The aim of education is two fold: collective and individual. At the collective level, the aim is to make an individual into a good citizen; i.e. a person with harmonious relationship with other members of the community, a person useful to society and one who fulfils his obligations as a citizen. At the individual level, the student expects an educational institution to help him develop a strong and healthy body, build his character, attain self-mastery and supply him opportunities to discover and realize his natural abilities.
Both expectations are justified but it is necessary to understand the relationship between the individual and society and that the aspirations of the two need to be mutually harmonize. The human mind tends to emphasize one or the other and the current dominant thought is that individual interest must be subordinated to societal interest. Therefore, the collective aim of education has overshadowed the individual aim and the chief challenge facing educators is how to fit the individual to the demands of society.
The needs of society are determined by what society thinks it requires at that point of time. For example at the time of war, society may require defence personnel, scientists for arms industries, traders in arms and ammunition, defence strategists and others. Such societal aims are usually determined by the perceptions of the ruling class. If there are powerful patrons of culture, society will produce artists of all kinds. If industrialization is taking place, then the need will be for engineers and technicians.
There are less obvious societal influences on individuals. For example, if competition is a cherished value of society, a person may be thrown into the corporate jungle after completing higher education primarily on his own resources and with whatever help he can get from family and friends. This is also because a paradigm shift has taken place from hereditary trades to the freedom of choice for the individual. The price for it is greater insecurity and consequent mental tension.
Again, money has come to play a vital role in modern society. For example, in a technologically driven society, the greater the investment in research and development, the greater the number of scientific discoveries and inventions translating into increased productivity and creation of wealth. In such a society, money has become an indispensable condition of material achievement and the benchmark of success. The same money has also become a corrupting agent because it is not always the most honest and capable who get the greatest share of it but often the clever and the crafty.
Education is supposed to give the intellectual elite for society and mould it through them but, in actual fact, systems of education and society influence each other. Since modern education is also a means of upward mobility in society, it leads to a race for marketable degrees rather to for real knowledge and much less to wisdom.
The last century belonged to the West. Events and movements that started mainly in the West from around the fifteenth century onwards with the Renaissance culminated in the twentieth century. The seventeenth century brought the idea of progress through Enlightenment and for the next two centuries, Europe became a scene of intense intellectual activity in the field of education and culture. Keen interest developed in the applied sciences as humankind tried to break free from tradition, convention and prejudice. The Age of Englightenment and Reason brought a great sense of optimism and paved the way for the Industrial Revolution. In between came the upheavals of the American Independence, French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic wars. With Industrial Revolution, technology was harnessed to the production economic wealth and material prosperity. Wealth and the means of its production became the focus of study for the first time. Science and technology made nature subservient to man and money was enthroned replacing human values. However, the pursuit and accumulation of wealth led to the terrible exploitation of man by man. This became the first cause of disillusionment in the agenda of progress as intense hostility developed between the workers and the employers.
Other disillusionments were to follow. Science had claimed the pursuit of truth as its ideal. It was seen as the chief tool of progress; not just material progress but also of moral progress. The idea was that as men acquired more and more knowledge, they would become wiser and wiser and consequently more impartial and just. The subsequent course of events belied this faith. Liberty, equality and fraternity, the great ideals of the French Revolution that aroused so much enthusiasm proved to be hollow words as events unfolded. Democratic institutions that men fought to build and died for have also proved to be so imperfect that often they have ended up supporting greater authoritarianism and corruption than the ones they replaced.
The truth of science in itself got limited to only that knowledge which was gained through the senses. By dismissing possibilities of any higher form or source of knowledge, utility replaced truth as the object of science. This is not a value judgement as this point of view in itself proved very useful in ridding the human mind of its irrational beliefs and blind superstitions. It led to a marked advance in the economic sphere raising standards of living, improving health care and ameliorating conditions of work. Far reaching societal changes came about like the abolition of slavery and child labor, dismantling of colonialism, protection of the rights of workers leading to an improvement in their social status, emancipation of women, better health care services, elimination of famines and starvation deaths and increase in longevity.
