True Education : 2. Swami Krishnananda
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NAVA-RATHRI : MAHA-NAVAMI : VIJAYA-DASHMI :
I wholehearted welcome all children to Akshara Brahmam.
Today millions of children in Kerala irrespective of caste, creed and gender will get initiated into Akshara (school education) On Rice or on sand they are made to write - Hari Shree Ganapathaye Namaha.
An Acharya who initiates the children will write the above mantra on the child’s tongue. This culture has been followed since time immemorial. People of other religions too follow this due to its significance . Let us look at what Hari Shree means. This is a reminder to all children regarding the two assets that they have in Life.
First is Hari and next is Shree. Something that no one can ever remove from our Life ....
what is that? They are the various skills like .....positive mind, humility and clarity in communication. If one is capable of developing these skills , there will always be plenty of opportunities awaiting them. Furthermore they will never fail in Life. These values are the real assets .
Shree .... ‘the wealth’ What does this mean?
This wealth is our good associations and the time that is spent constructively in making everybody and ourselves happy. Today , in order to be Happy, we see people chasing money with their occupations and in the process getting restless and having no time for others.
One should not forget to use their time wisely and in making others happy as it is TIME that is the most precious asset and wealth. TIME once lost can never be got back.
Let us celebrate this Vijayadashami with a new understanding. Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvathi are the powers of our determination, devotion and dedication. Finally our aim should be sharing happiness, joy and harmony in and around us.
(Keynote address given at a conference on education in Delhi on October 21, 1983)
TO, PARENTS AND PARENTAGE :
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POST-2.
Now here we are, facing a very difficult problem. Would you permit the sanction of absolute freedom to any individual in the sense of absolute independence that one would like to wield in one’s own life? Certainly. Is absolute independent freedom in a personal sense practicable or possible, and does it carry any struggle?
We live in a world of a certain set of conflicts. I am placing before you one type of conflict in our way of thinking. On the one hand, there cannot be freedom unless there is total independence of the human person. On the other hand, this seems to be a chimerical idea because it is well known through the passage of human history, political as well as psychological, that no total independence can permit even the survival of the individual. There is dependence of the individual on factors galore, apart from the physical dependence of every person of this human society on every other person. If you dispassionately consider this situation, you will find that everyone is dependent on everyone else for one reason or the other. At this moment I am limiting my considerations to only human society. In a society of human beings there is naturally a need felt for the sharing of part of the personality of an individual with other individuals of a similar nature. Where an individual does not have anything to share with another, there is no such thing as society.
A human society, or a society of any nature, for the matter of that, is not merely a heap of individuals. It is not a crowd of particulars like pebbles heaped on the roadside. Can you consider a heap of stones on the roadside as a society of stones? Naturally not, because we have in our minds a definite concept of what a society is. A society is not a physical coming together of particulars, though these particulars or units may be human individuals. We may all be physically seated together in a single hall, but we may not constitute a society if these individuals seated in a particular context have nothing to share among themselves in any sense of the term. If we accept that human society does exist, then sharing of a particular nature seems to be implied in the very concept of society.
There are some people, especially in modern times, who believe that anarchy is the only right way of living. By the word ‘anarchy’ they seem to mean total freedom, with total independence sanctioned to each individual to live in any manner he or she would like. It is, as I told you, digging a pit for a terrible problem before humanity as a whole because such a freedom has no meaning. Total independence of the individual has not been heard of anywhere, right from the time of creation, perhaps. And in practical existence, in our day-to-day life, we also see how many external factors there are on which life is dependent. I am not here to count these factors. Each one of us is capable of considering what these factors can be, without dependence on which we would not live even for three days. So where is total independence? If we believe that for certain important reasons total independence is not possible and it cannot be sanctioned to an individual, then comes this restriction of freedom of the individual because dependence is restriction of freedom. Where is freedom, then? People are crying for freedom.
So here, as I mentioned, there is a type of conflict in the very way of our thinking. We cannot be dependent and agree to a limitation on our freedom, because nothing can be more satisfying than total freedom. While on the one hand this is so, on the other hand, this is not a practicability. So “Where are we positioned in this concept of human existence?” is a moot question before us.
To be continued ...
