Why Spiritualize Education?

Education to be complete must have five principal aspects relating to the five principal activities of the human being: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual.

THE MOTHER

It is widely accepted, at least in principle, that education should address not just the mind but also the body. In practice, however, the body is generally neglected because ‘time is not enough to cover the syllabus’, and we do a rather poor job of educating even the mind. But even the best education of the body and the mind is still incomplete education. Complete education, or integral education, should address all parts of the being – not just the body and the mind, but also the spirit. This raises at least three questions: why that is necessary, how it can be done, and whether it can be done.

Why is it necessary?

Perfect education of the child’s body and the mind, if successful, will give us an adult who is physically fit, emotionally stable, and intellectually agile. Such an individual has the basic equipment necessary for becoming a good teacher, a good doctor, a good engineer, a good scientist, a good farmer, or a good manager. But it is exactly the same attributes that are necessary also for becoming a ‘good’ terrorist. Unless the terrorist is physically fit, emotionally stable, and intellectually agile, he will not be able to plan or execute a successful attack. After all, the body and the mind are mere instruments. Perfecting an instrument is never enough. A sharp knife can cut a fruit as well as the finger better than a blunt knife. Therefore our system of education should be designed not only to sharpen the body and the mind, but also to help the child learn how to put these sharpened instruments to good use. That is why education is incomplete if it addresses only the body and the mind; what completes it is the spiritual element.

How can it be done?

One way in which schools sometimes try to address the spiritual element is by including moral education as a subject. This is not the best approach for a variety of reasons. First, nobody, not even a child, likes to be told what to do, or what not to do. Secondly, any set of dos and don’ts is somewhat arbitrary – it cannot be valid for all times and at all places. Thirdly, even a comprehensive set of dos and don’ts is always incomplete because it cannot anticipate all the situations in which a person might have to take moral decisions. Finally, once moral education becomes a subject in the curriculum, the focus shifts from morality to clearing an examination. One of the best approaches is not to treat this aspect of education as an add-on, but as something that is woven into the system. Using the body-mind complex appropriately involves making choices. The best choice is based on the guidance that emanates from the deepest part of the being, which we may call the spiritual part of the being: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have called it the psychic being. Making a choice based on the voice of the psychic being gives a sense of joy, and leads to lasting mental peace. Making a choice that is in conflict with this voice leads to a sense of guilt, a sense of uneasiness. Thus the psychic being is an in-built reward and punishment system. Making the child conscious of this in-built system is the crux of addressing ‘the spirit’ in school education. This is in marked contrast to the prevalent tendency to reward the child for doing the right thing, and even more commonly, to punish the child for doing the wrong thing. The message that this tendency sends is that the purpose of not doing what is wrong is to escape getting punished by the teacher or the parent, and in later life, by the law-enforcing agencies. In other words, one may do anything so long as nobody is watching. Even when nobody is watching, God is. The all-seeing God is within us, and that is why the person feels uneasy after doing something wrong. This is what the child has to learn to appreciate. And it is easy for the child to appreciate it because the psychic being is wide open in children. All it needs is the right environment. The right environment has a few components. First, everything good that the child does should be encouraged, be it lifting up a friend who has fallen in the playground, or sharing food with a classmate who has forgotten her lunchbox at home, or putting the right way up a struggling upside-down insect. Secondly, when a child has done something wrong – be it unintentional, accidental or deliberate – the child should be able to summon the courage to confess the mistake. This will happen only if the child is sure that confession will not invite punishment. An environment in which a fault confessed is not punished builds up the habit of speaking the truth. The aim in such a situation should be to lead the child towards appreciating the burden that the child felt till she had confessed, and the relief and joy that the confession brought. Last, but most important, the children should also see the teacher doing what she expects from them. What the teacher does has a much greater influence on the children than what she says.

Can it be done?