However, two things also took place. One different nations arrived at different levels of material prosperity for historical and sociological reasons and within each of them, too, there were marked inequalities. Second, no amount of material progress and social engineering could prevent two major world wars from taking place causing massive destruction not to speak of regional wars that continued and that have never ever came to a halt.
However, from the very places where material progress and collective societal wealth seemed to have reached its peak, subtle signs of change have also begun to emerge. There is a growing realization that we are all interconnected. This has been a consequence of break throughs in technology and rapid transport and communication that have made the world a global village by creating a global network. Actions in one part of the world have repercussions on people, places and events in other parts. In times of wars and disturbances on different part of the world, Afghan War this hardly requires further elaboration but it can be seen even in ecological and environmental issues where it may be less obvious. Further, mass communication and satellite technologies have all ensured that now there are no more secrets. All movements, whether environmental or human, can be mapped and recorded.
The realization that our actions do not take place in isolation but have far reaching implications have led to several grassroots movements through non-governmental organizations, social activism and propagation of practices like the recycling of waste, tapping of alternative energy sources, holistic medicine and others. We are just beginning to comprehend that we cannot confine ourselves to the narrow spheres of our own personal identities or even of the identities of family and immediate community. We need to expand our vision to not only include the nation but the entire humanity and also non-beings in nature. If we are all so interconnected, existence cannot be a ladder of hierarchies but rather of networks, inter-relationships and connectedness requiring an ability to see eternity in a grain of sand.
A telling example given by Thich Nhat Hahn is a case in point. A piece of bread has within it the wheat, the air, the water, the sunlight, the soil, the seed, the work of the gardeners that made the wheat grow, those who harvested the crop, the mill and the workers that made the flour, the elements of the implements used and of those who made them, the oven, the ingredients in the bread and all that went into their production and so on. The list is endless and leads to the embracing of the entire universe. When such a perception dawns, the nature of awareness or consciousness is also bound to change. It makes us realize that we have the potential to evolve to higher levels of consciousness that embrace all creation rather than the narrow immediate one from where we usually function. Also, we understand that things have different significances and meanings for different people according to the levels of their consciousness. Hence, there is no one single objective truth but many truths and we have the potential of finding greater meaning and significance in our milieu and thus in our own lives according to the level of our consciousness.
The question arises how are we to acquire a higher consciousness and awareness and whether formal institutions of higher learning are equipped to bring this about. Universities lay a great emphasis on the development of the mind but there is no clarity on what exactly is meant by the mind. As Sri Aurobindo has pointed out, the word is used indiscriminately to cover “the whole consciousness for man is a mental being and mentalises everything” but actually the mind is that “part of the nature that has to do with cognition and intelligence with ideas, with mental or thought perceptions, the reaction of thoughts to things, with the truly mental movements and formations, mental vision and will etc. that are a part of ( a person’s ) intelligence”.
It has, as Tony Buzan has pointed out, five major functions
Receiving: it receives the impressions and perceptions taken in by the senses
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2. Holding: this is the ability to store information and to recall it when required.
Analyzing: this is a part of the pattern of recognition and information processing.
Outputting: this is any creative act or communication including thinking, analyzing, writing, painting and others.
Controlling: this refers to all mental and physical functions.
These five functions reinforce each other. For example, it is easier to receive data if one is interested and motivated and if the receiving process is compatible with brain functions. If the information is received efficiently, it is easier to hold and analyze it. Conversely, if efficient holding and analysis takes place the ability to receive information increases. Analysis is a complex array of information-processing tasks that requires an ability to hold the information that has been received. The quality of analysis is affected by the ability to receive and hold information.
The three functions of receiving, holding and analyzing converge into the fourth of outputting or articulating through speech, gesture, writing, painting or any other form of creating or express. The fifth category, “controlling” refers to the brain’s general monitoring of all mental and physical functions including general health, attitude and environmental conditions. Therefore, the mind is the faculty through which we seek knowledge, expressing it to the extent it is comprehended and then formulate action based on it. However, it is a scientifically proven fact that we all use a very small portion of our mind. Therefore, in spite of all the knowledge placed in front of it, it only remains an instrument with possibilities, faculties that are latent but which can be developed.
