The Education about the Knowledge of Truth

Meaning is the soul of a word. In the absence of meaning, words merely remain a cluster of sounds without an impact. There are several meaningful words in a society that are made meaningful in their actual sense through an individual’s actions. One such word is a system. The appropriateness of a system lies in granting the right pace and direction to the lives of those who believe in it. A man holds the responsibility of making the word system meaningful for society. Amidst various systems, the education system holds a special position. It contributes to the betterment of the future of society by playing an important role in the psychological build of the new generation. In the Indian culture, this system has been given special importance from the past itself as it paves the way of making life meaningful through the evolution of the self. Today, the topic of the evolution of the self has been removed from education. This is why the discussion of evolving the perception of life and attaining the truth through education has become meaningless. Due to the inability of the self to evolve through education and life not receiving the right direction, there has been a void that has laid the roots of the concept of attaining satisfaction and success through external sources. Man has started running like a machine in the blind race of attaining happiness, wealth, fame and glory. In the present era, to throw light on the reciprocal relation of the mind and body for the evolution of the knowledge of truth and the perspective of life. Only then can education gift society with a cultured generation.
In ancient Indian culture, religion has played an important role in the spread of education. The questions of the redemption of the self and self-knowledge have been topics within the limits of religion. Here, the path of prosperous life through the implication of religion is shown by that behavioural code that makes a man’s life meaningful by raising his self-knowledge and the understanding of his responsibilities. The role played by education in the Indian culture has also influenced the naming of India. The names applied to India such as Bhramarshidesh, Bhramarvat, Aaryavarth, etc. hold an essence of its prevalent education culture. Saints were the givers of knowledge and the Brahm was the class that created the Vedas and the propositions and gentlemanliness of the saints. In some way or the other, there lies a connection to knowledge in the words like saint, Brahm and gentleman. It has been a tradition of the Indian culture to provide lessons on the knowledge of truth through education. The path of discovering the truth is full of struggles. The various cultures and experiences bind our understanding of the truth in incidents and objects. In this way, our understanding drifts away from the eternal truth. The explanation of this gets tangled in the dilemma of circumstances.
During the lessons of learning about the truth, through the inspection of nature, the emergence of thought is desirable that man is an inseparable part of nature. From this point, the perception of viewing the soul and the world is evolved. Our kingdom of knowledge rests upon our way of perception. If we view from this understanding then we see that education teaches us the way to see the self and the world. The present education system is attempting to stuff a bundle of knowledge into students’ brains and is trying to evolve understanding through this information. This understanding does not hold the power of creating a world view or a life view. In this culture of education, a student’s mind is pressurized with so much memorizing that they do not have the time to think and contemplate on other matters. No such subject exists in school which talks about encouraging the inspection of nature. Instead, it brings forward the discussion related to nature in a lifeless manner. In such a way, how will the vision of understanding nature and the world be produced? Since man is a part of nature, the prosperity and attempts at hunger, thirst, desire, and progress are subjects related to nature. Today, the position in which the human race stands is a result of the endeavors done by men since time immemorial. It is worth observing that the various changes brought about in man’s life are divided into subjects like History, Geography, Science, Psychology and Literature that man and nature have begun feeling isolated from one another. For the ease of comprehensibility, in the process of categorizing subjects, if man’s roots are separated from nature then there will arise a state of floundering.
The universe of which we are a part must be seen as an inseparable truth. It has a pace, life and life force. This is the basis of both materialistic thought and spirituality. By denying this truth, if knowledge is served in divided compartments then a man will keep spinning in the innumerable forms of truth and will see the truth divided into parts. Whose part are we? Where is our place to be? And what is the aim of attaining education? If the answers to these questions are not clear then the capitalist thought-process of the aim of education for jobs, education for success (where success means earning money) gets solidified in the society and weakens the heart, mind and the moral consciousness of the new generation. This is why the knowledge and perception of the soul and nature must be shared through education.
Even if the act of viewing in the Indian perspective begins from seeing with the eyes, but it always converges into the experience of that truth which takes us beyond the senses. This is an art. The soul is trained to gain merit out of it. This training aims to experience the truth in its pure form. That which we experience through sorrow, pain and happiness is only an impact of the truth and not the pure truth.
Today, the concept of nature has been rumpled in trees, plants, animals and birds. All organisms are a part of nature. All are bound by the laws of the universe. On stepping out of the laws of the universe, there is an attack of sorrow and pain. Sadly, there are very few people found who accept this, who consider the understanding of the laws and pace of the universe as a subject in the education system. In this way, the eyes of knowledge may open and there can be fluid nectar of intellect may be produced. The superficial imposing of knowledge by neglecting the students’ self-power and self-wisdom is a huge weakness of the present education system. Vivekananda had also said that education aims to awaken the knowledge seated in the soul. During the training of achieving this knowledge, it is discussed to calm the mind and focus the consciousness on the inner mind. It is for this difficult purpose that it has been proposed to either focus on the breath or on mantras or a picture. In art forms like sports, dance, music, etc. there is a power that is capable of transporting a person’s mind to that state. Observe that today these art forms are being taught to earn money and fame rather than establish identification with the soul.
The most important thing is that the lesson of familiarizing yourself with the self-power cannot be delivered only through lectures. Students need to physically practice this for long periods. When the mind is calm, then the consciousness awakens on its own. For a long time, due to the pressure of science which only accepts the facts proven through experiments, the subjects pertaining to intuition have remained neglected. Here, the universe is seen from a mechanized perspective. The question of man’s relation to the universe was never raised. This thought-process still surrounds our world of education. This is why the scientists of today disrespect knowledge attained from self-wisdom by questioning it. The result of disregarding the laws of the universe by the modern society, which demands a pure demeanour, is being faced at a psychological level.
With the lesson of attaining self-wisdom, a student attains special awareness like a glorious warrior. He experiences the environment in a genuine way and without the interference of the brain. This is such a level of consciousness where all kinds of dispersion come to an end. A person’s consciousness stands in solidarity with the whole environment and awakens. In this unique wakefulness, the elements of real nature like words, sights and environment touch the mind but the mind lets them flow away without grabbing them in any kind of analysis. These elements are not permitted to break the focus. Here, the state of mind becomes like that of a warrior who feels the changes in his environment through his awareness without letting his focus wear off. On view from this perspective, we see that there is a similarity between a yogi and a warrior. In the Bhagawad Gita, Arjun too received salvation from his hesitation on the battlefield. There was a battlefield in the mind, just like there was one outside. Today, the war inside the mind is unable to take place due to our perception of compromise and convenience. To save humanity, this battle needs to begin in the mind.
The new generation does not get an opportunity to awaken their inner wisdom due to the lack of knowledge about the laws of the universe, the hesitant knowledge about nature and the method of stuffing information into the brains of students by giving it the stature of knowledge. Unless the knowledge necessary for nourishing the soul becomes a part of the education curriculum, it is difficult to rid the modern society of issues at a psychological level. If the new generation is educated to make to universe prosper by learning the nature of the soul, then a progressive society can be evolved in its true sense.

Author: Dr. Rakhi Roy Halder
Translator: Harshita Srivastava ( Translated from original text written in Hindi)