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.
For further reading, please refer to the book SPIRITUALITY IN EDUCATION, Preface
available on amazon from www.shivaswati.com
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