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Education the World Does Not Yet Know

 

February  14, 2004

  • Society is a living organism.
  • The sea is a nourishing continent that breeds life.
  • Society is a sea of nourishing human sensations that constantly inform, educate, organise and lead.
  • As there is no moment when we do not breathe, there is no moment when we do not learn.
  • The concept of education that we have is restricted to the formal mental training given to us in the school in several subjects. Of course, that is also education.
  • The pity or irony is one's capacity of education is mutilated, oppressed, and tyrannised into learning what is taught. Education is thus converted into conditioning.
  • It is not wrong for children to be conditioned at home, at school, at the work spot and the society at large. Till now it was necessary and inevitable in the circumstances. But that is not education.
  • A tiny seed sprouts into the wonder of a tree. When the seed is put into a bottle and all the requirements are pumped into it, the seed may sprout but will not grow into a tree. Plant a banyan tree in a pot and take the greatest care possible, its growth will be limited by the size of the pot.
  • We live in an ocean of humanity, known as society. In reality, society means to us the hundred or thousand people we relate to. Maybe for most it is only ten.
  • Man has the genius to shut himself into his shell of selfishness and feel cosy as long as his wants, rather his desires are fulfilled.
  • Man who does not know the society at large, and who does not have any intense feeling for it in these days of global media, cannot conceive of God who is vaster than the society. His God is his church or temple idol.
  • No wonder people do not conceive of education in its original native splendour.
  • The Individual Divine learning of the Transcendental Spirit is education proper. This is not an idea the world is familiar with.
  • After all, Man's highest instrument is Mind. His practical instrument is his body. He enjoys thinking with the mental element in his body. That is known as efficiency when organised. That is at the basis of science today.
  • At present, we see the West has emphasized understanding in preference to memorisation. That is great. But that understanding has not yet risen to thinking.
  • The history of civilisation can be written as the record of progress in education:

1. Man's physical body learned to survive by vital sensation. That was the inheritance from his animal ancestors.

2. He lived in herds of men. He learned to value collective security. Education of vital sensation to preserve the vital body is upgraded over centuries from Individual preservation to collective security.

3. The collective security gave the pride of place to physical prowess. Its other side was to destroy the weak, even if it is his own children. This is organised physical  strength.

4. The physical coming into its own has thrown up the leadership of a brute. The behaviour of a brute, the cruelty of the malicious, the tyranny of the vulgar became the culture of the period. Physical strength becomes crude culture.

5. The physical withdrew into the immediate rear, giving place to vital pride that went along with ostentatious splendour. When the line is crossed by the equilibrium, brutality rises in full. The physical with its splendour of cruelty lies in wait just below the surface.

6. Pardon becomes a way of life. Prior to that, physical punishment remains but the victim is allowed to choose the mode of punishment. Crude physical acquires the 'magnanimity' of mitigation.

7. Fairness emerged in the physical crudeness - Duel came into existence. Fairness of the physical establishes its own superiority.

8. Duel is abolished in law, but flourished under the surface.Physical duel gives place to vital annihilation without any semblance of right, good or honour.

9. Parliamentary democracy was the first occasion to replace might by right - the right of the ignorant.Today parliaments are irrational, vulgar, crude, and false. Still, this is the best available. To know their true character and suffer them is wisdom. To honour them is foolish.

10. The progress of the English language as expected of a gentleman has anticipated all the levels of progress mind has to go through for another thousand years. Nothing in the world appears suddenly. Its true beginning is the beginning of creation.

11. Till 500 or 400 years ago, education meant experience, experience of age, except for the royalty and top echelon of aristocracy. This is the first discovery of descent.

12. To extend it even a little, the physical of the collectivity had to give up its possessiveness and recognise the reality of others' existence. Selfishness relents, cracks show up.

13. Selfishness upgrades from vital selfishness to mental selfishness. It means those who approve of your idea are your friends. Broadening selfishness into possible semblance of selflessness.

14. Reason is coordinating intelligence. It is ego. To know reason is the knowledge of Ego is worldly wisdom.

15. Intellectuality is efficient ego, going by the name of Reason. Intellectuality is inert, is an efficient bar to knowledge.