One central area of concern for educational institutions must then be how to widen one’s mind, overcome rigidities, preconceived ideas, conceptions, points of view so that one learns to consider everything from as many points of view as possible.
Since training of the mind is at the heart of educational institutions, they must devise methods of making it capable of meeting the challenges of the times through adjustment, adaptation and accountability. It is not merely a question of reacting to constant changes by making minor adjustments while essentially maintaining the status quo because that would only obscure the sense of what we are, who we are and what we might become.
Bertrand Russell has analyzed the far-reaching effects of modern knowledge on the growth of our mental life that influences our way of thinking, willing and feeling. The three are interconnected because knowledge has given us the kind of power unimaginable before and made us thus capable of both great good and great bad. We have, on the one hand, created instruments of mass destruction like the nuclear bombs but we have also, on the other hand, made medicines that can affect miraculous cures.
We can mould life on earth or put an end to it because science has vastly extended human power. We have the power to control the weather, cause drought and flood, change the tides, raise levels of the sea and alter climates. As Russell points out that hitherto man has been unable to do too much harm because of his ignorance and his inefficiency but at the bottom, unless molded by civilization and educational influences, he is a ferocious animal. Tyrants and bigots in the past have pursued horrifying objectives and if the working of the mind is not transformed, human beings will continue to do so with even worse consequences. We will perish as the dinosaurs did in spite of once being the lords of creation because now those objectives can be followed more efficiently, completely and ruthlessly due to the increased power that enhanced knowledge has put in our hands.
As Russell has pointed out “Hitherto, although we have been told on Sundays to love our neighbour, we have been told on week days to hate him, and there are six times as many weekdays as Sundays. Hitherto, the harm that we could do to our neighbor by hating him was limited by our incompetence, but in the new world upon which we are entering there will be no such limit, and the indulgence of hatred can only land to disaster”.
One of the imperative tasks of education then, must be to re-tool our thinking, to being about the transformation of consciousness ; a paradigm shift in the mind from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to perceiving ourselves as an integral part of the whole. This would widen our consciousness to understand the interdependence of multiple factors in events. It would change our view of the world from a hierarchical one to a system of interconnected networks and make us realize that in any given event, since so many interlinked factors are involved outcomes are always indeterminate and unpredictable.
We are not living in a world that is ‘given’ to us in its entirety like a book leaving us free to open this chapter or that. It is a world being constantly created, emerging and evolving towards something more integrated and complex here and now and not in some distant future that we can complacently ignore as of no consequence to us. Hence, the systems we create and teach in a learning institution have to be open rather than closed ones because the latter are bound to decay while the former have an inherent possibility of evolving into states of increasing complexity and order. Since this feature applies to all aspects of the universe and to all living things including human beings and organizations such an approach tends to lead to harmony of action rather than to contradictions.
Sri Aurobindo has suggested that evolution offers human beings the possibility of development towards higher levels of consciousness – a more integrated, whole personality and opening to a fuller humanity. Humankind is not the end point of development but only a step along the way. Ken Wilber, on whom Sri Aurobindo is a significant influence among other thinkers, suggests that our task is to shift beyond our present limited rationality to a wider integrated rationality or to a ‘vision logic’ that helps us to hold various rational perspectives together at once and reconcile seemingly incompatible notions. It is this vision logic, according to Wilber, that helps us to prepare for the challenges of a global network. In the field of education it means designing novel processes and programs that can be created on the spot out of events, dialogues and relationships of that moment that is developing the creative spirit rather than working on preconceived notions and prearranged solutions through rigid institutional frameworks.
