Acharya Prashant: Human beings are the only species that need to be born twice, firstly in the biological sense and then more importantly in the psychological sense. A puppy, a cub, a kitten they need to take just one birth—their biological birth, or their animal birth, or their bodily birth. The human baby needs to take two births before it can be rightfully called a human being. The first birth obviously is from the mother’s womb, it is the biological or the animal birth, not very different from the birth of the offspring of any other species. It’s the second birth that’s far more significant—psychological birth, the coming into being of the psychic human.
The topic given to me is, "Why do schools matter?" This obviously is why they matter. The function of education is to give that all-important second birth to the human being, else all we have at our hands is just the biological creature not very different from the animal.
So, that brings us to the importance and the role of education in schools, in colleges, in families, in society in general. Education has to give shape to the mind of the child. Shape in what sense? Shape in a predetermined, pre-scripted sense? As the potter gives shape to the pot? No not in that sense.
You see we are born not as a clean slate. The little kid that takes birth, that little biological baby is the product of millions of years of evolution. And, all the imprints of those millions of years that little baby is carrying in herself. Those imprints are what brought her to life, but those imprints are exactly what will not allow her to live.
It’s a strange thing about being human that which gives us life is also what won’t allow us to live. So, the child has to be liberated from the marks, the residues, the blemishes, the conditioning of all that forms the mind. If you do not liberate the child from that then the child will live a very pre-scripted life. She will know only the biological urges; the biological forces and her life will be tossed around on the mighty waves of the primordial biological ocean. And there is so much within us that keeps us busy through a life that is being wasted on the bodily altar day-by-day. There is ignorance, there is greed, there is envy, there is lust, there is fear, there is jealousy, and it’s so easy to waste away one’s life driven by these powerful inner forces.
These forces are what we are born with, this is our biological baggage, we bring it into the world right from the womb. That’s why the second birth is important. So, what’s the purpose of the second birth? Why do we need education at all? Why do we need schools? We need schools to clear this biological burden. If clearing sounds too harsh then we might politely say 'channelize'. We need to channelize it; we need to master it. If we do not master it, we would be enslaved by it. That’s the purpose of education to provide knowledge, skills, training that inwardly liberates us.
Knowledge, not just for the sake of knowledge, knowledge for the sake of liberation. Because it is important to remember that knowledge does not automatically liberate. Before knowledge can liberate you, you must be taught the value of liberation. And you will value liberation only when you first see as a fact how deeply in bondage you are.
So that’s what education must do, that’s what schools must firstly focus on. Bringing the child face-to-face with the realities of her own self and the world around her, and then knowledge will be purposeful. Then knowledge will not merely be a burden on the mind. Instead, knowledge will be a liberating factor; so that is what schools must focus on.
Just too much energy is spent in our education system on providing knowledge. Providing knowledge to the child or the student without it being clear to the student why he or she needs knowledge in the first place, is a recipe for boredom if not disaster, we have to guard against that.
The teacher must know first thing why the kid must study the languages or mathematics or science or history—that ‘why’ is all-important. Only if the teacher appreciates that, will it go to the child, and when the child knows why she must know the course of history and the development of language, and the sciences and the society will the child take authentically, honestly to the teaching. That is often missing.
When we do not know who we are in the biological sense then our mind remains shaped fundamentally by our biological DNA itself. All the worldly knowledge that we then gain is used to just decorate that fundamental structure provided by biology. That brings us to the phrase, ‘shaping the mind’ that we used earlier in this discussion.
So, when we say the purpose of education is to shape the mind what it essentially means is that you have to allow freedom to the mind to take various beautiful shapes by demolishing the prison of the pre-existing biological shape. If you do not do that then all the knowledge gained, the skills acquired, and resources accumulated by the child throughout her life would be used to just decorate the biological prison which is of no help.
So, the default shape, the pre-existing shape has to be firstly demolished only then there is the possibility of great, new, free and beautiful shapes coming into being. Education must facilitate that kind of creation, but that creation, it must be obvious by now, can come only by negation. Negation of what is contained in our bodies and threatens to become our destiny if we do not observe it, understand it, and therefore check it.
That is the role of education. That is why a cat does not need to go to school, a dog does not need to go to school but the human child definitely requires schooling. A cat would have nothing left incomplete if it does not attend school, same for a dog. But the human baby cannot really even be called a human being if he is not schooled properly. So that’s a tough one, that’s a stringent condition on human existence.
Human beings are not born human beings they have to be educated to become human beings. Schools perform that all-important function. They give birth to humanity in the real sense, and I wish, and I implore that their role be performed with a great degree of understanding and Love. Thank You.
