(Translation of a discourse by Gurudev Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya on “Susankari Banaye, Kaisi Ho Wah Shiksha”)
Let us begin with the collective chanting of the Gayatri Mantra:
“Om Bhur Buvah Swah, Tatsaviturvareñyam Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi, Dhiyo Yonah Pracodayat ||”
Sisters and Brothers,
We have made a small beginning today. As such, it sounds so ordinary common practice) for a social organization to start a school! Millions of schools, colleges, academies, universities are there in the world. Governments, private institutions, NGOs, and many individuals keep trying in their own ways to provide education to children, youths and/or adults. So you may wonder, what is so special about this new project our mission has launched today! Well, at peripheral level it is insignificant to start a school for children or training program for women with 30-40 students. But as you look into the finer details, you will find that it is a step towards a high goal.
If you see plantation in a ploughed field, you will find that the process is simple and small: tiny seeds are sown in the soil and are watered from time to time. But the outcome is so large! At the right time, thousand times more seeds (grains) are harvested from it. Have you seen the fields of wheat, maze, rice, sugarcane, etc? Initially the fields look almost like a plane surface. The little saplings that grow after sometime are so delicate that one just can’t imagine their growth. But in a few months the field is covered by the flourishing crop full of a treasure of grains.
Tiny saplings planted in a small portion of the garden gradually blossom and fill it with marvelous green shades, flowers and fruits. Many of the thin, minuscule rod-like saplings turn into mighty trees standing for years as witness to the grand transformation. Small steps in the righteous direction lead to great achievements. A quiet, insignificant beginning made with firm determination and prudent vision eventually accomplishes grand tasks. I have always followed this example. All milestones of our mission are achieved through small beginnings. The present effort, which appears so insignificant, is also aimed at a noble objective.
Education is also like sowing the seeds. Let us look at some live examples to see what best one can sow and reap.
Swami Shraddhanand was always concerned about upliftment of the Indian masses, which was in a downtrodden state of mental and economic backwardness in the early twentieth century. He realized that shaping the talents of the children would be most beneficial /effective, as they are the future of the society. The minds of children are like soft wax that can be easily molded in any desired shape. Soft, fresh stick of cane is flexible enough to be bent in any form, but an old, hard stick would simply break if one tries to bend it. Similar is the difference between the mental state of children and adults. If given proper guidance and training, the personality of children could be so chiseled that they would become great humans of worthy/honorable character.
Maharshi (great Vedic sage) Vishwamitra had taken princes Ram and Lakshman with him in the childhood. His noble guidance and rigorous training nurtured them with superhuman potentials, honed their talents and illumined their characters with angelic glow. Lord Krishna had also gone to the Ashram of Rishi Sandipini in his childhood itself. Noble education there at the right age had shaped his divine personality. Luv and Kush were also trained in the Ashram of Rishi Valmiki since their early childhood. Young age is very important for best effect of education.
The impact of enlightened teaching on adult students is not as good and intense as it is on the young students. Swami Shraddhanand had recognized this fact. He therefore took up the task of educating the young children in a special way. This was about eighty ninety years back. He sold his house for rupees five thousands to run the gurukul on his own without charging any fee. He made small huts near the banks of the holy Ganga in Haridwar and began his school with ten students. People laughed at this attempt. They found it a mockery of an educational institution because of the small number of students. The handmade hutments stood nowhere in front of the plush premises of the public schools at Massouri and Dehradun in nearby regions. But no criticism or ridicule could shake Swami Shraddhanand’s determination. He continued with his unflinching endeavors of creating great personalities among his students. Even the flood in the Ganga could not deter him. His dedication indeed served a great purpose.
His small school continued to grow and eventually gave birth to the reputed Gurukul Kangadi University. Noted talents, social reformers, patriotic freedom fighters like Indrasen, Vidyavachaspati, Satyadev Vidyalankar, Ram Gopal Vidyarthi, were the initial products of this unique school. No other educational institute, however big and publicized it may be, could boast of having produced any one comparable to such chiseled personalities.
Our mission’s press at Mathura is publishing thousands of books and magazines with millions of subscribers today. But do you know how it was started? Nearly forty, forty-two years ago I had opened a small printing unit. Anyone who saw it could not control his laughter. There was only a small hand-operated machine bought for rupees three hundred fifty, and the plan was to publish a magazine that would transform the era!! Sounded so funny! All well-wishers advised me not to waste money in this misadventure. The facility and resources were small, but the objective was great.
We began with hand made paper. There were only three persons working in this tiny printing press of total cost of about one thousand rupees. But the matter that was printed by the small machine was precious. The books and magazines (“Akhand Jyoti” and other monthly of the mission) published in this insignificant press shook and awakened the minds of readers and laid the foundation of this great mission. And you all know what kind of things many of the huge printing presses are publishing – dirty novels, story books and magazines, the standard of many of which is so low that it’s better not to make a mention of them. So you see it is the grandeur of the objective and dedication to it that matter for historic achievements. The abundance and glitter of tools or resources hardly count.
A British Inspector in Itava, Sir Humes thought of organizing a group of Indian youths who would help solve people’s problem. He toured around and gathered about forty – fifty volunteers from villages and towns in different parts of India. His motive was good so his efforts fructified and this group gradually became a strong national organization – namely, the Indian National Congress, which at that time, gave the country great leaders like, Lokmanya Tilak, Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri. Every group, every organization can’t achieve this unless it is founded and run on some noble principles and for high objectives. Vested interest, foul play, substandard or unmindful aims or aimless activities on the contrary eventually bring failures, loss and bad name to the doer and his associates.