Bertrand Russell points out that the physical universe is continually expanding according to astronomers. Everything that is near us is moving away and the remoter things are receding even faster. Now, whether this scientific theory of an expanding physical universe continues to be accepted or not, there is no doubt that the mental universe will have to expand to comprehend the cosmos now revealed by science. We have to stretch our imaginations both in space and time to an extent unknown before. This can be bewilderingly painful to many because it makes them feel that they and their preoccupation are puny and insignificant in this cosmic theatre. In an effort to make us understand the magnitude of space that our imagination must encompass, Russell lists a few figures. The nearest fixed star is about twenty-five million millions miles. The Milky Way, the system nearest to us, has about three hundred thousand million stars and there are many million assemblages like the Milky Way. The distance between each of these is such that is takes about two million years for light to traverse. The sun weighs about two billion billion billion tons and the Milky Way weighs about a hundred and sixty thousand million times as much as the sun. Also, while there is so much matter, the immensely large part of the universe is empty or very nearly so. The mind has to stretch to its utmost to even begin to understand this vastness.
A similar stretching of our thoughts is necessary with respect to time as has been shown by geology and paleontology. The dating of fossils and of sedimentary and igneous rocks proves them to be much older than we had previously imagined. Then there is astronomy constantly pushing forth fresh discoveries about the origin of the solar system and of the nebulae. With the most powerful existing telescopes, we can see objects from which light has taken five hundred million years to reach.
A moment’s thought about this cosmic theatre fills us with awe but after the first reaction is over the rational mind realizes that there is no great quality necessarily connected with size. The physical size of the man’s brain is small but its vastness is to be measured by the size and complexity of the universe or other issues that he can grasp in thought and imagination. However, as Russell points out, the mind of the astronomer should grow step by step with his knowledge of the universe not just in the intellectual aspect but also in his will and feeling, because if the intellect becomes cosmic but feeling and will remain parochial, a disharmony would be produced which would be disastrous. That is, in effect, wisdom must grow. Wisdom can be said to be a harmony of knowledge, will and feeling which does not come with the growth of knowledge.
As far as will is considered, man has to understand that there are things that can be achieved and others that cannot be. In the past, the capacity was limited to do both good or bad. Every increase in knowledge has meant an increase in man’s capacity to act. Science and technology have ensured that good men can do more good and bad men more bad than our ancestors could have dreamed possible. Hence knowledge, and the power that it brings needs to influence feelings because it is feelings that decide what an individual will do with power. As Russell has pointed out feelings too, have evolved through the struggle for existence. As humankind formed itself into a society, it grew from an individual to a family to tribes nations and federations. It got divided into two large groups with two opposite systems of morality. One for dealing with one’s own social group; and the other for dealing with outsiders. It came to be considered as ‘moral’ to support members of one’s group while waging wars against the other. The fame of many ‘so called’ heroes of history rests on their role in helping their own group to kill other people’s group and to steal from them. Hence history till recently has been read chiefly as a chronology of wars. This whole conditioning has now become disadvantageous. Previously, when a tribe killed the other tribe and occupied its lands it acquired greater prosperity and lived more comfortably. But now the consequences are the opposite. Two nations that co-operate are more likely to achieve economic prosperity than those who compete. However, the faith in competition continues as we are conditioned from the past and cannot make our emotions grow at the same rate as our skills. We see are everyday that in a technically developed world, what is done in one region has enormous effects in other regions but as long as we feel for only our region conflicts will remain because we will go on acting in our narrow self-interest unmindful of the consequences on others in spite of knowing intellectually that the world is interconnected.
Today, the interdependence in the world is becoming as close as that which exists between the cells of a body. What one eats nourishes every part of the body but the mouth does not say why it should take so much trouble for the entire body. We will similarly have to realize that it is in our enlightened self-interest to forgo short term gains to achieve long term goals. This requires an expansion of the mind and vision
Religion as Russell has pointed out, has always taught us that it is our duty to love our neighbour and to desire the happiness of others rather than their misery, but active men have paid little attention to this. However, the kindly feelings towards others advocated by religion will have to become an indispensable condition of survival. In a human body, for example, the hands cannot be in conflict with the feet and the stomach cannot be at war with the liver. Human society is becoming more and more like the human body and so feelings of welfare towards the whole society will have to become necessary for human beings to be able to accomplish what they wish to enjoy. This requires the expansion of the ego which seers and sages have taught for long. They have taught that man is capable of wisdom that does not consist of knowledge, will or feeling as mutually exclusive but as a synthesis and intimate union of all three.