Doing what has been outlined above is an ideal that has been translated into reality. The Mother took charge of running Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry in 1926, but at that time there were hardly any children in the Ashram. But in the early 1940s, enough children had entered to prompt the Mother to open a school for children in 1943. The school brought out the educationist in the Mother, and the above discussion gives a mere glimpse of the system of integral education that she established there. The school has grown into an institution that provides education from kindergarten to college level, and was named ‘Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education’ by the Mother in 1959. The Centre has not only given a practical shape to the concept of integral education visualized by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, but has also inspired a very large number of institutions all over the world, including The Mother’s International School and Mirambika in New Delhi. Integral education not only addresses all aspects of the being, but also facilitates the flowering of the full potential of the child.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

The Mother arrived in Pondicherry for the second time on 24 April 1920, and stayed there till she left her body in 1973.

Why Spiritualize Education?

Education to be complete must have five principal aspects relating to the five principal activities of the human being: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual.

THE MOTHER

It is widely accepted, at least in principle, that education should address not just the mind but also the body. In practice, however, the body is generally neglected because ‘time is not enough to cover the syllabus’, and we do a rather poor job of educating even the mind. But even the best education of the body and the mind is still incomplete education. Complete education, or integral education, should address all parts of the being – not just the body and the mind, but also the spirit. This raises at least three questions: why that is necessary, how it can be done, and whether it can be done.

Why is it necessary?

Perfect education of the child’s body and the mind, if successful, will give us an adult who is physically fit, emotionally stable, and intellectually agile. Such an individual has the basic equipment necessary for becoming a good teacher, a good doctor, a good engineer, a good scientist, a good farmer, or a good manager. But it is exactly the same attributes that are necessary also for becoming a ‘good’ terrorist. Unless the terrorist is physically fit, emotionally stable, and intellectually agile, he will not be able to plan or execute a successful attack. After all, the body and the mind are mere instruments. Perfecting an instrument is never enough. A sharp knife can cut a fruit as well as the finger better than a blunt knife. Therefore our system of education should be designed not only to sharpen the body and the mind, but also to help the child learn how to put these sharpened instruments to good use. That is why education is incomplete if it addresses only the body and the mind; what completes it is the spiritual element.

How can it be done?

One way in which schools sometimes try to address the spiritual element is by including moral education as a subject. This is not the best approach for a variety of reasons. First, nobody, not even a child, likes to be told what to do, or what not to do. Secondly, any set of dos and don’ts is somewhat arbitrary – it cannot be valid for all times and at all places. Thirdly, even a comprehensive set of dos and don’ts is always incomplete because it cannot anticipate all the situations in which a person might have to take moral decisions. Finally, once moral education becomes a subject in the curriculum, the focus shifts from morality to clearing an examination. One of the best approaches is not to treat this aspect of education as an add-on, but as something that is woven into the system. Using the body-mind complex appropriately involves making choices. The best choice is based on the guidance that emanates from the deepest part of the being, which we may call the spiritual part of the being: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have called it the psychic being. Making a choice based on the voice of the psychic being gives a sense of joy, and leads to lasting mental peace. Making a choice that is in conflict with this voice leads to a sense of guilt, a sense of uneasiness. Thus the psychic being is an in-built reward and punishment system. Making the child conscious of this in-built system is the crux of addressing ‘the spirit’ in school education. This is in marked contrast to the prevalent tendency to reward the child for doing the right thing, and even more commonly, to punish the child for doing the wrong thing. The message that this tendency sends is that the purpose of not doing what is wrong is to escape getting punished by the teacher or the parent, and in later life, by the law-enforcing agencies. In other words, one may do anything so long as nobody is watching. Even when nobody is watching, God is. The all-seeing God is within us, and that is why the person feels uneasy after doing something wrong. This is what the child has to learn to appreciate. And it is easy for the child to appreciate it because the psychic being is wide open in children. All it needs is the right environment. The right environment has a few components. First, everything good that the child does should be encouraged, be it lifting up a friend who has fallen in the playground, or sharing food with a classmate who has forgotten her lunchbox at home, or putting the right way up a struggling upside-down insect. Secondly, when a child has done something wrong – be it unintentional, accidental or deliberate – the child should be able to summon the courage to confess the mistake. This will happen only if the child is sure that confession will not invite punishment. An environment in which a fault confessed is not punished builds up the habit of speaking the truth. The aim in such a situation should be to lead the child towards appreciating the burden that the child felt till she had confessed, and the relief and joy that the confession brought. Last, but most important, the children should also see the teacher doing what she expects from them. What the teacher does has a much greater influence on the children than what she says.

