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| need & purpose | meaning &
purpose of education | approach | |
integral education | importance of
spiritual education | SAFIER activities |
The present conditions of our world are not the result of an inadequate government system, an impotent and corrupt bureaucracy or a deficient economic structure; it is simply and directly the outcome and expression of our state of consciousness (what we are within) . An inner change must precede the outer if it must be lasting and meaningful. An integral education is the key to this inner change on a larger collective basis; it is the key to true world-progress and a better future for all mankind. THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF EDUCATION We must therefore understand education in its widest and deepest sense. Education is meant to bring out the best in Man, to develop his potentialities to the maximum, to integrate him with himself, his surroundings, his society, his country and humanity to make him the "complete man", the "integrated man". In Sri Aurobindo's words : "That alone will be a true and living education which helps to bring out to full advantage, makes ready for the full purpose and scope of human life all that is in the individual man, and which at the same time helps him to enter into his right relation with the life, mind and soul of the people to which he belongs and with that great total life, mind and soul of humanity of which he himself is a unit and his people or nation a living, a separate yet inseparable member." If this is the meaning of education, then what passes in its name today in our educational institutions, is obviously very far from the mark. The purpose of education cannot be, even at its best, to merely create a literate individual, or a highly informed person crammed with information and facts, or to prepare an individual to find a job, or to create a good worker, a skilled technician and scientist, or an efficient doctor or lawyer, or a capable industrialist or politician, even to create a good and law abiding citizen. These may be needed but they are not sufficient in themselves. Nor do they create the whole man or a great nation.
We have put before ourselves an integral goal, so also the process of education must be integral. According to the Indian yogic psychology, the personality of an individual has four main aspects: a) The Physical, formed of our body and all its inner and outer functionings. b) The Vital, the seat of our impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy, passions and will. c) The Mind, formed of our thinking and reasoning parts. d) The `Psychic', or soul which is "the psychological centre of our being, the seat within of the highest truth of our existence, that which can know and manifest the truth." Up to now our education has been mostly confined to developing a very small part of our mental being. Recently, with the increase of interest in sports, the development of the physical has begun to gain in importance. Conscious work on the vital is very limited and confined to the kindergarten. As for the psychic we are not even aware of its presence. But our education, to be integral, must help all these four aspects of our personality to grow to the fullest. New methods and processes have to be found which will enable us to first become conscious of these different parts of our being, to develop them, and to integrate them fully with one another.
Finally this process of learning and education should not be confined to a short period in the early stages of the life of a child but should continue throughout life. The student must develop this constant thirst for knowledge and perfection, and the society should create educational institutions which can help him at each and every stage of his life and growth. Another important aspect of education should be to develop a love for our Motherland, an understanding of our culture and the values which have given it birth. In the words of the Mother: "Each nation has a psychic being which is its true being and moulds its destiny from behind the veil : It is the soul of the country, the national genius, the spirit of the people, the centre of national aspiration, the fountainhead of all that is beautiful, noble, great and generous in the life of the country. True patriots feel its presence as a tangible reality." But our nationalism is not a narrow, fanatical self-assertion. We must also inculcate in the children the feeling of human unity, of the brotherhood of man, of the common destiny of mankind, enriched by the diversity and uniqueness of each individual and nation. Sri Aurobindo says : "The children should be helped to grow up into straightforward, frank, upright and honourable human beings ready to develop into divine nature." Education must prepare us for life in the widest sense. It must help blossom the very best in an individual, the unique and exquisite something which every individual is born to offer to the world.