When a child is born, his world is a tiny one bound by what is apparent to his senses in the immediate present. Gradually, as knowledge grows,his is limitation recedes. Memory and experience make what is past and what is distant gradually more vivid in the life of the growing child. As his knowledge grows, his universe of experience expands in terms of time and space. But his life will always remain full of contradictions and his capacity to act will remain limited unless his feelings harmonize with his thought and will to enable him to act wisely which can be safely said to be synonymous with what Russell calls acting ethically.
As Bertrand Russell points out : “We are beset in our daily lives by fret and worry and frustrations. We find ourselves too readily pinned down to thoughts of what seem obstructive in our immediate environment. But it is possible, and authentic wise men have proved that it is possible, to live in so large a world that the vexations of daily life come to feel trivial and that the purposes which stir our deeper emotions take on something of the immensity of our cosmic contemplations. Some can achieve this in a greater degree, some only in a lesser, but all who care to do so can achieve this in some degree and, in so far as they succeed in this, they will win a kind of peace which will leave activity impeded but not turbulent”.
Such a state of mind is one of wisdom and the world needs it as it has never needed it before. If humankind can acquire it, it can bring the greatest measure of happiness and well being with the new powers that knowledge has brought, otherwise there can be irretrievable disaster. Therefore, learning organizations need to devise modes by which the great potential of human nature is encouraged to seek the highest. Although the capacity to learn lies at the heart of humanity, it cannot just happen. It is a difficult and demanding task and has to be systemically constructed. As Joseph P.Healey has pointed out, there are three strands in learning: to be competent, to be engaged and to be ethical.
Competence embraces development of skills, a critical capacity to think, ability to identify problems and suggest solutions. But what is competence itself? It is redefined continuously from one generation to another according to the changing conditions of the world, advances in science and technology and the general rise in human expectations.
Some skills can be seen as fundamental in spite of changing requirements of capacity building like the ability to read and write, proficiency in mathematics, an understanding of scientific thought and theory, and a historical consciousness. But even these get redefined with technological advances. Today knowledge can be accessed through sources not known before from simple classrooms to a thousand different sites on the computer screen. In fact, so much information is now available that sorting, evaluating and judging it has become a critical task. The other side to it is that learning institutions have lost their primacy as sources of information . As Einsten has pointed out: “It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks”.
Healey defines engagement as”the capacity of knowledge to change society. While personal growth and fulfillment may be the fundamental objects of learning, human beings being social creatures naturally look outwards”. The change that we seek to bring about is usually concerned with improving living standards but that can only be one aim of education and not the most fundamental one. Today, under all the glitz, there is a genuine sense of searching. The older verities have lost their hold and a society that is essentially rootless and ephemeral lacks the structure to build a meaningful life. This accounts for the rebirth of very structured and conservative movements. It is a sign of the spiritual emptiness that people feel. They are searching for greater clarity and security.
The desire for good and the search for truth are real and active components of every human life. Hence morality is not to add something to human beings but the act of coming to consciousness and education is the vehicle to create conditions for consciousness. Educational institutions must devise means to produce not just technologically competent individuals bout also ethical beings. J. Krishnamurti has attempted to sketch what should be the aim of educational institutions. J. Krishnamurti, talking in the context of the two schools, one at Rishi Valley and the other at Rajghat, talks of what he thinks is the fundamental function of education and hence of a learning organization. Most educational institutions all over the world produce specialists – technicians, Scientists, Educators and others. However, these specialists are not capable of meeting the enormously complex challenge of life although they are supposed to provide leadership. The problem is that they are all responding to immediate problems while simultaneously a long view of the challenges have to be also taken. The function of education is to bring about a mind that can go beyond the immediate. As J. Krishnamurti points out,” The real issue is to find out how to live in a world that is so compulsively authoritarian; so brutal and tyrannical, not only in the immediate relationship but in social relationships, how to live in such a world with the extraordinary capacity to meet its demands and also to be free. I feel education of the right kind should cultivate the mind not to fall into grooves of habit, but to have a mind that is extraordinarily alive,; not with knowledge, not with experience but alive. Because often the more knowledge one has, the less alert the brain is.”