========================================================================
NAVA-RATHRI : MAHA-NAVAMI : VIJAYA-DASHMI :
I wholehearted welcome all children to Akshara Brahmam.
Today millions of children in Kerala irrespective of caste, creed and gender will get initiated into Akshara (school education) On Rice or on sand they are made to write - Hari Shree Ganapathaye Namaha.
An Acharya who initiates the children will write the above mantra on the child’s tongue. This culture has been followed since time immemorial. People of other religions too follow this due to its significance . Let us look at what Hari Shree means. This is a reminder to all children regarding the two assets that they have in Life.
First is Hari and next is Shree. Something that no one can ever remove from our Life ....
what is that? They are the various skills like .....positive mind, humility and clarity in communication. If one is capable of developing these skills , there will always be plenty of opportunities awaiting them. Furthermore they will never fail in Life. These values are the real assets .
Shree .... ‘the wealth’ What does this mean?
This wealth is our good associations and the time that is spent constructively in making everybody and ourselves happy. Today , in order to be Happy, we see people chasing money with their occupations and in the process getting restless and having no time for others.
One should not forget to use their time wisely and in making others happy as it is TIME that is the most precious asset and wealth. TIME once lost can never be got back.
Let us celebrate this Vijayadashami with a new understanding. Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvathi are the powers of our determination, devotion and dedication. Finally our aim should be sharing happiness, joy and harmony in and around us.
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08/10/2019.(Keynote address given at a conference on education in Delhi on October 21, 1983)
TO, PARENTS AND PARENTAGE :
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POST-2.
Now here we are, facing a very difficult problem. Would you permit the sanction of absolute freedom to any individual in the sense of absolute independence that one would like to wield in one’s own life? Certainly. Is absolute independent freedom in a personal sense practicable or possible, and does it carry any struggle?
We live in a world of a certain set of conflicts. I am placing before you one type of conflict in our way of thinking. On the one hand, there cannot be freedom unless there is total independence of the human person. On the other hand, this seems to be a chimerical idea because it is well known through the passage of human history, political as well as psychological, that no total independence can permit even the survival of the individual. There is dependence of the individual on factors galore, apart from the physical dependence of every person of this human society on every other person. If you dispassionately consider this situation, you will find that everyone is dependent on everyone else for one reason or the other. At this moment I am limiting my considerations to only human society. In a society of human beings there is naturally a need felt for the sharing of part of the personality of an individual with other individuals of a similar nature. Where an individual does not have anything to share with another, there is no such thing as society.
A human society, or a society of any nature, for the matter of that, is not merely a heap of individuals. It is not a crowd of particulars like pebbles heaped on the roadside. Can you consider a heap of stones on the roadside as a society of stones? Naturally not, because we have in our minds a definite concept of what a society is. A society is not a physical coming together of particulars, though these particulars or units may be human individuals. We may all be physically seated together in a single hall, but we may not constitute a society if these individuals seated in a particular context have nothing to share among themselves in any sense of the term. If we accept that human society does exist, then sharing of a particular nature seems to be implied in the very concept of society.
There are some people, especially in modern times, who believe that anarchy is the only right way of living. By the word ‘anarchy’ they seem to mean total freedom, with total independence sanctioned to each individual to live in any manner he or she would like. It is, as I told you, digging a pit for a terrible problem before humanity as a whole because such a freedom has no meaning. Total independence of the individual has not been heard of anywhere, right from the time of creation, perhaps. And in practical existence, in our day-to-day life, we also see how many external factors there are on which life is dependent. I am not here to count these factors. Each one of us is capable of considering what these factors can be, without dependence on which we would not live even for three days. So where is total independence? If we believe that for certain important reasons total independence is not possible and it cannot be sanctioned to an individual, then comes this restriction of freedom of the individual because dependence is restriction of freedom. Where is freedom, then? People are crying for freedom.
So here, as I mentioned, there is a type of conflict in the very way of our thinking. We cannot be dependent and agree to a limitation on our freedom, because nothing can be more satisfying than total freedom. While on the one hand this is so, on the other hand, this is not a practicability. So “Where are we positioned in this concept of human existence?” is a moot question before us.
To be continued ...
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