In the light of the spiritual, no work is high or low in itself; it is the attitude of the worker that makes a work high or low. The discipline and control of this attitude is the contribution of spiritual philosophy to human life and work. The small man, in the light of this philosophy, is not the man who does what is, in the secular estimate of society, small work, but who does any work in a small way. Even small work becomes big when done by a great man; and conversely, big work becomes small when done by a small man. Kabir weaving cloth on a loom or Gandhi spinning thread on a charka helped to raise the status of the humble loom and charka. On the other hand, a greedy priest or a corrupt politician lowers the status of the high calling of priesthood or politics. How much the inner man counts in all fields of outer work is evident from these and other instances. Life without quality is life lived in vain; and quality is a value concept; and values are not mechanical, but spiritual. In the protesting words of Bertrand Russell (The Impact of Science on Society, p. 77):
‘The Machine as an object of adoration is the modern form of Satan, and its worship is the modern diabolism. …‘Whatever else may be mechanical, values are not, and this is something which no political philosopher must forget’.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume III – Education for Human Excellence; 17 – Indian Philosophy of Social Work (Pg: 287; ed. 1995)
This was the convocation address at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay on June 3, 1967.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Attitudes to Work
Transforming Action into Spiritual Education
All actions, says the Gita, can be converted into spiritual education of the whole man under the guidance of a rational ethics and philosophy. Work done in a spirit of non-attachment helps man to develop his unlimited spiritual personality. By being unattached to his limits, sensate, lower self, man receives ‘intimations of immortality’, as Wordsworth puts it; man begins to experience the infinite dimensions of his personality. His vision and sympathies broaden. He comes across a vast reservoir of spiritual energy within himself, with makes him achieve a double efficiency in his life, namely, outer social efficiency and inner spiritual efficiency. The Gita calls this by the name of yoga, the science and art of the spiritual life, and gives two important definitions of this science: yogah karmasu kausalam – ‘yoga is efficiency in action’ (II.50) and samatvam yoga ucyate – ‘Yoga is called even-mindedness’ (II.48).
Work with attachment, work proceeding from the level of the ego, is characterized by much fuss and noise; that is the sign of its inefficiency proceeding from lack of inner discipline; it tends steadily to the inner impoverishment of the worker. The more efficient the machine, the more silent and smooth its functioning, and the greater its output of work. An inefficient machine, such as a worn-out car, is all fuss and noise with very little output in speed. Calm, silent, steady, and efficient work, sustained by deep social feeling, is the mark of true spirituality. Therefore, says the Gita (II, 49):
Durena hyavaram karma buddhiyogat dhananjaya;
Buddhau saranam anviccha krpanah phalahetavah —
‘Work (done with attachment) is verity far inferior to that performed from the stand-point of buddhiyoga (the yoga of equable reason); seek refuge, O Arjuna, in this buddhi. Small-minded are they who act motivated by selfish results.’
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume III – Education for Human Excellence; 17 – Indian Philosophy of Social Work (Pg:285-286; ed. 1995)
This was the convocation address at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay on June 3, 1967.
Man-making integrates education and religion
Mere intellectual growth, unaccompanied by this ethical growth, makes only for the fattening of man’s ego, of his raw ‘I’. Such an education tends to make him clever but not wise, a prey to tensions and sorrows, and may lead him as much to rascality, on the one side, as to frustration and unfulfilment, on the other. By sharpening his intellect without at the same time expanding his heart in love and compassion, that intellect tends increasingly to scorn all values except self-interest, and ends up in the stagnation of cynicism, which registers the spiritual death of man. This is more serious than physical death for one so high in the scale of evolution as man. This is the prevailing mood of modern civilization, especially of its intellectuals. It is a disease more deadly than cholera or smallpox, malaria or leprosy. This is the main weakness of education in the modern world, arising out of its lack of insight into the spiritual dimension of the human personality and consequent emphasis only on organic satisfactions and organic survival, which goals even physical science, in its twentieth-century biology, as we have seen, apart from the higher world-religions, treats as unworthy of man and relegates to the pre-human stage of evolution.
