User:Naveen badrinarayan

 Modern Vedic Education 

Vedas somehow are not part of our education system today. It is high time that the education system utilises the content of the Vedas including the Bhagwad Gita, the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutra. The content needs to be created and used in a manner that is appealing to the youth of the modern society. Education is meant to make the youth capable human beings who learn to discover themselves first, then learn how to live in society harmoniously and also how to work and earn their livelihoods while creating an aspirational identity for themselves. This simple and basic purpose of education needs to be defined and kept as a "defining principle" while creating content. Connecting the dots of "why" something is being taught or rather "learnt" on a holistic level needs to be defined at every level, whether it is primary education, secondary education or higher education. Evolution of the education system should be meaningful. The education system has been evolving more and more towards imparting information and trying to improve competence in various fields by "teaching" subjects and the content has been increasing year on year, thereby loading the youth with huge information overloads. The youth's inquisition about why they have to learn a particular topic in a particular manner is almost never answered. That is why, the youth, when they become teenagers, are misguided and choose education without a "real" reason of how it is going to help them in their life and work.

The Vedas are the ideal education mechanism which focuses on inner understanding of the "Self" and once the inward thinking of discovery of Self starts,  the naturally inquisitive human mind starts functioning in a natural creativity to discover new stuff and innovate. External knowledge is automatically discovered as there is no dearth of information in today's digital world. "Teacher" teaching content in today's world of modernity is a redundant method of education. We need different style of educators who ignite the mind of the youth to know themselves better, have a non-uniform approach and appreciate every youth for their individual nature and strengths. To bring about excitement and motivation in youth to learn new things, education has to move away from "curriculum" and move towards "discovery" using nature and exposure to life and work in the real sense.

Vedas have the Upanishads and the BhagwadGita which are a rich source of understanding the science of the cosmos and the Universe and how the human mind works in relation to matter. Linking of all the subjects to the basic understanding of life and how work is connected to growth and how to work and live is covered beautifully in these scriptures. There is a lot of work being done in India on the teachings of the Upanishads and Vedas in various pockets. Unfortunately, it is restricted to some "sects"/ "cults" who have formed their own institutions and are doing a wonderful work. Since they belong to a sect, the common man is kept away from this education because of a fear of being associated to "Hinduism" or belonging to a particular "school of thought". In the true sense of the word, the "Hindu" concept is against any one form of religion, and is called "sanatana dharma" as it is a "way of life" and does not have any hard and fast rule or process. It is only for political reasons in the past and present that people have considered "Hinduism" as a religion just like "Christian" or "Muslim", more so because of a lot of such documentation by the erstwhile British historians and researchers. Even the "caste system", the way it has shaped up by societies in the last few centuries and the derogation of the basic meaning of the "varna" system has been brought about primarily for selfish reasons of various communities to gain monetarily as well as to gain power over others. Does it mean that the "varna" system is wrong and is to be derided?

It is as if we will deride "Newton's" law of gravity because for last two centuries, teachers made all students sit under a tree and let apples fall on their heads to learn gravity and it became a blind custom to do that. Will we deride the "Newton's" law if something like this were to happen?

Similarly, the Vedas and Upanishads have pure and amazing depth of knowledge stored inside, which are not related to any "monotheistic" God or "specific God" but a pure understanding of Life and the universe. Just because a majority of the society misinterpreted and used it in the wrong manner, we cant take away a huge scientific work done by great scientists thousands of years back, probably much greater than Newton or Einstein. The time is now ripe to give it a modern outlook and connect the dots to link this knowledge and implement it the way it should be, to usher in a new era of peace, harmony and methods to understand nature and accept all differences and allow every individual to perform as per their own strengths and aspirations.