Learning therefore is not the same as acquisition of knowledge because that amounts to only gathering information and storing it up. Since education round the world is merely concerned with the acquisition of knowledge, the mind being overloaded with information becomes dull and ceases to learn. The question then arises whether it is possible to develop a mind that simultaneous acquires the knowledge needed to live but also constantly learns. This can only happen when education concerns itself with the totality of life and not just with responses to immediate challenges. A person who lives only in the immediate lives a superficial and rather empty life that he tries to fill up with more and more wealth drink, alcohol, clothes, sex, power or even books.
The question is what kind of individuals do we want our educational institutions to shape. As Krishnamurti points out, “If we concentrate very much on examinations, on technological information on making the child clever, proficient in acquiring knowledge, while we neglect the other side, then the child will grow up into a one-sided human being. When we talk about a total human being, we mean not only a human being with inward understanding, with a capacity to explore, to examine his inward being, his inward state and the capacity of going beyond it, but also someone who is good in what he does outwardly. The two must go together. That is the real issue in education – to see that when the child leaves the school, he is well established in goodness, both outwardly and inwardly”.
Therefore, educational institutions must not only develop the technological proficiency in a student but must also uncover the deeper layers of his mind. A human being whose inner development is neglected while making him a perfect professional, does not just grow into that but is also jealous, angry, frustrated, in despair and ambitions. Hence, there is always disorder in society. It may create a great society in which there is immense material wealth and social equality but a great society need not necessarily be a good society. A good society implies order that is not merely external like trains running on time or mail efficiently delivered like trains running on time or mail efficiently delivered. The order has to be an inner one. Therefore, both technology and the inner life of a human being must be simultaneously and equally developed. There can be no separation between the two of the kind as we have presently created done. It is the job of the educational institution to unite them. As Krishnamurti says, “If there is proper education, the student will not treat them as two separate fields. He will be able to move in both as one movement…..In making himself technologically perfect, he will also make himself a worthwhile human being”.
An ethical person recognizes the great potential for good in human life and so tries to cultivate it. It means having profound respect for each person which leaves no room for racism, poverty and exploitation. It is also opposed to dogma and inflexible moral positions. It leads to a realization that sexual preferences, ethnic identity, gender, learning and physical differences have to be accommodated with dignity because when we reject them we not only sacrifice the dignity of those rejected but of all. We have to always remember that we are not islands unto ourselves but form a part of the great fabric of human activity. Our deepest personal needs remain unmet if we do not rise above our narrow concerns and biases and seek the good of others.
Somehow we feel compelled to suppress with great force the inner feeling and voice that reminds us from time to time that our true task is some kind of mystical evolution. Why do we do this? Perhaps because to acknowledge it would most of our political gyrations, battles on grounds of religious dogma and financial maneuverings not only counter productive but also trivial. Today this quest for ultimate meaning has broken the bound of rationalist movement as is evident from the amazingly large number of books and magazines on the theme of personal and social change. The desire for meaning in life and fulfillment is growing to be a part of something that is greater than just us. We seek these answers although we know that the reality will not become perfectly clear to us and that our questions will remain unanswered. However, we still embark on the quest because we are convinced that even our striving makes us grow as human beings.