It is here that education and religion blend into a single man making process, the earlier and the later phases of the single discipline of human growth, development, and fulfilment. The Indian spiritual tradition does not identify religion as with mere profession of creeds and dogmas or performance of rituals and ceremonies; neither does it equate it with scholarship. Religious scholarship is only knowledge about religion; but religion itself is experience, it is spiritual growth, development and realization. Atma va are drastavyah – ‘The Atman has to be realized’, says Yajnavalkya to his wife, Maitreyi, in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad (iv.v.6). The central theme of religion and its key words are, therefore, the same as in education, namely nourishment and growth, the spiritual growth of the human personality through spiritual nourishment. No formalism or creed or dogma can do this for man.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume III – Education for Human Excellence; 15 – The Philosophy of Man-Making Education (Pg:239-240; ed. 1995)
This was the convocation address at the Kanpur University on December 13, 1970.
Man-making Education promotes a double efficiency
The only means to this achievement (not just democracy in form but democracy in content) is education, conceived, as I said earlier, as man-making education. And for the first time in our long history, we can not only hope for, but are also in a position to realize, this all round development of our people, thanks to modern world conditions and the efficient technology of the modern age. To realize this, what we need is to capture the intellectual and moral energy to take full advantage of these favourable conditions, and to effect a double efficiency in our people through our educational process, namely, thought and personality – efficiency, within, and work and productive-efficiency, without. This double efficiency is the essence of a man-making education. As Vivekananda pointed out, it is only when we have restored our sunken millions to human dignity and worth that we can claim to be men; till then we shall have to treat ourselves as candidates to that high estate; and Vivekananda conceived education, and also religion, as the training to equip us to claim and to realize that high estate. So he always placed stress on a man-making education and a man-making religion. Every claim needs to stand the test of life and experience. Our claim to be a mature civilized people has today to face the challenge of the widespread human backwardness of our society. Human intelligence develops the power to identify and solve human problems through the training of that intelligence in purposive thinking and social feeling and social action. The product of such training is personality-energy and character-efficiency. It is this energy that is capable of mobilizing all types of physical and social energy resources and investing them in the social field and to make society grow in health and vigour. This is the energy that we have to develop in our people today, so that we cease to be passive spectators of human suffering, so that we cease to throw our hands up in despair and resignation, but become not only adequate, but more than adequate, to our mounting problems, so that these problems yield to the sure touch of our trained mind and hand.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume III – Education for Human Excellence; 15 – The Philosophy of Man-Making Education (Pg:230-231; ed. 1995)
This was the convocation address at the Kanpur University on December 13, 1970.
Character: The Fruit of a Socially Oriented Will
Today, we have in our youths the manifestation of high emotional energy. This is the essential raw material of all character. But it is only the raw material. It needs processing to produce character. This rich emotional energy, disciplined and controlled by a socially oriented moral will, and directed to socially useful channels of action, is character-efficiency, according to Vivekananda. Where that emotional energy resource is less, the resulting character will be of a lower order. Where that energy is more, the resulting character will also be of a higher order. Herein lies the significance of education for human growth and fulfilment, individual and collective.
That high educational possibility is before us all today. Let our universities be the centres from which these energies will emerge and radiate throughout the nation. To play this vital role, they need to convert themselves into dynamic and dedicated centres of constructive and creative thinking. Let us, students and teachers and managements in our educational institutions, learn to sit and discuss across the table, calmly and purposefully, the problems that affect and afflict our nation as well as our education. We shall thus release a new energy into the bloodsteam and nervous system of our nation, and then witness joyfully its march, with steady steps, to all-round prosperity and progress.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume III – Education for Human Excellence; 14 – Education and Human Development (Pg:200-201; ed. 1995)
This was the convocation address at the Gauhati University on March 28, 1972.
