Fwd: Will Spirituality Be Taught in Schools in Future as Part of Science

[Guest guest]

advaitin , " V. Krishnamurthy " <profvk

wrote:

 

advaitin , " Sunder Hattangadi " <sunderh@>

wrote:

>

> Namaste,

>

> It would be a pity indeed to judge the value of Advaita on

> the basis of the present paradigm of Science ('hard' science).

>

> Should it not equally be a part of Humanities ('soft'

> science)?

>

 

Mamaste Sunderji and all.

 

This question of education of our younger generation in

spirituality is of great importance no doubt. But it doesn't seem

to get the necessary attention of educationists. I quote below from

my book on Science and Spirituality a relevant portion called

 

A Nine-point Master Plan for Value Education to be symbiotically

embedded in the educational system

 

1. Man's essential qualities are the most welcome qualities of

sympathy, compassion, kindliness and brotherhood. These are so

because from one point of view his essential core is itself divine

and from another point of view man is the child of God created in

His own image. It is necessary to tap these qualities of Man in each

one of his dealings as a member of the family, of the Nation, of the

World.

2. To do this there is no better way than to delve into the

biographies of as many great men of the world as possible -

scholars, saints, innovators, leaders, reformers, religious heads,

social workers, scientists, devotees of the Lord, writers, poets,

thinkers, philosophers, performers of the arts, managers,

administrators, entrepreneurs, and professionals. At every level of

education of the student, Biography should form part of the

compulsory portion of his studies, as one more subject like

Mathematics and Social Sciences. It is not enough to be just part of

his study of Language or Literature. As he rises up in the levels,

study of biographies under Biography could become more and more

detailed. Ultimately when he completes his education, maybe as a

professional, doctor, engineer , manager or what-have-you, he should

be able to say that he has specialized in (or has put in a certain

amount of intensive study in) certain biographies, not necessarily

directly related to his profession or calling. For instance, it

could be Mahatma Gandhi, J.N. Tata, St. Francis of Assissi, Abraham

Lincoln, Mother Theresa, U.V. Swaminatha Iyer, Benjamin Franklin,

Cecil Rhodes, Madam Curie or Guru Nanak, or scores of others.

Lessons from Biography could be the greatest lessons that a child

picks up. So the fundamental difference between the present-day

curriculum and this proposed curriculum is that in every class from

the 4th standard (or grade) to the 12th standad (or grade) there

would be one more compulsory subject called 'Great Lives'

or 'Biography'. To that extent, the load from the other subjects has

to be reduced. It does not matter. We are teaching too much too

badly, anyway -- and in India at least, we are surviving, because,

we are doing that to too few.

3. Education from the primary level should start with the

concept of the whole world/planet as a single entity. At each stage

of the development of the story of man there should be less emphasis

on nationhood and a greater emphasis on world citizenship,

environment and human behavior. Most of the social evils of the

adult population may be traced to the fact that the mind refuses to

rise from the little world of the individual and one's immediate

kith and kin and friendship. The correction for this has to start

from childhood and at school.

4. The habit of book reading should be encouraged on a warfront

from childhood upward. It should not matter what book the child

reads. Reading, comprehension, the art of communicating with others

what has been assimilated by reading, and, in due time, writing --

should form part of the compulsory curriculum all the way up even

after the student has started narrowing down and specializing. Right

now book reading is left, if at all, as an optional and voluntary

activity. It would be necessary to institute special awards for this

activity and bring it into the mainstream of the student's career in

school. It may be said that the modern means of passing information

and literature through the facilities provided by Information

Technology like the Internet, have compensated the need to go to

books and that the Internet has taken over the need for readers to

go to books. But the compensation is not adequate enough. Kids use

the Internet only to cull out information for their favorite

projects either given by their curriculum needs or motivated by

their own pet fantasies. They do not stay with the Internet long

enough to gulp whole books of substance. Unless kids learn to sit

with books and think leisurely on what they have read the thinking

habit will get muzzled up. The very Internet that has done all this

should now be used to make the student go back to books. Books can

be reviewed, summarized, focussed, and recommended by the teachers

of the particular locale or school or college. Each educational

institution can discover its own means to draw attention to the

books that they want their students to read, provide competition for

such reading on the Internet itself by announcing awards and

incentives. Several innovative measures must be found out as suits

the context and the neighborhood. Several commercial booksellers and

publishers are doing a wonderful job now on the Internet to draw the

attention of those who surf on the net. But non-profit organizations

like educational institutions, teachers, professors, thinkers,

parent-teacher-associations, social workers and professionals should

make it a mission to tell the next generation what to read, how to

read and why. If we do not do all this, the twenty-first century

citizen in his thirties and forties would not know what to do with a

book! And in a century after that, whatever that remains of 'man'

will have to start reinventing reading and writing(!) which is

probably one of the few things left yet, that distinguishes man from

animal.

5. From the age of 5, the practice of silent prayer should

become a daily routine irrespective of the denomination or religion

to which the child belongs or does not belong. The value of prayer

can never be overstated. No one can reveal God to another. But by

revealing the value of prayer and inculcating the habit of prayer we

place the child in a position to receive God-experience, in due

time. Spiritual experience can come only through the correct

understanding of prayer. Prayer is the point of contact with God.

