Building A Sacred Future Through Our Children

When the Lord comes in our midst there are two important aspects to His descent that stand out among others. One is His powerful and enchanting presence, which has the potency to transform and raise all who comes to Him. Everyone who comes to Him benefits, some considerably and few immensely, depending on one’s receptiveness. The other aspect is the message that He brings, and this has some unique benefits of its own. Adherence to the message has the power to manifest the Lord in one’s life. A tryst with Divinity could be a blessing for good acts of the past, but it is in loyalty to the message that one completely benefits and finds redemption, and also a means to express one’s devotion to the Lord. So it is indeed of paramount importance for each of us to dwell on His message.

As part of the 90th Birthday offerings, we will begin every month from with excerpts of a discourse from the Golden Jubilee Birthday Celebrations of Bhagawan. During the grand 50th Birthday celebrations, Baba gave discourses specific to the Seva wing and the Bal Vikas wing, apart from discourses revealing His own message and mission. The excerpts presented below are from the discourse Baba gave on 19 Nov 1975. This is the second part of the article published last month, with more clips from the same discourse. Let us listen and re-listen, read and re-read even as we imbibe the essence contained.

What does it take to make education so sacred and holy? In what sort of an environment can the exchange of spiritual education take place? Bhagawan explains that for such a sacred exchange, both the receiver and the giver must be elevated. Especially a lot depends on the teacher. Swami tells us what should be the nature of a Guru, for the Guru to be an imparter of true education.

The first and foremost problem of our education system is the commercialisation of it. As Swami said in the previous clip, it is difficult for a teacher to impart to the students the true ideals when the teacher has an eye on the remuneration or the exchange of knowledge becomes a business deal. When that happens, there are two commodities being exchanged, one is education and the other money.

And as more importance is given to money, now in the student-teacher relationship, the student becomes the giver and the teacher the receiver. In such a scenario, the student chooses and demands what he wants. Interestingly, this was precisely the point Bhagawan made when He announced that His colleges and schools will charge no fees. He said while talking to the staff one day in the portico of the mandir in Prasanthi Nilayam, “If we take money from the students, we have to give them what they ask for. When we give education free, we can give them what has to be given!” Bhagawan goes on to describe, why an education system based on money cannot impart sacred learning.

Though a significant part of the onus for this deterioration in the education system lies in commercialisation, the problem could be traced to a deeper cause. This can be recognised through a close observation of the change in our attitude itself. Why would any society wish for a system that is injurious to the progress of the society? The only cause for a system’s failure could be wrong prioritisation of the individuals in the society. But in this scenario, whose error of judgement is it? Bhagawan explains in the clip to follow.