Character-building is the prime requisite in a student's life: academic knowledge is a complementary secondary. The whole edifice of human civilisation stands on the foundation of character whose periodic erosion below critical levels causes cataclysmic devastation that spells the doom of mankind. The two World Wars of the 20th century bear testimony to the violent consequence of mass human selfishness and narrow nationalistic outlook outstripping the gains of scientific and technological advancement. Avaricious, fanatical megalomaniacs, devoid of humanity and bereft of character, steeped in untruth, deceit and vice, have ravaged civilisation through the ages and their day is not done yet. This has been the history of the world and, sadly enough, promises to be the narrative for the foreseeable future as well. And all because, at the elementary level, education wholly stresses on gathering data and mechanically processing them instead of building the character, the moral fibre of the student alongside, the one ingredient essential for the founding of a stable society. An enlightened liberal education, free of the trappings of exclusive theological or ideological indoctrination, goes a long way towards building a healthy citizenry. Dictators draw the rank and file of their oppressive machinery from the people at large but find their diabolical designs foiled when the citizenry is enlightened. Thus, a perfected system of education with proper emphasis on character-building democratises society and empowers the citizens to resist narrow nationalistic agenda and to foster global peace and harmony, the precondition to the flourishing of civilisation.
At a time of cultural chaos, when materialism at its grossest grips the sensate levels of the collective consciousness of man, when spirituality wanes and Matter poses as the reigning deity, when man, sunk in the mire of myriad material misery, in desperation appeals to the highest heavens for redemption, then the floodgates of Divine Mercy open up deluging the world in love divine. The Avatar (Divine Incarnation), moved to pity at the plight of the people, assumes human form and descends amidst us to raise our consciousness and relocate us in the Divine. He, through his intense austerities, lends character to the world by inter-penetrating its consciousness with his higher vibrations. Human society, which had lost its spiritual moorings, rediscovers its spiritual roots and, like the 'uurdhamuulam' (the fabled tree with its roots up in the heavens and shoot tending downwards to the earth), gains nourishment from the descent of the Divine to re-adjust its complex mechanisms and regain its lost equilibrium.
In every age such a cyclical change, wave-like, occurs when human society sinks to its nadir and the Avatar resettles humanity with his spiritual inundation. He is the World Teacher (Jagadguru) and he lends character to the world. He does not engage in grandiloquent philosophising although he vanquishes all adversaries in debate to uphold the Eternal Truth. His method is simple and direct. He speaks to the heart of man, from the pundit to the pariah, striking resonant chords in them and, so, transforming them that a movement starts whose waves in time wash the distant shores of the globe, cleansing and redeeming, purifying and uplifting the fallen consciousness of man.
In this age Ramakrishna and Vivekananda have started such a movement. Spreading from the hamlet of Kamarpukur in erstwhile Bengal it has now engulfed the wide world in its vibrations. And as the world becomes conscious of this force, it is awaking to a new light, a new radiance whose source is in the Self of man hidden deep in the folds of his spiritual heart. There, all is harmony, all is peace, all is bliss; there, all is One. We shall dwell on this flood at length in future deliberations. For the while, ruminate on this that character-building is the primary objective of education and acquisition of secular knowledge a complementary secondary. Jai Ramakrishna!
At a time of cultural chaos, when materialism at its grossest grips the sensate levels of the collective consciousness of man, when spirituality wanes and Matter poses as the reigning deity, when man, sunk in the mire of myriad material misery, in desperation appeals to the highest heavens for redemption, then the floodgates of Divine Mercy open up deluging the world in love divine. The Avatar (Divine Incarnation), moved to pity at the plight of the people, assumes human form and descends amidst us to raise our consciousness and relocate us in the Divine. He, through his intense austerities, lends character to the world by inter-penetrating its consciousness with his higher vibrations. Human society, which had lost its spiritual moorings, rediscovers its spiritual roots and, like the 'uurdhamuulam' (the fabled tree with its roots up in the heavens and shoot tending downwards to the earth), gains nourishment from the descent of the Divine to re-adjust its complex mechanisms and regain its lost equilibrium.
In every age such a cyclical change, wave-like, occurs when human society sinks to its nadir and the Avatar resettles humanity with his spiritual inundation. He is the World Teacher (Jagadguru) and he lends character to the world. He does not engage in grandiloquent philosophising although he vanquishes all adversaries in debate to uphold the Eternal Truth. His method is simple and direct. He speaks to the heart of man, from the pundit to the pariah, striking resonant chords in them and, so, transforming them that a movement starts whose waves in time wash the distant shores of the globe, cleansing and redeeming, purifying and uplifting the fallen consciousness of man.
In this age Ramakrishna and Vivekananda have started such a movement. Spreading from the hamlet of Kamarpukur in erstwhile Bengal it has now engulfed the wide world in its vibrations. And as the world becomes conscious of this force, it is awaking to a new light, a new radiance whose source is in the Self of man hidden deep in the folds of his spiritual heart. There, all is harmony, all is peace, all is bliss; there, all is One. We shall dwell on this flood at length in future deliberations. For the while, ruminate on this that character-building is the primary objective of education and acquisition of secular knowledge a complementary secondary. Jai Ramakrishna!
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