 Now, if children are very unhappy at school, I think we need to examine the teachers. Because it's a natural human trait, it's a natural human trait that when you get to know something that you did not know, it brings much joy to you. Is it so? Yes? Learning is a natural human trait that when you learn something that you did not know, it should make you joyful. If learning is making people miserable, then we have not understood what learning is. Unfortunately, you are not sending your children to school because you want them to know, you want them to learn, you want them to earn. That's why you're sending them to school. It's an unfortunate way to handle education. That's not education. You want them enslaved, so the teachers are doing the job for you. You want them enslaved to what you call as economic well-being, so the teachers are just doing the job for you. You are not sending your children to school because you want to… you want them to develop a thirst for knowing irrespective of whether it's going to make money or not make money, isn't it? So you better change your attitudes about education. We are coming up with a school where the whole… whole focus of education is not going to be about suppressive information, but about kindling the thirst for knowledge. If the thirst for knowledge is kindled in the child, you can't stop him from learning. You cannot stop him from learning. He's going to learn anyway. But instead of kindling that, you're suppressing it, beating it down with your idea of what is education because your idea of education is social status and money. It's a wrong way to approach education altogether. So children slowly… these joyful bursting pieces of life slowly become sad like this because you're just misorienting them completely. With the kind of compulsions that you have built within yourself, you're trying to put the same compulsions upon the children, which is not necessary. I find the concept of your inner engineering as a way of life for children is very difficult because when they have to meet children from different walks of life, a different social milieu, and how does this inner engineering, which I would try to give my children at home, how would that withstand the competition, the pressure, the… the kind of lifestyle that other children have? How do… how do my children go into this? See the pressure, the pressure is only because you're putting two absolutely unique beings in comparison. What's your name? Meenakshi. Is that one more person exactly like you on this planet? Huh? No, fortunately so, isn't it? I'm joking. There's only one like you. There's only one like anybody here, isn't it? So each being is an absolutely unique being. That is so for your child also. But now you're trying to put all of them into the same compartment and compare them about something that they can learn ABC or 123 or something and make them feel better or worse about it. So it's you who brought that competition and comparison because for most parents it is not about education, it is about first rank. All they want is they want their children to sit on top of every other child's head. They're not interested in learning, they're not interested in education, they're not interested in career, they're not interested in anything. Their whole effort in their life is how to sit on top of the pile, isn't it so? Everybody wants to sit on top of the pile, everybody cannot sit on top of the pile. Only few will sit on top of the pile, others will naturally end up at the bottom and get suppressed. Isn't it so? Whatever activity, if our focus is just to sit on top of the pile, naturally many others will get suffocated under the pile. This is bound to happen, there is no other way. So that orientation of education has to go. No, no, I cannot do anything, the schools are like that. No, schools are just catering to your attitudes. If your attitudes change, the schools will change. They want to run the business the way it works, isn't it? All you want is somehow you want your child to get hundred marks, it doesn't matter what happens to the child. You want your child to get first rank, they're just trying to cater to it because you're paying them, they're trying to fulfill the job. In the course of your activity, the child is getting ruined but it doesn't matter. Your child is unhappy, it doesn't matter. You want him to be first rank. This is a sickness which has to go. True human genius will not flower if this kind of education happens. True human capabilities will not find expression in competition. True human capabilities will find expression only in absolute relaxation. Your mind, your body will work best, will find fullest expression only when you're joyful and peaceful and quiet within yourself. When you're trying to race with somebody, you're only thinking of doing one step ahead of him, that's all. You're not thinking of what is your ultimate potential to do. We're just ruining a whole generation of people with the kind of schooling we're doing. Preet Guru, you mentioned the school. What is your vision in using education to produce an ideal human being? How do you balance an international standard of education along with spiritual values? So the school that we're talking about right now, there is going to be no spirituality, no spirituality at all. We don't want to bring spirituality into a child's life. We will teach them some simple forms of yoga for mental and physical health, that's different. But no spirituality will be brought to them as a part of education, never. Because spirituality should not be brought about like that. Maybe