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A RepoRt

The Gnostic Centre of Education (Delhi) organized the day long Seminar (27 March 2016), as a contemplative conversation amongst the panelists and the audience on the deeper aims and creative forms that an education of the future would take. The Seminar was divided into two sessions. The morning focused on Wisdom Traditions, the afternoon focused on Innovations in Higher Education.The aspiration behind the Seminar was to bring together Consciousness stakeholders in the spirit of a sacred yajna – wherein each would offer his/her wisdom towards creating an education that can make India great and can bring out the best in the human being.

Morning Session:WISDoM tRADItIoNS AND tHe FUtURe oF eDUCAtIoN

Moderated by Ameeta Mehra. The session was devoted to reflecting upon:• How can the future

of Higher Education in India be shaped by taking lessons from the ancient spiritual knowledge paradigms of our diverse wisdom traditions?

Evolutionary Potentialof EducationContemplative Dialogues

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• How can we use and apply this wisdom to create an education system that will truly address the integral development of individuals and society as a whole?

panelists:

• Dr. Bettina Baumer (Kashmir Shaivism) – Dr. Baumer is a renowned Indologist and expounder of Kashmir Shaivism. Dr. Baumer is a Padma Shree awardee (2015).

• Guru Vajradhara the 12th Chamgon Kenting Tai Situpa (Rinpoche) (Buddhism) – Rinpoche is a renowned Buddhist master of the Kagyu lineage of Mahayana Buddhism, founder of Palpung Sherabling monastic seat near Baijnath, Himachal Pradesh.

• Dr. Kavita A Sharma (Epic and Folk Traditions) – Dr. Sharma is President, South Asian University; an accomplished academician and a Fulbright Fellow, with a deep interest in and knowledge of Indian folklore, especially the Mahabharata. Indira Gandhi Sadbhavana awardee (2005).

• Madan Gopal Singh (Sufi and Sikh Traditions) – Dr. Singh is a Professor at Delhi University, and an internationally renowned Sufi singer.

• Partho (Sri Aurobindo’s Evolutionary Vision and Education) – Partho is an educator, writer, consultant and mentor to many integral initiatives in India and abroad.

• Dr. Vladimir Iatsenko (Vedic and Upanishadic Wisdom Traditions) – Dr. Iatsenko is a teacher and scholar of Vedas, Upanishads and Sanskrit, settled in Auroville since1993.

Key Reflections and Insights:

• Education must move beyond preparing for employment. There is a disconnect between literacy and education. The more literate we become, the less educated we seem to become. India, though not very literate, is a highly educated country. This education is founded on its culture, the rich tapestry of life in its epic and folk traditions. How can education help the student become a happier person, a more evolved person? How can it enable constant growth?

• At present our education system operates only at one level of consciousness. The wisdom traditions point us to multiple levels of consciousness (spiritual, mental emotional, physical). Education should teach the students about these multiple levels right from childhood and not limit them to just debating, analyzing, and rationalizing. Education should make the students aware of the higher levels of consciousness from which ideas and inspirations emerge. Faculties of consciousness should be an integral part of the curriculum.

• Education needs to focus equally on the development of all aspects of the person: Intellect (mind), Emotions (vital), Physical (body), Psychic and Spiritual. At the moment there is too much emphasis on mind and matter while the other aspects are totally neglected.

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• Present educational view is dualistic – it creates a schism between Spirit and Matter. Wisdom traditions show us the way to non-dualism. Education should help students in developing a non-dualistic approach to life.

• Education aims at Knowledge. To be knowledgeable is important but it also limits. Wisdom is the most important thing. Knowledge becomes Wisdom when knower, knowledge and knowing become one – one becomes what one knows.

• Knowledge is not something from outside or alien but it is a recognition of that which is already there. So if the children are not taught something very strange, very alien but something which is already there within them and within their world and environment which only has to be uncovered from that which is already there.

• If Education process can bring the attention to the inner and make the student aware of his/her self within, that is the one element that will begin to transform the way the student learns – because what one learns, what education is, is a direct reflection of how one lives reality within oneself.

• The focus of education needs to shift from just passing examinations to something larger, such as living a life of dharma. Artha and Kama (pursuit of wealth, fulfillment of desires) must be embedded in Dharma (a higher ideal, in righteousness) – that leads to liberation (Moksha). It might actually help to abolish examinations.

• Language or the word comes down from a transcendent level, then it reaches the visionary level of intuition and then it comes to the level of thought and on the fourth stage it comes to the level of spoken or written manifested word. If you read any text, especially the spiritual text, you have to move from the written to

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the heard language to the thought and from the thought to the intuitive and from the intuitive to the transcendental. Students should be introduced to different levels of the word, of language – so that they go beyond the superficial.

• The hallmark of a good teacher is that he/she does not teach. The hallmark of a good student is that he/she continues to learn all the time.

• Teachings from all wisdom traditions (including Indian wisdom traditions) should be incorporated in our institutions in an engaging way in order to enrich students’ thoughts and make them reflect on various aspects. Story-telling for younger people and case study style reflections for older people could be effective ways to bring these teachings to light.

• For 1800 years India had the finest universities (6th century BC to 12th century AD). Besides knowledge and wisdom, it was also structures of knowledge, processes of governance etc. which made these universities great.

• Commercialisation of Education kills its spirit. Even though all institutions cannot do away with charging for education, a few institutions can do that.

