VEDIC KNOWLEDGE AND SUPERMIND IN THE LIGHT OF SRI AUROBINDO Sri Aurobindo made a very important statement in The Foundations of Indian Culture, in which he spoke of the immediate work of India. He said that there were three tasks that India had to accomplish. The first task is to recover the ancient spiritual knowledge in its fullness, in its amplitude — this is the first task. And this means of course, basically, the recovery of the Veda, Upanishads, the Gita, the Puranas and Tantras. This is, one might say, the basic stuff of what can be called the ancient spiritual knowledge of India. I underline the word "knowledge" b

CONCEPT OF EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIAN TRADITION AND CULTURE : ITS CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE Introductory Questions At the outset, let us ask the question as to why we need to explore the concept of education in the Ancient Indian Tradition, and why we want to ascertain the relevance of that concept to the present time. Justification for this exploration could arise if we ask a further question as to whether our present system of education is relevant to our own times, and if we are prepared to undertake a critique of the present system. Do we need to change present system of Education? There is a view that the present system of educ

PHILOSOPHY OF INDIAN ART From various accounts which have evidential value, it is clear that India pursued the quest of the knowledge and the experience of reality through a multiple and even integral approach. The basic quest of India was to discover the causes of disintegration and to find effective remedies by which disintegration can be prevented. In positive terms, this was the quest for immortality, and the ancient literature gives us convincing proof of this quest as also of the victory that was attained. We also find accounts of the processes by which this victory was attained. In this process the major role was played by a difficult psychological discipline

PHILOSOPHY OF VALUE-ORIENTED EDUCATION - I The need for value-oriented education requires clarification. Value-Oriented Education Inherent in the Concept of Education There are at least three fundamental assumptions of the educational process: There is, first, the pursuit of man to know himself and the Universe and to relate himself with the Universe as harmoniously as possible. This pursuit constitutes the very theme of human culture. And education derives its fundamental thrust from the cultural setting at a given point of time. Secondly, there is a process of transmission of the accumulated results

EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY OF SRI AUROBINDO Sri Aurobindo wrote a series of articles on education in the Karma Yogin during 1909-10 under the title "A System of National Education" and "The National Value of Art". He also wrote "A Preface to National Education" which appeared in the Arya in 1920 in two parts. His book, "The Synthesis of Yoga" in which we find extraordinary insights in regard to education, appeared serially in the Arya from August 1914 to January 1921 in four parts. In "A National System of Education", Sri Aurobindo points out that the question is not between modernism and antiquity, but between an imported civilisation an

4. An Experiment in Education for Tomorrow An unprecedented kind of experiment in education was launched by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, when in 1943, a school came to be established at Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry with merely 20 students on its rolls; soon it began to grow, and in 1951, when the number of students had increased, and studies in Higher Education had to be organised, it was expanded into Sri Aurobindo International University Centre. Eminent educationists of the country welcomed the formation of this University Centre, and the foremost educationist of the country, Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherji, specially came to Pondicherr

7. Value-Oriented Education I Values, secularism and spirituality At the outset, it seems necessary to deal with the concept of secularism, since we may observe that this concept is ridden with ambiguities in our Indian situation; and it is thus left to every one to interpret it in any way one thinks best. There is a view of secularism, which consists of equality before law irrespective of caste, religion or race. But this view often tends to become tainted in actual situations where there are unreasonable demands coming from religious groups, which insist on special provisions which tend to mitigate the idea of equality before law. There is al

6. Peace through Learning and Education Peace is often interpreted to mean absence of war. This is not entirely illegitimate; but on a close scrutiny we find it to be inadequate. Absence of war does not rule out prevalence of tensions and even of cold wars. And where tensions exist, hot war can at any time become a concrete actuality. We must, therefore, go to the root of the matter and define peace in positive terms. Fundamentally, peace is a collective phenomenon, and it connotes a collective state of harmony, which can provide a stable base for activities of growth, development, friendliness, comradeship and brotherhood. It is true

3. Coming of the 21 st Century: Implications for New Orientations for Education An important fact that we need to underline is that humanity is undergoing an unprecedented crisis today, and we cannot hazard to look into the coming of the 21st century without taking serious note of this crisis, and how it has developed through the course of the 20th century. The 20th century has been an unquiet age of gigantic ferment, chaos of ideas and inventions, clash of enormous forces, creation, catastrophe and dissolution amid the formidable agony and tension of the body and soul of humankind. During this period, the age of reason reached its highest p