Guidance on Education

THE AIM

Students' Prayer

Make of us the hero warriors we aspire to become. May we fight successfully the great battle of the future that is to be born, against the past that seeks to endure, so that the new things may manifest and we may be ready to receive them.

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The aim of education is not to prepare a man to succeed in life and society, but to increase his perfectibility to its utmost.

Why are no diplomas and certificates given to the students of the Centre of Education?

For the last hundred years or so mankind has been suffering from a disease which seems to be spreading more and more and which has reached a climax in our times; it is what we may call "utilitarianism".
People and things, circumstances and activities seem to be viewed and appreciated exclusively from this angle. Nothing has any value unless it is useful. Certainly something that is useful is better than something that is not. But first we must agree on what we describe as useful useful to Whom, to what, for what?

For, more and more, the races who consider themselves civilised describe as useful whatever can attract,

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At an age when they should be dreaming of beauty, greatness and perfection, dreams that may be too sublime for ordinary common sense, but which are nevertheless far superior to this dull good sense, children now dream of money and worry about how to earn it.

So when they think of their studies, they think above all about what can be useful to them, so that later on when they grow up they can earn a lot of money.

And the thing that becomes most important for them is to prepare themselves to pass examinations with success, for with diplomas, certificates and titles they will be able to find good positions and earn a lot of money.

For them study has no other purpose, no other interest.

To learn for the sake of knowledge, to study in order to know the secrets of Nature and life, to educate oneself in order to grow in consciousness, to discipline oneself in order to become master of oneself, to overcome one's weaknesses, incapacities and ignorance, to prepare oneself to advance in life towards a goal that is nobler and vaster, more generous and more true...they hardly give it a thought and consider it all very utopian. The only thing that matters is to be practical, to prepare themselves and learn how to earn money.

Children who are infected with this disease are out

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of place at the Centre of Education of the Ashram. And it is to make this quite clear to them that we do not prepare them for any official examination or competition and do not give them any diplomas or titles which they can use in the outside world.

We want here only those who aspire for a higher and better life, who thirst for knowledge and perfection, who look forward eagerly to a future that will be more totally true.

There is plenty of room in the world for all the others.

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What is the real purpose, the aim of our Education Centre? Is it to teach Sri Aurobindo's works? And these only? And all or some of these? Or is it to prepare students to read Sri Aurobindo's works and Mother's? Is it to prepare them for the Ashram life or also for other 'outside' occupation? There are so many opinions floating around, and even those older people whom we expect to know make so many different statements, that one does not know what to believe and act by. Then on what basis can we work without any real sure knowledge? I pray, Mother, give us your guidance.

It is not a question of preparing to read these works or other works. It is a question of pulling all those who are capable to do so, out of the general human routine of thought, feeling and action; it is to give all opportunities to those who are here to cast off from them the slavery to the human way of thinking and doing; it is

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to teach all those who want to listen that there is another and truer way of living, that Sri Aurobindo has taught us how to live and become a true being and that the aim of the education here is to prepare the children and make them fit for that life.

For all the rest, the human ways of thinking and living, the world is vast and there is place out there for everybody.

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We are not here to do (only a little better) what the others do.

We are here to do what the others cannot do because they do not have the idea that it can be done.

We are here to open the way of the Future to children who belong to the Future.

Anything else is not worth the trouble and not worthy of Sri Aurobindo's help.

6 September 1961

It should be known and we should not hesitate to say openly that the purpose of our school is to discover and encourage those in whom the need for progress has become conscious enough to orient their life.

5 August 1963

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The best students are those who want to know, not those who want to show.

23 April 1966

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The Whole question is to know whether the students go to school to increase their knowledge and to learn what is needed to know how to live well or whether they go to school to pretend and to have good marks which they can boast about.

Before the Eternal Consciousness, one drop of sincerity has more value than an ocean of pretence and hypocrisy.

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School is just a preparation to make the students capable of thinking, studying, progressing and becoming intelligent if they can all that must be done during the entire life and not only in school.

November 1967

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What should he the guiding principles of the new ideal of education?

Truth, Harmony, Liberty.

November 1967

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Don't you think that in our programme of education children should he taught to do some disinterested work for the Ashram, at least once a week.?

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It is always good to do disinterested work. But it becomes much better if the work becomes an enjoyment and not a boring task.

Blessings.

26 November 1969

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To develop the spirit of service is part of the training here and it completes the other studies.

13 June 1971