after they finish their education, if they want to go through a stint of three months or six months of spiritual training, they can, that's by choice, that anybody can go through. But the children who, because the premise is also we will move it out, only one or two years it'll be in the ashram, after that we will move it out close by. Already we're making necessary arrangements for that. So the school will not try to teach any spirituality. At the same time, we just want to cultivate a certain openness in the human being. See somebody becomes, turns successfully spiritual because he has developed a certain openness about life. He has no conclusions about anything. He's willing to look at everything. This is something we will cultivate in the child. That the child learns to look at every aspect of life with absolute openness, without prejudice, without any religious, cultural or any kind of inclination, with absolute openness to every aspect of life. If that happens, whether you talk spirituality to him or you don't, he will anyway turn spiritual. Spirituality will be a natural part of his life, not something that he pursues, going to an ashram or someplace. It'll be just a natural part of his life, because he has developed an openness to every aspect of life. And actually education was supposed to be that right from the beginning. The very purpose of educating people is to broaden their horizons, isn't it? But you tell me, as people are getting educated, are they broadening their horizons or are they becoming very narrow? See, just let's say 50 years ago, in India there still are such families, but everywhere in the world, people lived in large families. In India 300, 400 people lived in one house, huge families. There was no big problem, you know. They knew how to adjust with each other and go on because 400 people living in one place is a challenge. That's what the ashram is. Now we're back into that old system of being one large family and this is even more challenging because there are different types of people from different cultures, different languages, different attitudes, different likes and dislikes. But living together without friction needs enormous maturity and a very broad way of looking at life, otherwise you cannot. But just see now, as modern education came, slowly we can't even live with our own parents anymore. We just thought husband, wife, children, this is family. But now in the last 15-20 years, even that is going away. Family means just you. Your husband has to live in a separate house, you in a separate house. Together you won't last ten days. Children have to be there separately. Somewhere else they must be. In one place even two-three people cannot live together, isn't it? This is what education has done to you. It has not broadened your horizons. It's somewhere made you so narrow on individualistic. You're no more inclusive, you're becoming very exclusive, isn't it? The inclusion is totally gone. The whole idea of educating a person is that he is just living in a narrow sphere of life. You educate him, make him know about the whole world and broaden his whole perspective of life. Education means inclusion, isn't it? But the kind of education we are imparting to the children, it is making them so highly exclusive, they can't even stand one more person in their life. See, most people have gotten themselves into a situation they can't live with anybody anymore, isn't it? So that is not just individual. It is a you know it's the phenomena of the world, it's a generational phenomena because of there is kind of education that's being imparted. So we want to impart an education which is highly inclusive that as you grow you include the whole world as yourself and live and that's spirituality. So spirituality will not be thought. Education itself is spirituality because education is about broadening your horizons, not about talking about God or some nonsense. So we want children to grow up keeping their intelligence intact, not suppressive education where the child's thirst to know is kindled but he is not forced to learn. So the longing to know, the longing to learn has to be brushed up within the child, not just feeding with enormous amount of information and ask expecting him to pass, pass, pass. This will not be like that. This will be a very different type of structure. At the same time by the time they are sixteen, seventeen, we will prepare them for any university in the world, they will be ready to go. They will be ready enough to get into any kind of university according to their individual capabilities of course. But apart from that, they are fundamentally learning to live better. They are learning to handle themselves better and live better with themselves and with people around them, which is very important factor. And people are successful in their life not because they have degrees, not because they have university certificates, it's because they are capable, isn't it? So this school will be more capability oriented, not qualification oriented. We are seeing how to enhance the capability of the child in whatever area his natural talent is rather than trying to just make him qualified with a certain, you know, certificate attached to him. Sathguru, whatever you said about the school and the education just now, it's modern and contemporary. But what about the ancient schools, the Gurukuls of the past where they're not successful in producing good human beings? The ancient Gurukuls were definitely like this. The ancient Gurukul was hundred percent the way I'm talking. The very purpose and the basic function