“Education has become a mere farce. There is no cultivation of character; there is no cultivation of human personality. Such education makes man only a self-centered competitive being, a machine to earn the money, but not a being who can by his life, by his behaviour, enrich the social life stream, its beauty, virtue and goodness. His Akruti (outer appearance) may be human but his Prakriti (nature) becomes animals’.The Upanishads spoke about the higher knowledge and the lesser knowledge - Para vidya and Apara vidya. Those who know only the lesser knowledge Apara vidya, are very advanced in knowledge, but they lack wisdom. They know about everything else, but they do not know about themselves. Therefore, they fall a prey to egoism, to selfishness, to megalomania. Not knowing about themselves, not knowing about the oneness of all life, their knowledge has turned into destructive knowledge, into a negative knowledge, whose application has resulted not in welfare, but in fear.Whereas, the knowledge of those ancient sages who experienced the Supreme Reality, their Jnana was Para vidya; their Jnana was wisdom, spiritual wisdom. And it made them centers of supreme compassion, centers of universal love, centers of friendliness towards all life and centers of intense preoccupation with the welfare of all, the benefit of all. It is therefore, that knowledge that is to be sought after. And this is the hope of the world of tomorrow.”
H.H. Swami Chidananda Saraswati Maharaj,
Former President of the Divine Life Society, Rishikesh.
