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Education in the New Age - Chapter I - Theory, Methods and Goals
Education must work, therefore, with this dissatisfaction and interpret it to those who are taught, so that they can understand themselves and work intelligently. 5. The attribute of concrete knowledge whereby man is enabled to concretize his concepts and so build thought-forms whereby he materializes his visions and his dreams and brings his ideas into being. This he does through the activity of the lower concrete mind. [22] The true work of education is to train the lower man in right discrimination and true sensitivity to the vision, so that he can build true to the purpose of his soul and produce upon the earth that which will be his contribution to the whole. It is right here that the work of modern education has to begin. Not yet can man work with intelligence in the world of ideas and of patterns; not yet is he sensitive to the true spiritual values. This is the goal for the disciple, even though the masses cannot yet function on these levels. The first thing that must be done is to train the child in the correct use of the discriminating faculty and in the power of choice and of directed purpose. He must be brought to a truer understanding of the underlying purpose of being, and be led to work with wisdom in the field of creative activity, which means, in the last analysis, in the right use of the "mind stuff" (the chitta of Patanjali). Thus and only thus, can he be released from the control of his lower nature. 6. The attribute of devotion is the next to be considered. Devotion grows out of and is the fruit of dissatisfaction, plus the use of the faculty of choice. According to the depths of a man's discontent, and of his power to see clearly, he passes from one point of temporary satisfaction to another, each time demonstrating his devotion to a desire, to a personality, to an ideal, and to a vision, until he finally unifies himself with the ideal which is the highest possible to man. This is, first of all, the soul; and then the Oversoul or God. Educators are therefore faced with the opportunity of dealing intelligently with the innate idealism to be found in any child, and with the interesting task of leading the youth of the world on from one realized goal to another. But this they must do in the future from the angle of the ultimate [23] soul objective and not, as in the past, from the angle of a particular standard of national education. This is an important point, for it will mark the shift of attention from the non-essential to the essential. 7. Finally the attribute of order, and the imposition of an established rhythm through the development of innate faculty to function under directed purpose and ritual. This particular attribute of divinity is now highly developed in one aspect, so that we have today much standardization of humanity, and the autocratic imposition of a ritualistic rhythm upon public life in a large number of countries. It can be seen to perfection in the life in our public schools - but it is an undesirable perfection. This is partly due to the recognition that the unit or individual is only a part of a greater whole (a recognition which is much needed) and a part of the evolutionary unfoldment of the race. Owing, however, to our faulty application of any new truth it means as yet the submergence of that unit in the group, leaving him little opportunity for the free play of the individual will, intelligence, purpose and soul technique. Educators will have to work with this principle of innate attribute and this instinct to ordered rhythm, making it more creatively constructive and so providing, through it, a field for the unfoldment of soul powers. I have digressed thus far so as to instill certain of the basic ideas which should underlie the educational tendencies. These thoughts, coupled with those already given, constitute a statement of the objectives before the educators of the world which you would find it of value to consider. Earlier I suggested the goal. I now link that goal up with possibilities, for I have here touched upon the [24] equipment (aspects and attributes) which is found, in some stage of development, in every human being. It is with these hidden traits and instincts that the future educational systems must work. They must not work, as they do today, with the brain apparatus and with the lowest aspects of the mind; nor must they lay their emphasis upon the effort to impress upon that brain and mind the facts, so-called, of the evolutionary process and of physical plane investigation. The above remarks will serve to show you that the true educator should be working with energies in a world of energy; that these energies are tinged and qualified by distinctive divine attributes, and that each human being therefore can be regarded as an aggregate of energies, dominated by some one particular type of energy which serves to make him distinctive among his fellows, and which produces the differences among human beings. If it is true that there are seven major types of energy qualifying all forms, and that these in their turn are subdivided into forty-nine types of qualified energy, the complexity of the problem emerges clearly. If it is true that all these distinctive energies play constantly upon energy-substance (spirit-matter), producing "the myriad forms which make up the form of God" (Bhagavad Gita, XI), and that each child is the microcosmical representation (at some stage of development) of the Macrocosm, the magnitude of the problem becomes evident, and the extent of our demanded service will call forth to the utmost the powers which any human being can express at any given moment in time and space.
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