On Education

IV

THE EDUCATION OF THE VITAL

Of all education, the education of the vital is perhaps the most important and the most indispensable. Yet it is rarely taken up and followed with understanding and method. There are several reasons for this: first, human thinking is in a great confusion over what concerns this particular subject; secondly, the enterprise is very difficult and to be successful in it one must have endurance, endless persistence and an inflexible will.

    Indeed, the vital in man's nature is a despotic and exacting tyrant. Moreover, since it holds within itself power, energy, enthusiasm, effective dynamism, many have a feeling of timorous respect for it and try always to please it. But it is a master that is satisfied by nothing and its demands have no limit. Two ideas, very widespread, specially in the West, contribute towards making its domination ever more masterful. One is that the goal of life is to be happy; the other that you are born with a certain character and it is impossible to change it.

    The first idea is a childish deformation of a very profound truth : it is that all existence is based upon the delight of being and without the delight of being there would be no life. But this delight of being, which is a quality of the Divine and therefore unconditioned, must not be confused with the pursuit of pleasure in life, for that depends largely upon circumstances. The conviction that makes one believe that . one has the right to be happy leads, as a matter of course, towards the will to live one's life at any cost. This attitude

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in its obscure and aggressive egoism brings about every conllict and misery, deception and discouragement, ending often in a catastrophe.

    In the world, as it actually is, the goal of life is not to secure personal happiness, but to awaken the individual progressively towards the Truth-consciousness.

    The second idea arises from the fact that a fundamental change in character needs an almost complete mastery over the subconscient and a very rigorous disciplining of whatever comes up from the inconscient, which, in ordinary natures, is an expression of the consequences of atavism and of the environment in which one is born. Only an almost abnormal growth of consciousness and the constant help of Grace can achieve this Herculean task. Besides, this task has rarely been attempted; many famous teachers have declared it unrealisable and chimerical. Yet it is not unrealisable. The transformation of character has been realised in fact by means of a clearsighted discipline and a perseverance so obstinate that nothing, not even the most persistent failures, can discourage it.

    The indispensable starting point is a detailed and discerning observation of the character to be transformed. In most cases, that itself is a diScult and often baSing task. But there is one fact which the old traditions knew and which can serve as the clew in the labyrinth of inner discovery. It is that everyone possesses in a large measure, and the exceptional individual in an increasing degree of precision, two opposite tendencies in the character, almost in equal proportions, which are like the light and the shadow of the same thing. Thus a man who has the capacity of being exceptionally generous suddenly finds rushing up in his nature an obstinate avarice; the courageous is

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somewhere a coward and the good suddenly have wicked impulses. Life seems to endow everyone, along with the possibility of expressing an ideal, with contrary elements representing in a concrete manner the battle he has to wage and the victory he has to win so that the realisation may be possible. In this way, all life is an education carried on more or less consciously, more or less deliberately. In certain cases this education helps the movements expressing the light, in others the opposite movements i.e., those that express the shadow. If the circumstances and the environment are favourable, the light will grow at the expense of the shadow; otherwise the contrary will happen. Hence the individual's character will crystallise according to the caprice of nature and the determinism of a material and vital life, unless there is a luminous intervention of a higher element, a conscious will which will not let nature follow its whimsical procedure but replace it by a logical and clearseeing discipline. This conscious will is what we mean by the rational method of education.

    That is why it is of prime importance that the education of the child's vital should begin as early as possible, indeed, as soon as he is able to use his senses. In that way, many bad habits will be avoided and harmful influences eliminated.

    The education of the vital has two principal aspects, very different as to the goal and the process, but both are equally important. The first is to develop and utilise the sense organs, the second is to become conscious and gradually master of one's character and in the end to achieve its transformation.

    The education of the senses, again, has several aspects, adding to each other as the being grows: indeed this

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education should not stop at all. The sense organs may be so cultivated as to attain a precision and power in their functioning far greater than what is normally expected of them.

