What is Education
for Life?
by J. Donald
Walters (Swami Kriyananda), founder of the Education for Life
philosophy of Living Wisdom Schools
(Originally
appeared in Clarity Magazine, Summer 1999.)
What
do I mean when I say “Education for Life?” I can present
the problem and the solution. The problem is that people in traditional
forms of education usually approach it from the standpoint of
just preparing a person for a job. But one’s job isn’t
the definition of one’s life—it’s only that
which enables you to have enough money to meet your needs. Our
lives encompass a much broader arena than one’s capacity
to earn money. Any educational system that teaches only job skills
or offers only intellectual information is neglecting the essential
needs of human beings. The solution is a form of education that
trains us in that which is most relevant to us—how to find
lasting happiness in life.
We
deeply need proper training in “how-to-live” skills
such as how to find the right mate, how to raise our children,
how to be a good employee, how to get along with our neighbors,
and how to concentrate our minds so that we can draw success into
all of our endeavors. There are many such skills that are essential
to prepare a child for adulthood, and in traditional education
many of them are completely ignored. Education for Life is a system
that prepares the child to face the challenges of living as a
human being, and helps him to achieve balance and harmony in all
he does.
What
we’re really talking about is preparing everyone, not just
children, for true maturity. This is a much bigger concept than
just coming of age. As I’ve defined it in my book, Education
for Life, maturity is the ability to relate appropriately
to other realities than one’s own. You’ll find that
even people of advanced years are often childish and immature
with regard to this definition, yet this ability to relate to
others’ realities is what education should accomplish.
In
a broader context, any great discovery in science is recognized
as important not just for itself, but for what windows it opens
to a greater understanding of the world as a whole. Einstein’s
discoveries, for example, were fascinating, but what made them
truly great was the fact that they provided fertile concepts for
exploration in every avenue in life. We find his concepts sited
in the arts, in education, in music, in medicine, in every walk
of life, because in some way they touch on a basic understanding
of reality. The more a person can relate one reality to a host
of other realities, the more we see his consciousness is expanding.
You
can see this ability to relate to other realities reflected in
people’s conversation. Many times someone will try to discuss
a topic from different points of view, but all they’re really
doing is hammering on their own position. It’s like people
living on two distant islands shouting at each other. No matter
how long they shout, the islands remain separated, and they can’t
hear each other. When a person has achieved the kind of maturity
we’re talking about, he is able to listen to others, to
absorb what they’re saying, and to relate it to what he
already understands in order to come up with new insights. In
this way, a discussion can build new understandings for everyone
involved.
The
Education for Life system tries to point the way to maturity.
It doesn’t presume to give maturity, but it creates a mind-set
that will endure for the whole of life. It provides a direction
of growth that people can take all the way into old age and still
keep growing so that they find things to marvel at in the world
around them.
We
find that basically we have four tools that enable us to relate
to life. First, we have to recognize that since we live in physical
bodies, we can see our bodies as tools for helping us grow. If
we don’t properly take care of our bodies, we may find them
becoming our foes instead of our friends. Second, we find that
we respond to the world with our emotions. If our emotions are
always agitated because of intense likes and dislikes, we will
respond emotionally to what others say and not really hear them.
We may hear our own idea of what they are saying, but if we have
an emotional prejudice, we won’t hear them objectively.
Third,
if we don’t know how to use our will power to overcome faults
in ourselves, or to set goals and accomplish them, then we will
never know fulfillment in life. Finally, if we don’t develop
our intellect, then we cannot understand things clearly, and our
life’s experiences will come through our minds in a dull
way. You need to have a clear intellect to really understand what’s
going on around you.
So
we have these four basic tools that enable us to grow toward ever-greater
maturity: the body, the emotions or feelings, the will power,
and the intellect. I’ve observed that the first six years
of a child’s life tend to be the period when they have to
learn how to get their bodies under control. You’ll see
a child of four running down an aisle and knocking over a chair,
or falling over something because he didn’t look down. It
takes a lot of energy to somehow learn how to get this body working
well for us.
During
this period from one to six years, it’s important to teach
children how to use their bodies to grow in other ways of understanding.
For example, drama and dance movements, especially in the first
six years, can be extremely important because children learn with
their bodies at this stage. If through drama they can act out
positive attitudes, or through dance they can be taught movements
that help them express expansiveness, then they’re learning
in a way that’s appropriate to that level of development.