Can it be done?

Doing what has been outlined above is an ideal that has been translated into reality. The Mother took charge of running Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry in 1926, but at that time there were hardly any children in the Ashram. But in the early 1940s, enough children had entered to prompt the Mother to open a school for children in 1943. The school brought out the educationist in the Mother, and the above discussion gives a mere glimpse of the system of integral education that she established there. The school has grown into an institution that provides education from kindergarten to college level, and was named ‘Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education’ by the Mother in 1959. The Centre has not only given a practical shape to the concept of integral education visualized by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, but has also inspired a very large number of institutions all over the world, including The Mother’s International School and Mirambika in New Delhi. Integral education not only addresses all aspects of the being, but also facilitates the flowering of the full potential of the child.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

The Mother arrived in Pondicherry for the second time on 24 April 1920, and stayed there till she left her body in 1973.

MUST WE DIE TO BE IN HEAVEN?

Heaven we have possessed, but not the earth; but the fullness of the Yoga is to make, in the formula of the veda, 'Heaven and Earth equal and one'

SRI AUROBINDO

The lead article in the 16 April 2012 issue of the Time magazine is ‘Heaven on Earth’. In this article, the author, Jon Meacham, has discussed the multiple interpretations that Christian scholars have been giving to the concept of heaven, and what the current trends are. The author has also made a passing reference to the concept of heaven in religions other than Christianity. The concept of heaven rests on a few basic foundations. First, the world in which we live is just one of the many worlds that exist. Secondly, there is a place called ‘heaven’ that is much better than the earth. Thirdly, our stay on earth is an episode in a much longer journey of the soul. Finally, in order to qualify to enter heaven, we must mend our ways on earth. In other words, earth is a school, and those who qualify with flying colours in the school enter the university called heaven. That, in fact, also explains the dualities that exist on earth. A mixture of good and evil, carrots and sticks, joys and sorrows, creates the right environment in a school designed to discipline unruly children. However, this raises a deeper question, and a refreshing possibility, that Sri Aurobindo envisaged a hundred years ago, and as Meacham tells us, some Christian scholars such as N.T. Wright have also emphasized recently. The question is whether the earth is forever destined to remain an inferior place, a battleground of good and evil? The possibility that this question suggests is that the earth can become a much better place so that heaven and earth become “equal and one”. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have talked of this ideal not as a mere possibility but a certainty. This is the goal of which they laid the foundations; this is the goal that they set for humanity; this is the goal at which their yoga aims. What is expected of those who wish to contribute towards this goal? The basic requirements are a sincere, intense and patient aspiration for elevation of consciousness; rejection of all that takes us away from the goal; and surrender to the Divine. These three basic ingredients have far-reaching implications on how a person lives, the choices he makes in life, and the way he looks at events and circumstances of life. The life that the person lives is simple; the choices he makes are guided by love; and the way he looks at life is as an opportunity for spiritual growth. With a sufficient number of people living such a life, a day will come when the earth will have that critical mass of people who will be able to determine the plane of consciousness from which the affairs of our world are conducted. When the affairs of our world are conducted from a higher plane of consciousness, the earth will manifest the love, light and beauty that we associate with heaven. Thus, we do not have to die to go to heaven; we can create heaven right here on earth.