Education as ‘Learning to Do’ and ‘Learning to Be’
Learning to Be and Learning to Do have to become two inseparable aspects of any education designed to help the human child to achieve life fulfillment. Modern education all over the world has so far concentrated only on the Learning to Do aspect. The high efficiency achieved by modern Western man, and the Japanese, in this field is the product of the discipline of physical science and its technological fruits. Our own country, though backward in this field at the beginning of the modern period, is steadily catching up since our political independence. When all our children, from the primary to the school final levels, apart from the few that go up to the university levels, will receive the blessings of education in modern science, reinforced by a wide range of technical training courses, we can expect to see a high level of practical efficiency in our nation. That will mark a tremendous augmentation of the human energy resources in our country, unprecedented in our long history. We have to take all steps to orient our current educational processes in the direction of motivating and guiding our students to acquire the energy resources available from knowledge, organization, and self-discipline. ‘The nation must acquire scientific pluck and genius’, said Swami Vivekananda even at the close of the last century. Our philosophy assures us that vast energy resources are present in every child; education is the tapas, the discipline, that helps in making them manifest, like the striking that manifests the fire already present in a matchstick.
Widen scope of education from "doing" to "being"
But, learning to do, if carried too far without a corresponding stress on learning to be, will result in distortions in the human psyche and in the human social situation. These distortions, and the consequent human unfulfilments, constitute the dismal shadow on the otherwise bright human horizon of the modern scientific age. Practical efficiency, resulting from the training of the intellect and the will, in a context of physical health and vitality and yoked to an endless pursuit of organic satisfactions, may lead to the stifling of the imagination and of the spirit of creativity, and a general sagging of spirit. This is already afflicting modern civilization, including the stifling of the roots of pure science by the charms of the fruits of applied science. It reveals the age-old truth that the pursuit of profit, power, and pleasure can be only counter-productive, can only lead man to alienation, sorrow, and unfulfilment, if carried too far and without the guidance of a deeper philosophy of man. Training of the imagination is necessary to foster creativity; it is the energy behind pure science, art, ethics, and religion. Referring to the importance of this faculty, Lenin said (V. I. Lenin, Complete Works, Vol.45, 5th Edition):
‘This is an extremely precious faculty. To think that it is only indispensable to poets is a mistake and foolish prejudice, It is even needed in mathematics, for without imagination neither differential or integral calculus would have been invented.’
The scope of current higher education in India and the world outside is thus severely restricted, due to its undue stress on learning to do; it has to be widened to include also learning to be. This is the only way by which the current situation of ‘human skill as the means’ accompanied by ‘human folly as to ends’, as remarked by the late Bertrand Russell (Impact of Science on Society, p. 120-21), can be transformed into human wisdom as to ends; and ‘it follows that’, he concluded by warning, ‘unless men increase in wisdom as much as in knowledge, increase of knowledge will be increase of sorrow’.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume III – Education for Human Excellence; 12 – Education, Science and Spirituality (Pg:144-145; ed. 1995)
This was the convocation address at the Burdwan University West Bengal on February 20, 1976.
Purpose in work brings enthusiasm and joy
Now, when we turn to our own country, one of the things that strikes us is a lack of this sense of purpose, this sense of direction, this sense of enthusiasm in the work that we do. Swami Vivekananda had told us that national work should be suffused with national vision and enthusiasm and a spirit of joy. Otherwise, all work, he said, would become static, stereotyped, and meaningless, and a source not of freedom but of bondage. Whether it is teaching or learning, whether it is the simple household duties or the larger duties of government and administration, what we need to capture in every sphere of life is this national purpose and enthusiasm. Our country has become free after centuries of political and social immobilization; it has now got the opportunity to build the structure of an enduring society on the basis of justice and equality, human dignity and unity, inspired by the vision of general human happiness and welfare. Swami Vivekananda exhorted the youth of the country to be up and doing to achieve this goal. It was not the time to sleep he said, nor to waste time in idle talk, but to work intelligently, moved by the spirit of love of man; for ‘on our work depends the India of the future’, said he.
