Principles and Goals of Integral Education

IX

SAICE: Courses of Study

It is well understood by most educationists that in Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education there cannot be any fixed syllabus for all the students of the same academic level, for "Free Progress" is the favoured norm there and in the free progress of the students it is inconceivable that different students, studying under the guidance of teachers of their choice and pursuing the lines of their own development, will have to be bound by the same fixed quantum of syllabus. But what about the nature of the Courses themselves? Is there any bias there in favour of some particular genre of studies? Is there any negative feeling, if not any pronounced antipathy, towards certain other courses and subjects? These questions arise because of some valid considerations. Let us elucidate.

Everybody is well aware of the fact that Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry is a reputed spiritual institution known all over the world for its distinctive brand of the Integral Yoga, Puma Yoga. Many hundreds of sadhakas and sadhikas permanently residing there are seriously practising this integral way of self-development and self-transformation. And Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education is an indivisible integral part of the Ashram organisation and culture. Hence it is obviously expected that a religious-spiritual bias will definitely be at work in choosing the courses of study in the "Centre" and there will be a natural

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downgrading of the common non-spiritual secular subjects. But is it really so? Of course, those who are somewhat knowledgeable automatically reject the idea of any pronounced religious training there. For they know that the teachings and world-philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are far removed from the propagation of any credal religion and its tenets: what they emphasise is an experiential spiritual outlook on life and the world-existence. And when such is the situation in fact, it is quite expected that the Ashram's Centre of Education will concentrate on "spiritual Courses of studies" in its Curriculum and neglect, if not actually denigrate, subjects like various branches of materialistic sciences and such other exotic secular disciplines which grip the interest of normal men of the world. But it may come as a surprising revelation to many when they come to know that the case is quite different and all subjects, even the most mundane, are taught to the students in this International Centre of Education with equal interest and enthusiasm. But why so? Why the cultivation of these subjects in an avowedly spiritual Ashram institution?

A similar problem puzzled many Ashramites when in the mid-forties of the last century the Mother introduced in Sri Aurobindo Ashram a full-fledged programme of physical education, ostensibly for the young school children but actually open to all the inmates of the Ashram, even to the veteran sadhakas and sadhikas of quite an advanced age. Sports and Physical education activities in Sri Aurobindo Ashram? What an anomaly! And Sri Aurobindo supporting the Mother in her new initiative! It was difficult to reconcile the two things on the part of many old-day sadhakas and

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sadhikas of whom the vocal and forceful spokesman was no other person than the famous Dilip Kumar Roy who went so far as to write many a letter to Sri Aurobindo pointing out to him the oddity of the situation and asking for some clear explanation. Sri Aurobindo did not mind the tone of the letters addressed by his beloved disciple. He was compassion and love incarnate and explained patiently in letter after letter the genesis and the development of physical culture in the Ashram. He even wrote two long highly luminous articles on physical education and justified its appearance in his spiritual Ashram: These articles were published at that time in the Ashram Journal, Bulletin of Physical Education. Interested readers may look through these two articles and gain much insight. (The articles have been reprinted in SABCL, Vol. 16.)

Be that as it may, let us revert to our original discussion. The question that was raised was whether there is any compatibility between the spiritual nature of Sri Aurobindo Ashram and the enthusiastic study of "secular" subjects in its "Centre of Education". The answer is: Not only compatible but actually necessary. But how? To comprehend the answer properly, we must know the basic tenets of Sri Aurobindo's world-vision.

In the normal conception of traditional ascetic spirituality, Matter and Spirit are antithetical; love of the earthly existence and a truly spiritual realisation are not compatible. To have one, one has to renounce the other. But in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga-philosophy, the Supreme One has at the same time a triple aspect, an aspect of transcendence, a second aspect of world-immanence, and a third one of individuation

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in every living sentient being. To know and realise him integrally, one cannot exclude any of these aspects; one has to realise him integrally everywhere. The world is not cut off from the Supreme; it is His own manifestation in infinitely multiform ways. To seek Him, find Him, and recognise His manifestation in Time and Space as beyond Time and Space, and in every object and in every creature, even in every phenomenon, is the valid goal of human existence. Everything else is a part of this achievement.

