Education

Education and religion, like food and clothing must be suited to a person’s taste, need, requirement and environment. They cannot be just borrowed for the sake of fashion. Borrowed beauty not only artificial and short-lived but injurious to the natural health and growth. Anything artificial is life less. Seeds and soil must be suited to each other. Our bodies are not accustomed to assimilating alien material. Anything foreign in the body is thrown out immediately or after a flight.

Education for a healthy, harmonious and fruitful growth should be suited to the geographical and cultural conditions of the country. It should also be in tune with the traditions.

Unfortunately the popular western system of education which is without the life-spirit has been transported to the Indian soil and transplanted wrongly by the government. Neither the climate nor the soil in India is suited to the seeds of a soulless system of materialistic education. It has proved to be totally oblivious and even antagonistic to the great tradition of our motherland. An education system which has no link with soul or spirit is certain to lead to a reign of terror of ego. Any system of education founded on theories of academic perfection, which ignores the instrument of study, is more likely to hamper and impair intellectual growth than to produce a perfect and equipped mind. The current educational system is a great advance on many of the methods of antiquity, but its defects are also palpable. It is based on insufficient knowledge of human psychology, and it is only safeguarded from disastrous results by the refusal of the ordinary student to subject himself to the processes it involves, his habit of studying only so much as he must to avoid punishment or to pass an immediate tests, his resort to active habits and vigorous physical exercise.

 A new system of education is essential therefore to elevate us all from the clutches of materialism with an eye on science  while emphasizing the controlling presence of a spiritual awareness.

Sri Aurobindo says—“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. Usually, these phases of education succeed each other in a chronological order following the growth of the individual. This, however, does not mean that one should replace another but that all must continue, completing each other, till the end of life.” For the fulfillment of life and realization of goals, education is essential at four levels. They are physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. These four are not independent watertight compartments exclusive of one another. They individually and collectively contribute to the strength and growth of all. Society in general and student in particular should abide by the four-fold educational discipline for the wholesome advancement of all.

The first and foremost is physical education. It is essential for a disease-free life and a purposeful pursuit in any walk of life. As physical culture is must for health and strength, emotional discipline is essential for peace and sobriety of mind. Intellectual education it is when our studies and thoughts are regulated by logic while learning, retaining and applying the knowledge. Science and philosophy, discovery and discrimination, application and invention are some fruits of intellectual education. Finally, the most important of all is the spiritual education. Concentration and meditation are the vital ways to cultivate spiritual discipline.

Any nation progress well if it has a sound and extensive universal elementary education at the primary level and vocational education for many and literary education for a few at the higher education level. The true basis of education is the study of the human mind, infant, adolescent and adult.