They can be shown those kinds of physical gestures that come with
selfishness, for example, and those that come with being generous
and kind. This can be done in an amusing way so that it’s
a game, and they can learn by imitation.
Often
we can observe that if a person is unhappy, he’ll tend to
look down, to slump forward, or to lean on a table. But conversely,
our physical bearing can also influence our thoughts and feelings.
If you’re feeling happy but slump forward with your head
in your hands, then you’re much more likely to become open
to the thoughts and feelings of depression. If on the other hand,
you can sit up straight and look up, then you find that this posture
helps your emotions and your will power. It’s hard to feel
that you’ve got a strong will if you are sitting slumped
over. But if you sit straight with your chest up, it’s much
easier to affirm that you are strong and able to combat this difficulty
or overcome that obstacle.
As
the child matures and the intellect is brought into play, it’s
also very important to understand the effect of physical posture
on our mental functions. The seat of the intellect is located
at the point between the eyebrows, or in the frontal lobe of the
brain. Physiologists say that anatomically this is the most advanced
part of the brain, and it’s from here that we reason. If
we can learn to bring our energy upward to this part of the brain,
we find that we can think more clearly. If, however, we allow
our energy to sink downward, it’s much more difficult to
think deeply.
The
next tool of maturity is the feelings, and these come into play
during the next six year period from six to twelve. At this time,
it’s easiest to instruct children through their feelings,
and to inspire them through stories of heroism and courage. It’s
essential to give them fitting role models to follow—to
talk about people throughout history who have done inspiring,
great, and beautiful deeds. There are many such stories, but in
our day and age it seems to be a practice to show that these heroes
weren’t all that great after all. It seems to be the cynical
philosophy of our time to bring people down to the lowest common
denominator. I think that there are great things that man is capable
of accomplishing, and we should explore that potential during
these “feeling years.”
Then
we have years from twelve to eighteen—the terrible teens!
This is the time when children want to express their own individuality.
In theory, at least, it could be a beautiful time, but in our
culture particularly here in America, it’s a period of rejecting
the family, tradition, and authority on most levels. Yet it also
has a positive side—affirming strength of will and independence.
If we can encourage the development of will in wholesome ways
through offering challenges and encouraging service to others,
then we can help those children develop self-control and discipline.
This will help them from falling into the habits of drugs and
drinking that many acquire during their teens that weaken their
will. If you affirm your ego and your own desires with the attitude
of “What I want is all that’s important,” you
become contractive and in the long run weaken your will. This
self-focus and defiance may strengthen self will, but that’s
not the kind of will we’re wanting to develop. Rather we
want to help teens acquire the kind of will power that helps them
to overcome the real challenges they’ll face in life.
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Finally,
we reach the ages from eighteen to twenty-four years when many
children go on to college, and you find them sitting around coffee
tables talking about Life, with a capital “L,” and
discussing the great thinkers and philosophers throughout history.
At this time, we consciously need to try to develop their intellects
and help make their thinking clear.
It
takes 24 years to get all these tools of maturity—the body,
feelings, will, and intellect— developed and harmonized
so that we can continue to grow throughout life. It shortchanges
us to think that we’ve been completely educated when we
leave school, because education essentially begins then, you might
say. These four tools of maturity help us to grow all the way
through life and not become a spent force by the time we’re
forty.
This
approach to education ties into the very age in which we’re
living. In the past people considered matter to be the ultimate
reality, and a material view of reality found its way into every
department of life. We tended to create dogmas and fixed definitions
to express truth, like the Aristotelian way of thinking which
says a thing is either this or that. You need fixed definitions
to bring you to a certain level of clarity, but after that a definition
becomes a liability because it limits your ability to expand beyond
it.
We
are now living in an age of energy where we understand that the
universe around us is essentially formed of energy, not matter.
This vision of a more fluid reality demands that we get away from
dogmatic thinking where we see things as absolutely this or that.
They can be BOTH! Instead of “either/or,” why not
think “both/and”? So we have come to the point of
accepting a more sophisticated approach to education, to logic,
and to moral values which is directional, not absolute. This Education
for Life system reflects an ever-expanding view of reality in
which the child, the adult, and, on the deepest level, the eternal
soul can grow to embrace broader and broader realities, until
at last we can glimpse the infinite consciousness of God.
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