    Some ancient mystic knowledge declared that the number of senses that man can develop is not five but seven and in certain special cases even twelve. Certain races at certain epochs have, through necessity, developed more or less perfectly one or the other of these supplementary senses. With a proper discipline persistently gone through, they are within the reach of all who are sincerely interested in their culture and its results. Among the many faculties that are often spoken of, there is, for example, this one: to widen the physical consciousness, project it out of oneself so as to concentrate on a definite point and thus get the sight, hearing, smell, taste and even the touch at a distance.

    To this general education of the senses and their action there will be added, as early as possible, the cultivation of discrimination and the aesthetic sense, the capacity to choose and take up what is beautiful and harmonious, simple, healthy and pure. For, there is a psychological health even as there is a physical health; there is a beauty and harmony of the sensations, even as there is a beauty of the body and its movements. As the capacity of understanding grows in the child he should be taught, in the course of his education, to add artistic taste and refinement to power and precision. He must be shown, made to appreciate, taught to love beautiful, lofty, healthy and noble things, whether in nature or in human creation. It must be a true aesthetic culture and it will save him from degrading influences. For in the wake of the last wars and the terrible nervous tension which they provoked, as a sign, perhaps, of the decline of civilisation and decompo-

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sition of society, has come a growing vulgarity which seems to have taken possession of human life, individual as well as collective, particularly on the level of aesthetic life and the life of the senses, A methodical and enlightened cultivation of the senses can, little by little, remove from the child whatever is vulgar, commonplace and crude in him through contagion: this education will have happy reactions even on his character. For one who has developed a truly refined taste, will feel, because of this very refinement, incapable of acting in a crude, brutal or vulgar manner. This refinement, if it is sincere, will bring to the being a nobility and generosity which will spontaneously find expression in his behaviour and will keep him away from many base and perverse movements.

    And this brings us naturally to the second aspect of vital education, i.e., that which concerns character and its transformation.

    Generally, systems of discipline dealing with the vital, its purification and its mastery proceed by coercion, suppression, abstinence and asceticism. The procedure is certainly easier and quicker although, in a deeper way, less enduring and efFective than that of strict and detailed education. Besides, it eliminates all possibility of the intervention, help and collaboration of the vital. However, this help is af the utmost importance if one wishes to have an allround growth of the individual and his activity.

    To become conscious of the many movements in oneself and take note of what one does and why one does it, is the indispensable starting-point. The child must be taught to observe himself, to note his reactions and impulses and their causes, to become a clear-sighted witness of his desires, his movements of violence and passion, his instincts of pos-

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session and appropriation and domination and the background of vanity against which they stand with their counterparts of weakness, discouragement, depression and despair.

    Evidently, the process would be useful only when along with the growth of the power of observation there grows also the will towards progress and perfection. This will is to be instilled into the child as soon as he is capable of having one, that is to say, at a much younger age than is usually believed.

    There are different methods according to differen cases for awakening this will to surmount and conquer: on certain individuals it is rational arguments that are effective, for others sentiment and goodwill are to be brought into play, in others again it is the sense of dignity and self- respect; for all, however, it is the example shown constantly and sincerely that is the most powerful means.

    Once the resolution is firmly established, there is nothing more to do than to proceed with strictness and persistence, never to accept defeat as final. If you are to avoid all weakening and withdrawing, there is one important point you must know and never forget: the will can be cultivated and developed even like the muscles by methodical and progressive exercise. You must not shrink from demanding of your will the maximum effort even for a thing that appears to be of no importance; for it is by effort that capacity grows, acquiring little by little the power to apply itself even to the most difficult things. What you have decided to do, you must do, come what may, even if you have to begin your attempt over and over again any number of times. Your will will be strengthened by the effort, and in the end you will have nothing more to do than to choose with a clear vision the goal to which you will apply it.

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    To sum up: one must gain a full knowledge of one' s character and then acquire control over one's movements so that one may achieve perfect mastery and transformation of all the elements that have to be transformed.

    Now, all will depend upon the ideal which the effort for mastery and transformation seeks to achieve. The value of the effort and its result will depend upon the value of the ideal. This is the subject we shall deal with next, in connection with mental education.

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