Another example in support of the point under discussion is the Banasthali Vidyapeeth. Shri Hiralal Shastri, a school teacher of a village in Rajasthan took an unprecedentedly bold initiative nearly eight decades ago. Sacrificing all the money and materialistic means that he owned, this farsighted teacher launched a small school for girls at a place called Banasthali (forest place), about 50 kilometers from Jaipur. The purpose was to encourage girls’ education, uplift their inherent talents and train them to be self-dependent. Like the gurukul of Swami Sharddhanand, character building was the main focus here.
His miniscule scale school has now grown into a full-fledged university, which offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in all major branches of arts and science. Today the girls admitted to this university can even learn designing and flying a high-tech aircraft, do research in frontline areas of science and technology, etc. The premises has several buildings each valued several hundred millions of rupees. Who can imagine that all this is an expansion of a hutment type school? This miracle happened because of the great purpose and dedication to this noble cause. If you have such focused vision and devotion for an altruistic cause, individuals, institutions, every one, even divine powers will help you.
Opening of our mission’s school also marks launching of a grand plan, which will set the foundation of righteous and holistic education. I want that, along with mainstream school education, the students will also be taught and trained in sanskrati vidya1. It will not be a highflying education centre or public school where a fee of thousands of rupees is charged per student. Many such schools are there in our country. But tell me how many of them train the students to be good humans of high integrity? How many inculcate humility, sense of responsibility and compassionate sensitivity in the minds and hearts of the students? Perhaps, none! Education today is devoid of sanskrati vidya. What is sanskrati vidya? It is that which transforms us from merely being organisms of human species or from the so-called social animals into awakened, duty-bound citizens, socially responsible, kind and prudent persons. It is that which transmutes good humans into great humans, and successively into revered personalities, saintly sages, and human incarnation of angelic beings.
Looking at the smart manipulative skills, cleverness and cunningness of many of the educated persons today, I sometimes feel that the uneducated villagers are better; they would at least be simpler and not so polished and shrewd in cheating others. They, because of lesser exposure to the so-called elite educated world of arrogance and rat-race and because of lesser prejudice, would adopt sanskrati vidya more easily and intensely than most of the well-educated ones today. The ‘educated class’ today often appears to have chosen to be deaf and blind to the falling moral and cultural values.
False pride of high-education and consequent worldly status seem to have wiped out even the civic sense and moral code of conduct which they might have been taught in primary schools. For them, the word ‘sanskrati’ is mostly confined to its word translation culture’, which is popularly interpreted today as pertaining to dance, music, painting, sculpturing, handicrafts, and other forms of art, linguistics, social customs, etc. The government departments and many of the national and global centers and organizations of culture and education are doing no better. (No doubt, literature, theater and music have the power to influence peoples’ thoughts and sentiments. But who cares for intrinsic refinement and use these to disseminate the real sanskrati?).
Sanskrati Vidya teaches you the knowledge of living a happy and progressive life with dignity of humanity. It can’t be taught by just any teacher or professor or any one having degrees and experience of prevalent education system. One has to be an enlightened master (Guru) of the level of a rishi (saintly sage). In the ancient times of glorious vedic culture, education used be complete (and that is why it was called “Vidya”), as it encompassed Shiksha as well as sanskrati. Only rishis used to bear the responsibility of teaching. Their very presence was an embodiment of vidya. They set live examples of what it means to be culturally evolved, what it is to adopt sanskrati. You see, one can give Shiksha as per his or her expertise and experience, but a teacher of vidya has to adopt it in his life.
In my childhood days, many teachers were dedicated to produce good, disciplined citizens. I used to attend primary school in my village Amalkheda. Those days, nearly sixty years ago, the merit scholarship offered by the government to bright and talented students was rupees two per month. Most of the merit scholarships sanctioned for Agra District were awarded to the students of my school. Almost one-third of the students of every passing out batch used to secure meritorious ranks. This is because we had an excellent teacher who had transformed the school into a kind of gurukul.
Children used to stay there. With motherly care, he used to discipline them to sleep early, get up early, make their beds, clean their teeth, bathe, etc, on time. The parents of his students were happy and wanted their children to spend more time under his vigilant guidance. He lucidly taught them the primary school level subjects, but more importantly like a guru, he also developed the strong base of their overall development.
It is painful to see the pathetic state of education today. Our schools, colleges, universities are not doing justice even with the worldly aspects of education – viz., shiksha. Just anybody seems to have opened his school! The nature of education and attitudes of teachers and students also often seem influenced by base commercial considerations. Students today seem indifferent to education. It looks like they care only for certificates and degrees, which will help them get the jobs with fat salaries. Today’s teachers are paid employees; it is hard to find a guru among them.
Notes:
1. Sanskrati Vidya: Education imbibed with Sanskrit, i.e. education that incorporates cultivation of integrity and noble cultural values and enlightened development of personality.
2. Shiksha: The kind of education prevalent in the modern times. This may be described as – classroom teaching of literacy and worldly knowledge, and training for development of specific skills or talents, which enable the students to get a respectable means of living and progress materialistically. (To be concluded in the next issue)
Akhand Jyoti 2009 Jan-Feb
