Teaching teenagers to find out their hidden talents

hesperides

The Living Force
FOTCM Member
I´ve found this interesting video where Jiddu Krishnamurti teaches teens to use their brains and discover the most important things in human life, namely their own talents. He doesn´t make use of the current biased academic way of forcing stuff into students´memory, which is indeed much welcome and refreshing, but is instead using clear examples in plain language of what the social pressure and corruption of this world might entail for their future life if they don´t learn how to think for themselves.


https://youtu.be/ld60IQ3jxw0

And here I couldn´t resist to put what one of the youtube subscriber wrote about the video. There´re so many childish and aggravating presumptions therein that it quite boggles my mind, even so after witnessing all the craziness spreading over the globe.

What a nasty, dominant man, forbidding youngsters to express themselves while he is repeating himself endlessly. They have understood it already what he meant. Are the Indian men and women always so demeaning towards those who are younger? He cuts them short with his word "I am speaking no" i.e. shut up. He is frightening, but Great!
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I watched about 20 mins of the video and have somewhat different take on it. I think the content and delivery style are not suitable for teenagers. I agree with one of the commenters who wrote as follows:

I'm not too sure this is a very good talk for children. I don't feel it is engaging or connected to children's interests in a very direct way.- The conversation style here is maybe appropriate for adults, but this kind of verbal, conceptual and non-interactive interaction with children is highly ineffective.

I also found that he wandered from one thing to another without really focusing on anything. It might be because he tried to make it more comprehensible for the children, but not very successfully, IMO.

Overall, the talk brings to my mind the picture of a grandpa trying hard to impart his wisdom to the children, who are forced to listen, but there is an insurmountable generation gap in between.
 
Thank you Hesperides! I like it very much. Indian youngs are very different from young people from Occident. Indian young people are educated to respect seniors and I suppose they know that when an old person talks and tried to teach you something it is important. How different from the young people from America or Europe.

I think he is very clear, his language is very appropiate for the young that are with him. Krishnamurti likes to repeat his ideas, to be clearer and clearer. He does the same thing when writing. It is sometimes like a mantra. To be clear and to be undestood at what you try to teach you need sometimes to repeat and repeat. His objective is to wake up something inside them, like putting a little seed in their heart.
 
Well, I watched only 5 minutes of it, but also not sure how effective this talk is. For example, he talked about finding your own talent (either painting or sculpturing, etc.) and then concentrating on it, instead of becoming a general or a doctor, as the family or society may dictate. And one child asked, what if one becomes a general that also paints (on his free time). And Krishnamurti replied that it won't do, because you have to concentrate on one thing. Well, what about Caesar! :P

Or what about a more recent example. Behold the Russian Defense Minister, Sergey Shoigu:

0b49a49950c0f6.png


The bottom line is, there are many nuances, like duty and responsibility. Indian people with their strict cast rules should definitely understand it. ;) So I find it strange that he teaches them something like this, and then we have in the news cases like young people being severely beaten by their families because they chose to marry outside their cast. They tried to go outside the norms of their family, and see where it got them.

Sorry if it has nothing to do with talent, but these things should also be explained. And people indeed can become someone, do their job well, and also have hobbies.

But, hey, I watched only 5 minutes of the talk, so maybe he does cover all these things. :)

As for saying a child to "shut up", teachers in Russia also often says to students that this is their turn to speak. It does teach children to be patient and respectful.
 
I was a bit put off from the video. In general I'm not a fan of guru-speak or melodic talking. It often comes across to me as insincere and raises flags. There are a few people that come to mind, like JFK and MLK, who were able to use rhetoric and their oratory skills for good, but such ability matched with sincerity is fairly rare, imo. The ironic thing is that during his life, Krishnamurti apparently spoke against gurus and the social structures they created, yet it seems to me that is pretty much what he created in the West. He also comes across as a bit post-modern and lacking in substance. The kids raised valid concerns and issues, and his answers weren't all that satisfying, at least for me. Of course people should pursue their talents, but that also doesn't mean doing whatever you like and throwing off the 'shackles' of responsibility.
 
