Jyoti Bahl
Education is beyond learning as it involves unlearning and activating the human capacities beyond the formal conception receiving education. Education is not literacy but the internalisation of the spirit that goes beyond script and codified means of expression based on condition. Education cannot solve the purpose of the human upliftment and journey towards the realisation of the intent of being in human form till we understand that it is integral to comprehensive welfare that includes the sociological ,cultural, religious, economic and political empowerment at all stages of life.
It should underline the growth substantiated by the aesthetic harmony based on inclusion of all sections of the society both at the national and international level.Infact it should grow from one truth to another-step by step.Ultimate motive being the cosmopolitan outlook that breeds the learning based on case to case basis. The best path to take to arrive at such a destination of national educational development lies in adopting the policy based on the strategy that recognises the national indicators in terms of local sociological needs catering to the growth that sows the seeds of cosmic integrality enabling the student to internalise his social and national duty that has inherent in it the individual emancipation.
Requirements of Education
Education that identifies the social requirements in terms of aesthetic value is always the catalyst for the development of an individual at far great speed than the one based on the imported idiom and framework that has nothing to do with the vernacular and the local needs.It imposes a system that is not going to work for the overall development and falls short of motivating the young minds. Case studies and analysis of the success stories at global level brings it to the fore that the nations that have adopted the local case studies to devise educational policies have leaped ahead of those nations that imported the models have no local basis.
Russian and Chinese educational policies rooted in the cultural packages of the aesthetic locale has envisaged a growth model that enablesall encompassingdevelopment. It grooms the students to inculcate not only the value system but makes them innovate with local wisdom that has withstood the test of the time and natural challenges in terms calamities.Ethnicity and rituals are the symbols that describe the complex phenomena developed over the centuries of civilizational progression for making the culture and heritage as existing even in present times.
The nations that incorporate these symbols in the curriculum are always at the moving with progression and retarding the regressive forces that otherwise cause an inherent damage when the system adopted is alien.Reason being the incompatibility with the local tradition and value system.
It cannot be ruled out that religion is also a foundational variable that enriches the cultural and civilizational values.As it has been observed globally that the societies that have rich culture has always been the civilizational anchors and religion and its scriptures have acted as the philosophical seeds to embed ethics and moral values that can’t be imposed even by laws imposed by a strong state machinery.
Sri Aurobindo’s Cosmic Vision
India is not only a nation but a civilisation that has stood the test of the most worst times.It has emerged from various challenges in the recoded history of the mankind that includes the challenges at the social, political, religious, economic and many more.These challenges have made it more progressive and more innovative and thus,contribute to the knowledge pool of the world for developing a harmonised social set up. But the beauty of this progression lies in introspection and adopting the philosophical values and metaphysics that is grounded in local traditions. We have witnessed how in the as a nation we steered over the colonial rule that had eat the vitals of the Indian society. It goes to the credit of the nationalist leaders who infused a sense of nativity among the masses and motivated them to use the indigenous skills of mass movement as the greatest weapon to overthrow the foreign yoke.
Sri Aurobindo entered the Indian political scene at a time when national direction needed a thrust away from the traditional procedure adopted by the leaders in terms of pleading.He acted on multiple fora and was well aware that Indian nation has to be infused with a comprehensive awakening that binds all spheres of social activity towards the deliverance of the masses.
He knew the value of quality education can turn the tables but for that infrastructure has to be laid beforehand. His involvement among the revolutionary youth came handy besides his understanding of the foremost political formations at that time as he was the leading of that too.He reached the masses through his journals like Arya and BandeMataram and invoked the civilizational symbols and imagery that motivated the educated and intellectual class to modify the education system.He may not have been instrumental in forming the institutions himself but inspired the thinking people to spread the education on the basis of national need and not merely accepting the imitation of the British Imperialist masters.
His most productive period is the time spent in Sadhna in his spiritual abode in Pondicherry now known as Puducherry, which was a French Colony then, out of the sphere of influence of the British colonialism.He propounded the vision of integral yoga based on the synthesis of all human activity that terms body as the vehicle of the Divine soul.It was revolutionary revelation as till then body was termed as the useless form .
He did not stop there but horizons of vision encompassed the mind of the human form .He classified the mind into three broadlevels. These are Mind, Overmind and Supermind.Mind being the baser form of the gross thinking that can be guided by the intellect but Overmind he termed as the formation that is even desired by the Gods and humans have the tendency to surpass it. The state of Supermind he associated with the motionless motion of the unmanifest and on the basis of the revelation clarified that this state makes one to move in the desired direction of the Cosmicwell being without any effort.
This trait of mind cannot be understood without internalising the basic premise on which he propounded this revelation. He has clarified in his seminal revelatory work The Life Divine that human development is a two way process in tandem.First,involution of the cosmic energy at all levels has to be invoked within and then this energy can be made useful in terms of conscious development that leads to evolution.
It was a leap towards the universal transformation of humans and he has said that human beings are already on the path of being Superminds and unmanifest that shapes this human form is itself a supermind .
Sri Aurobindo’s revelation of mind interms of Mind,Overmind and Supermind can be used to devise the curriculum that takes into account the mind horizons of the students in India and enable them to concentrate on involution that then can be used to manifest as evolution.
This involution and evolution double system can be made practical when students are made to inculcate the critical mass of knowledge in every subject to the best possible extent so that it can be used by them within the manifest limits to utilise as evolutionary mechanism in every field of learning.
The education system based on rote learning having no utility to make a student expressive of his innovations is self negation.Once it is devised to make a student conscious of his involutionary powers and evolutionary powers,it enables them to be integral to the knowledge pool and act as its functionaries for further innovations. It sets them in the orbit of national innovation and hence cosmic synthesis.
This model of Involution and Evolution dyad in tandem is inclusive and comprehensive at the same time making it a self-driven automated mechanism for national growth with a stake in global wellbeing.
(The author is Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce, Govt. College for Women, Parade, Jammu)
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