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Education In Eyes Of  Swami Vivekananda

Swami Sambuddhananda

 

New Delhi, 5 July 2024

The consensus of all the savants of the West and the sages of the East holds that Swami Vivekananda is the most wonderful phenomenon in the history of the human race. He was undoubtedly a man of multiple personalities. In his make-up, one could see the traces of the brain of Shankara, the heart of Buddha, the love of Sree Chaitanya, the spiritual fire of Guru Nanak, the mildness of Christ, and the apostolic eloquence of St. Paul, all harmoniously combined.

 

With all the diverse aspects of his life, Swami Vivekananda appears to be a great scholar, vastly learned in the lore of the East and the West, a great philosopher, and an eloquent orator. Above all, he was an educationist of the top-most rank. His ideas of education are appreciated and admired by all the educationists of this world not only of his age but also of today.

 

Education, with Swami Vivekananda, is not an amount of information that is thrust into the brains of the boys and girls, but education, with him, means, "the manifestation of perfection already in man". He believed in the amazing utterances of the Vedas where they announce at the top of their voice the eternal verity of the soul. They declare that the soul is potentially divine and perfect. Perfection and divinity are the birthright of every soul. Education, therefore, according to the great Swami, is the means or the ways of attainment of the apex of perfection.

 

Article at a Glance

 

Swami Vivekananda is considered a remarkable figure in the history of the human race, known for his multiple personalities and harmonious combination of various qualities.

 He was a great scholar, philosopher, and eloquent orator, with a special focus on education. According to Vivekananda, education is not just about acquiring information, but the manifestation of perfection already present in every soul. He believed in the importance of harmonizing the inner and outer aspects of an individual for a balanced and wonderful development.

Vivekananda was a worshipper of strength and encouraged all-round development, including physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual growth. He advocated for man-making education, which focuses on self-analysis, self-development, and self-fulfillment, rather than just literacy. He urged the youth of India to contribute to the service and upliftment of the illiterate masses through man-making and character-building education.

 

 

While commenting on the existing education of his days he remarks that the first thing that a boy, or a girl, learns after going to school is that his father is a fool; the second thing that he learns is that his grandfather is a lunatic, and the third thing that a young learner gathers from the school is that his teacher is a hypocrite, and the fourth thing that he learns is that his religion is nothing. Within sixteen years, therefore wery boy or girl

that. Becomes a mass of negation. "A negative education or any training/is based on negation is worse than death". An education is not an education at all if it does not contribute to the making up of a true man and the building up of his character. Real education shapes the angularities of the learner and embellishes his inner and outer character. True education removes all the flaws and defects of one's nature and makes him a good citizen of the world. It broadens the outlook of a man, widens his heart, and helps him to outgrow all the sectional limits. To him, all distinctions and differences disappear and he prepares himself to face all the problems of human life by his inner strength from a higher standpoint.

 

The plastic period of human life is boyhood. It is in this period that the mind of a boy remains receptive. All that he happens to come across leaves an indelible impression upon his mind and it helps him in making up the inner man. It is education that teaches one to harmonize the inner man with the outer one. Where there is harmony between the two a wonderful development takes place.

 

Swami Vivekananda was a worshipper of strength all through his life. He wanted the boys of his country to be strong in every way. He believed in all-round development. A boy, according to him, should not only be physically strong, intellectually keen, and morally great, but also spiritually invincible. He was thoroughly disappointed in the type of modern boys and would often deplore saying 'What would these namby-pamby boys, with no strength in the body, no intellect in the brain, and no courage in the heart, do'. He wanted young men with muscles of iron, nerves of steel, and above all, with a will that makes one determined to meet death face to face going down, if necessary, to the deepest depth of the Pacific. He wanted boys of the type of Nachiketa, the hero of Kathopanishad, who, according to Vivekananda, was a boy of ideal education. Nachiketa was a boy full of fire, courage, and spirit who remained ever undaunted and unruffled even when he met the King of Death face-to-face in his palace. He was a boy of burning sacrifice, to whom nothing could

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Appear to be of any value and nothing is too great to be sacrificed for the attainment of the highest end of human life. He went so far as to say that if he could get only one hundred boys like Nachiketa, he might have brought about a radical change, in this world of materialism. "Self-sacrifice and not self-assertion is the highest law of this universe", says Vivekananda.

 

Gifts of food and clothes to the needy people are of little value as they do not last long and the benefit the people reap out of them is only temporary. However, the great Swami maintains that the gift of education is far superior to material gifts. For, if one happens to be educated, he enjoys the benefit of education all through his life.

 

There are two kinds of education. The education that one receives at schools and colleges of the modern age, in arts, in science or philosophy is more or less a bread-winning education So far as the making of a man is concerned, school and college education of the modern age is of little value. Man-making education is different from bread-winning education. Of course, in these days of economic atrophy, no one can deny the demand for such education as is available in schools and colleges of the modern age. It is a necessity for keeping the body and the soul together. But one has to save the body to develop the soul. Bread-winning education hardly helps a man in self-analysis and far less in self-development. Without self-development, self-fulfillment, -- the be-all and end-all of human life, is a chimera. To be literate is one thing, but to be an ideal citizen of the world is quite another.

 

Man-making education, therefore, has very little concern with literacy. Even the most illiterate man, the history of the human race tells us, can be the greatest man that humanity can claim to have ever produced. Swami Vivekananda therefore maintains that we need today's man-making and character-building education. The education that teaches a man to analyze his self through and through, to get rid of all evils of inner life, shape all the angularities to build himself up a new man, a man of development that

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Leads one to self-realisation or self-fulfillment the summum bonum of human life, is the education that we need today. It is self-analysis that alone can contribute to self-development and self-development which, when expanded consumates in self-fulfilment.

 

Realizing the real weight and importance of man-making education, the great Swami did not hesitate to make a passionate appeal to the youths of India to come forward with their quota of contribution to the service and upliftment of the illiterate masses of India and give them a lift from where they had been living. Elevation of the illiterate masses and the downtrodden by man-making and character-building education was the motto of Swami Vivekananda's life. "No amount of politics," he says, "would be of any avail until the masses in India are once more well educated, well fed, and well cared for". "Through education faith in one's self and through

 

Faith in one's self the inherent Brahman wakes up in them"

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