O’ human being, arise awake!
PS Intro: In this following song Sadguru is posing His questions & speaking directly to the bhakta.
"kon ajánár buke theke ele,kon asiime bhese jáo..." (Prabhat Samgiita #2222)
Purport:
O’ human being, from which unknown supreme bosom have you come. In which infinite destination are you floating towards. You must know you are not meagre or insignificant. You are the tiny part of Cosmic Consciousness. He has created you according to His desire; you are within Him. You are not just this physical body. You should know that your Goal is Parama Purusa. Now tell Me what you want; what are your desires and longings.
O’ sadhaka, for ages you remained oblivious of your own existence; era after era passed. You were seeking the answer to all your worries, anxieties, and problems externally. You were trying to find happiness outside; and, you were trying to quench your thirst and satisfy your hunger from material allurements. You never tried to look within. All is hidden within you. Look within and you will get everything. You have to turn your eyes from outside to inside. Divert your vision from external to internal; introvert the mind.
O’ spiritual aspirant, the Divine Entity - who is shelter of all, is also your shelter. He is your every single thing. He knows each and every thing about you. He knows your past, present, and future - everything. And He loves you too. Your future is situated in Him, up to eternity. Forgetting this eternal, love-personified Taraka Brahma, then whom do you go on looking for to get fulfilment in your life?
O’ bhakta, do not waste your time. The Divine Entity has bestowed you with human life. Utilise it to serve Him. Do each thing according to His wishes. By this way, your infinite hunger will be satiated, your coming on this earth will be successful...
== Section 2: Main Topic ==
Widespread violence: remedy
Namaskar,
Let us consider an example, where two people not known to each other are travelling together on a train. When one thinks that if, for some reason, he will be suffering from heart attack while on a train, then the person beside will take care of him by calling other people for help, and will ensure his well being. This is an illustration of brotherhood, faith, and belief among each other. But in contrast what happens in today’s society is that the person thinks that if he will suffer heart attack while on a train, the person next to him will take his belongings and run away or will throw him out of the train and take all the belongings. This is an example, but in society there are many instances where such mistrust exists, and many such incidents happen because of lack of brotherhood among people. One of the reasons is lack of proper education system. Paid, and privatized education results in unhappiness, violence, inferiority/superiority complex, and results in dangerous activities happening in the society.
Which education system is better?
How the education system should be? In some countries parents pay children’s education till university level (system A) . In other countries, parents do not pay, rather student loans are available for higher education (system B). Which education system is better?
Ideally if we see, neither system is correct. Because in both systems people who are rich take the advantage. Let us consider system A.
Rich take the advantage: System-A
India is an example. There exists a disparity in education among children. Children of rich people go to private schools which are highly paid, where the teacher-student ratio is high, and students are given better facilities etc. Whereas children of poor people go to public schools where basic facilities are not available. The majority of public school students do not get the exposure in the future to pursue higher education. Whereas majority of private school students do get a chance to pursue higher education. But the problems in private schools are even more complex. There are different types of private schools.
One who is very rich sends students to very expensive private schools, and one is somewhat reach still sends children to medium to less expensive private school. There are different grades of private schools and even from primary levels of education rich people send their children to private schools depending on their capability. Rich people not only send children to private schools, but also provide exposure in other domains (other activities sports etc.), and also provide a vision for their children in what directions they should pursue their lives in future.
Unending cycle of poverty: crime
So there exists a differential gap between children of rich and poor people. Generation after generation children of poor people remain poor and their development with proper education remains highly unlikely. Even if they do get any job then then those jobs will be low paid, and they will struggle in fulfilling their basic requirements such as acquiring and maintaining their home, taking care of their children and family etc.