16. Knowledge begins with insight and intuition. It matures when the intuition transfers itself from outside to inside. It is supramental intuition. To it there is no evil.

The above 16 levels can be subdivided into 160 or 160,000 for practical purposes. Let us say they exist on a scale of 1 to 1000. Human knowledge is now at 7 or 10. The scientists are enamoured of Asat and are exploring the negative depths of existence believing that it is all existence. It is the privilege of folly. There is no education in the entire zone of science as it exists today.

  • Education is a process of descent. Experience is ascent.
  • Mind getting knowledge on its own and offering it to the vital and body is Education.
  • Education is the experience of thoughts that by their transparent depths reach the substance of the Mind so that it can powerfully move the body to action.

Experience is Education.

Education is the Experience of the Mind.

Skill is the experience of the body.

  • Knowledge is above, not below.
  • Knowledge is the expression of light in the Mind.
  • Light is the aspect of Spirit in consciousness.
  • Consciousness is the conscious experience of Being.
  • Being is the Self of Existence.
  • Below are the body, vital and Mind each with an element or understanding.
  • Body understands by the repeated movements remembered.
  • Vital understands by the success or failure of its impact.
  • Mind understands sensation and thought.
  • Conception is the highest function of Mind.
  • Conception in Silence opens subtle planes. It makes one precocious or even a prodigy.
  • Conception changes into vision by the mind transcending Silence.
  • Mind giving up the media of Silence, light, etc., enables you to get direct knowledge which is Intuition.
  • Intuition is the plane of Genius.
  • Genius belongs to one aspect of the myriad-faced knowledge which is one of the 12 aspects of the Spirit.
  • Just now we need not go beyond Spirit to Sat, and Absolute.

The experience of the Rishis and all those who have made a little progress in yoga is that Education is a descent of knowledge from above into the mind. What we call education is the descent of information, skill, capacity down to the body for it to act upon. Looking for knowledge in Matter, Life, or by scholarly research is like refusing to use the telephone directory and going about collecting individual telephone numbers. To say the least, it is worship of blindness.

This scale is broad. In the last one hundred years, general education has moved in horizontal expansion and not in vertical growth of quality. On a scale of 1 to 1000, one hundred years has succeeded in moving education from point 7 to point 8, from memorisation to understanding. India, in view of the inner light, has the opportunity to jump to 80 from point 3 if only she links the present to the potential of the past heritage. If all the progressive schools in India, about 100 or 500 of them, understand the above truth, overnight they can devise a method for implementation. I can do it readily if anyone wants it. Should any school fulfill the prerequisites and need a syllabus for Spiritual education, it can be readily supplied.

  • A question arises, what are the prerequisites?
  • Children should not be taught, should be encouraged to learn on their own.
  • No discipline of any kind is to be imposed, except that which is required by hygiene and safety.
  • Scolding or abusing or threatening is child abuse.
  • No attempt should be made to evaluate the level of learning.
  • Comparison is odious, ranking is rankling.
  • A teacher who is unable to see that all children are equal should not be employed. All children are learning from the environment all the time. The teacher is superstitious to wish to condition the child to learn what he teaches.
  • Teachers should know that teaching is a process of their learning.
  • Facts and information can be given. There is no harm. To consider that as knowledge is stupid.
  • What the child learns is to organise its personality and all the facts, information, and ideas go to that organisation.
  • No teacher who does not understand her own personality can be a teacher, as she will not see the personality of the child.
  • How to protect the child from the dark influence of the parent is learnt by knowing the measure of the teacher's inner darkness.
  • Teaching is not education, as the waves are not the ocean.

To link the Spiritual heritage of India to Indian education is a stupendous task not attempted till now. When the Government gets a few billion dollars from the World Bank and wants to build bridges and roads around your village, one should not protest that several acres of land will be acquired. Indians make public places dirty and filthy, are unable to stand in a line, unable to resist corruption, have no shame in pestering others for help, are unashamed of looking to the Government for all kinds of help. All this must be scrapped in toto. It is not going to be done in one day. Give education, all this will become less day by day.

The New Organisation is ready. People must want it.