He's not speaking to the children in the video, he's speaking at them, so I doubt what he said would have gotten through. I've only watched the first 6 minutes, and I agree with Bobo08, it's a talk for adults, not children. Maybe a seed was planted at some level, but it would be difficult to tell what that was or how it would effect them later on. Something could be said about the difference between Indian and Western culture, but here's a presentation from Nick Vucijic aimed at teenagers that really resonates because he relates to and explains life's struggles at their level, rather than expecting them to understand abstract or conceptual ideas that might not even be on their radar.


https://youtu.be/q2tqKCoS2-w
 
Krishnamurti has its own way of teaching the kind of strict and rude but fair and right, the children seem to not be so much touch or receptive, they have more questions than answer, it contrasts with Vucijic who make them laugh in presenting himself, and it functions with it from a biological perspective. Though Krishnamurti seem the grandfather that love his children and teach them the right way from his point of view, it fits more with a monastic teaching. Learning to be silent and meditating is not for all children even if in India with the presence of religion and their peaceful reputation it will be more accepted. Vucijic plays its show and it works, but in my opinion it will not be last long in term of seeding something, it will depend on the personality of the child.
 
Nico said:
Though Krishnamurti seem the grandfather that love his children and teach them the right way from his point of view, it fits more with a monastic teaching. Learning to be silent and meditating is not for all children even if in India with the presence of religion and their peaceful reputation it will be more accepted. Vucijic plays its show and it works, but in my opinion it will not be last long in term of seeding something, it will depend on the personality of the child.

You know, maybe I was a bit too quick to judge Krishnamurti. My grandfather is from India and he would often sit me down and tell me stories about his grandfather who was exactly the same way. The children would gather around and listen quietly - and even though he could be strict about the children making any noise, from what my grandfather says, he was also learned and kind too. He left such a strong impression on my grandpa that he still, after 70+ years still talks fondly about those times spent in the study and what advice was given to him. But when I first started watching the video hesperides posted I thought Krishnamurti was trying to be a little too abstract, whereas Vucijic's presentation was more emotionally appealing to me, and I still think more down to earth in explanations. At the very least I saw that video years ago, and some parts have still stayed with me ever since, even though I often forget! Anyways, here's a quote from Meetings with Remarkable Men where Father Giovanni talks about how the quality of the speaker also effects how the person listening responds to what's being said. Hopefully it's not veering too far off from what the original intention of this thread.

Father Giovanni! I cannot understand how you can calmly stay here instead of returning to Europe, at least to your own country Italy, to give the people there if only a thousandth part of this all-penetrating faith which you are now inspiring in me.

'Eh! My dear Professor', replied Father Giovanni, 'it is evident that you do not understand man's psyche as well as you understand archaeology.

Faith cannot be given to man. Faith arises in a man and increases in action in him not as the result of automatic learning, that is, not from any automatic ascertainment of height, breadth, thickness, form and weight, or from the perception of anything by sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste, but from understanding.

Understanding is the essence obtained from information intentionally learned and from all kinds of experiences personally experienced.

For example, if my own beloved brother were to come to me here at this moment and urgently entreat me to give him merely a tenth part of my understanding, and if I myself wished with my whole being to do so, yet I could not, in spite of my most ardent desire, give him even the thousandth part of this understanding, have quite accidentally acquired and lived through my life.

No, Professor, it is a hundred times easier, as it is said in the Gospels, "for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle" than for anyone to give to another the understanding formed in him about anything whatsoever.

I formerly also thought as you do and even chose the activity of a missionary in order to teach everyone faith in Christ. I wanted to make everyone happy as I myself felt from faith in the teaching of Jesus Christ. But to wish to do that, so to say, grafting faith on by words is just like wishing to fill someone with bread merely by looking at him.

Understanding is acquired, as I have already said, from the totality of information intentionally learned and from personal experiencings; whereas knowledge is only the automatic remembrance of words in a certain sequence.

Not only is it impossible, even with all one's desire, to give to another one's own inner understanding, formed in the course of life from the said factors, but also, as I recently establish with certain other brothers of our monastery, there exists a law that the quality of what is perceived by anyone when another person tells him something, either for his knowledge or his understanding, depends on the quality of the data formed in the person speaking.

To help you understand what I have just said, I will cite as an example the fact which aroused in us the desire to make investigations and led us to the discovery of this law.

