Uniting Men

Illumination, Heroism and Harmony

Preface

The task of preparing teaching-learning material for value-oriented education is enormous.

There is, first, the idea that value-oriented education should be exploratory rather than prescriptive, and that the teaching-learning material should provide to the learners a growing experience of exploration. .

Secondly, it is rightly contended that the proper inspiration to turn to value-orientation is provided by biographies, autobiographical accounts, personal anecdotes, epistles, short poems, stories of hum our, stories of human interest, brief passages filled with pregnant meanings, reflective short essays written in well-chiselled language, plays, powerful accounts of historical events, statements of personal experiences of values in actual situations of life, and similar other statements of scientific, philosophical, artistic and literary expression.

Thirdly, we may take into account the contemporary fact that the entire world is moving rapidly towards the synthesis or the East and the West, and in that context, it seems obvious that our teaching-learning material should foster the gradual familiarisation of students with global themes of universal significance as also those that underline the importance of diversity m unity This implies that the material should bring the students nearer to their cultural heritage, but also to the highest that is available in the cultural experiences of the world at large.

Fourthly, an attempt should be made to select from Indian and world history such examples that could illustrate the theme

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of the upward progress of humankind. The selected research material could be multi-sided, and it should be presented in such a way that teachers can make use of it in the manner and in the context that they need in specific situations that might obtain or that can be created in respect of the students.

The research team at the Sri Aurobindo International Institute! of Educational Research (SAIIER) has attempted the creation! of the relevant teaching-learning material, and they have decided to present the same in the form of monographs. The total number of these monographs will be around eighty.

It appears that there are three major powers that uplift life to higher and higher normative levels, and the value of these powers, if well illustrated, could be effectively conveyed to the learners for their upliftment. These powers are those of illumination, heroism and harmony.

It may be useful to explore the meanings of these terms — illumination, heroism and harmony — since the aim of these monographs is to provide material for a study of what is sought to be conveyed through these three terms. We offer here exploratory statements in regard to these three terms.

Illumination is that ignition of inner light in which meaning and value of substance and life-movement are seized, understood, comprehended, held, and possessed, stimulating and inspiring guided action and application and creativity culminating in joy, delight, even ecstasy. The width, depth and height of the light and vision determine the degrees of illumination, and when they reach the splendour and glory of synthesis and harmony, illumination ripens into wisdom. Wisdom, too, has varying degrees that can uncover powers of knowledge and action, which reveal unsuspected secrets and unimagined skills of art and craft of creativity and effectiveness.

Heroism is, essentially, inspired force and self-giving and sacrifice in the operations of will that is applied to the quest, realisation and triumph of meaning and value against the resistance of limitations and obstacles by means of courage battle and adventure. There are degrees and heights of heroism

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determined by the intensity, persistence and vastness of sacrifice. Heroism attains the highest states of greatness and refinement when it is guided by the highest wisdom and inspired by the sense of service to the ends of justice and harmony, as well as when tasks are executed with consummate skill.

Harmony is a progressive state and action of synthesis and equilibrium generated by the creative force of joy and beauty and delight that combines and unites knowledge and peace and stability with will and action and growth and development. Without harmony, there is no perfection, even though there could be maximisation of one or more elements of our nature. When illumination and heroism join and engender relations of mutuality and unity, each is perfected by the other and creativity is endless.

This particular monograph pays homage to a hero of our times, a Frenchman named Jean Monnet. He is mainly known for his role in the creation of what was to become the European Union but, in reality, Jean Monnet has been much more than "the father of Europe". He has been an instrument at the service of a vision.

That vision was the future unity of mankind; it was a world that would not be divided by borders. As for the instrument, he spent his whole life trying to perfect it, to make it more supple, more efficient, more transparent. He probably never in halite used the word "yoga" and he would have been quite surprised if he had been told that some yogis spent years in front of a wall. Practical as he was he would have asked, "Tell me. did the wall collapse in the end?" As for the wall that separates men, at the darkest moments of the 20th century Jean Monnet had measured its thickness and its resistance, and having done so he could not rest until he had understood how he could open a breach into it.

The world has worshipped war heroes for a long time now. Perhaps it is time to learn that there is a heroism of another kind.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Henri Rieben, the President of the Jean Monnet for Europe Foundation, Lausanne, who gave us permission to print extracts from two books published by the Foundation and who sent us the photo which we have reproduced on the cover.

It is not rare that institutions created in the name of a great man gradually lose the very spirit that animated that man. This is why it was deeply moving for me to enter into contact with this Foundation. Professor Henri Rieben and his collaborators Mme Claire Camperio-Tixier and Mme Francoise Nicod evidently have kept alive the intense aspiration that was at the heart of Monnet's life and work. They did not know anything about me, yet they immediately responded to my queries and went out of their way to provide us with documents. It seems somehow they knew exactly the state of fascination I had been in since the moment I opened the Memoirs of Jean Monnet. More importantly, they must have felt that to create a link howsoever modest, between Jean Monnet and India could be of some significance. My deep thanks to them.

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