The month of November observes the day when The Mother left her body as well as Siddhi Day. This issue of the Newsletter explores the theme of Spiritual Education. Spiritual education is a part of the five-fold integral education, besides psychic education, mental, vital and physical education.
In the integral system of education Spiritual Education is not segregated as an end stage to attain. It takes a silent, central place in the organisation dedicated to education of the young and old alike. There is a perpetual riddle that the mind commonly poses to itself - How does the Spirit manifest Itself here in matter and life, here on this earth? How does a spiritualised institute function? Is there anything such as a spiritualised classroom, in the first place? As in everything, one would have to allow for the experience to flower then, in order to know the answers to these questions.
Sri Aurobindo and The Mother lead us through with their wisdom, with concrete examples. Almost always, these revelations and examples present themselves to anyone involved or wanting to be involved in these works of experiment – for there is no maxim; nothing is there as finalised and formulated for ready acquisition, use and functioning, in such centres of education, in the matter of the Spirit. It also appears that in the doing, the path before one opens and leads through doors and passageways into realms of experiences that keeps opening more doors and more passageways, other pathways and corridors leading up higher and deeper within in the search for the world of the Spirit and a subsequent spiritualized living.
In a question posed to The Mother on how to make the consciousness of human unity grow in the mind, The Mother categorically points to ‘Spiritual Education’. By Spiritual Education, The Mother means, in her own words, “… an education, which gives more importance to the growth of the spirit than to any religious or moral teaching or to the material so-called knowledge.” We need to learn intrinsically that this education is beyond what countless schools offer as ‘content’ knowledge’, is above the moral values and ethics that are poured into students through moral education lessons and above religious education.
The Mother points to equanimity as the first step in spiritual education and lists some essential conditions for equanimity:
1. Not to allow oneself to be affected by anything external - by what people say or do, or by natural events.
2. To detach oneself from one’s own mental, vital and physical consciousness and to observe as a witness how the nature-force is using it.
3. To make the spiritual consciousness grow and the mental, vital and physical parts of our personality surrender to it and thus foster a divine equanimity to pervade our whole being and provide the basis for further spiritual education.
These pointers give room for contemplation even as we nurse an aspiration to actualise spiritual education in us and our midst.
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