Today’s educational scenario is based on the system made by Lord Macaulay which was designed to produce clerks to run the British Administration efficiently in India. Bookish knowledge, examination and job orientation became the prime factors in this system and we see the result even after 100 years. Only information is doled out without teaching the art of living. Our present education consists in telling the student what to think, it does not teach how to think, how to penetrate and explore. Holistic education is the need of the day. A great deal of efforts are being made in this direction by institutes like (S-VYASA) University, Bangalore, Kaivalyadhama in Lonawala and B.S.Y., Munger, to foster all round development of the children so that they can contribute to make India strong based on holistic approach to life and its problems. Education has no meaning unless it helps you to understand the vast expanse of life with all its subtleties, with its extraordinary beauty, its joys and sorrows.

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As a child takes birth he starts learning consciously or otherwise good or bad. Some of the qualities are inherited and some develop due to environmental effect. Human personality is thus said to be a product of heredity and environment.

In the present day’s education system the child grows in an environment which is mostly corrupt and full of greedy hypocrites, he/she too tends to become one of them spreading all kinds of maladies and evils in the society.

The real education is that which makes a child recognize what is good and bad and the capacity to accept only the good “sreyas” even if it is not pleasurable-“preyas”.

According to Yogic education whatever is in tune with nature has the everlasting beauty of nature i.e. beauty of a flower or a river. Swami Vivekananda says “Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man and Yoga accelerates the natural spontaneous process of evolution of man to divinity” Therefore we should be in constant touch with the green of the forest and the blue of the sky.

So we should mingle the present education structure with the Gurukul system of the past. In the ancient Indian system of education, various yogic practices such as suryanamaskars, asanas, pranayama and meditation were introduced along with the formal education, whereas the present education system is purely an exercise of bread winning but the result is that most of the students come out of the school totally confused with no idea about their future. They crave only for white-collar jobs and high salaries which become a nightmare for most of them. They forget to live life in its fullness with laughter and fun. They fail to understand the whole of life; they forget to read, they forget to look at the skies, sing and dance, write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all this is life.

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Micheline Flak (PhD) successfully introduced Yoga techniques into the French National Education System 30 years ago. Flak is now president of R.Y.E. (Research on Yoga in Education). An association created in 1978 that specialize in teaching Yoga techniques to educators giving opportunities for them to explore and experience theory along side classroom practice to improve pupils learning, memory, attention and self-esteem. R.Y.E. is dedicated to adjusting and adapting the technique of Yoga Tradition in order to improve the mutual well- being of child and teacher and to foster learning and creativity.

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THE EDUCATIONAL SITUATION IN TODAY’S INDIA

Today’s system of education in our country is very pathetic. In India we have more than one and half billion people but we have no proper education system to take care of them. Government spends crores of rupees in every state of India but the results are not up to the mark. The quality of education is very low and thousands of students who pass out every year roam around with their degrees but with no jobs. If we test their knowledge we will be in a tremendous shock that most of them are unable to draft even a few lines and are unable to recall any information of their knowledge that they have learnt in 15 years or so. As a result they are frustrated and take themselves to robbery, drug addiction, intemperance, voluptuousness, etc.

Swami Vivekananda has defined education “As the manifestation of the perfection already in man”. But so far in India majority of students are yet to come to achieve this target to bring out the perfection in them.

What may be the reason of this scenario? Even after spending so much of capital why the students of this country have failed to receive education which will make them self-sufficient, self-assertive and self-reliant. Which will drive away darkness from within. Which will make them confident and fearless to face the day to day situations they come across.

If you survey and evaluate how the schools are running in every nook and corner of this country you will be highly surprised and shocked. If you are a man of authenticity and integrity, you will be shocked to know the situation. In most of the schools that are run by government, there are insufficient teachers and even if there are teachers, they are not committed or are not present in the school. Most of the schools are only on papers, most of the schools have no proper facilities like play grounds, laboratories, libraries etc. It is surprising that nobody is interested to know the situation even after spending crores of rupees in salaries. Students have no option but to go to these types of schools and spoil their future. Parents of most of these children are either illiterate or are ill-confident to report the state of affairs. The want of proper education has brought a lot of miseries, poverty and social injustice.

There are private institutions run by missionaries and private groups. Some of these schools have high standards and have all the facilities, they provide holistic education but how many percentages of students get admission to these schools. Admissions have become nightmares; people adopt several methods and sometimes exploit power to harm the authorities if their ward fails to get admission to these schools. Even most of the government authorities in India instead of improving the neighborhood schools and providing the facilities to them they also rush to these well-run institutions.

Year after year lots of promises are given to people that no child will remain at home and total and proper education will be provided but they remain only promises so we are caught up in this ‘chakravyuha’ from which it is very-very difficult to come out and save India from the clutches of these selfish people.

What we need today is men of integrity, patriotism, selflessness, confidence and fearlessness. Only this type of people will be able to break this chakravyuha and come out successfully and show path to the little ones who will be responsible for building a new India.

Once upon a time our country was great. All the countries of world looked at India with hope and from far and wide they came to receive education. We had great universities like Nalanda, Takshashila where holistic education was provided, where character building was done with high standard , where all branches of education including astrology, astronomy, ecology, mathematics, poetry history , dance ,drama , literature etc. was provided. Student of those times have written such enormous volumes for each subject, which till today we are unable to exhaust.