  • The greatest practical value of this scale is that when the country moves two or three points on the scale, even  at the level of one point, education will undergo a great revolution. This is lost sight of by the world today.
  • If one compares the best and worst schools in the same town, the difference will be just discipline. Take a nationally known school and other schools. Comparing them, you will find in the best schools they will teach all the lessons and in the other school much of the syllabus will be uncovered.
  • Take the most extraordinary school in the country, compare it with an ordinary school. There will be no absolute difference except in discipline, teaching, coaching, thoroughness in execution. Where is the question of rising one point or three points?
  • Indian educationists are capable, well informed. They can design any system easily to suit the nation. They must know what is possible and that it is reachable. Then such a system can readily be created. It will take India sky-high in one generation. Prosperity, productivity, and creativity are inclusive in this system. What is necessary is the preparation of the mind of educationists, educational administrators, parents and the public at large. One or several good schools can achieve it.

The belief in the superiority of the Western system rules. Indians are aware of rituals, slokas, mantras. They do not know what Spirituality is and what it is capable of when it expresses through life. It is unknown to the world. Examples are not there. If there are any, they are like a flash of lightning and will not hold true or real in an unformed Mind. To do that is the work of a spiritual pioneer.

The Western system of education can produce and has produced wonderful technology. It is a system that organises arch Ignorance. Ours is no education. It is aping those who are groping. Our knowledge does not exist in science as it is practised today. We know all that a man achieves emanates from his mind, not from his external experience. The West has made the cardinal error of mistaking the effect for cause. Where does the Genius, be it Ramanujam or Einstein get his knowledge? It comes from inside.

  • Today we give training. What does it mean? The hands and the body are taught to express what the mind knows.
  • Beyond the Mind lies the Soul and Supermind.
  • To devise a system that teaches the Mind what the Soul knows is what I advocate. Sakuntala has an ability, but she can't transmit it to others.
  • Mother has Supramental Knowledge. She constantly gave it to us. It is all in writing. First She gives the results. Now we have to know the process by which She gave it to us. It is the Mystery. Beyond lies the essence which is Supermind or Brahman in Supermind.
  • All of us have copiously received the results of prayer but never bothered to learn the process.
  • The process is utter Truthfulness in all aspects of life and its perfect expression in every minute of our existence.
  • All human ways are false. Rituals of every kind are organised falsehood in the subtle plane with the darkness strengthened. Rituals, festivals, vital dissipations are the centre of our lives today.

Can you give it up totally?

Do you see they are dark forces?

Are you enamoured of Light and Peace?

Do you see they express the Spirit?

Do you see when Light expresses in life, the finite life expands to its original Infinity of Spirit.

The West is actively and childishly organising the Ignorant darkness intensely.

As the world is run by inconscient energy, their success shines out.

The Rishis gave up life daunted by the fight against darkness.

Sri Aurobindo has brought the Superconscient down to transform the subconscient into Divine Light.

Make one experiment in Life. Stand by that result.

That is Education.

It is near at hand.

The world will gratefully receive it when we practise it.

  • Education is discussed here in the sense of what is given by the school. It is like considering Bay of Bengal from Pondicherry.
  • Of course, Education is always meant to be confined to the school.
  • To know it from first principles, one needs to know it in its wider context.

Education is a process of learning.

There is nothing in the world that does not constantly learn.

Learning is an activity of the Mind.

Mind is a portion of the being.

What is learning is not the Mind only, but the entire Being.

The origin of Being is Existence.

Existence is evolving.

Therefore, Education is the Evolution of the Being in Mind.

  • The question is how to abridge the wide universal existence into a narrow framework of a school syllabus, teachers' personalities, child's refractoriness, and the entrenched prejudice of the parents.
  • The rule is for one who knows the Essence, it is possible to let the infinite emerge out of the finite. The same analogy in the reverse can compress the Infinite into the finite. What is required is not merely the Essence, but the process of converting the one into the other.
  • Also, for a perceptive eye, there are things found in the society in a million forms. One needs to observe and infer the result.
  • The Overmental uniqueness lies in the fact that knowledge of the process in one place is of no value in another place. One needs to develop the special process everywhere suitable for the occasion.
  • The Presence of Essence, the ready presentation of the Process, the alert adaptation to the occasion are all made possible by one being in that plane - the Supramental plane.
  • One can always rise to those heights.
  • It can achieve one result, for one time.
  • For that to be permanent, one needs to move there.
  • Mother gives the result, that is, the touch of the plane first.
  • We quickly revert to mushika and are enamoured of marrying a rat.
  • The token experiment is of great value.
  • Its permanent possession is only the beginning.
  • Beyond lies the evolution of the Supermind.