I would request you to keep this idea constantly in your minds. Inspired by this vision and idea, whatever work you do, little or big, in any nook or corner of India, will have telling effect on the march of India to prosperity and progress. It is the cumulative result of such work by millions of dedicated men and women that creates a nation. Swamiji gave us this national vision – this vision which imparts a sense of urgency, a sense of sacredness, to a mission, a sense of faith to the work we do. Every citizen must be imbued with the sense of a mission, a sense of faith in his own work. The work that is done with faith, the work that is done with an awareness of the worth of one’s contribution to the making of the nation, that work becomes most effective. In our Chhandogya Upanisad, written nearly three or four thousand years ago, we find this definition of work efficiency (I.1.10). Yadeva vidyaya, vidyaya karoti, sraddhaya, upanisada, tadeva virayavattaram bhavati – ‘Whatever work is done with vidya, knowledge, through sraddha, faith, and backed by upanisad, meditation, that alone becomes most effective.’
Vidya, knowledge, is necessary, knowledge of the methods and techniques of work, of the theoretical and practical aspects of a subject. But this knowledge will remain static until it is energized by sraddha. And that energy needs to be disciplined and properly directed by upanisad, calm meditation. Any work which has these three sources of strength behind it will be most efficient. It alone will have world-moving power. Our country needs work of this type today in every department of national activity.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume III – Education for Human Excellence; 3 – Education for Man-Making (Pg:50-51; ed. 1995)
This was an address to the trainees of the Senior Basic School of the Ramakrishna Mission Boys Home, Rahara, on January 9, 1962.
Assimilation of Knowledge is the aim of Education
Such is the Indian society that is waiting to receive each and every one of our youths who complete their university education today. It is a society of bubbling hopes and mounting problems, with an impressive past and a glorious future. Every youthful generation of modern India owes it to itself and to the nation at large to strive to become strong and dynamic. Such strength is the product of faith in oneself and in one’s country’s heritage, reinforced by the assimilation of all available knowledge, national and international. This is the aim of all true education. Vivekananda defined the scope of our national education as the assimilation of the spirit of Vedanta and modern science. The Chandogya Upanisad in a memorable passage (I.1.10) refers to the energy of character generated by education:Yadeva vidyaya karoti, sraddhaya, upanisada, tadeva viryavataram bhavati – ‘Whatever is done through mastery of the know-how, through faith (in oneself and one’s cause) and through inner meditation – that alone becomes charged with the highest energy’.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume III – Education for Human Excellence; 1 – India's Educational Vision (Pg:16-17; ed. 1995)
This was the address delivered at the Calcutta University Convocation on February 15, 1966.
Practical Vedanta synthesises the outer and the inner
The strong point of the Indian tradition is, as we have seen, its vision of the spiritual dimension of the human personality, and the scientific tradition of religion in which this vision is embodied. Stressing as it does the spirit of seeking and inquiry, and upholding experiment and experience as the criterion of true religion, the Indian tradition frees religion from all dogmatic and creedal limitations and blends with the spirit of modern science. This Indian spiritual tradition has within it the energy and the power to deepen the scientific humanism of the modern West. The Western tradition, similarly, has the energy and the power within it to broaden the scope of the Indian tradition, channeling its blessings from a small minority of the spiritually gifted to the millions of ordinary men and women. This synthesis of the inner and the outer, of the sacred and the secular, had already been achieved in the plane of thought in the unifying philosophy of Vedanta, and especially in its great formulation, namely, the Gita. Its achievement in the plane of the work-a-day world is what Vivekananda gave to modern India as his unique contribution in his philosophy and programme of Practical Vedanta, and what the nation is engaged in ever since.
Our programme of material improvement of the country does not necessarily commit us to the philosophy of materialism. On the other hand, our spiritual philosophy, as Vivekananda pointed out, considers involuntary poverty to be unspiritual and commits us to the improvement of the material condition of the people with a view to improving their spiritual life. This is the meaning of his plea for what he terms a “toned down materialism” for India. “I do not believe in a religion”, Says he, “Which cannot wipe the widow’s tears or stop the orphan’s wails" again, “even if a dog goes hungry in my country, my religion will be to find food for that dog”.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume III – Education for Human Excellence; 1 – India's Educational Vision (Pg:16-17; ed. 1995)
This was the address delivered at the Calcutta University Convocation on February 15, 1966.