In ancient India we had a very efficient system of Gurukul, parents used to send their wards to these Gurukuls for their basic and higher education. In Gurukul, there was a very effective relation between guru and shishya. Gurus were well learned and had authority on subjects they dealt with. Unlike today’s gurus they were very honest, austere, disciplined and ready to transfer to the students all the knowledge they had. They were very happy if the students did better than them. Besides the secular subjects moral science and character building subjects Yoga and spirituality and also the Indian traditions were taught to them. After the education in this system they were to face their life with confidence.

Today if we are thinking of knowledge power, according to Dr. Abdul Kalam, we need to transform our society with positive thoughts. We have to study our past education system of Gurukul and make it viable according to today’s situation.

Swami Vivekananda says “the old institutions of living with the guru and similar system of imparting education are needed to come out of this morass.”

J. Krishnamurthi says “The right kind of education helps you to think and gives you space-space not in the form of a large bedroom, or a higher roof but space for your mind to grow, so that it is not bound by any belief or by any fear.”

“One should live from his very boyhood with one whose character is like a blazing fire, and should have before him a living example of the highest teaching”

But the question is from where to get these living examples where can we find such gurus with integrity and ready to sacrifice to impart the knowledge to these little ones this is a big challenge before us. Most of the today’s gurus are busy accumulating wealth through coaching classes; no proper education is imparted in the classrooms so the students are compelled to take up coaching. At this tender age child has to go to two schools one formal school where he is studying and the other is his coaching school and he finds no time to play, or to recall what he has studied, this way he loses himself. Education instead of dispelling the darkness from within spreads more darkness. This is the helpless situation of most of the students today.

Do we have a solution to this problem? Dr. Krishnamurthy says if we have problem we have solution too, but are we ready to look into these solutions and rectify the mistakes that we have been committing again and again over the years? If we say yes, then we can do something about changing the school environment with positive thoughts.

MY EXPERIENCES

Years back in 1989 when I was the principal of St. Francis Inter College, Hathras, I started a boarding for the students who had failed in several English medium institution of our Diocese. There were about 35 students. I started experimenting on them yogic techniques like pranayam, asanas and yoganidra which I had learnt from the Bihar School of Yoga, Munger, under Swami Satyananda Saraswat and also appointed well qualified teachers to look after their studies. Within two to three years I found tremendous change in them and they all passed with flying colours in their board exams. This created a lot of confidence in them.

In July, 2007 I was transferred to St. Peter’s College, Agra (U.P.) as the principal. I found that around 20-25 students come everyday seeking leave to go home for some or the other medical problems like headache, sinusitis, stomachache etc. It was a daily routine. At least 20-25% of these boys were obese; some were with hunchback and did not know how to walk properly, some of them used to fall down during assembly due to fatigue. Then I thought of introducing yoga to the students to see if they can be provided with better health and keep away from some of these diseases. I contacted my friend Dr. Hazra and his team to investigate the health parameter of students including weight, height, eyesight, hemoglobin etc. After giving them continuous practice of pranayama and suryanamaskara and yogic asanas we found that slowly and gradually their health began to improve. Their bellies went inside, chest forward, eyesight improved, their immunity also improved. There were fewer complaints of fever and sinusitis.

Parents and student were so happy that they began to enquire more about yogic practices. Media, both print and electronic, started highlighting the benefits of Yoga on regular basis. Seeing the effect of Yoga and the appreciation, we encouraged most of the schools in Agra to teach Yoga to their own children. So in this two and half year’s period not only the health but also the performance of the students has improved. Our experience should open our eyes to take our traditions seriously.

The Bihar school of Yoga in Munger, Kaivalyadhama in Lonawala and S-VYASA University Bangalore also are busy with research on children of various institutions and the results are very encouraging. So time has come for all the institutions in the country to introduce yogic technique in school and change the environment to positivity. Today’s children need this technique more than anyone. Most of the students today are going out of track because of job responsibilities or because parents don’t have time to take care of them. The lack of emotional and moral support has led these children to alcoholism, robbery, licentiousness, etc. Instead of classroom they are often found in the malls or picture halls. They do not even pay attention to their dress, behavior and conduct.

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Jesus in the gospel has said “Kingdom of God is within you”.

Dr. Krishnamurthy says you are the world. Our scriptures have said “Aham brahmasmi” this shows that we have tremendous powers within us. Now to dive deep into this kingdom and to find out the treasures that are required to live our life in peace and harmony we need technique. Now fortunately our traditions have given us this technique to go within, we have a glorious past of thousand of years where rishi, munis have acquired these powers through Yoga and meditation. Sitting in one place they lived longer, healthy lives with productivity than we live today. Sitting in one place they traveled the nook and corner of this universe, they got in touch with God. To serve humanity the same technique is available for us today if only we have the courage to go through the manuals written by these great sages.

In India there are institutions like Bihar School of Yoga (BSY), Munger , Ish Yoga Center , Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Swami Shivananda Ashram, Rishikesh ,Sri Aurbindo Ashram in Puducherry, S-VYASA University Bangalore, Kaivalyadhama in Lonawala, Brahmkumari”s Ashram, Swami Paramhansa Paramananda Yogoda ashram in Ranchi , Gurukul Kangri Vishvavidhyalaya Haridwar, Patanjali Yogapeeth Haridwar. These and many more ashrams like this are spread all over India trying to go through all the techniques and prove it scientifically. This shows that we have hope for the future. If government takes this job seriously and comes forwards to help these institutions we can create thousands of Yoga teachers who in turn can go in all the schools in India and give this technique to our new generation then only we can fulfill the dreams of great sages like Patanjali, Sri Aurbindo and Swami Vivekananda.

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Racheal Jefferson Buchnan, An introduction to research on yoga in education. Published in Physical education matters (2006)

Yoga Positions