Organisation Required

Without Hardy, Ramanujam would not have been known to the world. Ramanujam had an original talent. Hardy's contact brought it out to the world. In Ramanujam, the mathematical talent was on the surface. Hardy could readily recognise it. When Mother says Light is in our bodies, it means the same talent Ramanujam had in mathematics (talents are of several types - spiritual, musical, architectural and of every conceivable condition) is latent in the bodies of every Indian. Ramanujam would have been the butt end of ridicule for scribbling hieroglyphics all the time, had his genius not been recognised. Spiritual abilities come to the surface in utter Truthfulness and with all the strategies that it needs - freedom, soft behaviour; absence of tricks, stiffness, reliance on practically useful small methods and so on.  In other words, a family or school should be cultured in the extreme in their existence and beliefs.  Today our behaviour, culture, manners, and particularly our beliefs encourage vicious beings to control our lives.  Rituals are an important part of it.

   Our whole life should move to the centre of the evolving Spirit and express itself through spiritual values. It is my perception that such geniuses are there in India - one in a hundred thousand population. Imagine the rich abundance of talents in all fields rising from where we are to the level of genius which is itself the lowest member of the Spiritual hierarchy. Our system of education should be able to bring it about. There are two organised enemies to such an effort, 1) the teachers; 2) the parents.  In the scheme of things, we can begin with copious information, go to skills, develop capacities, offer abilities and then wait for the social milieu to cease being hostile to the emergence of the Spirit. At least in rural areas people directly rely on small vital spirits. In the urban areas people heavily resort to black magic. Socially, gossip, especially vicious gossip, richly serves this purpose. People are of low consciousness. The improvement education brings is very little. Values are absent. Spiritual values are not only absent, the prevalence of anti-spiritual values is abundant.

   Characteristics of different functional levels:

1) An argument, rather the urge for the argument is the effort to overcome the organised effectivity of the rival's argument by reason.

2) The same tussle goes on in Silence at the higher mental level.

3) He who has seen a higher truth taunts the other about the rational validity of his vision, knowing the other man won't lie, unless he is rooted in self-deception.

4) Intuition too can be right or wrong.

5) Pure knowledge, coexisting with Ignorance, can always be tricked by Ignorance as Ignorance is a higher power than knowledge.

6) Outer intuition shifting to the inner cannot generate conflicts, but is informed by harmony. Hence, the importance of Harmony in life.

7) In life and matter, the rules are the same but the conflict and contradictions are more pronounced.

8) In vital life, Man celebrates his triumph over the weak rival and claims it as Reason. The wonder is that the world endorses it.

9) In Matter, the difference matures into stark contradiction. As Matter has no self-being, the being considers it as self and raises falsehood to the high pedestal of Truth. The public, by a strange logic, not only ignores the falsehood of a corrupt politician, but credits him with great honesty. When they know he is undeniably corrupt, they quickly come to an argument that fully justifies it.

10) Today in the field of international science, diplomacy, politics, trade and human relationships, you find all these versions, as the issue gains in significance.

11) What the world does, though not immaterial to us, is something we can discard.

12) How can we be different from the world, being a product of the world?

13) When we want to consciously lead the subconscious world, our becoming conscious is our capacity to stand out.

14) To know the Truth from falsehood is to be conscious among the unconscious.

15) Who is a pioneer? Who is an entrepreneur of the Spirit?

16) The Spirit is the subjective state of Truth that is objective.

17) Maya retains the Oneness when the One becomes the many.

18) The subjective and objective are not two different states.

19) They unite at a substratum which retains the unity of the Absolute.

20) Wherever you are - from Sat to Matter - the capacity to retain the unity is the capacity to educate.

21) That teacher who fully gives himself to the child is a Teacher.



story | by Dr. Radut