of the guru was to destroy all the things that you have assumed as true. But now the education also involves equipping the person to earn his living and make his living in the world. So we have those twin challenges. At that time the guru was not trying to impart, you know, skills for him to go and survive in the society because if your father is a cobbler, you naturally became a cobbler. If your father is a king, you became a king. If your father is something else, you became that. You didn't have to be equipped to make a living in some other way in ancient times. So the guru was only educating them towards the realization, so the job was more, I would say more simple because it was unidimensional. But now it's not like that. Both the things need to happen. We have to equip the child to live in the modern world and still not mess him up with the nonsense that's happening in the name of modernity. So it's a much bigger challenge today than what it was then. And at that time, once the parents gave the children to the guru, they left him there in complete his authority. Now the parents are very nosy, you know. They won't leave the children full. They want to constantly meddle with that. They want to put in their own stuff into it. All those issues are there. So it's much more complex today than it was in the gurukul. In the gurukul, the guru had to just teach them how to exist, how to live, how to be with somebody else, how to be with himself. This is all. He was not trying to equip him to a modern university. So those days only a few children who had a very academic bent of mind or a very scholastic bent of mind, such children was trained in scholarly matters. All the other children naturally went to their father's profession, whatever it was. Now it is not so. Even if the father is a cobbler, he wants his son to become a professor. That's the situation in the world today, isn't it? But you're saying there'll be no spirituality in the school, isn't that a shortcoming? I'm saying no spirituality as a teaching, as a method. But at the same time, if a child grows without assuming anything, if he grows up without any nonsense, he's naturally spiritual. Because if he lives without the influence of other people upon him, if he lives by his own natural intelligence, turning spiritual is a very natural process. Only because most of the people are not living by their natural intelligence, they are living by imposed education upon them. Spirituality is a far away thing in people's lives. Otherwise if people live by their natural intelligence, turning spiritual will be a very normal process for most of the people except as very small percentage who won't go that way for various other reasons. So when I say no spirituality, we are not going to sit there and talk to them about how to attain enlightenment, what to do, this, this, this, no. But at the same time, the education process itself is such where there is no messing with the child, no influence, no religion, no imposition of any kind of ideas or beliefs where child has to figure out things for himself. If you are allowed to figure out things for yourself, there is no other way but to turn inward, to know things about life. Only if you listen to your Bible or Gita or what this person said or what that person said, then you don't have to turn inward to know. It's already written there. If you don't read any of that stuff, when you start thinking about life, when you start looking at life, the only place to look is naturally inward, isn't it? Where else will you look? One day it happened. A lady who was a big professor in the university bought herself a home appliance, a little complex home appliance. She took it home, she read the instructions and tried to put it together, all those pieces that came in the package. She just tried very hard, she couldn't put it together. She left all those parts in a heap and went to work. When she came back in the evenings to her surprise, the appliance was properly assembled and already used. She called the maid and asked, who fixed this? She said, I did. She couldn't believe it. How did you do this? Then the maid said, when you don't know how to read and write, you have to use your brains. We want to teach the children how to use their brains, not just to read and write. Read and write is important, but using your brains is more important, isn't it? Just see, lots of educated people who are very successful in their careers and things like that, with their own lives just see what a mess they are. Obviously they're not using their brains when it comes to their life, isn't it so? The very way they are, it is very obvious they are not using their brains when it comes to their own life. They know how to go and become doctors, engineers, become big academics and all that stuff, but when it comes to their own life, it looks like they have no brains at all because they've forgotten how to use it. It's not that they don't have it. So education should, you know, stimulate your brain, not dull your brain, isn't it? Education should stimulate your intelligence, not take it off. Today, education scientists in the world are saying, if a child goes through twenty years of formal education, seventy percent of his intelligence is irrevocably destroyed. That means you're coming out as a knowledgeable idiot. That's a huge disservice to humanity, isn't it? It's a huge disservice to humanity if you're just destroying the child's intelligence because the future of the world is just in their brains, isn't it so? Whether we are going to produce beautiful things on the planet or very