WHAT IS THE "WOMAN'S" PROBLEM?

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 124, 29 May 1939, Page 6

WHAT IS THE "WOMAN'S" PROBLEM?

Famous Philosopher Discourses On Life.

"Why the 'woman's* problem?" asked Mr. Krishnamurti this morning, arriving in Auckland in the Maripoaa. '"Surely there is only the one problem—the problem of living. There is only the human problem, the problem of men and women seeking happiness in living. Men's work, won en's work—why this divUiou where there i« only the one life to be lived?" This seems to be the central theme of Krishnamurti's philosophy. When asked a question he jumps into it like a child eager to explain a new enthusiasm. His eagerness radiates from him. When asked about the women's problem he drew his chair nearer the table. "There is life."' he said, illustrating with his small hand* a globe in which to encircle the whole of living and all its human activities, desires, emotions. "Why do you want to divide it? Races, classes, religions, sexes—by all these meant* we seek to divide this central reality with a thousand names. Blinded by the part, man never sees the whole, and eo we have 'women's' problems," he said. "But the bringing up of children, and those problems which come from the home T" "Ah—the child. But he is not the problem. Rather the parent presents the difficulties. Lett to itself a child is eager-to explore, to find out, to experience lor itself. But from the time it first walks outside into the mud it is told that if* must not get mud on its clean trousers. It is told that it must no do this, must not do that; until by the time that it. Ie twenty it is niouldec to conform to a preconceived pattern, am that which might have been original, creative, has become dulled. "A child must be taught to become critically aware of values," Krishnamurti said. "Then it will not accept what it reads, what it is told, ae the truth. It will attempt to find out, to question, to become honest; and so by this process, instead of the opposite one, it will develop and grow into who knows what stature?' , "Why do domestic and social problems arise?" Krishnamurti asked. "Because people all seek domination. Because they are epiritually, psychologically poor, they seek to impose their wills on others, and so there is confusion, conflict." The right food plays -its part in the business of living, Krishnamurti said. Food, freeh air, exercise—they all count, and what is called women's work is concerned with these things, as well as with . teaching—or rather developing— the right attitude to life in children.