Human Evolution has a Spiritual dimension
In developing and perfecting its adhyatma vidya, the science of the Self, India has given a spiritual direction to human evolution consistent with the dignity of man and his infinite potentialities. Twentieth-century biology, as I said before, enthrones quality over quantity as the criterion of evolution at the human stage, and upholds fulfilment as its goal, in place of numerical increase or mere survival. The Upanisads uphold that this search for fulfilment will take man progressively beyond his physical and sensate awareness which is finite and limited, and give him a glimpse of his infinite spiritual dimension. It is only through such spiritual growth that man can achieve fulfilment by realizing his true dimension as the Atman, which is infinite and universal, and embrace his fellow-beings in bonds of love and service.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume III – Education for Human Excellence; 1 – India's Educational Vision (Pg:14-15; ed. 1995)
This was the address delivered at the Calcutta University Convocation on February 15, 1966.
Citizenship is both freedom and responsibility
Citizenship in a democracy involves, as I said earlier, not only freedom but also responsibility. This sense of social responsibility releases the energies of the citizen for the service of his fellow-citizens, ensuring thereby the all-around development of society and its unity and integrity. If “We, the People of India”, have given ourselves a free constitution, as the preamble to our constitution proclaims, it is again we, the people of India, on whom lies the responsibility to ensure the dignity of the individual and the unity of the nation through hard work and mutual co-operation. In this sphere of practical politics, success depends upon the whole nation living down much of its own obsolete traditions, and assimilating the traditions of the modern West. Such assimilation depends upon the igniting of the Promethean spark in every one of our citizens, making him or her a reservoir of disciplined energy and resource.
This is what is being done in our country since our independence. During the last eighteen years after independence, India has achieved by way of economic development and social transformation more than what she had achieved in the hundred years before independence. This is a proof of the youthful vitality of the nation, and its assimilation of the spirit of energy and progress, action and endeavour, of the modern West. Under the pressure of mounting problems yet remaining to be solved, the nation should not fail to recognize its own solid achievements. Constant self-deprecation saps the vitality of a nation, says Vivekananda, by destroying its faith in itself. Ajnasca asraddadhanasca samsayatna vinasyati — “the ignorant, the faithless, and the doubting come to ruin”, says the Gita (IV. 40).
India has begun translating its ideals into realities
Nation-building in the case of India, we should always remember, means nothing more than forging a new body-politic for her undying soul. That soul had so far been housed in a body inconsistent with its own majesty and glory. No other society in the world has exhibited such a contrast between ideals and realities as India in her spiritual vision and her body-politic. In the poignant words of Vivekananda (Letters of Swami Vivekananda, p.69.)
“No religion on earth preaches the dignity of humanity in such a lofty strain as Hinduism, and no religion on earth treads upon the necks of the poor and the low in such a fashion as Hinduism”.
For the first time in her long history, India has resolved to translate her vision of human excellence into reality by earnestly embarking on the creation of a free and egalitarian society offering opportunities for self-development to every one of her citizens.
“Hitherto, the great fault of our Indian religion has lain in its knowing only two words-renunciation and mukti (salvation). Only “mukti” here! Nothing for the householder!
“But these are the very people whom I want to help ….
“And so strength must come to the nation through education”…
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume III – Education for Human Excellence; 1 – India's Educational Vision (Pg:12-13; ed. 1995)
This was the address delivered at the Calcutta University Convocation on February 15, 1966.
Growth from Individuality to Personality
Unlike the biology of the nineteenth century, biology in this century presents us with an ethical orientation to evolution and calls it psycho-social evolution, which is evolution rising from the organic to the spiritual level. Biology of the last century treated evolution at the human level exactly like evolution at the pre-human levels, where the objective is organic satisfaction, numerical increase, and organic survival. Today’s biology treats these three objectives as secondary so far as man is concerned. At the human stage, something else becomes primary; that primary objective is man growing beyond his organic limitation and achieving fulfilment. Nature has given man the organic capacity to lift his consciousness from its tied-down condition to the genetic system; and he can realize the immense possibilities hidden within himself only when he exercises this capacity; and psycho-social evolution, with its two levels of individuality and personality. This is the first stage in the unfolding of these possibilities.
