Education has two layers to it.
The first layer is the superficial one which deals with objects. Since childhood we have studied English, Economics, History, Geography, Science, Commerce, Mathematics and Technology. All of these are external objects.
Education about them is superficial education which takes the mind to objects, objects outside. Objects include people, places, things, moments and everything.
So, when education tells you about other people and their thinking, when education tells you about science and the products of science, it is all about objects; external objects. And education has filled our mind with knowledge about external objects; which is alright, which is important to an extent. It is needed to survive in the world. But that is just superficial. That is just the first layer of education.
Real education is something else.
Real education takes the mind not outwards but inwards. Real education is about a mind that is able to understand its own processes.
From where does anger arise?
Why am I so insecure?
Why am I always restless?
Why can’t I be attentive?
Why am I jealous?
Why am I possessive?
What is the quality of my relationships?
What is Love?
What is Joy?
What is Truth?
What is Freedom?
What are thoughts?
How do they arise?
A mind that cannot enquire into this is not an educated mind. A mind that cannot go into itself.
When education is about the external, the laboratory is outside. When education is about the mind then you have to observe the mind itself.
If you just have the first kind of education, you will get what someone has called as - Guided missiles and unguided men. What someone has called as - Smart phones and stupid people.
That is the product of the first kind of education that just takes you outside. So learn about what others have done, what kind of technologies are being developed in labs, but then you will have, smart phones and stupid people.
You are intelligent only when you can look at yourself and understand your mind. You are not educated in the real sense if only the first kind of education is coming to you.
Till the time you do not get the second kind of education life will remain violent, life will remain full of suffering. People will remain sad, angry, depressed, anxious, frustrated, greedy and discontented.
You must go within.
Truth, Love and Joy are not words to be borrowed from somebody, they are to be discovered within.
The real freedom, the only freedom is the freedom of the mind and unless education brings that to you, education is worthless. It can give you a few conveniences, which is alright but it is all superficial.
Submitted September 17, 2018 at 02:44AM by acharya-prashant https://ift.tt/2D5ijRc