I must you that in our brotherhood there are two very old brethren; one is called Ahl and the other Brother Sez. These brethren have voluntarily taken the obligation of periodically visiting all the monasteries of our order and explaining various aspects of the essence of divinity.

Our brotherhood has four monasteries, one of them ours, the second in the valley of Pamir, the third in Tibet, and the fourth in India. And so these brethren, Ahl and Sez, constantly travel from one monastery to another and preach there.

They come to us once or twice a year. Their arrival at our monastery is considered among us a very great event. On the days when either of them is here, the soul of every one of us experiences pure heavenly pleasure and tenderness.

The sermons of these two brethren, who are to an almost equal degree holy men and who speak the same truths, have nevertheless a different effect on all our brethren and on me in particular.

When Brother Sez speaks, it is indeed like the song of the birds in Paradise, from what he says one is quite, so to say, turned inside out; one becomes as though entranced. His speech "purls" like a stream and one no longer wishes anything else in life but to listen to the voice of Brother Sez.

But Brother Ahl's speech has almost the opposite effect. He speaks badly and indistinctly, evidently because of his age. No one knows how old he is. Brother Sez is also very old - it is said three hundred years old - but he is still a hale old man, whereas in Brother Ahl the weakness of old age is clearly evident.

The stronger the impression made at the moment by the words of Brother Sez, the more this impression evaporates, until there ultimately remains in the hearer nothing at all.

But in the case of Brother Ahl, although at first what he says makes almost no impression, later, the gist of it takes on a whole definite form, more and more each day, and is instilled as a whole into the heart and remains there for ever.


When we became aware of this and began trying to discover why it was so, we came to the unanimous conclusion that the sermons of Brother Sez proceeded only from his mind, and therefore acted on our minds, whereas those of Brother Ahl proceeded from his being and acted on our being.

Yes, Professor, knowledge and understanding are quite different. Only understanding can lead to being, whereas knowledge is but a passing presence in it. New knowledge displaces the old and the result is, as it were, a pouring from the empty into the void.
 
Thank you Turgon, it clarify the differences between teachings, even if I'm eager to LIVE such teachings, living the repercursion, if open, of someone who truly offer himself seems to be quite profound. I was and am observing that I'm very focused on the image of myself, scratching only the microsurface. I have the impression to just begin to form my mind as brother Sez mastered it. It seems nonetheless a necessary pass and I have someone in mind : Sadhguru and his "yoga technology" serving to quiet and stabilize what he calls the four fondation of the human apparatus.

_http://isha.sadhguru.org/inner-engineering-online/

His communication skills seems perfect for westerners as he speaks the word "technology" who catched the attention of the overdevelopped mental and direct it toward a more conscious developpment of the human apparatus at first. I love using the sound of my voice and letting it resonates in my body, it allows me to stay in a one focus dimension, and with a healthy practice. Someone as brother Sez seems to have mastered this kind of techniques but it's only on surface yet a little more profound than the predator interests. I noticed from Krishnamurti the touching of the hands of the child near him, and his calm biological vibration if I may call this what I perceived. Rightful being : i.e. nothing in excess is the essence of someone as Krishnamurti and this talks through him.

To make the link between being right and only practicing a healthy practice such as yoga, we can listen this video :

_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chPBmSzvStQ
 
I tend to agree with those who criticize Krishnamurti's insistence that one should only pursue one's talent. I don't know of any rule that says every person's talent is capable of keeping them alive by itself. And I don't see that dying for your talent is necessarily less tragic than "dying inside" for your career. I suppose it depends on many factors.

Krishnamurti's description of "talent" seems biased towards creative activities in the artistic sense, and doesn't seem very down to earth. What about responsibility? What if someone let's their brother die because they would rather pursue their art than get a job? The question of how to nurture our essential nature doesn't seem so simple to me.

That said, in some ways I found this video refreshing in the sense that it holds some reminders about what I think is important in life. And I think in some ways his method of delivery may help the children develop the skill of really paying attention and trying to understand what is said. I do worry about the consequences of some of his statements being taken as literally as he delivered them.

I think much of what Jordan Peterson has said about creativity applies to this topic regarding talents. The following two videos stand out as relevant counterpoints to what krishnamurti said.


https://youtu.be/l_CtJ6bRWgM


https://youtu.be/ba_vdTdpxQg
 
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