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Vital
education
Of
all education, vital education is perhaps the most important,
the most indispensable. Yet it is rarely taken up and pursued
with discernment and method. There are several reasons for
this: first, the human mind is in a state of great confusion
about this particular subject; secondly, the undertaking
is very difficult and to be successful in it one must have
endless endurance and persistence and a will that no failure
can weaken.
Indeed,
the vital in man's nature is a despotic and exacting tyrant.
Moreover, since it is the vital which holds power, energy,
enthusiasm, effective dynamism, many have a feeling of timorous
respect for it and always try to please it. But it is a
master that nothing can satisfy and its demands are without
limit. Two ideas which are very wide- spread, especially
in the west, contribute towards making its domination more
sovereign. One is that the chief aim of life is to be happy;
the other that one is born with a certain character and
that it is impossible to change it.
The
first idea is a childish deformation of a very profound
truth: that all existence is based upon delight of being
and without delight of being there would be no life. But
this delight of being, which is a quality of the Divine
and therefore unconditioned, must not be confused with the
pursuit of pleasure in life, which depends largely upon
circumstances. The conviction that one has the right to
be happy leads, as a matter of course, to the will to "live
one's own life" at any cost. This attitude, by its
obscure and aggressive egoism, leads to every kind of conflict
and misery, disappointment and discouragement, and very
often ends in a catastrophe.
In
the world as it is now the goal of life is not to secure
personal happiness, but to awaken the individual progressively
to the Truth-consciousness.
The
second idea arises from the fact that a fundamental change
of character demands an almost complete mastery over the
subconscient and a very rigorous disciplining of whatever
comes up from the inconscient, which, in ordinary natures,
expresses itself as the effects of atavism and of the environment
in which one was born. Only an almost abnormal growth of
consciousness and the constant help of Grace can achieve
this Herculean task. That is why this task has rarely been
attempted and many famous teachers have declared it to be
unrealisable and chimerical. Yet it is not unrealisable.
The transformation of character has in fact been realise
by means of a clear-sighted discipline and a perseverance
so obstinate that nothing, not even the most persistent
failures, can discourage it.
The
indispensable starting-point is a detailed and discerning
observation of the character to be transformed. In most
cases, that itself is a difficult and often a very baffling
task. But there is one fact which the old traditions knew
and which can serve as the clue in the labyrinth of inner
discovery. It is that every one possesses in a large measure,
and the exceptional individual in an increasing degree of
precision, two opposite tendencies of character, in almost
equal proportions, which are like the light and the shadow
of the same thing. Thus someone who has the capacity of
being exceptionally generous will suddenly find an obstinate
avarice rising up in his nature, the courageous man will
be a coward in some part of his being and the good man will
suddenly have wicked impulses. In this way life seems to
endow everyone not only with the possibility of expressing
an ideal, but also with contrary elements representing in
a concrete manner the battle he has to wage and the victory
he has to win for the realisation to become possible. Consequently,
all life is an education pursued more or less consciously,
more or less willingly. In certain cases this education
will encourage the movements that express the light, in
others, on the contrary, those that express the shadow.
If the circumstances and the environment are favourable,
the light will grow at the expense of the shadow; otherwise
the opposite will happen. And in this way the individual's
character will crystallise according to the whims of Nature
and the determinism of material and vital life, unless a
higher element comes in in time, a conscious will which,
refusing to allow Nature to follow her whimsical ways, will
replace them by a logical and clear-sighted discipline.
This conscious will is what we mean by a rational method
of education.
That
is why it is of prime importance that the vital education
of the child should begin as early as possible, indeed,
as soon as he is able to use his senses. In this way many
bad habits will be avoided and many harmful influences eliminated.
This
vital education has two principal aspects, very different
in their aims and methods, but both equally important. The
first concerns the development and use of the sense organs.
The second the progressing awareness and control of the
character, culminating in its transformation.
The
education of the senses, again, has several aspects, which
are added to one another as the being grows; indeed it should
never cease. The sense organs, if properly cultivated, can
attain a precision and power of functioning far exceeding
what is normally expected of them.
August
1951
- The Mother
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