Many view the concentration on inner growth and development as egocentric and self-centered but there are others who recognize the moral idea that behind this commitment, which is “a picture of what a better or higher mode of life would be, where ‘better’ and ‘higher’ are defined not in terms of what we happen to desire or need, but offer a standard of what we ought to desire”. For many this ideal involves a pursuit of meaning; for others, it is the need to become authentic, that is to define ourselves as true to one’s own originality. It is only through authenticity that we become better equipped to create harmony in ourselves and in others. Paradoxical though it may sound, personal change leads to social change because those who undergo personal change, bring their ideas and vision into the mainstream of society.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, who did a lot of work on education have given us some practical guidance on how to achieve this personal transformation and then use it towards the growth of institutions and organizations thus moving from the individual to the collective and creating a symbiotic relationship between the two. As the Mother points out, when the imagination expands and consciousness widens, tension evaporates and action can be done in a calm frame of mind. “The easiest way”, she says, is to identify yourself with something vast. For instance, when you feel that you are shut up in a completely narrow and limited thought, will, consciousness, when you feel as though you were in a shell, then if you begin thinking about something very vast, as for example, the immensity of waters of an ocean, and if really you can think of this ocean and how it stretches out far, far, far, far in all directions, like this… how, compared with you, it is so far, so far that you cannot see the other shore, you cannot reach its end anywhere, neither behind or in front nor to the right or left…it is wide, wide, wide, wide…you think of this and then you feel that you are floating on this sea, like that, and that there are no limits…..this is very easy. Then you can widen your consciousness a little”.
Most difficulties arise because of our egos which make us react from a narrow personal position to circumstances, events and people around us. But if as a first stage we can create the sense widening ourselves a kind of unfolding of ourselves, then whatever was holding and strangling us making us suffer or paralyzing our movements also begins to gradually unfold and become diffuse as if it has been exposed to the light rather than being packed away within. When, one can attempt to mentally let go or relax, that is unfold one’s mind to allow higher influences to enter, the problem inevitably dissolves as the ego preventing the solution from emerging dissolves.
This is as the mother points out, much easier than struggling against the difficulty with one’s thought because if one begins to discuss with one’s own self one finds that there are arguments both for and against and both are so convincing that it is quite impossible to get out of the inconclusive debate within without a higher light. By allowing the mind to widen and receive the possibilities of different solutions, one does not struggle against the difficulties, nor does one try to convince oneself but allows a solution to emerge. It is somewhat like what Keats meant by ‘negative capability’
Again, when we find ourselves hurt and disheartened, the feelings can be overcome by bringing about a shift in attitude, perception or point of view. As the Mother says :
“there is a way also of trying to identify yourself with all things upon earth. For example, when you have a small narrow vision of something and art hurt by others’ vision and point of view, you must begin by shifting your consciousness, try to put it in others, and try gradually to identify yourself with all the different ways of thinking of all others. This a little more…how shall I put it?….dangerous. Because to identify oneself with the thought and will of others means to identify oneself with a heap of stupidities…and bad wills, and this may bring consequences which are not very good. But still, some people do this more easily. For instance, when they are in disagreement with someone, in order to widen their consciousness they try to put themselves in the place of the other and see the thing not from their own point of view but from the point of view of the other. This widens the consciousness, though not as much as by the first ways I spoke about, which are quite innocent. They don’t do you any harm, they do you much good. They make you very peaceful”.
Thich Nhat Hahn has also given us a meditation which is a useful tool in problem solving and is used in many Buddhist monasteries for the training of the mind. In any conflicting situation, it is necessary for the mind to comprehend both points of view. In the example that he gives of a river and a swimmer, a student is asked to first give the point of view of the swimmer in the river. However, after a while, he is asked to articulate the feelings of the river in which the swimmer is swimming. This makes the mind supple and flexible and is likely to lead to an understanding through which a solution is possible. As the Mother points out “all contradictories can be transformed into complementaries, but for that one must discover a higher idea that will be able to harmonize them. It is good to consider all problems from all possible standpoints to avoid partiality and exclusiveness, but if the thought is to be active and creative it must, in each case, be the natural and logical synthesis of all the point of view taken in. And if you are to make to the totality of your thoughts a dynamic and constructive force, you must take great care as to the choice of the central idea of your mental synthesis; for upon that will depend the value of your synthesis”.
She gives a useful exercise for problem solving :
“…..there is an exercise which gives great suppleness and elevation to the thought. It is as follows: a clearly formulated thesis is set; against it is opposed its antithesis, formulated with the same precision. Then by careful reflection the problem must be widened or transcended until a synthesis is found which unites the two contraries in a large, higher and more comprehensive idea”.