The Master Meets His Mission

Sri Aurobindo’s arrival in Pondicherry on 4 April 1910 marks the culmination of a long and tortuous preparation that was necessary in his outer life before he could settle down with the mission of his life. Sri Aurobindo was dispatched to England at the tender age of seven, so that he could continue there his studies which had begun in India at a school run by Irish nuns. He spent fourteen years in England, during which he gave evidence of his remarkable intellect. He acquired a thorough mastery over the English language and assimilated the Western culture. When he returned to India in 1893, he hardly knew his mother tongue. But interestingly, he had a romantic fascination for the Indian culture, and he was determined to work for the freedom of the country rather than reap the material benefits of his British education by serving a government that had enslaved his motherland. In 1893 began another 14-year period in his life, during which he taught English and French in a college in Baroda. But more importantly, during these 14 years, Sri Aurobindo educated himself in the Indian culture. He learnt Bangla and Sanskrit, read the ancient Indian scriptures in their original form in Sanskrit, and adopted a guru to learn yoga, ostensibly to acquire special powers that would help him gain freedom for the country. He astounded his guru by reaching within three days a state of eternal silence, which ordinary mortals find it impossible to attain in a lifetime. With fourteen years in the West, and fourteen years in the East, both spent in intensive study, discipline and introspection by one who had the intellectual capacity of a genius and the spiritual capacity of an avatar, Sri Aurobindo was poised for a leap. The leap was precipitated by the decision of the British government to partition Bengal. He quit Baroda and went to Bengal, and jumped full-time in the freedom struggle. Within a short time, he took the nation by storm, galvanized an army of young patriotic Indians, and shook the British empire. The British started looked for an excuse to arrest him. And, they found an excuse soon enough. In 1908, a bomb blast in Muzzafarpur killed two innocent British ladies. Following that, anybody who could be even remotely connected with the blast was rounded up. Among the forty-four persons arrested, one was Sri Aurobindo. Then began the one-year trial. Throughout the trial, Sri Aurobindo was in Alipur jail, sometimes in solitary confinement, sometimes with the other ordinary inmates, and sometimes with the others arrested in the bomb blast case. Based on some details revealed by Sri Aurobindo in his famous Uttarpara speech, in retrospect it is easy to see the Divine working out a plan during his one year in prison. During the first phase of solitary confinement, he realised that the imprisonment was meant to force him to give up his attachment to the freedom struggle. Secondly, during the same phase, the message of the Gita was revealed to him as was the universal presence of the Divine as Krishna. This removed all his doubts, and made him a devotee in the same way as seeing the viraat roopa of Krishna had made Arjuna a devotee. During the next phase, when he was kept with other inmates of the prison, he saw sparks of divinity even in these disfigured manifestations of the Divine. He saw the spiritual core of the nation soul of India, and discovered the identity of the people for whom he had to work. During the phase when he was kept with the others who had been accused in the bomb blast case, he realised that many young people, gifted with exceptional qualities of the head and heart, were available for participation in the freedom struggle. Hence he concluded that he was not indispensable for the country to get political freedom, and that his own mission possibly lay elsewhere. During the final phase of solitary confinement, he could once again go within, and seek from the Divine clear instructions about what was expected of him. The dialogue with the Divine made it clear to him that freedom of the country was a foregone conclusion, and could be achieved even without his participation. However, political freedom of India was only a milestone in a process of far-reaching implications for humanity. India was rising, and political freedom was a part of the rising. India was rising so that it could share with the world its spiritual heritage, which was acquiring greater significance as the limitations of science and technology in solving human problems and enhancing happiness were becoming more and more clear. An instrument of the Divine was needed to provide this message to the world, particularly the West, which was affected the most by the material prosperity and spiritual poverty generated by the industrial revolution. And, who could be better than Sri Aurobindo as that instrument – an intellectual giant who had 14 years of intelligent engagement with the West, and 14 years of self-study in the East, along with spiritual siddhis of the highest order. This rare instrument was too precious to be battered and bruised by the batons and bullets of the British police. Hence the divine intervention that forcibly pulled him out of the freedom struggle. What seemed to Sri Aurobindo initially an unwarranted interruption in his work concerned with the freedom struggle was the Divine’s way of revealing to him his true mission. Once the mission was revealed to him, the trial was over, and he was acquitted. How could anybody keep Sri Aurobindo in jail a day longer than was necessary for him to know what the Divine expected of him.

