Rakesh Kumar Pandit
History never forgets its heroes. The 11th September is a day of historical importance for India and for whole of the world. On this day of 11th September, in 1893, Swami Vivekananda addressed the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in USA. This Hindu Monk of India just at the age of 30 years moved the scientific western world and representatives of perhaps every form of organized religions of the world to the hilt. His message of universal brotherhood and learning to live together made him the tallest figure and greatest speaker of the Parliament. His very short speech presented the idea and spirit of Hindu Religion, the Indian philosophy and the Indian way of life in just few words. Swami Vivekananda presented the true India to the world. He presented the idea of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ means the world is one family. In his response to the welcome he said, “I thank you in the name of the mother of religions. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all the religions and all nations of the world.” He was a great philosopher, guide, patriot, leader and a great teacher who taught what he practised.
It is a great occasion to bring forth some of his ideas of real education and ultimate aim of real education. Swami Vivekananda did not write any book on education but his thoughts on meaning and aim of education are relevant today and will remain relevant for the centuries to come. Swami Vivekananda was the first leader who sought a solution to the problems of poor and helpless masses of India through education. Swami Vivekananda argued that present set of education is all wrong and educators are making our young generation to cram like parrots and fill their brains with lot of subjects. He stressed that what is the use of such education, information or graduation, that after few days all cools down. What does it matter if this higher education remains or goes? The mind is crammed with facts before it knows how to think. Swami Vivekananda said, “Education is not the amount of information that is put into brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life.” If education is identical with information, the libraries are the greatest sages in the world and encyclopedias are the rishis says Swami Vivekananda. He stressed that the aim of higher education must be to solve the problems of life and not merely study of material sciences and turning out things of everyday use by machinery. Science and its development are necessary but it should be balanced with higher pursuits of life like spiritual progress and man making education. Today we have almost every profession of the world but no self profession. Self is getting ignored at the cost of every other thing. In the modern world order we cannot separate livelihood, growth, employment etc. from the education. At the same time, if the present day maladies of corruption, violence, restlessness, chaos etc. are the undesirable byproducts of this modern education, it means something really is missing in the present system of education. This way the present system of education is getting counter-productive.
Character building was fundamental in the Swami Vivekanandas scheme of education as against career orientation, which is the solo motto of today’s education. According to him some principal virtues of character are faith in one’s divine self, truth, purity, unselfishness, love, service, sympathy, strength and patriotism. He forcefully pointed out that in modern day education the training of mind is totally absent. Being the chief instrument of learning, mind and its well being must get top priority in any educational scheme. By filling one’s mind with information, technical skills and useless material, one creates more problems than solutions. Human body is working like a machine. If the input in terms of ideas and education is not good or incomplete, how do we expect the output in terms of actions to be good? He stressed that we must have life-building, man-making, character making assimilation of ideas. True education from his point of view means all round development of physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual values. A true system of education cannot disregard any of these different aspects. In the present system of formal education, teachers are expected to play more significant role. A teacher needs to help the students learn how to think, what to think, and how to discriminate. In any case teachers should be the moral examplers if the schools, colleges are to serve as the areas for teaching of ethics.
The tremendous explosion of knowledge has made modern education a potential source of danger also. As Swami Vivekananda observed: ” Intellect has been cultured with the result that hundreds of sciences have been discovered, and their effect has been that the few have made slaves of the many. That is all the good that has been done. Artificial wants have been created; and every poor man, whether he has money or not, desires to have those wants satisfied, and when he cannot, he struggles and dies in the struggle.”
Therefore Swami Vivekananda’s ideas on various aspects of education are more relevant and are needed in this strife torn world today than during his own life time. From the philosophical point of view Swami ji said, “Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.” Knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside, it is all inside. The goal of the life must be to manifest this perfection within. The gamut of quotes and thoughts of Swami Vivekananda about the philosophy of education, society and education, teacher and taught, women education, importance of mother tongue, Sanskrit language, concentration of mind, character building etc. are beyond the space and scope of this article.
(The author is Assistant Professor of Physics at GDC- Bhaderwah)
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