And if it is so, all life can and should become the field of Yoga; of course, if it is approached appropriately. The Divine manifestation is everywhere; He is peeping through everything but from behind an opaque veil created by our separative egoistic ignorance or Avidya. To lift this veil and see face to face the One who is Many, also to penetrate His manifold manifestation through phenomena of different categories and marvel at its infinite richness with spiritually ecstatic delight, should be the right object behind the study of various subjects. Thus it is not the subject as such but the spirit and the attitude behind its study that changes the quality of everything. There are not two different types of subjects, secular and spiritual; there are only two different types of knowledge, secular and spiritual, lower and higher; and this depends on how one approaches the study and investigation of a particular subject. The same subject offers us ordinary worldly knowledge if we study it in one way but leads us to spiritual knowledge if, instead, we investigate it in a different way. Thus SAICE does not exclude, on principle, any particular subject from its study Course; it only shows how to study it in order to lift it to a higher level.

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After this preliminary introductory discussion of the truth behind, let us quote some passages from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, which will make clear to our readers' mind what courses of study are offered to the students in Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education and why.

(1)"To unite East and West, to give the best of one to the other and make a true synthesis, a University will be established for all kinds of studies. Our school will form a nucleus of that University." (CWM, Vol. 12, p. 218)

(2)"The division between 'ordinary life' and 'spiritual life' is an outdated antiquity." (Ibid., p. 403)

(3)A teacher complained to the Mother that [what, according to his estimation, were] trivial and useless things were being taught [to the students...]

The Mother's Answer:

"Your difficulty comes from the fact that you have still the old belief that in life some things are high and others low. It is not exact. It is not the things or the activities that are high or low, it is the consciousness of the doer which is true or false.

If you unite your consciousness with the Supreme Consciousness and manifest It, all you think, feel or do becomes luminous and true. It is not the subject of the teaching which is to be changed, it is the consciousness with which you teach that must be enlightened." (Ibid., p. 175)

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(4)Question: "Up to the secondary level, it is understood that the children are too young to know about Yoga and to decide whether they want to take up Yoga or not. So the education to them is education and nothing else.

But for the Higher Course [here the students' ages vary from eighteen to twenty-one], I think, it must be made clear that only those who are here for Yoga can be admitted as members of this Course — then the education becomes Yoga.

If Mother gives Her directive on this point, it will make things very clear to many of us."

The Mother's Answer:

"It is not quite like that. In all the sections, Primary, Secondary and Higher Course, the children will follow yogic methods in their education and prepare and try to bring down new knowledge. So all the students can be said to be doing Yoga.

A distinction must be made, however, between those doing Yoga and the disciples. To be a disciple one has to surrender and the decision to do so must be full and spontaneous. Such decisions have to be taken individually — when the call comes — and it cannot be imposed or even suggested." (Ibid., pp. 179-80)

(5)Question: "Sri Aurobindo, in one of his letters, has written about the young people and their readiness for sadhana. I enclose a copy of this letter for you to see. [See SABCL, Vol. 24, pp. 1615-16.] I should like to

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know from you [Mother,] if the warning given by Sri Aurobindo in this letter against enthusiastically communicating to the young people the ideas and feelings about spiritual life should be kept in mind while speaking to our students in the class? Is there a danger of 'lighting an imitative and unreal fire' in them as Sri Aurobindo says here?"

The Mother's Answer:

"This quotation is splendid and very, very useful.

Certainly the warning given by Sri Aurobindo must be strictly kept in mind when speaking to the young people who are bound to change their mind easily.

In class you must remain very objective." (Ibid., pp. 192-93)

(6)"Do not divide what is one. Both science and spirituality have the same goal — the Supreme Divinity. The only difference between them is that the latter knows it and the other not." (Ibid., p. 248)

(7)Question: "We discussed the future. It seemed to me that nearly all the teachers were eager to do something so that the children could become more conscious of why they are here [in Sri Aurobindo Ashram as students of its Centre of Education]. At that point I said that in my opinion, to speak to the children of spiritual things often has the opposite result, and that these words lose all their value."