Now that Sri Aurobindo knew what the Divine expected of him, things moved fast. Although Sri Aurobindo’s mission had changed, he wielded enourmous influence on the youth of India, and to the government, he was a “marked” man. Sister Nivedita informed him about his imminent arrest and deportation. While many of Sri Aurobindo’s followers discussed what was the best way to protect him, as on a few previous crucial occasions, Sri Aurobindo received an inner command about what to do. The command this time was “Go to Chandernagore”, which was a French colony. He spent most of his time in Chandernagore in solitude. He reduced his contacts with the world to a bare minimum. He spent long periods in deep silent meditation. It was quite clear that he was making a rapid transition from outer conquests to inner masteries. His friends started making further plans for his safety because Chandernagore was dangerously close to Calcutta. One of the plans being actively considered was to send him to France. However, once again the decision was taken for him by an inner command, which told him to go to Pondicherry. His journey from Chandernagore to Pondicherry was planned carefully in meticulous detail. But the plan had some loopholes, which were either overlooked, or were unavoidable, and had the plan worked, he could have fallen in the traps laid by the British intelligence agents. It collapsed at many points due to human errors. What replaced the human plan at those points was obviously the divine plan, which is always successful. The net result was that Sri Aurobindo, and Bejoy Nag, arrived safely in Pondicherry on 4 April 1910. It was virtually a new version of the guards being put to sleep so that Krishna could be safely transported to Vrindavan.

With the arrival of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry in 1910 began a new chapter, the longest chapter, of his life. He was a highly accomplished instrument of the Divine, almost ready to embark on the task for which he had been chosen. But probably some finishing touches were still necessary, and these touches took four years of intense sadhana in solitude. Not much is known about the siddhis he attained during these four years. But it is obvious from the events that followed that by 1914, he was bursting at the seams with the word that he had to transmit to the world. The medium he adopted was the monthly journal Arya. Words powered out in a torrent, and flooded the Arya with gems on a variety of subjects – the Gita, the Vedas, the Upanishads, Yoga, spiritual philosophy, and a unique view of the past and an amazingly refreshing view of the future. Month after month, he wrote one article on each of these subjects in a prose that read like poetry. On one hand each article could stand on its own; on the other there was remarkable continuity in articles on a given subject from month to month. The result is that when, later on, articles were sorted out subject-wise and arranged in the same sequence as in the Arya, they read like a book. Most of Sri Aurobindo’s major works –The Secret of the Veda, The Upanishads, Essays on the Gita, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Life Divine, Foundations of Indian Culture, The Human Cycle, the Ideal of Human Unity, The Future Poetry, etc. – were written originally as articles in the Arya. These works, along with the three volumes of Letters on Yoga, and the epic poem Savitri, which he wrote later, remain unsurpassed to this day, in both quantity and quality, in the category of spiritual literature based on ancient Indian wisdom, the original of which was written in the English language. What Sri Aurobindo wrote in the Arya in seven years is itself more than what an average person can read in a lifetime, leave aside understand and realise. From 1926 through 1950, Sri Aurobindo was busy working towards the realisation of a goal which no spiritual master before him had set up – the goal of bringing down the Supramental Consciousness on earth. Sri Aurobindo carried this cross for 24 years, and finally chose to leave his body in order to facilitate his mission. He had told the Mother well in advance that for the Supramental descent, one of them had to go. When she replied that she was ready to go, he had insisted that he would go because her body was more suitable for enduring the ordeal of transformation. Sri Aurobindo left the body on 5 December 1950 at the age of seventy-eight. But he continued working towards the fulfillment of his mission. And, on 29 February 1956, soon after the Mother’s seventy-eighth birthday, during the collective meditation in the Ashram playground, the Mother heard Sri Aurobindo’s voice in English, “The time has come”. She shattered to pieces the golden door blocking the Supramental manifestation on earth, and “the Supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.” While the Mother’s observation was a major milestone in the evolution of consciousness on earth, there are miles to go. The human race is not fully prepared to receive the Supramental that has manifested in the earth atmosphere more than fifty years ago. Till we, as a race, are prepared to receive the Supramental, a select few will continue to aspire for and succeed in manifesting the Supramental Consciousness. When their number exceeds a critical mass, we can hope for a new race that will be to man what man is to an animal. These are exciting ideas that transport us to a new plane altogether, but coming back to the world we are familiar with, it is enough to aspire sincerely, reject ruthlessly, and surrender completely. The rest may be left to the Divine with relief and pleasure.

[Excerpts from an article first published in The Call Beyond (A periodical published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram – Delhi Branch) April 2010]