On January 5, 2022, Dr. Beloo Mehra was invited by Sri Aurobindo Center for Advanced Research to share a 10-minute video-snippet on the central aims of education in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s writings on education.
“…there are three things which have to be taken into account in a true and living education, the man, the individual in his commonness and in his uniqueness, the nation or people and universal humanity. It follows that that alone will be a true and living education which helps to bring out to full advantage, makes ready for the full purpose and scope of human life all that is in the individual man, and which at the same time helps him to enter into his right relation with the life, mind and soul of the people to which he belongs and with that great total life, mind and soul of humanity of which he himself is a unit and his people or nation a living, a separate and yet inseparable member.”
(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 1, 425)
This foundational principle can help us arrive at a clear picture of our true national education.
India today stands at a critical turning of her destiny, and if she aspires to repossess her inner greatness and takes her due and natural place in the life of the humanity, her one great need is to find and rebuild her true self – in individual and in her people.
The role of education in shaping the collective consciousness of a people is well understood. That is why it is highly important that at this juncture, we Indians wake up to the need of infusing our education with the true timeless spirit of India, which by its very nature takes into account all the three things Sri Aurobindo emphasises in the passage quoted above: the individual in his commonness and in his uniqueness, the nation or people to which the individual belongs, and the universal humanity.