When the basic necessities of the poor are not fulfilled then they look for other ways to earn money. Other ways to earn money will be in unfair means such as being a thief, by cheating others, doing bribery etc. They become either servants of rich people or work for them. In these circumstances, it is always the case that the boss is the richest person whereas the agents are very poor. For example the chief of thieves is the richest person, but people who work for him are very poor. They search for means as to how they can get more money for the boss such that their share will more. By these types of wrong doings, the society becomes a place where peace is hard to find. This situation of the society can be attributed to the improper education system as the root cause. Because of wrongdoings of some people, everybody faces the harmful consequences.
Rich person also killed
Example-1: When we read newspapers of many countries and see that a rich person was surrounded by the thieves, and the aftermath was the rich person was killed because there was no other way for the thieves to get money out of him. A few days later the thieves were caught, and were taken to jail. So in this situation both the rich and poor person did face the consequence. It is not that the rich person because of good childhood education did not face the consequence of this improper social condition.
Poor and rich both are suffering
Example-2: We see that in developing countries rich people after their education acquire a house (different from parent’s house), and buy cars and other luxurious commodities. In contrast, we see that even though they have cars, the roads are not properly built so that the car will go over it smoothly. If the rich person wants to go from point A to B, they cannot use their car because roads are unpaved, there are potholes, potholes carry ample water in them, in places roads are even washed out because of heavy rain. So the purpose of having a car is futile. Because of bad roads now the poor and rich both are suffering. In this example, we see that educational differences did not solve basic daily problems even for the rich.
Pay hitman tax
Example-3: Sometimes the rich are very rich, and poor are very poor. In those situations some people want to become gangsters, especially those with poor education, because there is no way of survival for them. If the rich people do not help the poor, there is no way of survival for the poor. One of the easier paths is for those poor people to turn to become gangsters, and find ways to loot money from the rich. The gangsters demand money from the rich asking them to pay hitman tax. If the rich do not pay the demanded money, then the gangsters may kidnap their wife, daughter, son etc. With fear in mind, the rich people bribe and try to make the gangsters happy. The society cannot move forward when such types of circumstances will happen. The root cause is education.
The richer people because of their education amassed lot of money because in their childhood their only concentration was study, and how to obtain good grades in school, and how to get a high paid job in the future. This imbalance of education between children of parents from rich and poor did not result in developing a society that could move forward, rather with this imbalance there remains retardation in growth of the society.
System B, the poor suffer -- USA etc
In system B, primary education is so-called free, but higher education is not. For pursuing higher education loans are available. Such type of system is existing in many countries. Even though loan is available, many students do not want to take loans, because they have the fear of whether they will be able to pay off the loan or not. Especially, when the student is a first generation of the family who is going to college, then parents do not have much knowledge of where loan will be available, when the loan payment will start, what will be the interest rate etc. Because there are lot of loopholes in the loan system, and because they do not have much prior knowledge, they even fear to encourage their child to go for loans. In contrast parents who are rich, typically, they pay off their child’s loan. In addition, children of rich parents, when they seek university admission, some universities because of high tuition cost can easily be gained admission to by them, but children of poor parents cannot afford such high tuition fee with a risk in mind that even loan if offered now, they may not be able to pay off the loan amount after the education is complete and the child does not get a job.
Comparison of System A and B
We see that neither of the two systems are appropriate, as both are geared towards favoring education for children of rich parents. Both systems result in creating an environment which is not conducive for spiritual upliftment. Both systems will result in increasing the masses of poor people generation after generation because education is not free but rather either the cost is paid by the parents or available in the form of loans. Both system A and system B type of education are not good. Rather education should be free.
Violence, illegal ways of gaining money
There is no growth for poor people and the alternative way for them is to find illegal ways of getting money. Both systems leads to a snowball effect where rich people will get richer and poor people will become poorer. Poor people in system B have been attempting to abandon the loan system for pursuing higher education because it is not a plausible solution. Similarly system A resulted in development of communist organizations (e.g. eastern part of India in parts of Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh) who dominate and rule even though there is presence of police and government security. In those regions, maoists often confront the police or military forces, which results in casualties from both sides. No one is born as a maoist. But rather because of lack of education people develop such nature and feel that they are not treated fairly in a society, and join/form specific groups such as maoist.
