Spirituality in Education

While focusing attention on the present day system of education and objective, we see hundreds of schools, colleges and universities flooding the country with proud propagation of their multifarious merits and benefits. The Government runs free schools providing free uniforms both even mid-day meals with a view to abolishing illiteracy and to educate everyone in the country.

Compared to schools and colleges of the past, modern technology, techniques, facilities, infrastructure etc. in the field have no doubt been improved and many. Come out with flying clouds and adorning high offices with fabulous packages. Will all these advancements we parade on our achievement and harangued proudly on publishing platforms.

But we forget to take into account the very purpose and object of education. The education that is imparted at schools and colleges primarily aims at career making not learning which makes a lopsided development. The primary purpose of education is defeated as such we see only money making machines, not humans.

Hence it is high time to be aware of what education really means. It would be quite appropriate to quote Bhagaban Sri Sathya Sai Baba “Educations without character, service without humanity, Commerce without morality and politics without principle are not only useless but positively dangerous.” While saying education without character it objectively pinpoints that, education is intimately associated with character. Does our system reflect any trait of character?

No. An emphatic no becoming literate in a particular stream of education and grabbing a lucrative job are not the be all and end all of education. Even a man can be educated without literacy. Education and literacy are roles apart in their inherent aspects. Education should aim at character building developing human values, up holding cultural and Spiritual grandeur shaping our behavioural pattern, with an eye on the five golden rules that adorn the Divine emblem of Bhagaban like Sathya, Dharma, Shanti, Prema and Ahinsa. We find many so-called educated people indulging themselves in most nefarious activities which a truly educated man can never dream of.

Money making education and value based education are not one and the same. Money making education simply aims at making money either by fair or foul means. It is blind to human values, even human traits. Such educated people are simply human in form but subhuman in character. That is why Bhagaban Baba integrated education with character. It is
therefore time to follow value based education to call yourself a man. I am again reminded of an oft quoted saying, “If money is lost and if character is lost, everything things lost.

Hence students should guard their character with utmost care and caution. The value based education which the society had embraced in the past, was held high in esteem and appreciation simply because it aimed at laying down a foundation to build human beings in its true spirit and aspiration. Besides being a good student, one has to be a good man. Mugging up lessons and vomiting them out on the answer papers mistakably does not make a man.

Hence the primary purpose of education is to carve out beautiful images from the hard rock and to infuse life into them with all divine qualities like manliness, humility, truthfulness, honesty, sympathy, love, fearlessness, compassion,
polite behaviour and so on. It is relevant to say that a school of Bhagawan Baba is altogether different from ordinary school.

Those who had the good fortune of visiting Puttaparthi, must have come across students right from K.G to P.G. either on the road, on the bus or train, even on their way to the prayer hall. One can find a striking difference in comparison to students of other educational institutions.

Such fragrance is expected from students of all schools and colleges of Sri Sathya Sai Organisation where it may be located. It is only possible with sincere efforts of teachers, parents, and devotees.

By Soura Chandra Mohapatra

The writer is a Senior Advocate,
Orissa High Court, Cuttack

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