Today, worldwide, educational systems have become 100% informative; there is very little inspiration. Without inspiration, no human being rises beyond the limitations in which he lives. It’s only when he’s inspired that a human being wants to go beyond the limitations in which we’re existing right now, and today education has become totally bereft of inspiration.
Very often, a teacher is not somebody worth looking up to, because when all that is given is information, you can as well get it from an audio, video, internet or wherever. You don’t really have to listen to a teacher. A teacher is not the best means of transmission when it comes to pure information. A book is better, the internet is even better. Only if the teacher’s role is to inspire people to learn, to create a thirst for knowledge and things like that, only then, a teacher’s role has something to give. If the teacher is just trying to transmit information, the other means of transmission are more efficient.
Making the whole education system purely informational has caused enormous damage, and that time of life when you’re youthful, when you’re capable of many things, that span of life, tends to go waste, simply because the necessary inspiration is not there.
What does creating inspiration mean? Generally, most leaders in the world have always inspired people only by creating an external enemy. If you create an external enemy, you can inspire everybody on the street. Action, isn’t it? But when you point out to people that the real enemy is within you — your limitations are your biggest enemies, whatever your limitations, your fear, your anxiety, your anger, your hatred, whatever the limitations from which one suffers — when you say the enemy is within you, then to inspire you, one needs much more commitment and dedication. But, dedication and commitment have become such scarce material. It’s a lifelong thing. It’s not that today you do something and everything is fixed. There is no such possibility. It’s like nurturing a plant; it’s like nurturing a tree. If you want it to bear fruit, you have to nurture it everyday. Everyday you have to water it, everyday you have to take care of it. If this dedication is shown by the adults, the grown-ups, you will see youth will do miraculous things. Only because such dedication is missing in the general population, youth seem to be disoriented, they don’t know what to do, they do their own thing — short-term things, because everybody is working on short-term goals, youth also work on short-term goals.
See, after all, every human being in the world is concerned about human well-being, isn’t it? ‘No, there is a criminal, no, there is a thief, no, there is somebody else.’ See, they are also concerned about human well-being. It is just that their idea of human well-being is just this human being (points at himself). Yes? A criminal is also concerned about human well-being, but his idea of humanity is just himself. Somebody’s idea of humanity is him and his family; somebody else’s idea of humanity is him and his country; somebody else’s includes the whole world.
Everybody is concerned about human well-being in different proportions.
So one big thing that needs to happen with the youth and with everybody, is that their identification with humanity should not be limited to just themselves, and see that it includes a larger society and the larger world around them; this is missing in education today. Modern education is constantly training people only to think about themselves and nothing else but themselves. All the science that you see in the world — there is nothing wrong with the science itself — but the attitude, the way in which science is conducted is like, everything here is here only to be exploited for our well-being, isn’t it so?
Now we destroy wantonly and then we talk about protecting the environment, then doing something else; all patch-up jobs, because the whole process of science is only about how to use everything for your comfort, for your benefit. So, initially, you use the planet, then the trees and plants, then the animals, then of course the human beings also. You use everybody for your comfort and well-being. That attitude has been deeply set with the process of modern education. So, as we are investing our time, resources and energies in transmitting informative knowledge, we have to invest a certain amount of time, energy and resources to inspire people — the inspirational dimension of education which is right now not there. Many years ago, this country, during the freedom struggle, inspired its population. Suddenly people were willing to come out and throw their lives on the street for the nation. In 50 years, we did not do any work about inspiring people and suddenly we are such a disgruntled and disoriented population.
-Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