Silent prayer is the preparation of consciousness for the experience

of Divinity within. The child should be tuned up from childhood well

enough so that at adult age it is ready to receive the inevitable

message that unhappiness and suffering are necessary for the

unfolding of the soul within and to stand that unhappiness and

suffering, prayer is the nutrition needed. So much does not have to

be told to the child; but the habit of prayer must be made a second

nature. This should not be left for the child to learn by itself

after it reaches adult age -- as is the experience of many a

materialist adult who has learnt things the hard way and then,

turned to the ways of the Orient in the past few decades. This is

where it is not possible to accept the plea of the rationalist that,

to pray or not to pray should be left to the individual for a

decision on his own, when he becomes an adult. The plea assumes

that each man, without standing on the shoulders of the men of

earlier times, begins all over again to learn all that the earlier

civilization has already discovered and recorded for us to take the

torch from there. That is not the way Man has ascended to the

present state of knowledge.

6. From the age of 7, children should know and learn the habit

of sitting for an introspection and meditation. Any time the child

errs in its social habits, obligations, table manners, discipline or

routine, it should not receive corporal punishment but only an

opportunity to introspect. The habit of introspection has all but

disappeared in this modern age when everybody uses more than his

leisure time to sit glued to the idiot box, without ever devoting

any time to think about anything, not to speak of oneself -- except

of course, when they worry about something, which any way is not a

productive activity.

7. From the age of 11 onwards, regular lessons on meditation

should form part of the curriculum. Meditation need not be

sectarian. But meditation is an effort to be done at the individual

level and since Indian culture has an under-current of unity in

spite of its plurality of traditions, it should be possible

certainly in India which has the advantage (see No.8 further on) of

several religions coexisting over the centuries, to integrate

sectarian meditation into a classroom activity.

8. From the age of 15, the child should be educated on the

positive aspects -- not the bizarre, not the fantastic, not the

strange, habits and customs -- of all world religions by competent

teachers, who, while they themselves would be students of

comparative religion, would keep their own bias, if any, towards a

particular faith or opinion, in abeyance as best as possible in

order to present objectively the commonness of spirituality in all

religions. Comparative religion is not competitive religion. Every

religion is a blend of macro principles and micro setting. The

latter is a mixture of local mythology and ritual and this never

appeals to a stranger or outsider. Only a powerful poet, a talented

sculptor or a mystic sage may be able to impart some understanding

of it to one not born and nurtured in the tradition. But the macro-

principles are usually understood, at least as an all-embracing

framework, though not followed in its totality, because it speaks to

man as man. It is a crisis of intellect that wants to adjudicate

among the great religions of the world. What is important for the

21st century citizen is to come together and rediscover that this

crisis of intellect can be resolved only by going back to the very

ancient thoughts that have remained with us for more than twenty

centuries now. The period of the first millenium BC is the most

important period of history in this connection. That was the time

when the axis of the world's thoughts shifted from a study of nature

to the study of man's life and his inner aspirations. Then in India

we had the Upanishadic Seers, Mahavira the Jina and Gautama the

Buddha; in China we had Lao Tse and Confucius; in Iran there was

Zoroaster, in Israel there were the great prophets; and in Greece,

Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato. That surge of activity and

investigation and the profundity of thought of that period have

never since been matched. They achieved so much with so little help

from any gadgetry -- which, by the way is what is helping us today

to unravel further frontiers of knowledge. The philosophers of the

first millenium BC achieved what they did by sheer rational thinking

coupled with a certain unique intuition of their own. The test of

significance of what they left for posterity is in the fact they

have survived twenty centuries of war and peace, strife and hatred,

and all the ups and downs of great empires and civilizations. It is

extremely doubtful whether anything of what we call 20th century

science and technology will survive as valid knowledge twenty

centuries hence! The best guess is that not much of what we hold as

science today will survive that long and even what we today call the

scientific attitude may mean something entirely different in the

year 4000 AD

It all means that we, as world-citizens should have a great pride in

the universal heritage of religion and spirituality. This has to be

passed on to our youngsters not just because it is great history and

tradition but because there is a danger of humanity destroying

itself by gradual erosion of these ancient roots. Our religions are

our best heritage and safest savior. To say, however, that only the

macro-principles of these religions are important is to ignore in

the context of a tree the sun and soil from which it draws its

sustenance. At the same time any emphasis on the micro-setting

should not lead one to nurture an aggressive pride in one's culture

and nationality. Pride in one's culture and nationality should only

be like pride in one's own mother. This pride, to quote Huston Smith

(Religions of Man, New American Library, 1958, p.17), should be

'an affirmative pride born of a gratitude for the values he has

gained and not a defensive pride whose only device for achieving the

sense of superiority it pathetically needs is by grinding down

others through invidious comparison. His roots in his family, his

community, his civilization will be deep, but in that very depth he

will strike the water table of man's common humanity and thus

nourished will reach out in more active curiosity, more open vision,

to discover and understand what others have seen'.

In most human cultures religion and culture are highly interwoven;

more so in India where religion has been the dominant feeling for

centuries. If we build our educational system on the premise that

religion is a personal matter students will be left out without the

means of understanding any culture beyond a limited subset of their

own. Already we see the effect of this error in the educational set-

up of the developed countries. The freedom to present a wide

spectrum of human belief within a common scholastic context is a

major advantage. The fact that in the Indian milieu this wide

spectrum is already in the atmosphere should be considered as a

great asset rather than a handicap.

9. History should be studied not as history of the different

countries but as history of man and as the history of wars against

poverty, disease and wickedness. History should bring out the

perspective that peace is not absence of war but peace is a mutual

understanding of each other's aspirations and rights. Every period

of history should be studied as part of a world history from this

point of view and not as part of a nation's struggle for domination

or ascent to power. The individual histories of each nation in all

its details should not have to be studied until the student reaches

adult age.

 

 

PraNAms to all world-citizens.

profvk

 

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