Spirituality in education is important

We are too focused on facts, data and science in our education, in almost all aspects.

However, this world is not all facts. And life is not all about science.

Had life been only about 118 elements of periodic table, we all would have been turned into stones.

Think of it: What facts do we teach our students? Most of those either change or are wrong or are too subjective depending upon who writes the textbooks.

Have a look at our textbooks. What is written there is not more important than what is deliberately hidden there.

Have you read history and social sciences in schools and colleges? Are you an avid reader of journals and manuals and books and textbooks?

What degrees do you hold?

Have you heard of the name Babri? Is it related to Babur? Was Ashoka really a great and benevolent king? Did he really convert to Buddhism after seeing the carnage and destruction in Kalinga war?

Think of it. And explore. And think of what you have been told and not told.

What facts are known or told, revealed or explored, to someone does not make much of a difference.

What facts you experience and are allowed to experience is what matters ultimately.

And here is where spirituality comes into play.

The purpose of spiritual education is to fulfil the divine potential of children and to prepare them for life by giving them the tools they need to keep on learning through many experiences that will come to them. Or rather to build the individual in them at all levels.

Everyone knows that the goal of education not to create a generation that is capable of only understanding the language of machines and materials.

Education should help us attain the “sanskar” – the spiritual culture, the age old values that have always sustained and nourished our being.

These values serve as the very foundation of the human existence maintaining harmony with humans, animals and plants.

If too much emphasis is given to self-effort and intellect which is the modern trend, people will only become too much self-centred and egoistic.

We should help our children understand that education also as an element of spirituality, i.e. providing values such as love, compassion, patience and forgiveness.

This can help create a deep sense of responsibility towards fellow human beings, other animals, plants, nature and the world as a whole.

Individuals who value spirituality take their time to reflect on their daily activities and are more conscious.

They experience positive emotion even with minor pleasures of life and are generally contented.

It is important that students be guided to experience their inner spirituality so that they evolve as a better human being and manage their own potential in a more effective way.

It is a well-known fact that our own existence comprises of the known as well as the unknown.

Without this understanding, the purpose of life will remain incomplete.

Spiritual understanding and material knowledge should go hand in hand.