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(A talk broadcast from the Ahmedabad Radio
Station on August 27, 1980)
The
principles of education are based on the concept of life and the aim of
existence directed by the nature of its structure and the prevailing conditions
of the environment in which we live. It is taken for granted, usually, on the
basis of observation and experiment conducted through the methods of empirical
science, that the universe is formed of physical, biological and psychological
units, called things, entities and persons, in which, when selected and studied
in their isolated capacity are known as individuals, and, when taken in groups
with kindred characters, go by the name of society. The educational process has
normally been a series of techniques in studying and gathering information on
the objects of sensory perception and mental cognition, which are supposed to
constitute the environment of man.
On
the supposition that the units forming the human environment are outside the
subject of perception and cognition, educational institutions have been
including in the curriculum of studies such subjects as mathematics, astronomy
and physics; chemistry, biology and psychology; sociology, civics and
economics; geography, history, and politics. To these primary subjects of study
were dovetailed certain accepted doctrines of ethics, philosophy, religion and
aesthetics, founded on the assumption that persons and things are independent
units contained in the cup of the universe, almost like pebbles filled in a
bottle, heaped together in mechanical contacts with one another but
individually enjoying absolute independence, each for itself. This vision of
the universe is practically the basis of modern educational philosophy and
psychology and its implementation in the teaching field of institutions. We,
thus, hear students being asked to choose a group of subjects among the several
enumerated above, and they obtain a pass or a degree after a course of learning
how to add, subtract, multiply or divide factors of computation in arithmetic,
algebra and geometry, how things behave on observation of their bodies, how
they act and react among one another - in short, what is the result on an
empirical investigation of the visible structure and behaviour of perceived
objects.
The
whole system of present day education may be called mechanistic in the sense
that it takes the relationship of things among themselves as one of physical
contact or of permutation and combination of essentially dissimilar characters
brought together into action by changing movements of things or by a pressure
exerted by factors which are wholly external to their individual wake of constitution.
All this naturally implies that we do not live in a world of any inner bond of
friendly relationships but are basically formed of elements, characters and
aims foreign to one another, which cannot ultimately be united into a real,
vital fraternity of mutual relationship. We seem to be living in a billiard
ball universe where things are scattered at random in space and they appear to
be working in reciprocal contact, collaboration or cooperation either by mere
accident or due to sheer selfishness which needs a certain kind of assistance
from others for the fulfillment of their objectives. Whether the world is ruled
by chance or by the selfishness of its essential nature, it does not, on this
supposition, appear to be anything more than a medley of soulless activities of
ultimately purposeless motions of mindless forces with an unintelligible
intention that seems to be lurking and struggling behind the deepest core of
each individual unit, whether inorganic or organic, physical, biological or
psychological.
This
would naturally be the picture of the universe with which modern science
provides us, and an educational system rooted in the perspective of such a
scientific analysis and deduction would obviously be mechanistic, soulless,
non-purposive, and an altruistic camouflage of a basically selfish intention of
every individual. To put it more plainly, this form of educational career can
carry with it no other purpose in the end than to perpetuate a physically and
egoistically comfortable existence - to wit, the acquisition of food, clothing
and shelter, physically; of sex-satisfaction, vitally; gain of name, fame and
power, psychologically; these being the manifest pattern of the psychophysical
organism - and where the purpose of education has been recognised to cover such
fields as the welfare and protection of other persons than one's own self, it
could be easily discovered that it is only a tactful extension of these aims of
the psychophysical individual, for an interest in others is seen to be conducive
to an intensification of the satisfaction of these urges as well as to furnish
better chances of their fulfilment, as they cannot be fulfilled adequately if
there is no cooperation from others and from external factors of various kinds,
which fact the personal ego knows well by a subtle insight blatant futility, at
best a perpetual self-deception, heading towards deeper than sensory or
intellectual apprehension.
This
is really the unpleasant secret that comes to the surface of one's observation
behind the so-called noble efforts of man, based on this educational wisdom,
born of this view of the universe. This should also explain why man has always
been feeling insecure in an unfriendly environment, irrespective of a love for
others and a sense of brotherhood which he has been demonstrating and
apparently working for externally, for these otherwise noble virtues are based
on false values and cannot hold water for long. An outward form of cooperation
and friendly relationship founded on an essentially self-assertive and
unfriendly attitude cannot be regarded as having any meaning, ultimately. The
truth, when it is bluntly put, would appear to be that we live in a world of
love and cooperation which arise from an internal dislike for and irreconcilability
with others! Such is the world, such is life, and such is man's fate, when such
is the structure and aim of our general attitude and our education, one cannot
expect students and teachers to behave in a way which is not demanded by the
essential nature of things. This is modern education in its plain colour.
As
genuine interest, love and cooperation are characteristics of the soul, these
qualities cannot be expected from any soulless system of education based merely
on the mechanics of a physical observation and study of inorganic matter, even
if it be the study of the solar and stellar system and the electromagnetic core
of atoms, which, science tells us, are the building bricks of the cosmos. If
science is right in its proclamation of such results as the ultimate fact of
creation, man can never hope for peace, or gain freedom worth the name.
But
is this true? The untiring hopes and aspirations of man are a standing
refutation of these deductions devolving from a reliance on materialistic
science and behaviourist psychology. Human longing has always been for the
achievement of absolute freedom and perpetual peace, with a consciousness of
this achievement which implies that consciousness must be capable of reaching a
state of absoluteness, which must at once be one of immortality and
non-exclusive universality. Minus these profounder implications of the aims of
life, which are amply manifested by every man in his everyday life, human
endeavour would be a blatant futility, at best a perpetual self-deception,
heading towards one's own doom. That a unitive, non-mechanistic, universal
purpose is at work behind the mechanized urges and relations of men and things
is proved by the very existence and irrepressibility of aspiration. And, that
the educational process has to be reoriented and transformed into a process of
the vital evolution of a soulful subjective aim of every individual comes
naturally to high relief. There is in life a divine core of a basically
spiritual reality, hiddenly present in all things.
That
the universe is primarily a 'kingdom of ends', wherein every individual or unit
is an essence of selfhood rather than a means of exploitation by other
individuals; that this aim of a collective organization of 'ends' and 'selves'
is the basic ideal of all pursuit of knowledge; that education is a
systematized process of unfolding gradually this eternal fact of all life; that
it calls for a parallel advancement along the lines of greater and greater
unselfishness and inclusive consciousness of existence tending towards the
realization of a universal Selfhood; that the material amenities and economic
needs (Artha) and the satisfaction of one's emotional side (Kama) are
permissible only so long as this law (Dharma) of this eternal truth of the
liberation of the self in universality of being (Moksha) regulates its
fulfillment, and that, thus, the whole of the life of an individual is one of
studentship and learning in the light of broader and broader outlooks of life
which lie ahead of oneself at every stage, are to constitute the vitality and
meaning of the educational process. Education is the creative evolution of the
total man towards the realization of his cosmic significance, passing through
his personality, the society and the world.
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