Kolkata, 4 and 5 February, 2020: R.E. Mark Lee, former Executive Director of Krishnamurti Foundation America for twenty years and currently a trustee of both the America and India foundations, spent over 20 years working with the renowned world teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti. Most of Lee’s career was spent in Krishnamurti schools in India and America as a teacher and principal. He was the founding director of the Oak Grove School in Ojai, California.
On 4 February,2020, Mr Lee delivered a public talk in Kolkata on the ‘Challenges of working with Jiddu Krishnamurti’. Mr Lee said that for him, Krishnamurti acted as an ‘honest mirror’ through the years, gently guiding him toward a change in perception along his inner journey.
Krishnamurti was considered by many to be a modern day equivalent of the Buddha. While many might think it would be wonderful to live and work in close proximity with such a being, one cannot really understand what this means; how challenging this might be for ‘ordinary people’. Mark Lee provided a view of what being close-up and working together with such a human being meant, how it challenged one at every step and how it causes one to question ceaselessly
On 5 February,2020, Mr Lee addressed educators from various educational institutions and had an interaction with them. They explored many issues in education including the important question….can a school be a constantly questioning, evolving institution with the intent of bringing about a new human being, a new mind?
Mr Lee shared his perception of what a Krishnamurti school attempts to achieve. Krishnamurti often stated that the purpose of education is to bring about freedom, love, “the flowering of goodness” and the complete transformation of society. The deeper freedom of the psyche and the spirit, the inner liberation are both the means and the ends of education.
The programs with R E Mark Lee were recorded and are available on youtube as follows.
Public talk. Challenges of working with J Krishnamurti.
Public talk at Interaction with Educators.
Question-answer and dialogue with Educators.
