Grahasthasramam : ( 24/05/2013. )

----------------------------------- Monday, August 17, 2020. 8:48.PM. (Keynote address given at a conference on education in Delhi on October 21, 1983) Post-8. ------------------------------------------- 1. There is the conflict of one person with another person in human society. It is not true that a human individual, any given person, can love another unconditionally, under any circumstance, for all times. Basically, an unconditional affection and love for another is found to be not possible, for reasons which each one knows. I cannot love you unconditionally. Under given conditions I am your friend, and when these conditions break, I am no more your friend. So there is a basic foundational and essential difficulty in human society of it being possible for a human individual to be truly in love with another. Our apparent collaboration with one another politically, socially, economically or otherwise seems to be an outward adjustment or adaptation based on a secret i...

Wednesday, July 08, 2020. 9:41.AM. (Keynote address given at a conference on education in Delhi on October 21, 1983) Post-7. 1. Satyameva jayate is something known to us: Truth alone triumphs. But what is truth? Can anyone give a clear, satisfactory and logical answer to this question? What is meant by chanting this slogan? Mere slogans, shibboleths and chants may not be of much value. They may be capable of introducing a sense of self-destruction among ourselves that we are well informed and knowledgeable about all things, but basically when we are threatened with the forces of nature and the facts of life, we may be poor weaklings with no strength of our own. Why is it that we have no strength? Knowledge is said to be power, apart from the fact that knowledge is considered as a virtue. It was Socrates perhaps who proclaimed that knowledge is virtue. Why should there be this conflict between education and moral behaviour if knowledge is virtue? Knowledge is virtue, knowledge is power,...

===================================== --------------------------------------------------------------- 18/04/2020. (Keynote address given at a conference on education in Delhi on October 21, 1983) Post-6. ------------------------------------------------------------- 1. #Perhaps a human being is not a physical body. It is not one unit in a zoo, but it is an outlook of life. An outlook of life perhaps differentiates the human way of thinking from the animal’s intense selfishness and the mere biological impulse of the plant and the vegetable.  ##But here is a moot point before us. What is the consideration that is necessary for converting an animal into a human being? Let each one of us dispassionately probe into his own or her own heart and decide if there is something inside which is akin to the animal, akin to the snake or the tiger, the scorpion, the vindictive beasts of the jungle.  ###Are we also hungry and thirsty, and eager to live somehow ...

======================================================================= ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21/02/2020. (Keynote address given at a conference on education in Delhi on October 21, 1983) Post-5. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. *Hence, my point is that if you consider education as something connected with moral behaviour and ethical discipline in human society, naturally education has to be the spring behind the mechanism of human behaviour.  **We behave and conduct ourselves in relation to one another in light of the mechanism that is behind us. That mechanism that operates within us is that which has been imparted to us by the educational process.  ***We are born as biological units, as we were little babies coming out of our mother’s womb. Perhaps we are littl...

======================================================================== ======================================================================== 26/12/2019. (Keynote address given at a conference on education in Delhi on October 21, 1983) POST-4. ======================================================================== TO,  PARENTS AND PARENTAGE : Hence, if education is to be considered as the process of the enlightenment of the human individual in the direction of what the purpose of life is finally, then we may have to know what the purpose of life is. Education is certainly not the accumulation of particular facts of empirical phenomena. It is something different altogether. It is vitally connected to our day-to-day living. A collection of information disconnected to actual existence in the world is not a part of education because it does not illumine the individual. Education is to be considered, therefore, as a medium for shedding proper light on the very structu...

======================================================================= ======================================================================== 01/12/2019. (Keynote address given at a conference on education in Delhi on October 21, 1983) POST-3. ======================================================================== ======================================================================= TO,  PARENTS AND PARENTAGE : We seem to have an erroneous notion of freedom and independence, which seems to be the reason behind our apparent conflict. Really, there should not be any such conflict because freedom and conflict are opposites. We have not yet found a completely satisfying solution to this problem which is partly sociological, partly psychological, and to some extent even a determining factor in political administration. We cannot segregate aspects of human life as if they are watertight compartments.  There is no such thing as political freedom so...

====================================================================== 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 oppo...