AM Solution: free education
PROUT suggests that education should be free. Admission to the educational system will be based on one’s intellectual capability and not financial one. If one is a capable student, then s/he will get opportunity to pursue higher education; the higher education should not be based on financial capability.
Children of kings and common people
This type of system existed before. In ancient India, Gurukul system is an example, where children of kings and common people were staying together for higher studies, and there was not feeling of complex among them. In today’s education system, there is an inferiority/superiority complex among children that one is from a poor family and other is from a rich family. Children should not develop rich-poor complexity feeling at such young age. With such type of mentality in children, the society will not progress. The reason being the rich child will develop superiority complex and the poor will develop inferiority complex.
Merit based higher education
In both the education systems (system A and B above), there is a likelihood that children will develop inferiority and superiority complex, where as in PROUT system both the child of a king and that of a poor person will sit side by side to study together. Their dress, food, and accommodation will be same. These basic necessities (dress, food, accommodation, etc.) should be freely provided until certain age. Those who are good in academics will be given opportunity to pursue higher studies, and those who are not so good in academics, they will be given opportunity to excel in other fields which they are good at, so that everyone becomes successful.
Free education-2
Everyone who would like to study at any age should be exempt from any fees, and education should be free. Money for education should be raised from taxes from all in such a way that someone whose income is higher pays higher amount of taxes and those with lower income pay lower taxes. Education from primary through university should be free and should not be privatized. Education system should not be run by politicians but rather by people who are scholars in their respective fields. Political interference should not be there in academics. These types of education system existed before in India, and everything was working well, but over time the education system got changed and now it is an entirely different and paid education system.
Violence, theft, robbery
Another example is in many countries around the globe higher education is free, while in the United States (U.S), higher education is not free. In the U.S we see higher incidence of street violence but very less in many countries around the globe. One key reason is that when students are allowed to study then the mind will be engaged in studies and not in violence. But in a country where students are not allowed to study (because they cannot afford it, and education is not free, e.g., U.S), then the mind will be engaged in activities other than studies, such as violence, theft, robbery, etc.
Conclusion: to stop crime
In summary neither system A nor system B is correct. In both these systems the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. As a result there are lot of disturbances (theft, violence, etc.) created in the society. In inner cities poorer people begin gun violence and they are put into jails. There are number of rich countries in the world where lot of people are in jail because of street violence because poor people do not see any room for progress. There does not exist any brotherhood and love between the rich and poor. When poor people do not find love in the society, and always feel fearful and suppressed, then that results in violence, which is typical in rich countries. Rich people see the poor with suspicious eyes as they feel that the poor may attack them any time. Fear in the society is not a good sign as there does not exist brotherhood, love and happiness between people.
Such disturbances are attributed to the paid education system in many countries. No one should feel that they cannot go to school/college because they can not afford it. Education should be made free and should be made accessible to all.
In Him,
Nira’ka’r
~ In-depth study ~
Educational system must be free of cost
Ananda Marga ideology teaches us, “The success of democracy depends upon educated, sensible voters. Hence, in a democratic country, the spread of education is of the highest priority. For the convenience of the general public, the educational system must be free of cost.” (1)
Ananda Marga ideology says, “There should be free education for all students up to the highest degree.” (2)
Education should be free at all levels
Ananda Marga ideology says, “The framing of educational policies, the control of the educational system, and all other activities concerned with education should be managed by a board comprised of efficient teachers. This board should enjoy full freedom and authority to carry out its duties. Education must be free from all political interference. Education should be free at all levels.” (3)
References
1. Problems of the Day
2. Prout in a Nutshell Volume 3 Part 15, Some Aspects of Socio-Economic Planning
3. Discourses on Neohumanist Education, Talks on Education – Excerpt F
== Section 3: Links ==
Ananda Purnima - April 30, 2018
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Baba
This email contains three sections:
1. PS #2222: O’ human being, arise awake!
2. Posting: Widespread violence: remedy
3. Links
