The Link #22 - Dear Friends

This is the first, and only, Link for the year 2002. In answer to my question last time about the value of The Link and whether it should be reduced from two issues per year to one, you sent many letters in support of not cutting things back. Thank you to all of you who gave your comments. Scheduling and financial constraints have played their part, however, so for this year at least there is only this single issue. Of course, there has now been longer to collect your letters and articles, and more K quotes and photographs have been requested, so it is in any case almost a double issue.

By the way, there is news for those who have expressed appreciation for the
photographs. There will soon be a new edition of The Beauty of the Mountain ,a small book of my recollections of Krishnamurti, including photographs of some of the places mentioned in it. I am also considering whether to print a book of quotations from Krishnamurti with photographs of nature, titled “Within and Without” .

On another topic, I wanted to let you know that, at the time that we printed
in The Link No.21 (pg.10) a full-page advertisement regarding the “9 –11 attack” taken (with permission) from the International Herald Tribune, we wrote to the author (Yoshiko Nomura) a letter that included the following. We received no direct reply. “One thing I wanted to question about your article is your saying that your proposal is inspired by the ancient spirit of Japan. As there are other ancient cultures that also had a feeling for unity and harmony, I wonder whether mentioning only one (if any needs to be mentioned at all) could lead to something other than unity. One of the pervasive factors of division has been this identification of the truth with people, time and place. It also tends towards the creation of ideals and idealism — certainly not the radical change in human consciousness that we agree is needed.”

Yet our main concern continues to be Brockwood Park School. We understand
that some readers query the emphasis on education and Brockwood in The Link, and there certainly are other very interesting topics approached in this issue with excellent articles. But it seems that the School at Brockwood needs to be brought to all our attentions again and again, so that it might receive the support it deserves. Even though there are other ‘alternative ’schools around the world, Brockwood is unique (even among K schools), and it sometimes looks like a salmon swimming against the current: it struggles. It needs to be known to more students and their parents, and it needs scholarship donations so that good students from poorer countries can
attend.

A friend with three children told me that her eldest, after having studied at Brockwood for two years and being generally fed up with schooling, advised her not to send his brother and sister there. Then, years later, he realised what he had learned and exclaimed that the best thing she could have done for him was to have sent him to Brockwood! Her wonderful letter follows.

This friend is lucky that she was able to send her three children to Brockwood. It seems hardly ever to occur that when one is interested in the teachings family members become interested too. I have some hope for my grandchildren, though. When I showed them the film about Brockwood Park School by the former Brockwood student Moses Merkle, they were quite interested. And when my five-year-old grandson saw a picture of K on a video box, he asked, “Is this the same man from the film?” I said yes, and he said, “Oh, he ’s everywhere, he must be famous.”