Two Reflections on Integral Education

Beloo Mehra This article was published in Aspiration: An Inner Call, 2008, Vol II, No. 2, pp. 21-26.

I The other day I was re-reading Sri Aurobindos essays on The Renaissance in India and was happy to discover how these essays of the Master may also deepen ones understanding of the significance of integrating spirituality and life, and the role of such integration in Integral Education where mental and vital education become intricately woven with the education of and for the spirit. Sri Aurobindo in these essays writes about spirituality that is not removed from life but one that is the basis of all life including all creative pursuits such as art, literature, philosophy, music etc. A true Integral Education must be grounded in this understanding of spirituality. Spirituality that motivates a growing mind and heart to experience all the joys of life and living and to expand and deepen their seeking for truth through all that life has to offer; spirituality that takes up all the intellectual, creative, vital energies and colours them in its own truth. In order for such a wave for spirituality to take over a peoples consciousness, opulent vitality and opulent intellectuality are essential. As Sri Aurobindo writes It is when the race has lived most richly and thought most profoundly that spirituality finds its heights and its depths and its constant and manysided fruition1. What this quote tells me is that a truly Integral Education must facilitate a multi-sided and comprehensive physical, vital and intellectual growth in children while at the same time emphasize that the physical does not get its full sense until it stands in right relation to the supra-physical; the complexity of the universe could not be explained in the present terms of man or seen by his superficial sight, that there were other powers behind, other powers within man himself of which he is normally unaware, that he is conscious only of a small part of himself, that the invisible always surrounds the visible, the suprasensible the sensible, even as infinity always surrounds the finite 2. The kind of psychic and spiritual education that becomes the basis of Integral Education is one that understands spiritual tendency as one that does not shoot upward only to the abstract, the hidden and the intangible; it casts its rays downward and outward to embrace the multiplicities of thought and the richness of life.3 The aim of such Integral Education should be to help learners discover the spirit within and the higher hidden intensities of the superior powers and to dominate life in one way or another so as to make it responsive to and expressive of the spirit and in that way
Sri Aurobindo (1997/2002). The Renaissance in India and other essays on Indian culture. Pondicherry, India: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, p. 10 2 ibid, pp. 6-7 3 ibid, p. 13
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increase the power of life. Learners in such a view of education are to be offered as much opportunity and freedom as needed to discover the normal mental possibilities of their intellect, will, ethical, aesthetic and emotional beings, but then these beings are also raised up towards the greater light and power of their own highest intuitions. 4 A view of spirituality that is the basis of Integral Education does not exclude anything from its scope, any of the great aims of human life, any of the great problems of our modern world, any form of human activity, any general or inherent impulse or characteristic means of the desire of the soul of man for development, expansion, increasing vigour and joy, light, power, perfection.5 Such a view of spiritual education must not belittle the mind, life or body or hold them of small account: it will rather hold them of high account, of immense importance, precisely because they are the conditions and instruments of the life of the spirit in man.6 Fortunately or unfortunately, the field of education as it exists at present is heavily influenced by the ongoing debates in a nations socio-political discourse. In the presentday socio-political climate of India where almost on a daily basis we see a conflict between what is secular and what is not, a most fundamental question facing our schools may be -- should schools be secular or not? If by secular we mean only that which values only material view of existence, then Integral Education cant be secular in this respect. But if the word secular is broadened to incorporate a spiritual view of existence spiritual not religious, then schools may have the potential to begin their journey to become more integral in their approach to learning, teaching and all that is involved in education. When all the domains of life and all creative, intellectual, aesthetic, ethical, social pursuits get immersed in the deep ocean of spiritual waters, when a seeking for the invisible guides all visible pursuits, then the distinction between secular and otherwise begins to blur. Sri Aurobindo describes such a spiritual view of existence that takes up all that is ordinarily understood as secular within its fold and raises them to the light and grandeur of spirit. He writes --The spiritual view holds that the mind, life, body are mans means and not his aims and even that they are not his last and highest means; it sees them as his outer instrumental self and not his whole being. It sees the infinite behind all things finite and it adjudges the value of the finite by higher infinite values of which they are the imperfect translation and towards which, to a truer expression of them, they are always trying to arrive. It sees a greater reality than the apparent not only behind man and the world, but within man and the world, and this soul, self, divine thing in man it holds to be that in him which is of the highest importance, that which everything else in him must try in whatever way to bring out and express, and this soul, self, divine presence in the world it holds to be that which man has ever to try to see and recognize through all appearances, to unite his thought and life with it and in it to find his unity with his fellows. This alters necessarily our whole
ibid, p. 16 ibid, p. 34 6 ibid, p. 35