• Wisdom traditions go beyond particular religions or sects. Instead of getting into a debate on this versus the other, the secular approach would be to cull out that which is useful in today’s world to lead a life which is progressive for oneself and for the community at large. One should study and take out what is good for oneself and connect it with whatever one is doing, in whichever field one is. The texts have to be interpreted in relation to the contemporary problems. When that is done, the students will not think that these are old myths and have nothing to do with them.

• In the Indian context, instead of secularism (whose origins are in a conflict between State and Church in Europe), we should include all wisdom traditions in the curriculum – as they are different knowledge systems without any inherent conflict.

• Universalisation of education is prone to the danger of mediocrity, as structures become too large and the spirit recedes.

• Consciousness must be multiversal, rather than universal. Conscience is equally important. Conscience is the creation or recognition of one’s own resonance along with multiple narratives. Lu

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Afternoon Session:NeW eXpeRIMeNtS AND INNoVAtIoNS IN HIGHeR eDUCAtIoN

Moderated by Partho. The session explored new innovations and experiments in content, structure, methodology and governance in institutions of Higher Education, with a view to understand: • What is the impact these innovations are generating? • How can these institutions become pioneers of the future evolutionary

aspirations of youth/humanity and models of excellence?

panelists:

• Ameeta Mehra (Gnostic Centre of Education) – Ms. Mehra is the Chairperson and co-founder of The Gnostic Centre and International Centre for Integral Studies (ICIS), with a deep interest in creating excellence in education system of India. She is an Integral Yoga practitioner and facilitator. Presented on Gnostic Centre of Education.

• Reva Dandage (Swaraj University) – Ms. Dandage is a co-founder of Swaraj University, passionately involved with Democratic Education.

• Satish Kumar (Schumacher College) – Mr. Kumar is the originator and co-founder of Schumacher College (UK). He is a former Jain monk and long-term peace and environment activist.

• Dr. Shailendra Raj Mehta (How can Institutes of Higher Learning become Models of Excellence) – Dr. Mehta is the Chairman of the Board of Management, Auro University (Surat). He is rated as one of the top 10 researchers in the field of Strategy in India.

• Vineet Gupta (Ashoka University) – Mr. Gupta is one of the key founders and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Ashoka University – based on the model of collective philanthropy and excellence.

Key Reflections and Insights:

• The universities are the real centres of problems. All the big problems of the world today are from the universities. The war of Iraq is created by educated people, Global warming and climate change are created by highly educated people. So education is the real problem in our world today. Educated people are the culprits. The ordinary peasants, the ordinary workers and the poor people living in a hut or villages of Rajasthan or Gujarat or wherever, they are not creating global warming, they are not creating fossil fuel use; we are creating. So we have to change our education. Education is to live a life which is sustainable, which is in harmony with nature, which is in harmony with yourself, which is in harmony with your society. (Satish Kumar)

• Education is not only about information but also about your feeling, your heart, your spirit and your soul. Information is okay, knowledge goes a bit further, but

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experience, when you experience something then you have learnt it. In the Indian tradition, we say achaar-vichaar. Living comes first and then theory emerges out of your experience. Education must not cut you off from life. Whatever you do, do it with love. College is not an institution, college is a community, college is home. Learning and living come together at the same time, and not learning now and living later in life. When you have learnt to do dishes with love then we can learn about Physics and Mathematics and Shakespeare and all the other subjects. Enjoy life, that’s the purpose of education. We need to be ‘makers’ – poets – rather than consumers; making with our own imagination, from our own heart, from our own inside. To look for a job is an old-fashioned paradigm. One must create one’s own job. One must seek livelihood instead of employment. (Satish Kumar)

• How to create a great organization? There is the ten-box framework. It’s Governance, Strategy, Structures, Systems, People, Skilling, Culture, Leadership, Communication and Renewal. Out of these, Governance is the most important thing that sets things in motion. Essentially it is the four ‘W’s – Who is answerable

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to Whom for What and When. If you answer these four questions you have good governance model. Good leadership is about creating great culture in the organization. Culture is what allows you to take ordinary individuals and make them extraordinary. (Shailendra Mehta)

• Universities must focus on creating entrepreneurs. Jobs will follow, companies will follow – the first thing you have to think about is that how do I add value. How do I basically do something and create something? How do I organize something that solves somebody’s problem? And if we take this attitude, jobs are everywhere. Everything that is a problem and everything that is a pain becomes an opportunity. (Shailendra Mehta)

• Model of collective philanthropy – groups of people coming together to fund a university, where everyone has an equal vote, regardless of how much funding they bring. More funding does not give you more results. (Vineet Gupta)

• Conventional classrooms are disconnected from reality. Teaching and learning happens in a vacuum. The student does not learn how the information is relevant in the outside world. In real world everything is interwoven – it is not divided into History, Science, Geography etc. But schools compartmentalize education. This kills the spark of learning. Everyone becomes a cog in the big machine. Education should encourage people to find their sacred dance – that which they are uniquely wired for. Everything can be questioned and should be questioned and should be formed by each and every individual. One can learn from a child, a peasant, from anyone. Learning must happen through living. (Reva Dandage)

• Self-observation and self-reflection play a key role in learning as well as in evaluation. The most important component in Education is the facilitator. Unless the facilitator is trained in matters of consciousness, in growth of consciousness, how is he/she going to create a culture of this with the students? Education has to be transformative. The shift has to be from ‘I know and you learn’ to ‘I learn from teaching’ – the facilitator begins to change because of the student’s engagement with the process of learning – that is transformation. (Ameeta Mehra)

- Anuradha (comp)Founding Trustee, The Gnostic Centre