All technology innovations which we are
so proud of as human beings, have been made only in the direction of improving
external display or comforts without sufficient attention being given to our
internal emotional and spiritual needs.
Happiness comes from satisfying the needs
of emotional satisfaction along with acquiring bodily comforts. Becoming
successful without feeling happy is like painting the walls of the house
without the people feeling brighter. Happiness and good health are co-related,
as will be explained. ... Good health can never be maintained by focusing on
just the needs of material success and using the body as a projected image with
the inner mind in unrest.
Since science only focuses on the
external, observable world, a purely scientific approach which aims at only focusing
on improvements in scientific/technological development will never lead to
evolution of peace and harmony within the soul or in society.
Due
to neglect of soul needs in the education curriculum, human development has
failed to realize feelings of peace and contentment.
To be happier or more peaceful, a training in systematic understanding of
emotional complexities, needs to be inculcated with the same zeal as
mathematical skills are taught.
A focus on integration of
soul needs along with material needs while teaching how to make choices in
everyday life is essential to create peaceful adults. A
training in integrated Emotional and Spiritual development is the only way to
permanently increase peace and happiness in the world.
Though we blame everything else except our thinking patterns for
the problems in our life , a
regular focus on grades/marks/ performance ability, success and money has been
the core negative thinking principle which has led to a lop-sided development
of humanity wherein inner peace of the mind has been sacrificed for a need to
perform due to external pressure.
This lop-sided development has led to creation
of imbalanced individuals who have no training on how to resolve complex
emotional issues and resort to violence or addictions to vent out frustrations
in an attempt to find inner peace.
Human happiness cannot be
created as a side-effect of success. You cannot get balanced, peaceful and
happy adults by pursuing mechanical/academic success as the goal of education.
Mind
patterns are set in childhood and are affected by mass culture which is
affected by education, predominantly.
Since, the focus of all education has been on becoming successful at the
cost of neglecting training in development of peace and inner happiness, people
are driven towards a rat race to earn success.
Training
young minds to think that working mechanically for successful performance is all
that is needed to be happy makes them feel comfortable about ignoring complex
emotional development , which actually aids human mind towards evolving to be
happy and healthy through the obstacles which adult life projects.
Children
driven towards winning above being peaceful, start finding short-cuts to
success which are manipulative and corrupt. A pattern of mass thinking has
developed such that respect is measured by money. If you are not aiming at happiness or inner
peace, money for success can be earned by being manipulative and corrupt more
than by being good and helpful.
However,
happiness and satisfaction come from a job well done whether it is acknowledged
as successful conventionally, or not. Winning always is not necessary to be
happy. Trial and error are common processes involved in research and
inventions. Through the process of overcoming failure, happiness and
satisfaction continue to motivate the person towards achieving success with
satisfaction. For example, Thomas Edison continued to fail for thirty years
before he finally created an electric bulb. Like him, students need to be
trained to be motivated from within by a system of education which rewards the
process of achieving satisfaction and not just the result.
A
balanced training between inner satisfaction and outcome/ happiness vs. success
ensures internal and external satisfaction even if the money earned is less
than conventionally well defined. But, a pure focus on results/money/success
leads to neglect of effort on feeling satisfaction, peacefulness or freedom
from anxiety
The
need to never be peaceful is conditioned as a habit of thinking during
schooling years, due to the stress on external good performance above inner
peace. Children are judged as being good or bad by external measures of
success like school grades which later are replaced in adults by external
measures of success like cars, clothes or jewels.
However,
getting good grades or performing well in sports or dance or music or art or
earning good money in adult life does not lead to contentment in adult life. Children,
always motivated to perform for pleasing society’s norms of success, cannot,
naturally, focus on inner contentment.
To create contentment in adulthood, instead of just focusing on good external performance, mind patterns which focus on development of happiness and inner peace of mind have to be inculcated by redefining the education curriculum.
Negative thinking predominates mass thinking in today’s world because people are not taught how to be peaceful in schools. This repeated pattern of negative thinking can be solved only by adding spiritual awareness to the concept of success; wherein development of peacefulness and compassion in children is as much awarded as good performance.
Children trained into being peaceful would make peaceful adults and create a peaceful world whereas restless children who are constantly asked to perform for success, make anxious adults and a restless world, which is prone to anger and violence.
A basic training in emotional management and the ability to create optimism with awareness ; are necessary to overcome all problems with a positive attitude and live a comfortable life; with the inner self being more in peace than being violent or angry.
If a connection to the subconscious mind and training in being peaceful are cultivated from childhood, escapism into depression or anger would not be the most natural route available to adults if marriages break down or finances collapse. Peace and emotional satisfaction will automatically rise in society and replace conflicts, anxiety and unrest.
The need for maintaining good health, optimism and contentment would spread as being as important as needs of education once a spiritual understanding of happiness is integrated along with being monetarily and mechanically successful in the education system.
Negative Thinking leads to ANARCHY in creation . You create what you do not desire to experience. Positive Thinking leads to harmony in creation where you create what you desire to experience
----------------------------excerpt
For further reading, please refer to my book SPIRITUALITY IN EDUCATION ( Preface)
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