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normal view of things; even in preserving all the aims of human life, it will give them a different sense and direction. . So with all our aims and activities; spirituality takes them all and gives them a greater, diviner, more intimate sense. . true spirituality rejects no new light, no added means or materials of our human selfdevelopment. . spirituality as the attempt to know and live in the highest self, the divine, the allembracing unity and to raise life in all its parts to the divinest possible values. 7 Integral Education doesnt reject any aim of life, doesnt exclude any activity, but takes them all and steers them toward a greater purpose to facilitate in the learner discovery of the highest self. Integral Education doesnt reject matter or learning and mastery of the matter, but directs learner to view matter as only a limited manifestation of the spirit which is involved in it. Integral Education aims to develop the physical, the mental, the emotional, the aesthetic parts of learners not only because they may have a greater satisfaction or because that is mans finer nature, because so he feels himself more alive and fulfilled. This, but not this only; rather because these things too are the expressions of the spirit, things which are seeking in him for their divine value and by their growth, subtlety, flexibility, power, intensity he is able to come nearer to the divine Reality in the world, to lay hold on it variously, to tune eventually his whole life into unity and conformity with it.8 In the light of Integral Education learners moral and ethical development is much more than a means to develop well-regulated individuals and social conduct which keeps society going and leads towards a better, a more rational, temperate, sympathetic, self-restrained dealing with fellow-beings. Such moral and ethical development both for the learner and teacher -- becomes a means of developing in [their] action and still more necessarily in the character of [their] being the diviner self in them, a step of their growing into the nature of the Godhead.9 As I read and reflect on what I have just written I am tempted to bring up the most fundamental question, the origin perhaps of all other questions concerning Integral Education. Will it be too farfetched to say that the larger, nay, the largest aim, the most true, fundamental or guiding aim of Integral Education is to help learner become the Divine that is hidden within him or her through his or her own unique path of evolution and development? Such an Integral Education is not confined to a school building, playground, laboratory, theater, music hall ---though all these are essential to it; it happens all the time, everywhere in the multi-sided field of life in the world -- life that is not confined to yet delights in the experience of the visible, audible world, life that aspires to see the invisible, touch the formless, hear the silent, and live in the mystery.
ibid, pp. 34-39 ibid, p. 35 9 ibid, p. 35
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II In Integral Education a teachers own inner work to discover the spark of divine within is a key factor in facilitating students inner un-foldment. Everything else curriculum, course texts, learning materials, assignments etc. has its importance, but nothing is as important as the teacher and his or her own inner progress. In the educational thought of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, one may say that in a profound sense, the environment for learning is the curriculum10. And I am tempted to broaden the definition of environment for learning by including teacher as part of that environment that supports and facilitates a childs true education education that is aimed at unfolding of a learners psychic being. This brings us to something quite fundamental to Integral Education. How essential it is for an integral teacher to have some sense of (even if it is on an intellectual level) or at least an open-minded curiosity to experience something that is called soul? How essential it is to have a faith in this entity called soul or psychic being? If someone is intellectually convinced that there is no such thing as psychic being and that only through a clear rational thinking and reason can one dig deep into oneself, can such a person ever be a truly integral educator? In other words, if someone is convinced that only through an intellectual reasoning one can know oneself and that there is no other deeper layer to oneself other than what can be understood by reason, will such a person ever be able to facilitate the integral un-foldment of the learner? I guess I am actually asking an even more fundamental question. How important it is for someone interested in learning about Integral Education to have a faith in or at least an open-minded curiosity to conceive of the possibility that there is something Divine in the Universe and in all of us? We can seek to discover something only when we can sense in some way that it exists. I guess in some way this goes back to the perennial argument between materialists and spiritualists -- materialists asking for a proof of the God before they can believe in It, and spiritualists arguing that proof is in seeking of the God itself, a seeking based on a faith that all including the matter is a manifestation of God. So no education will be truly integral if it misses out this core aim of education and life to seek Divine, to realize God. The most profound element for child raising and education within Steiners, Aurobindos and Inayat Khans common vision is the understanding that we must have faith in the childs inner teacher to guide her own becoming. 11 This applies equally to the teacher herself to have a faith in her own inner teacher, psychic being, soul, spark of Divine within. And to work constantly to unfold this inner teacher, so that she can be
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David Marshak, 1997. The Common Vision: Parenting and Educating for Wholeness (Counterpoints, vol. 48), New York: Peter Lang, p. 115 11 ibid, p. 209

guided by this inner teacher which is beyond minds reasoning ability. We are reminded that we can only enact the teachings of the common vision with integrity to the extent of our unfoldment as whole and integrated persons, and no more. We can only give the child as much respect for her inner teacher, as much freedom for her becoming, as the state of our current unfoldment empowers us. If we extend beyond that limit in our enthusiasm or pride, we will inevitably betray the understandings of the common vision and act out hypocrisy or contradiction, most likely through indirect or unconscious authoritarian behavior.12 So instead of worrying about whether these high ideals of Integral Education can be applied in real-world classrooms and schools with all the deeply entrenched problems that ail the system, all of us learning about Integral Education should be asking ourselves to what extent are we working on our un-foldment as whole and integrated persons? How significantly it changes the aim and purpose of our learning! And at the same time I am given something clear to use as a mirror in which to look at my own practice as an educator.

*** Author may be contacted at: beloome@gmail.com

Full citation for this paper: Two Reflections on Integral Education (2008). Aspiration: An Inner Call. Vol II, No. 2, pp. 2126. Aspiration is a journal published by Sri Aurobindo Institute of Education, Kolkata.

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ibid, pp. 210-211