Nature has provided man with all these capacities in his unique organ, the cerebral system. He does not depend upon nature, therefore, to evolve new organs within him for his survival. The cerebral system can help him to invent any organs he may need outside of himself, faster and more efficiently than what nature can do for him. Nature intends this new versatile organ to be used by him for purposes higher than mere survival or organic satisfactions. What are these higher purposes? They constitute various levels of psycho-social evolution, says biology. This brings modern biology close to the concepts of ethical and moral development of man as upheld by the great world religions, and to what Vedanta calls the spiritual growth of man.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume I – Philosophy and Spirituality; 22 – The Science of Raising Consciousness (Pg: 478; ed. 1994)
This was the first lecture in the 17 theme lecture series on Science, Society and the Scientific Attitude at Bangalore University on August 5, 1976.
Fulfilment is the primary motive of psycho-social evolution
What is meant by Psycho-social evolution? From the living cell up to man, biological evolution was motivated by organic satisfactions, numerical increase, and organic survival. But with the appearance of man, these become, says modern biology, secondary and not primary; the primary motivation becomes fulfilment; and evolution itself becomes, at the stage of man, conscious and deliberate and goal-oriented, unlike the blind processes at the pre-human stages. This revolutionary change is the result of the fully developed cerebral system in man, in virtue of which the evolutionary process itself undergoes a revolutionary change; what was organic evolution becomes psycho-social evolution. Organic evolution has no primary significance in the case of man endowed by nature with the versatile cerebral organ, with the aid of which he can invent any organs he may need more efficiently and quickly than what nature can do for him through her slow and wasteful evolutionary processes. Accordingly, evolution has risen from its organic to the psycho-social level in man, says biology.
In a self-centered man, as in all pre-human species, the psyche or mind or soul is limited and confined to the physical organism. In a moral or ethical man, it expands, goes beyond the limitations of his physical organism and enters, and is entered into by, other psyches of the social milieu. This is the fruit of psycho-social evolution. What biology calls psycho-social evolution is what the science of religion calls ethical awareness and social feeling, the by-product of the early phases of the spiritual growth of man.
With the onset of this psycho-social evolution, men develop the capacity to dig affections into each other as a matter of conscious choice, thus revealing a higher dimension to the human individually than what is revealed by his physical individuality with its organic appetites and choices. All ethical theories pre-suppose a distinction between a lower self and a higher self in man; and the liberation of the higher self is what man achieves through psycho-social evolution or spiritual growth; it is renunciation of the lower self and manifestation of the higher self.
The subject of the spiritual growth of man, of evolution as psycho-social, is a pregnant theme to man in the modern age. It points out to him the way to rescue himself from the tyranny of the sensate and the quantitative, and from the prevailing stagnation of worldliness, and helps him to continue his evolutionary march to qualitative richness and fulfilment, individually and collectively.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume I – Philosophy and Spirituality; 14 - Science and Religion (Pg:187-188; ed. 1994)
This was the first lecture in the 17 theme lecture series on Science, Society and the Scientific Attitude at Bangalore University on August 5, 1976.
Enlightened citizens lend new value to their roles
The ordinary citizen only occupies a chair of authority; but the enlightened citizen occupies it and also adorns it. Here we can see the distinction between small men and big men. Small men are not men doing small work, but doing all work with a small mind; and big men are not men doing big work, but doing all work with a big mind and heart. There is no distinction between big and small with respect to work, according to the Gita. That distinction applies to the buddhi or reason behind the work. Some people achieve bigness only by sitting on a big chair of authority and power; some other people impart their own bigness to whatever chair they sit on.