destructive bombs on the planet or something else more destructive than that simply depends on how well coordinated this person's emotions, intelligence and all these things, how well coordinated a human being is. That is how he's going to use his intelligence and that is what he's going to produce in the world, isn't it? See, the most intelligent people in the world have contributed to all the violence on the planet, otherwise violence wouldn't be happening in the scale in which it is happening. See, people have always been essentially violent, a certain segment of the people. Whether he was a caveman or later on bronze age, iron age, whatever you take, they've always been violent. Initially when he was a caveman, he killed with stone, that's stone age. Iron age means he killed with iron, bronze age means he killed with bronze, nuclear age means he kills nuclear, okay? They've always been essentially violent. But the scale of violence that can happen today has happened because the best brains in the world have cooperated with this, isn't it? Yes? The best brains in the world have worked to create the most violent ways to kill humanity, isn't it? If the intelligent in the world had not cooperated, the violent man would kill one or two with a stick or stone or something. But only because the intelligent person in the world has cooperated, now the violent man can kill in millions. So, intelligence twisted out against our own well-being is no intelligence. Right now human intelligence has become like this, it's not a blessing, it's a curse. Intelligence is the biggest blessing that a human being has. But right now it has become a curse upon humanity, simply because the human being is not coming out as a well-coordinated being. He's dislocated the human being within himself. This intelligence is dangerous. If you were like a donkey, you would only kick nothing more, isn't it? The maximum violence you would cause is kick with both your legs, nothing more. But now human intelligence has become so dangerous. What should have been a blessing has become such a big curse and education is definitely playing a huge role in that. Whatever we wish to do with the youth, one thing that the older generation should understand is what you're referring to as youth is that segment of humanity which is more alive than you. What I see is if the world was guided by the young, the world would be a better place to live. It is just that because youth means it is that segment of humanity which is in a high energy state because they're in a certain level of high energy compared to the other part of the humanity. It is just that every little thing that they do is little exaggerated. It's little bigger than what the other people can do. If something constructive has to happen in the world, it has to be youth. If something destructive has to happen in the world, it has to be youth, isn't it? Because they're much more alive than anybody on the planet. Since of always treating youth as some kind of a disease that needs to be handled, we must understand youth is much more alive than the other parts of humanity. It's better to be guided by the youth than trying to fix them to do what somebody else thinks is right. It is just that because they're in a certain state of listless energy, if there is no inspiration, if there is no proper guidance, it very easily turns negative. But otherwise, definitely they're closer to life than anybody. Actually it would be wonderful if this world was guided by little children because they're closer to life than anybody else. See, after all, everything that you wish to do on the planet is just for human well-being, isn't it so? Yes? Human well-being means human happiness. If you look at your children and yourself, definitely your children are a lot more happier than you, isn't it so? Yes, they're more… they're capable of more happiness than you in twenty-four hours time. So, when that is the thing, tell me who should be a consultant for life, you or your child? Huh? Definitely the children, isn't it? Because they're closer to life. You are carried away in your thoughts and emotions. They are much more closer to life. If only the world learned from children rather than trying to teach the children, this would be a very beautiful place. So, youth is not a disease. Usually, the world generation is always trying to handle youth as if it's some kind of a disease that needs to be fixed, that needs treatment. It doesn't need any treatment. It is people who have gone away from life who need treatment. Those who are close to life don't need treatment. They have to just live. One big lapse that is happening today in the world is our educational systems have become hundred percent informative. There is no inspiration. Without inspiration, no human being raises beyond the limitations in which he lives. It's only when he's inspired that a human being aspires to go beyond the limitations in which we are existing right now. And today, education has become totally bereft of inspiration. A teacher is not somebody that is worth looking up to, unfortunately. Because when it's all information, you can as well get information from an audio or a video or internet or wherever. You don't really have to listen to a teacher. The teacher is not the best means of transmission when it comes to pure information. A book is better. 