From KB Jinan, Kerala

- What do learning societies mean to you now after attending the conference? What do you feel are the essential ideas underlying learning societies?

We must seek for knowledge that will sustain and continue life. Life of all living beings. The ego-centric knowledge after the 17^th century increasingly destroyed other forms of life. To the westerner to know means to conquer, to control. But for the indigenous people to know means to be blessed. Knowledge was always sacred which helps in sustaining and continuing life. One could access it with dedicated action and use it with wisdom. Knowledge in Natural learning process is like a sprouting seed. The way people build their settlements, adults deal with life has biological element. This is seen in the way various games children play in villages. All meant to make them true learners. There are games for sensitizing all the senses, balancing of the body, planning, coming to know of the life and environment around them .This biological element is visible even in their sense of beauty.

A learning society is one which is engaged in knowledge that will sustain life.  All the ecosystems knowledge people are engaged in this type of knowledge and by introducing modern knowledge they are being turned into carnivourous people like us.  Modern education is a criminal activity that will one day destroy the planet.

- What do you feel are the most important questions and issues to focus on if we wish to regenerate learning societies in South Asia?

Just the way by which natural farming is done by protecting the land the natural learning cultures should be protected and strengthened and at the same time we must involve in recovering our intuitive selves. This is definitely a spiritual process where each of us must take responsibility. Also one must engage with victims of modern knowledge and try to create ways by which they see sense.

- What are the next steps/activities that you think should be undertaken to help unfold learning societies in South Asia?

We must do dedicated work in the above mentioned three areas and create examples.

1) For instance protecting the ecosystems knowledge would involve creating self respect and worthiness in them about their knowledge so that they continue to practice it.We must make efforts to meet them and create confidence in them. definitely not the way in which Mr Anil Gupta is engaged in working with the indigenous innovations as those are typical responses of a do-gooder seeing things from western paradigm.  The setting up of Ayurvedic colleges in India has ensured the destruction of the very process of creating traditional knowledge.  One culture can not be protected by other cultures methods.

2) As we are engaged in understanding another way of knowing we have to acquire the tools needed for the same.  Intuition happens to be the tool and it can only be developed by deliberately engaging in non-intellectual experience.  I have developed a workshop called 'against the tyranny of reason' which is an attempt to re-look at our habits sensitising the senses etc.  Deliberate non-engagement with intellectualisation would help shift knowledge from head to heart.  Respond only if you are touched by what you hear.

3) Developing materials to create crises with people in the reason culture.  Of course this has to be non-intellectual materials.  For example when you interact with architects bring them to look at traditional and indigenous wisdom in dealing with building.  I remember reading a sloka in a traditional vaasthu book about the quality of materials.  It says that millions of years have taken for a rock to evolve.  So use it sparingly.  that is the reason why only temples were built using rock/granite.  There are no remnants of even palaces .I remember reading Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead where she mentions the following: 'He looked at the granite, to be cut, he thought and made in to walls.  He looked at a tree to be split and made into rafters, looked at the streak of rust on the stone, thought of the iron ore under, to be welded and emerge as girders against the sky, these are here for me ,waiting for the shape my hands will give them'

Such contrasting world views happens as you go through modern education.

Such materials are to be prepared contrasting with modern and indigenous world views and expose the educated to these by way of experiential methods.  I am already doing some work in this area and co operation is welcome.

 I purposely delayed writing my reactions to the meeting, hoping I would change my opinion.

Much before the meeting I had talked to many friends regarding this upcoming event with much excitement and so when they ask me how did it go I get a chance to respond to how I felt about the whole thing?

 That may be because I expected too much I feel quite disappointment both at the content and the method of conducting the workshop. Of course I did meet fantastic people and I did have chance to discuss some of the issues with them. But the 'meeting' was as I said earlier a disappointment. I did analysis why I felt this.

 To me the most urgent question is to recover our authentic/cultural world view so that the questions we raise are truly our own felt the frame work of the work shop was still very much western. My past 15 years of work was precisely to address this very problem.

