Integral education

Dr Bodh Bral
The present education is inclined towards mental education as little attention has been given to other forms of integral education (IE) by the learners, parents and educational institutions, particularly, psychic and spiritual education. The ongoing education pattern seeks to stuff the pupil by bookish and outer knowledge, thus, negating the intuitive subtle and higher mental faculties. In the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Integral Education (IE) is the philosophy and practice of education for the perfection and transformation of the whole being. ‘It is not for our family, secure a good position, earning money, obtaining a diploma/ degree that we should study rather we must study to learn, to know, to understand the world, and for the sake of the joy that it gives us’, whispers, The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. The aim of IE is to increase perfectibility to its utmost and to learn for the sake of knowledge, to know the secrets of Nature and life, to educate oneself in order to grow in consciousness, to discipline oneself in order to become master of oneself, to overcome one’s weaknesses and ignorance, to prepare oneself to advance in life towards a goal that is nobler and vaster, more generous and more true.
Sri Aurobindo outlines three fundamental principles of IE. The first is that ‘nothing can be taught.’ He opines that the proper role of the educator is not to instruct or to impart knowledge to the pupil, but rather to help and guide the student in acquiring knowledge and encourage the pupil in the quest for knowledge as the true knowledge comes from within. The second principle is that ‘the mind has to be consulted in its own growth.’ This means not to impose knowledge on the pupil, nor to arrange for the student to develop particular qualities, capacities, ideas, or a prearranged career. Each individual has a unique Dharma, a particular Divine-given talent and duty, and it is the educator’s responsibility to help the student identify these innate interests, predispositions, and abilities and to develop and perfect them. The third principle is ‘to work from the near to the far’. This principle pertains to the basic observation that in addition to the importance of the soul and its past development in shaping the individual nature, other factors such as heredity, the immediate surroundings in which one lives and breathes, one’s nationality and ethnic customs, all play important roles in the development of the outer nature and educationists should use these material.
The Mother also established basic guidelines for integral education, as well as a wealth of practical advice and suggestions by indicating that a complete education must include five aspects that correspond to five fundamental aspects of the human being- the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic, and the spiritual-and provided a sound basis of knowledge for the proper and full development of each of these domains.
Physical Education: The education of the body should begin at birth and continue throughout the life. In the education of the physical consciousness, method, order, and discipline become paramount. All the parts of the nature are intertwined, and the divine possibilities of the nature, as well as the mind are  vital, each require a sound body for their full manifestation. Habits of eating, rest, exercise and hygiene should be developed properly. Physical education has three principal aspects: (1) control and discipline of the functioning of the body, (2) an integral, methodical and harmonious development of all the parts and movements of the body and (3) correction of any defects and deformities.
Vital Education: The vital in man’s nature is a despotic and exacting tyrant. It is the vital which holds power, energy, enthusiasm and effective dynamism. The education of the vital is very important but it is very difficult and requires a great deal of patience and persistence. The Mother indicates that it has two aspects: The first is to develop and utilise the sense organs, the second is to become conscious and gradually master of one’s character and in the end to achieve its transformation. Regarding the gaining of conscious awareness and mastery over the vital, one should begin at an early age to observe his or her reactions, impulses, desires, and their causes. In addition, there must be instilled in the child a will towards progress and perfection, towards the mastery of these movements. One should be shown, led to appreciate, taught to love beautiful, lofty, healthy and noble things, whether in Nature or in human creation.
Mental Education: The mental education is the most widely known and practised yet except in a few rare cases there are gaps which make it something very incomplete and in the end quite insufficient. Generally speaking, schooling is considered to be all the mental education that is necessary. A true mental education, which will prepare man for a higher life, has five principal phases viz., development of the power of concentration, the capacity of attention; development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness; organisation of one’s ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life; thought-control, rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what one wants and when one wants; development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being. It is a fact that like all the other parts of the human being, the mind too needs rest which comes by changing one’s mental activity and silence.
Psychic Education: Every human being carries hidden within him the possibility of a greater consciousness which goes beyond the bounds of his present life and enables him to share in a higher and a vaster life. What the human mental consciousness does not know and cannot do, this consciousness knows and does. It is like a light that shines at the centre of the being, radiating through the thick coverings of the external consciousness. With psychic education we come to the problem of the true motive of existence, the purpose of life on earth, the discovery to which this life must lead and the result of that discovery: the consecration of the individual to his eternal principle. For till now, the discovery of the psychic being and identification with it have not been among the recognised subjects of education, and although one can find in special treatises useful and practical hints on the subject. The discovery of psychic is a personal matter and a great determination; a strong will and an untiring perseverance are indispensable for unveiling it and which carries in it a sense of universality, limitless expansion, and unbroken continuity. The psychic being is also a great discovery which requires as much fortitude and endurance as the discovery of new continents. Before the untiring persistence of our effort, an inner door will suddenly open and we will emerge into a dazzling splendor that will bring us the certitude of immortality, the concrete experience that we have always lived and always shall live, that external forms alone perish like clothes that are thrown away when worn out. Then we will stand erect, freed from all chains, and instead of advancing laboriously under the weight of circumstances imposed upon us by Nature, which we had to endure and bear if we did not want to be crushed by them, we will be able to walk on, straight and firm, conscious of our destiny, master of our life.
Spiritual Education: The psychic and spiritual terms usually confused under the general term of ‘yogic discipline’, although their aims are different. The psychic life is immortal life, endless time, limitless space, ever-progressive change, unbroken continuity in the universe of forms. The spiritual consciousness means to live in the infinite and the eternal consciousness, to be projected beyond all creation, beyond time and space. Spiritual education is the opening to the higher realms of cosmic and transcendental consciousness. From beyond the frontiers of form, a new force can be evoked, a power of consciousness which is as yet unexpressed and which, by its emergence, will be able to change the course of things and give birth to a new world. For the true solution to the problem of suffering, ignorance and death is not an individual escape from earthly miseries by self-annihilation into the unmanifest, nor a problematical collective flight from universal suffering by an integral and final return of the creation to its creator, thus curing the universe by abolishing it, but a transformation, a total transfiguration of matter brought about by the logical continuation of Nature’s ascending march in her progress towards perfection, by the creation of a new species that will be to man what man is to the animal and that will manifest upon earth a new force, a new consciousness and a new power. And so will begin a new education which can be called the supramental education; it will, by its all-powerful action, work not only upon the consciousness of individual beings, but upon the very substance of which they are built and upon the environment in which they live.
In contrast with the types of education we have mentioned previously, which progress from below upwards by an ascending movement of the various parts of the being, the supramental education will progress from above downwards, its influence spreading from one state of being to another until at last the physical is reached. This last transformation will only occur visibly when the inner states of being have already been considerably transformed.
(The author is Assistant Professor Department of Commerce, University of Jammu)

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