Non-Spiritual Education is bound be Incomplete

Keeping the superstitions aside, still,  it is common knowledge today that Human beings are a lot more than body. We are body, mind, feelings, perhaps soul too. Brain scientists and psychologists are trying hard to limit Human beings to only body and brain, by finding all sorts of explanations. Love has been defined, explained and analysed, enlightenment has been  labelled as a state of brain activity. No wonder our education is also majorly based on the belief that - we are body and at most - mind.

[caption id="attachment_340" align="alignright" width="300"] Education must be Spiritual, otherwise its incomplete[/caption]

Hence the amount of focus in our schools for body and livelihood is maximum, with little focus (in few cases) on mind, personality and moral character. There is no space for a variety of subjects which are so integral to our lives, because they seem to be falling out of the "rational" tag - into the spiritual space. For e.g. Love, Peace, Compassion, Relationships, Meditation, Imagination, Creativity have almost no place in current schooling system. Often dismissed on arguments such as - these are subjective, can't be taught, not our responsibility - blah blah.The subjects that come closest are perhaps - dance, music and art. Even these are given only little weightage in most schools.

Our current education system is almost non-spiritual, it denies a part of our reality and hence it is bound to be destructive and incomplete.

Spirituality (please note, I don't mean rituals, religion, mysticism or occultism by this or the hypocrisy that goes on in the name of "Spiritual Education") in its true sense is to accept our total being and work towards holistic development of self. It is a way of life where we accept ourselves as more than just body, our world as more than just a place to live, our role as more than just to earn money, eat and die. It is the challenge to expand horizons, to look beyond what seems obvious. It is the courage to be individual not just a face in the crowd.

Ofcourse being a subjective, unknown, mysterious topic and over exploited by religion and Intelligentsia , it has its own challenges -if we are to include it in our education system. We cannot teach spirituality like we do with other subjects. But that doesn't mean we should exclude it. I am sure once we all start seeing the importance of spirituality in our lives and education, we will come up with ways of sharing it, learning it, experiencing it. Once we can see for ourselves the destructive nature of "non-spiritual" education, we will be able to find creative ways of imparting spiritual qualities to our kids -not by blind faith or beliefs but by experience, not by force but by choice, not by fear but by joy.

Perhaps, the our ancient system of Gurukuls in India, Monasteries in Japan, China , Mystic schools in the west were influential, effective and constructive because they had "authentic" spirituality at the root of education.