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 he's just trying to transmit information, the other means of transmission are better than a human being because human being can always misinterpret, isn't it? Making the whole education system purely informational has caused an enormous damage and that time of life when you're youthful, when you're capable of many things, that span of life unfortunately goes waste simply because the necessary inspiration is not there. So creating inspiration means generally, most leaders in the world have always inspired people only by creating an external enemy. If you create an external enemy, you can have 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, isn't it? Whatever your limitations, your fear, your anxiety, your anger, your hatred, whatever the limitations from which one suffers, when you say the limit, when the enemy is within you and to inspire, it needs much more commitment and dedication. Unfortunately, dedication and commitment have become such scarce material on the planet. Everybody's thinking of doing one big mela one day and getting the youth inspired into wonderful states, such things won't happen. It needs a daily committed, dedicated work. It's a lifelong thing. It's not that today you do something, everything is fixed. There is no such possibility. Unless we are willing to, it's like nurturing a plant, it's like nurturing a tree. If you want it to bear fruit, you have to nurture it every day, every day you have to water it, every day 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'll do their own things. Short-term things, because everybody's working on short-term goals, youth also work on short-term goals. See, after all, every human being, just 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. They're also concerned about human well-being. It is just that his idea of human well-being is just this human being. Yes, a criminal also is concerned about human well-being, but his idea of humanity is just himself. Somebody's idea of humanity is he and his family. Somebody else's idea of humanity is he 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 is not limited to just themselves, that it includes a larger society in the larger world around them, which is missing in education. The 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, the attitude, there's nothing wrong with the science itself, but the attitude, the way in which the 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 to your comfort and well-being. That attitude has been deeply set with the process of modern education. So as we're 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 the education which has not been done at all. See for example, 50 years ago this country during the freedom struggle, it was an inspired population. Suddenly people are willing to come out and throw their lives in the street for the nation. In 50 years time we did not do any work about inspiring people and suddenly we are such a disgruntled and disoriented population. To get Indians to think as Indians is a huge problem, isn't it? Because the necessary inspiration has been missing. No work has been done, no organized work has been done. Happens hardly small groups of people doing this and that has happened. No organized work has been done. I must tell you this. A few years ago when I happened to be in United States I just saw, you know in a magazine I saw old poster which was printed in 1930s. At a time when people were immigrating from various countries into United States, people from various cultures and languages and different kinds of complexions are coming to integrate all of them into one nation. To what extent the authorities took efforts means. I saw this particular poster and then I came to know so many other things that the government did. This poster was about, this is for the Italian wives because a large number of Italians were moving into United States. To make an Italian housewife into an American housewife, how she should keep her kitchen, how she should tie her apron, how she should serve the breakfast as an American wife. For every Italian immigrant that came in they are supposed to fix this poster in their kitchen so that she knows how to integrate herself as an American housewife and inspiring her how she's American now, not Italian. I'm just taking this example because the authorities took that kind of care to inspire people to feel like one nation. Even how you serve the breakfast, the government is teaching people how to serve the breakfast in your house not in the restaurant, to your own family to make you a part of one nation. We need to do something about inspiring people in an organized way. Happily, individuals doing this and that is fine but a very organized effort to inspire people without creating an external enemy. Making people understand the biggest enemy for a human being is always within himself and this inspiration is what is needed. Every forum that stands up thinking about the well-being of the youth or thinking about harnessing that enormous energy which we refer to as youth must always think of integrating in terms of inspiring people to do things which are beyond limitations. See, when we're not inspired we'll tend to function only within the limitations in which we are placed. Only when we're inspired we go beyond and do things that normally human beings wouldn't do. Only then that society surges ahead and does something worthwhile. Unfortunately, that happens only when strife happens. In normal peaceful situations people should be inspired. It's very important. When there is a war people want to go and die, that's not the point and everything is well to be highly inspired to keep and to create the situations that we want in the country and in the world is what's needed and it's not one day's work. It's a lifelong work.