Education - Words of Wisdom

The Mother

The education of a human being should begin at birth and continue throughout his life.

Education to be complete must have five principal aspects corresponding to the five principal activities of the human being; the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic and the spiritual.

Aug 1951, Pg 9, Vol 12, CWM

Up to the age of seven, children should enjoy themselves. School should all be a game, and they learn as they play. As they play they develop a taste for learning, knowing and understanding life.

16 Nov 1968, Pg 184, Vol 12, CWM

(Languages to be studied in Auroville)

Tamil
French
Simplified Sanskrit to replace Hindi as the language of India
English as the international language.

(Written on the occasion of the inauguration of a school in Auroville. The Mother’s message for the school was: “A sincere will to know and to progress.”)

15 Dec 1970, Pg 222, Vol 12, CWM

I find tests an obsolete and ineffective way of knowing if the students are intelligent, willing and attentive. A silly, mechanical mind can very well answer a test if the memory is good and these are certainly not the qualities required for a man of the future.

22 Jul 1967, Pg 201, Vol 12, CWM

Since the beginning of this year a new consciousness is at work upon earth to prepare the men for a new creation, the superman. For this creation to be possible the substance that constitutes man’s body must undergo a big change, it must become more receptive to the consciousness and more plastic under its working.

These are just the qualities that one can acquire through physical education.

01 Apr 1969, Pg 269, Vol 12, CWM

Sri Aurobindo

The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught. The teacher is not an instructor or task-master, he is a helper and a guide. His business is to suggest and not to impose.

The second principle is that the mind has to be consulted in its own growth. The idea of hammering the child into the shape desired by the parent or teacher is a barbarous and ignorant superstition.

The third principle of education is to work from the near to the far, from that which is to that which shall be.

1910, Pg 384, Vol 01, CWSA

Men have made language, poetry, history, philosophy agents for the training of this side of intellectuality, necessary parts of a liberal education, but the immense educative force of music, painting and sculpture has not been duly recognised. They have been thought to be bypaths of the human mind, beautiful and interesting, but not necessary, therefore intended for the few.

Pg 449, Vol 01, CWSA

The Mother

(...) vital education has two principal aspects, very different in their aims and methods, but both equally important. The first concerns the development and use of the sense organs. The second the progressing awareness and control of the character, culminating in its transformation.

Aug 1951, Vol 12, CWM

What illusions and delusions is our education today beset with? How could we possibly keep clear of them?

a) The almost exclusive importance given to success, career and money.

b) Insist on the paramount importance of the contact with the Spirit and the growth and manifestation of the Truth of the being.

05 Aug 1965, Pg 251, Vol 12, CWM

Psychic Education

With psychic education we come to the problem of the true motive of existence, the purpose of life on earth, the discovery to which this life must lead and the result of that discovery: the consecration of the individual to his eternal principle..

Feb 1952, Pg 30, Vol 12, CWM

Spiritual Education

(...) the supramental education will result no longer in a progressive formation of human nature and an increasing development of its latent faculties, but in a transformation of the nature itself, a transfiguration of the being in its entirety, a new ascent of the species above and beyond man towards superman, leading in the end to the appearance of a divine race upon earth.

Feb 1952, Pg 38, Vol 12, CWM