It is the natural bigness, this inherent greatness, with its natural dignity and self respect and respect for others, that comes to man as enlightened citizen, compared to man as a formal citizen, as a mere job-holder and functionary. When we have such enlightened and alert citizens, we shall also automatically have alert parliamentarians, and citizens, and other legislators, alert administrators, alert teachers, and alert working class. That alertness catches the pulse of the urges and aspirations of the people in various fields of national life, and responds to them readily and effectively – be it from a primary school classroom, a university research laboratory, an industrial executive's office, or the government secretariat.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume IV - Democracy for Total Human Fulfilment; 1 - Enlightened citizenship and our democracy (Pg:43-44; ed. 1993)
This was the inaugural address at the Symposium on Enlightened Citizenship organized by the Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi - held on April 27, 1980.
Citizenship Awareness is the missing catalyst in National development
Our country is silently longing for this revolutionary human change. Our people have the intelligence, the talents, the resources, to make their country great in every respect. It needs only that intangible something to trigger and ignite all these into the pure flame of nation-wide human development. Put the fire at the bottom, and let it burn upwards into an Indian nation, said Swami Vivekananda. That triggering something which will effect this miracle is the wide diffusion of enlightened citizenship-awareness in the country. And the nation's education is the heart and artery system for this diffusion. Nothing else can help to achieve it. No political slogans or administrative tricks, or the self-cancelling structural changes fitfully introduced into our education these thirty years, can achieve this miracle. Continued reliance on them will only deepen and prolong the agony of the nation and sharpen its internal tensions and conflicts. They will keep our ailing democracy ailing all the time, like a weak child born with various infantile ailments. If we want to see our infant democracy gain its health and, growing from robust childhood to healthy adulthood, give the blessings of its millennia-old and ever-fresh and luminous visions and experiences to its own people and to the rest of humanity, we have to take immediate energetic steps to treat the maladies afflicting our nation, curatively and preventively. If we have the maladies, let us also realize that we have the remedies also with us. Our philosophy of human growth and development and fulfilment, as given in our Vedanta, can stand rational critical scrutiny in any country in the world. It is a philosophy that invites and welcomes such a critical handling by the keen minds of our country.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume IV - Democracy for Total Human Fulfilment; 1 - Enlightened citizenship and our democracy (Pg:41-42; ed. 1993)
This was the inaugural address at the Symposium on Enlightened Citizenship organized by the Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi - held on April 27, 1980.
Instilling a Citizenship Awareness into Education
Education is the most important field from the long range point of view, for national health and welfare. This field has suffered from the mercenary attitude as much as any other field. The inculcation of the citizenship attitude, and the temper of the social responsibility it involves, into the world of our education, should be given the highest priority by all our political parties. This positive and wholesome influence of the political parties on education in place of the current wholly unwholesome and harmful influence, will have a revolutionary impact on our education. It will strengthen the ever-present positive and elevating influences of the still existing small minority of teachers and students, who are patriotic and dedicated but who now feel suffocated and helpless. We can well imagine what democratic health would come to the nation if a sizeable section, if not all, of our teachers, from the primary to the university levels, would achieve this revolutionary change from the mercenary to the citizenship awareness, and instill the same into all the millions of our students, and instill also into them that love of knowledge and character-excellence, both of which have been serious casualties during these thirty post-freedom years.
EXTRACTS FROM: Eternal Values for a Changing Society Volume IV - Democracy for Total Human Fulfilment; 1 - Enlightened citizenship and our democracy (Pg:40-41; ed. 1993)
This was the inaugural address at the Symposium on Enlightened Citizenship organized by the Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi - held on April 27, 1980.
A short introduction to Swami Ranganathananda
Swami Ranganathananda has been called the "Vivekananda of the 20th Century". All his life, Swami Ranganathananda worked in order that men everywhere find freedom - not in a far-off forest or cave, but here and now, in the warp and weft, of daily life.
His compassion and concern for fellow beings led him to develop "fulfilment sciences" - a space that allows man to enjoy a little of that deep peace and joy that saints are said to experience, while discharging the duties and compulsions of the "current state" that men & women experience within their daily lives.