Because unless we recover our roots even the questions we raise are invalid. About 6 years ago that I began questioning the so-called 'alternative' in India. Because I realized even here we are following the western framework to search for alternatives. I have met many people with good intentions in this period- in education, in environmental /ecological movement, in craft activism etc.

 All our notions are western. So the real problem is to shift this paradigm.

 It is extremely difficult. I did rise the issue of how to communicate during the pre-conference mails. The issue I raised was how to circumvent intellectual processes. I don't think this is possible by drawing, singing, open space etc.

 Let me re-state my concerns so that it is clear why I made this criticism.  We need to recover non-western ways of creating knowledge, which we have lost in the process of getting 'educated'.  All the people who have been left out of the modern western educational process are using this method.  Even the children in the 'educated' cultures use intuition as a means to learn.  We need to re define what is culture, what is knowledge, what is learning, what is development etc. Based on the non - western world view My past 20 years of trying to understand what is freedom, what is creativity, aesthetic sense, learning etc and having been living with rural/ tribal communities, observing and participating in their lives I have realized the following points.

 Indigenous and traditional communities have created knowledge that ensures the sustenance of life on the planet not just for the Europeans and their pets. But for all forms of life.

 I call this the natural learning process. Just as a tree bends to access the sunlight or a bird looks for an appropriate place to lay eggs.

 All forms of life access this knowledge for sustaining life.

 This knowledge has a biological element and is generated from the experience of authentic living and intuition in the tool for accessing this knowledge. Reason is used well with in the framework of wisdom, which prevents the creation of destructive knowledge.  This knowledge in the truly scientific, holistic and objective knowledge as nobody owns this knowledge. 

 Western knowledge can be called reason knowledge as opposed to the intuitive knowledge of the traditional communities which most of our grandparents possessed. One talks about self-expression where the other has selfless-expression. One uses non-renewable resources for living where as the other use renewable resources. One 'plans' their doom through "efficient planning and management" and the other plan for eternity.

 In this context what is a learning community? What is worth learning and how does on learn.

 We must seek for knowledge that will sustain and continue life. The egocentric knowledge after the 17^th century increasingly destroyed other forms of life. To the westerner to know means to conquer to control. But for the indigenous people to know means to be blessed. Knowledge was always sacred which helps in sustaining and continuing life. One could access it with dedicated action and use it with wisdom.

 Knowledge in Natural learning process is like a sprouting seed. The way people build their settlements; adults deal with life has biological element. This is seen in the way various game children play in villages. All meant to make them true learners. There are games for sensitizing all the senses, balancing of the body, planning, and coming to know of the life and environment around them. This biological element is visible even in their sense of beauty. I used to often wonder how does a potter arrive at a particular form. Obviously he is not using our ways of creating things

 What we need to do in this situation is to find our authentic self. To relocate oneself in a different cultural space where we begin to ask the right questions. This requires us to de-school, de- intellectualize to recover own intuitive and authentic self.

 In case we happened to work with rural/tribal communities we need to find ways of strengthening their ways of knowing. I do not know how much we are capable in helping them in any way; at least we could appreciate their ways instead of degrading them. For our sake we could try to learn their ways to knowing. But any intellectual exercise would be meaningless.

 The third option and the most urgent need is to work with the so called educated. Where we can create all the crises needed to make them question our way of living. On notions about development, knowledge etc. Again by non-intellectual process. The Buddhist monk Milerappa says spirituality is the last ploy of the mind. Intellectual process can only help in fooling ourselves from addressing the real issues. Modernity and the systems are about of thought and intellect. Solutions derived using these tools will only be further permutations and combinations of the old thought processes. Pardon my arrogance in suggesting so forcefully both the problems and the solutions. Let me know year response.

 I also foresee some of the dangers that can dilute this search. Funding organizations and NGOS should be kept out of this otherwise all the existing NFE (Non formal education) programs will be renamed as learning community and all the MSW's will learn how to make best proposals for funds.  Funds are required for this but alternative ways has to be looked at.