Dr. D. Mukhopadhyay
Swami Vivekananda(January 12, 1863 to July 4, 1902), a great philosopher, thinker, reformer and architect of modern education bore his mortal body just only for 39 years and he signified education as ‘ man-making’ and that is the sole mission of life. The year 2017-2018 is the 125th year of his contribution and address to the Parliament of Religion held during 11th September to 27th September, 1893 held in Chicago, the United States of America where he conquered the heart of the people by addressing them ” Brothers and Sisters of America” with a focus on the spiritual unity of the world. The issues concerning mechanization of human civilization and undermining of moral, ethical and religious values made Vivekananda worried and restless. He used to believe that a nation is advanced in proportion to education and intelligence spread among the masses. He observed that the countries having plenty of economic resources are nothing but the endowment of education which is cultivated with the aid of intelligence and exactly at that particular point India remained static. She was suffering from illiteracy, poverty, superstition, untouchability and what not. The great philosopher made it a serious point that India was having purposeless education. The objective and aim of education is to develop capability for earning liberation from darkness and ignorance and he defined education as ” the manifestation of perfection already in man”. Swamiji, the teacher of modern India , firmly used to believe that the purpose and aim of education is not to earn a University Degree but to manifest perfection in our lives which converges with nature of inner-self of man. According to Swamiji, perfection amounts to realization of the eternal entity, the infinite bliss which is nothing but consciousness and is of course omnipresent. To understand the manifestation is to identify the same with the inner self of man and in order to achieve the same, man is essentially needed to sacrifice his ego, ignorance and counterfeit soul that hinders and mislead from the path of the truth and wisdom and direct us to the blind lane of darkness. Swamiji is staunch follower of the Vedanta philosophy and according to the Vedanta, the essence of man resides in his soul. Education, according to Swamiji, is spiritual development and uplift-ment of mankind and that is the only path of salvation. Swamiji recommended that a student must be able to control his mind through practice of meditation and purification of mind is prerequisite for having gate pass to the land of mediation and ethical practice. No success would come to anybody if such person is devoid of spiritual concentration and spiritual concentration is the container of cosmic power that help him realize what is true meaning and essence of life of man. Swamiji used to preach what he practiced and after due application of the result of such practice continuously. Today students are aimless, directionless and do hardly try to enlighten themselves with spiritual education. Spiritual education makes a man perfect and action oriented. Action can only produce result. A person in order to achieve success is to free himself from different kinds of emotional impulses and unless the same is controlled with educative values and ethics, achieving the ultimate objective of life is of far-flung phenomenon. Vivekananda used to preach that education is not collection of heap of information . On the contrary, comprehensive spiritual training leads to obtaining education. Swamiji says that education is not the amount of information that is put into the brain for effecting riot and remains there undigested. In the version of Vivekananda, education means that process by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, and intellect is sharpened, as a result of which one can stand on one’s own feet. Education is such a phenomenon which is able to promote all round development of physical body, mind and soul and he emphasized education is the force that is generated by combined efforts of physical culture, classics, language, aesthetics, science and technology. Cultural ethos and values are part and parcel of inner soul of our motherland. Spiritual values constitute the cornerstone of Indian heritage and ethical ethos. In order to form the foundation of strong character, a student must be exposed to the essence of the Geeta, Vedas, Upanisadas and other classics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Education remains inconclusive without the teaching of aesthetics. The great thinker perceived that religion is the innermost core cell of education when by religion he means no particular kind of religion but the essential character which is realization of the divinity that is already in everybody but normally it is unknown to the subject and education makes man realize the same through logical process. Swamiji never said that religion consists of dogmas or any rituals. Swami Vivekananda’s definition of education is the foundation of tolerance, harmony, compassion and peace and character formation is the basic purpose of imparting education. Vedanta is the means of achieving the true essence of education. The word ‘Vedanta’ comes from Sanskrit and it has two components and they are ‘Veda’ means wisdom and ‘anta’ means supreme and it refers to in totality supreme wisdom.
It was the educational force of Swami Vivekananda that gave him confidence to represent India in the Parliament of Religion in Chicago in 1893 and nothing more , nothing less. The scheme of education to enlighten young minds by Vivekananda is of high relevance not only today but it would remain so for thousands of years ahead since his education is based on the foundation of the Vedanta i.e. supreme wisdom. Today’s education is devoid of compassion, tolerance, humanity and ethics and this makes it disastrous. Today’s education neither trains the young minds nor imparts spiritual values and then character building is nothing but void in the vacuum. Education must stimulates thinking process in order to cultivate humanity and compassion. One of the contributions of swamiji to modern India is the integration of religion with spirituality and one is complementary to other. Religion is nothing but the science of consciousness and spirituality is the path of self realization and consciousness and realization thirst makes a man quest for supreme wisdom and supreme wisdom can only liberate us from the claws of superstition, ego and ignorance. In the 125th year of Swamiji’s address to the Parliament of Religion, let the nation take a vow to link our present education system with that of prescribed by Swamiji and let character building take utmost priority in the modern education system. The education regulatory bodies across the country should take appropriate steps to integrate present education delivery mechanism with that of Swamiji which addresses to the ignorant masses, ”Arise, Awake and stop not till you achieve your goal” the great message of the Upanishad comes out of the mouth of Swami Vivekananda, the architect of modern education. Educational Model framed by Swami Vivekananda if integrated with technology can produce epoch making result of prosperity, progress, philanthropy, compassion and peace. Education delivery system propagated by Swamiji is based on the foundation of Science and logic is the core soul of Science. Therefore it is high time and need of the hour to link our course curriculum of basic and higher education with the philosophy propagated by Swamiji in the 125th Year of his Chicago Address as the most respectful tribute to Swami Vivekananda, the great worthy son of Mother India.
(The author is Professor of Management at School of Business, Faculty of Management, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, Jammu & Kashmir, India)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel