Eternal India Encyclopedia

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Eternal India encyclopedia

EDUCATION

These are automatically stored in memory. The store house is 'Chitta'. From these by a process of sorting out and linked classification in various forms the mind power {Manas) converts them into thoughts. This 'Manas' has also the power of generating its own thoughts inside. The next process is attended to by intellect ( Buddhi) which has the power to select, organise and reorganise thought groups relevant to the purpose required at different times and different places. Further deep is the 'intuition' (Antaratma) which has the power of receiving 'revealed' knowledge directly without the help of Chitta, Manas or Buddhi. But in 'man' this 'intuition' is not yet developed perfectly, though some individuals get occasional flashes of it. The process of knowledge may be diagrammatically presented as follows:

Sriniketan (Abode of Wealth) : Tagore's mind was fixed on total upliftment. This wish was fulfilled when, on 2nd February, 1922, within six weeks of inauguration of Viswabharati, an upliftment centre was established at the village of Surul 3 km. away from Santiniketan. This new centre, named 'Sriniketan' was greeted with a song Tagore specially composed for the occasion : Next day Leonard Elmhirst, an Englishman who admired Tag- ore and came to work for him, collected two assistants and ten boys, piled them into a decrepit bus and headed for Sural. Tagore's instruc- tions were moving : "Around us the life of the villages lies in ruins; their old order is almost vanished; their economic balance is upset, their health is broken. Move among them, search thoroughly, find out the causes of this disintegration; then come back and tell me what we must do to arrest it". Elmhirst studied the situation and explained the causes - Malaria (ill-health), Monkey-tricks (money-lenders' receipts) and Mistrust (want of mutual confidence) - in his essay titled 'Robbery of the Soil". Tagore planned Sriniketan's future on his advice. Now Sriniketan is an integral part of 'Viswabharati'. SRI AUROBINDO Sri Aurobindo's scheme of education is called 'Integral Educa- tion'. His basic ideas on education were first published in a series in his magazine 'Karmayogin'. These were collected together and printed in a booklet titled 'A system of National education for India.' According to him there are three things which have to be taken into account in a true and living education (i) the individual in his commonness and uniqueness (ii) the nation and its people and (iii) the universal humanity. India has seen in man a soul, a portion of the Divinity en- wrapped in mind and body. It is a conscious manifestation in nature of the universal spirit. Nature has cultivated in man a mental, intellec- tual, ethical, dynamic and practical, an aesthetic and hedonistic, a vital and physical being; but all these are powers of a soul which manifests through them. The soul is greater than them all and arises into a spiritual being. Which is his ultimate divine manhood. Similarly India's conception of a nation is not an organised and armed community placing itself in the service of the national ego, but a great soul of a community which has manifested a nature of its own (swabhava), and a law of that nature (swadharma), and has embodied it in the various aspects of its culture. Equally so, humanity is the vision of the universal manifesting in the human race evolving through life with the ultimate spiritual aim. “ True spirituality”, as the Mother says, "is not to renounce life but to make life perfect with a Divine Perfection." Education to be complete must have five principal aspects: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual. Usually these succeed in a chronological order. This does not mean that one should replace another but that all must continue, completing each other, till the end of life. To start with, all knowledge comes through experience on account of the interaction between the individual and the environ- ment. The five sense organs experiencing the five types of sensations - touch, smell, taste, seeing and hearing - transmit them to the brain. Back ! Get thee back to the starving land That craves thy bounty with outstretched hand!

S : Sensations through sense organs. 1 : Store house (Memory) 2 : Sorting and converting into thoughts and generating thoughts (Mind) 3 : Organising and reorganising (Intellect) 4 : Revelation (Intuition) "The first problem in a national system of education," in Au- robindo's views, is to give an education as comprehensive as the Euro- pean and more thorough, without the evils of strain and cramming. This can be done by studying the instruments of knowledge (the layers depicted above), strengthening and sharpening them and by a system of teaching which shall be natural, easy and effective. He enunciates three basic principles of teaching: (1) The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught; the teacher is not an instructor or task-master, he is a helper and a guide. He does not impart knowledge, but shows the student how to acquire knowledge, himself. (2) The second principle is that the mind has to be consulted in its own growth. The idea of hammering the child into the shape desired by the parent or teacher is a barbarous and ignorant supersti- tion. The best aim of education should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a nuble cause. (3) The third principle of education is to work from the near to the far, from that which is to that which shall be. We must begin from the environment (soil, air, sights, sounds, habits etc.) The past is our foundation, the present our material, the future our aim and summit. The Supermind: The Dawn of a New Age The manifestation of this world out of the Supreme is achieved through a double process, the descent and ascent. The descent is an involution which is a limitation of consciousness by successive steps. The ascent is an evolution, that is the emergence in matter. Today man is the brightest product of our universe. Will the evolution come to