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SPIRITUAL EDUCATION An important question with which we have to deal immediately concerns the meaning of "spiritual education" and its place in our system of education. Today, because of the situation which prevails in India, there is a very strong emphasis on "secularising" education. On the other hand it is interesting to observe that all those who were the leaders of Indian Renaissance, who are revered by the country and who helped India to come out of the darkness into which she had sunk, nearly all of them affirmed categorically that the fountain-head of India's greatness is her spirituality. It is this, they insisted, which had to permeate every aspect of life, including education, if India had to rise again. We find ourselves in front of a paradox. How do we reconcile the need for "secularism" with the need for "spirituality"? But this is not a real contradiction. The difficulty arises because we are confusing "morality" and "religion" with "spirituality". Spirituality is something much deeper and higher than religion, where all divisions, fanaticism, exclusiveness, ritualism and religiosity fall away. Spirituality is the aspiration to find and express the Reality behind all existence, the unity behind the diversity of creation. Spirituality can embrace in its scope not only all religions, morality, and ethics, but even science and technology. In fact this apparent contradiction may have become acute at present, but the problem is not new. This is what the Radhakrishnan Commission had to say on this point, as early as 1949 : "To be a secular is not to be religiously illiterate. It is to be deeply spiritual and not narrowly religious." In ancient India the seats of learning were the Ashrams of the Rishis. The son of the king and the son of the labourer went to the same Ashram and lived together and followed the same discipline. The stress was not on studying subjects but on Brahmavidya, the knowledged of Self and the knowledge of the Reality. Without this basis all other knowledges were considered limited and insufficient. But they too had their importance and place in life. The Rishis also imparted training in state-craft, in the use of weapons and the art of war, in the 64 arts or kalas, even in the rearing of elephants and horses. There was no division between spiritual and secular. It was because of such an outlook that ancient India was great in every field. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, India created "abundantly and incessantly, lavishly, with an inexhaustible many-sidedness, republics and kingdoms and empires, philosophies and cosmogonies, and sciences and creeds and arts and poems and all kinds of monuments, palaces and temples, and public works, communities and religious orders, laws and codes and rituals, physical sciences, psychic sciences, systems of yoga, systems of politics and administration, arts spiritual and arts worldly, trades, industries, fine crafts - the list is endless and in each item there is almost a plethora of activity."
SAFIER
ACTIVITIES
The Society has established some schools for children, as centres of integral education and continues to establish relations with existing educational establishments for the purpose of incorporating principles of integral education in nurseries, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools in various parts of India. Simultaneously the Society has started Children's Corners which are centres of non-formal, unstructured and free education which complement the existing educational institutions.
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They
do not take into account the even more important aspects of the individual - his
character, his personality, his values. Would we not like our children to be truthful,
courageous, generous and benevolent? The question is what is meant by bringing
out the best in man. India has always seen in him not merely a body, an emotional
and aesthetic being, a rational and thinking mind, but much more fundamentally
a soul, evolving gradually into a higher consciousness, towards truth, light,
freedom, harmony and immortality. It is this concept which has made India a nation
apart and our education too must reflect this attitude. It must lay stress on
the emergence of the spirit, not rejecting but embracing and perfecting matter
and life. 
Such
a gigantic and difficult work cannot be the sole responsibility of the teachers
or confined to the schools and educational institutions. The entire society must
participate in it and its structure should be so designed that every aspect of
social life and every experience of the child becomes a means and an opportunity
for learning and progressing. The process of learning should expand into the homes
and outside. The classroom should only be an occasion for a concentrated and systematic
working on a specific topic. 
Integral
Education based on the Indian yogic science aims at the total and complete development
of the individual : a strong, supple, well formed and healthy body; a sensitive
unselfish and mature emotional nature, a positively energetic vital, an enlightened
mind, a wide-ranging and vibrant intelligence, a strong will, a balanced and pleasant
personality; and the subtler spiritual qualities that can channelise, harmonise
and direct all the different parts of an individual into a life that is beneficial
to the individual and to his fellow-men. 
We
see therefore that it is essential that we understand the true meaning of spirituality
and yoga, their importance for India and the role they have to play in a truly
national education. Because, without this understanding, we will continue to merely
imitate, and that too poorly, some often discarded values and structures of a
purely western education and culture. And we may then be able to contribute more
meaningfully to a greater perfection in the world also. 
Research
has determined that people complete most of their physical, emotional and mental
growth by the age of 12 and that it is important that these early years be accorded
appropriate attention. 
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