|
By offering all three aspects of knowledge—knower, process of knowing, and known—Consciousness -Based Education provides complete and holistic knowledge, which is intimate and fulfilling to the students.
|
|
by Global Good News staff writer
25 May 2011
The Indian Weekender reports that a new paradigm in education has taken root, establishing itself in over 200 schools in India as well as in schools in countries throughout the world.
These pioneering schools offer the approach of Maharishi’s Vedic Science and Technology, also known as Consciousness-Based Education, ‘a legacy of Vedic scholar, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who actively promoted education for enlightenment—full inner development of each individual.’
The curriculum includes not only the traditional academic disciplines—science, social studies, language, arts, mathematics—but adds an element which has been missing in education, an aspect of education which forms the very basis of the learning process. That element is the growth of consciousness and these schools provide that development of consciousness through the technology of Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation Programme.
Maharishi expressed that knowledge is structured in consciousness. According to The Weekender, ‘He maintained that to gain the full value of knowledge, one must develop the full value of consciousness. If the student’s consciousness is dull, if full potential is not being used, then receptivity and creativity are cramped. If the student’s consciousness is wide awake, receptivity to knowledge is maximum and learning is most efficient and most complete.’
With that in mind, the students and staff at Consciousness-Based schools, practise the Transcendental Meditation Technique at the beginning and end of their school day for about 15-20 minutes. It is found that an ideal environment for learning is created by starting the school day with meditation. The Indian Weekender reports that ‘the students gain a natural orderliness and coherence; they become more receptive to knowledge; they exhibit greater alertness; and they radiate bliss and friendliness to their classmates and their teachers.’
Extensive scientific research validates the effects of the practice of the Transcendental Meditation Technique including the enlivenment of total brain functioning, increased intelligence, and increased creativity. School administrators report, not surprisingly, that students at Consciousness-Based schools excel in all that they do, ‘distinguishing themselves in competitions, exhibitions, and performances, and winning many honours.’
While the practice of the Transcendental Meditation Technique provides the student with experience of his or her Self, the knower, the curriculum at Consciousness-Based schools also includes the knowledge of the relationship between the knower and the known (the known simply being the object of study, the usual focus of education).
By offering all three aspects of knowledge—knower, process of knowing, and known—these schools provide complete and holistic knowledge, which is intimate and fulfilling to the students. They naturally respond by displaying ‘a remarkable eagerness for knowledge, and with their happiness and profound grasp of the deepest principles of life, they exhibit a beautiful balance and wholeness that is rarely seen in other schools.’
The Weekender article also explains that the system of Consciousness-Based Education ‘believes that education should be defined as the process of culturing the individual to display perfection in life.’ By enlivening the infinite potential of every student’s brain, it allows every student ‘to utilise the total Creative Intelligence of Natural Law, and as a result, [have] all thought, speech, and action. . . spontaneously upheld by the silent power of peace that permeates all activity in the universe.’
© Copyright 2011 Global Good News®
|