Acquiring this suppleness of mind and techniques of problem solving is absolutely essential for living in communities because human beings as we have seen, have to work in collectivities rather than in isolation. Living in a community we see perceptions of ourselves are reflected back to us. It is easy to dismiss these, especially the negative images but we must learn to accept them these and try to see and hear even when we want to reject them. When we work in a community, our shared experiences allow us to clarify our thinking, open ourselves to critical ideas, increase our awareness of others and uncover our values and beliefs, that is, our self-knowledge increases through community. Thus experience is enhanced when we respect diversity. Listening carefully and learning from our differences broadens our point of view. Besides, listening creates a community because we then notice not only those needs and understandings that are fully formed but also participate in the formation of new needs and understandings. In this way, mutual learning and growth takes place.
The challenge before learning institutions is to how reshape our thinking: recreate our organizations and how to redefine the way we work within the universities and thus the mode of our functioning outside in society. The organizations can only reshape themselves through a shared vision among their members, an invitation to them to engage in a dialogue among themselves and with those outside the organization. The three cornerstones for an organization to change itself could be aspiration, conversation and conceptualization. Aspiration takes into account the personal vision of the individuals and tries to create a shared vision for the institution. This can only be done by a process of conversation or dialogue through which individuals attempt to draw out into the open their internalized assumptions ad subject them to the scrutiny of others and of their own selves. These processes are carried out within a context of systems thinking – looking at relationships and interdependence of the parts of the organization. For example, if we adopt a systems orientation, we might ask ourselves who is an expert or a specialist. We may realize that such rapid changes are taking place in knowledge, the problems and issues are increasingly complex and thee is a diversity of expertise available among individuals and groups. We may then, instead of relying on one individual or discipline, adopt a more interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach. Also, we may realize that we have to employ new combinations of resources and knowledge orientations to deal with issues. Another approach would be to take a longer-term perspective that gives less importance to immediate pay-offs and more to multiple benefits in the future.
If we really do have a capacity to develop psychologically toward greater integration, consciousness and wholeness, it means we have a capacity to develop not just horizontally as in the expansion of knowledge and skills but also vertically as in the evolution and transcendence of ourselves, our perspectives ad world views. Vertical education for transcendence and integration moves beyond horizontal expansion and through its challenges and support of growth and development, promotes those processes integration and transformation.
In institutions of higher education, there is considerable experience in addressing development along the horizontal plane but very little on how to develop along the vertical plane. Universities have not had issues to spirituality, transformation and transcendence on their agenda. Educators themselves are not ready to accept that spiritual strivings and personal transformation are part of the challenge of higher education. Many see it as self-indulgence or are vary of supporting a moral ideas outside their sphere of work. Also, in the age of computation and measurable outcomes education that attends to personal transformation is as odds with education that promotes observable knowledgeable skills. Also, successful programs on the vertical plane would require adult educators who themselves are on the development path of the transformation of the self.
However, themes of meaning, spirituality and human consciousness need to be given a place. Students often have well-worked out career related goals but the inner dissatisfaction and groping arises out of a need to know more about and develop their own selves. Educators tend to get too involved in extrinsic aspects of motivation and miss the intrinsic goal which is to foster human qualities that would contribute to the functioning of the whole integrated personality. Hence, a more central place needs to be given to self-development and consciousness studies in higher education through forums, courses, conferences, symposia and study groups. Another important task is to create opportunities for self-reflection. It is important to be consciously self-reflective, aware of the way our organs register information and how we can direct and control our experiences. A brief moment occurs, if we can train ourselves to be aware of it, between the stimulus and our response to it, which can be used for self-reflection. With self-reflection we begin to write our own program for action. It is to be proactive in a very specific way because then we stop reacting, get a moment to reflect on our own action and figure out whether we are contributing to our own problems. If educational institutions can teach us to view ourselves to become witnesses to our own thoughts and actions and to have the honesty and courage to act dispassionately apart from making us technological proficient, they will impact society in a way so as to create a better and more humane world for all to live in. They would then have attained their true goal.
DR. KAVITA A.SHARMA