsible? To the parent, society, the student, to yourself? How can you have order, discipline, virtue, freedom without authority, without reward or punishment, knowing that both the teacher and the pupil are in disorder? How can you teach mathematics, history – and these must be taught, because the brain is meant to be used – and also have the “Other”? What would you do – there are ten or fifteen students sitting before you? I know how I would teach if I was a mathematics teacher; thank God I’m not. I would begin by talking over with them disorder, point out the disorder in my life and in their life, and discuss this together with them with both of us learning. Then after a ten-minute discussion, I’d devote the rest of the time to mathematics. I would do this every day. If a child is not punctual, comes half an hour late, how are you going to make him punctual, bearing in mind no authority, no reward, no punishment? By making the child sensitive by talking to him at his own level of authority. How are you going to educate the parents, knowing both parents go to work and come home tired, having very little or no time with their children? If you talk to them and say spend more time with your children, give them affection, love, care, will they listen to you?

This country is falling apart. The permissiveness, the vulgarity, the utter lack of discipline, the corruption. You must have seen on the TV last night, students running naked across the campus. This is what this society has degenerated into. This is the society and you are going to build a new school. So we come back again to the question, to whom are we responsible? I will answer that question. We are responsible for the producing of a child with a new mind. Why should I be responsible to anyone? In talking about disorder in my life and the child’s life, I create an intensity, which is order.

The next day, we had lunch with Krishnaji. There were several of us – Mary Zimbalist, who was the hostess, Asit Chandmal from Bombay, Sarjit, and myself.

JS: In this awareness, there are days of intensity and there are days when the process levels off.

K: What’s wrong with that?

JS: Nothing. If one listens to your tapes, the intensity is there but one doesn’t want to become dependent on them.

K: Of course.

AC: Krishnaji, many years ago when you were in Bombay you said that you thought a perfect crime could be committed. Do you think it could be done?

K: It would be difficult. Yes, I think I could write a book about it.

[The conversation covered many other topics including earthquakes]

K: Once when I was in Delhi with Shiva Rao, when he lived in the other house, I went for a walk and there was a line of elephants passing by, circus elephants. About half an hour later I heard a commotion and went out to see. All three elephants were sitting on the ground and their keepers couldn’t make them move. About half an hour later, there was an earthquake. Another time there was an earthquake, I saw a cat clutching the ground.

Sarjit talked about one of the people coming to her house in West Vancouver to listen to K’s tapes. He was a wealthy businessman.

JS: Now his business is transplanting hair on bald heads (K laughed and laughed)

We had finished our meal and Sarjit was still eating because she was having trouble with her teeth.

JS (to SS): We have all finished eating and are just waiting for you.

K picked up a roll and began to eat it. I realized how inconsiderate I had been and how aware K had been of not hurting another. Later as we sat in the living room, K pointed out some whales in the ocean in front of the house.