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Mother commented at this point: " 'Spiritual things'—what does he mean by 'spiritual things'?... Spiritual things.... They [the students] are taught history or spiritual things, they are taught science or spiritual things. That is the stupidity. In history, the Spirit is there; in science, the Spirit is there — the Truth is everywhere. And what is needed is not to teach it in a false way, but to teach it in a true way. They cannot get that into their heads." (Ibid., p. 403)

"Mother, wouldn't it be better if the teachers were to concentrate solely on the subjects they are teaching, for you are taking care of the spiritual life?"

The Mother's Rejoinder:

"There is no 'spiritual life'! It is still the old idea, still the old idea of the sage, the sannyasin, the... who represents spiritual life, while all the others represent ordinary life

—and it is not true, it is not true, it is not true at all.

If they still need an opposition between two things

—for the poor mind doesn't work if you don't give it an opposition—if they need an opposition, let them take the opposition between Truth and Falsehood, it is a little better; I don't say it is perfect, but it is a little better. So, in all things, Falsehood and Truth are mixed everywhere: in the so-called 'spiritual life',... in those who think they represent the life divine on earth, all that—there also, there is a mixture of Falsehood and Truth.

It would be better not to make any division....

For the children, precisely because they are children,

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it would be best to instil in them the will to conquer the future, the will to always look ahead and to want to move on as swiftly as they can towards... what will be..." (Ibid., p. 404)

Let us close this section on Study Courses in SAICE with three passages from Sri Aurobindo's The Synthesis of Yoga, which will make the position of his Integral Yoga-philosophy unambiguously clear.

(1) "The spiritual life does not need, for its purity, to destroy interest in all things except the Inexpressible or to cut at the roots of the Sciences, the Arts and Life. It may well be one of the effects of an integral spiritual knowledge and activity to lift them out of their limitations, substitute for our mind's ignorant, limited, tepid or trepidant pleasure in them a free, intense and uplifting urge of delight and supply a new source of creative spiritual power and illumination by which they can be carried more swiftly and profoundly towards their absolute light in knowledge and their yet undreamed possibilities and most dynamic energy of content and form and practice. The one thing needful must be pursued first and always; but all things else come with it as its outcome and have not so much to be added to us as recovered and reshaped in its self-light and as portions of its self-expressive force." (SABCL, Vol. 20, pp. 134-35)

(2) "This then is the true relation between divine and human knowledge; it is not a separation into disparate

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fields, sacred and profane, that is the heart of the difference, but the character of the consciousness behind the working. All is human knowledge that proceeds from the ordinary mental consciousness interested in the outside or upper layers of things, in process, in phenomena for their own sake or for the sake of some surface utility or mental or vital satisfaction of Desire or of the Intelligence. But the same activity of knowledge can become part of the Yoga if it proceeds from the spiritual or spiritualising consciousness which seeks and finds in all that it surveys or penetrates the presence of the timeless Eternal and the ways of manifestation of the Eternal in Time." (Ibid., p. 135)

(3) "A Yoga turned towards an all-embracing realisation of the Supreme will not despise the works or even the dreams, if dreams they are, of the Cosmic Spirit or shrink from the splendid toil and many-sided victory which he has assigned to himself in the human creature.... The mental and physical sciences which examine into the laws and forms and processes of things, those which concern the life of men and animals, the social, political, linguistic and historical and those which seek to know and control the labours and activities by which man subdues and utilises his world and environment, and the noble and beautiful Arts which are at once work and knowledge, — for every well-made and significant poem, picture, statue or building is an act of creative knowledge, a living discovery of the consciousness, a figure of Truth, a dynamic form of mental and vital

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self-expression or world-expression, — all that seeks, all that finds, all that voices or figures is a realisation of something of the play of the Infinite and to that extent can be made a means of God-realisation or of divine formation. But the Yogin has to see that it is no longer done as part of an ignorant mental life; it can be accepted by him only if by the feeling, the remembrance, the dedication within it, it is turned into a movement of the spiritual consciousness and becomes a part of its vast grasp of comprehensive illuminating knowledge." (Ibid., pp. 132-33)

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