Give one more birth to your child || Acharya Prashant (2021)

Acharya Prashant

~~~~~~~~~ Video Information: 11.05.21, Open Session  Context: Is giving birth to a child, a crime? Who is capable of being a parent? Why is giving birth to a child a huge responsibility? What is it to really love a child? What is the best gift a child can receive form us? How to be a good parent?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Human beings are the only species that need to be born twice.

00:27Firstly in the biological sense and then more importantly in the psychological sense.

00:42A puppy, a cub, a kitten, they need to take just one birth, their biological birth or

01:01their animal birth or their bodily birth.

01:09The human baby needs to take two births before it can be rightfully called as a human being.

01:29The first birth obviously is from the mother's womb.

01:35It is the biological or the animal birth, not very different from the birth of the offspring

01:49of any other species.

01:53It's the second birth that's far more significant, the psychological birth, the coming into being

02:12of the psychic human.

02:21The topic given to me is why do schools matter?

02:27Now this obviously is why they matter.

02:32The function of education is to give that all important second birth to the human being.

02:41Else all we have at our hands is just the biological creature, not very different from the animal.

03:00So that brings us to the importance and the role of education in schools, in colleges,

03:14in families, in society in general.

03:24Education has to give shape to the mind of the child.

03:37Shape in what sense?

03:39Shape in a pre-determined, pre-scripted sense as the potter gives shape to the pot?

03:51No, not in that sense.

03:55You see, we are born not as a clean slate.

04:10The little kid that takes birth, that little biological baby is a product of millions of

04:20years of evolution and all the imprints of those millions of years that little baby is

04:38carrying in herself.

04:45Those imprints are what brought her to life, but those imprints are exactly what will not

04:55allow her to live.

04:59It's a strange thing about being human.

05:07That which gives us life is also what won't allow us to live.

05:16So the child has to be liberated from the marks, the residues, the blemishes, the conditioning

05:35of all that forms the mind.

05:44If you do not liberate the child from that, then the child will live a very pre-scripted life.

05:55She will know only the biological urges, the biological forces, and her life will be tossed

06:11around on the mighty waves of the primordial biological ocean and there is so much within

06:29us to keep us busy through a life that is being wasted on the bodily altar day by day.

06:47There is ignorance, there is greed, there is envy, there is lust, there is fear, there

06:59is jealousy, and it's so easy to waste away one's life driven by these powerful inner forces.

07:11These forces are what we are born with.

07:19This is our biological baggage.

07:22We bring it into the world right from the womb.

07:31That's why the second birth is important.

07:34So what's the purpose of the second birth?

07:37Why do we need education at all?

07:39Why do we need schools?

07:41We need schools to clear this biological burden.

07:48If clearing sounds too harsh, then we might politely say channelize.

07:58We need to channelize it, we need to master it.

08:02If we do not master it, we'll be enslaved by it.

08:09That's the purpose of education.

08:14To provide knowledge, skills, training that inwardly liberate us.

08:24Knowledge not just for the sake of knowledge.

08:28Knowledge for the sake of liberation.

08:32Because it is important to remember that knowledge does not automatically liberate.

08:42Before knowledge can liberate you, you must be taught the value of liberation, and you

08:50will value liberation only when you first see as a fact how deeply in bondage you are.

09:00So that's what education must do.

09:03That's what schools must firstly focus on, bringing the child face-to-face with the realities

09:16of her own self and the world around her, and then knowledge will be purposeful.

09:28Then knowledge will not merely be a burden on the mind.

09:34Instead knowledge will be a liberating factor.

09:40So that is what schools must focus on.

09:46Just too much energy is spent in our education system on providing knowledge, providing knowledge

10:02to the child or the student without it being clear to the student why he or she needs knowledge

10:15in the first place is a recipe for boredom, if not disaster.

10:29We have to guard against that.

10:32The teacher must know first thing why the kid must study the languages or mathematics

10:43or science or history, that why is all important.

10:50Only when the teacher appreciates that will it go to the child, and when the child knows

10:57why she must know the course of history and the development of language and the sciences

11:07and the society, will the child take authentically, honestly to the teaching.

11:19That is often missing.

11:22When we do not know who we are in the biological sense, then our mind remains shaped fundamentally

11:40by our biological DNA itself.

11:47All the worldly knowledge that we then gain is then used to just decorate that fundamental

12:02structure provided by the biology.

12:08That brings us to the phrase shaping the mind that we used earlier in this discussion.

12:22So when we say the purpose of education is to shape the mind, what it essentially means

12:30is that you have to allow freedom to the mind to take various beautiful shapes by demolishing

12:51the prison of the pre-existing biological shape.

13:00If you do not do that, then all the knowledge gained and the skills acquired and the resources

13:08accumulated by the child throughout her life would be used to just decorate the biological

13:20prison which is of no help.

13:24So the default shape, the pre-existing shape has to be firstly demolished only then there

13:36is the possibility of great new free and beautiful shapes coming into being.

13:48Education must facilitate that kind of creation but that creation, it must be obvious by now

13:56can come only through negation, negation of what is contained in our bodies and threatens

14:07to become our destiny if we do not observe it, understand it and therefore check it.

14:17That is the role of education.

14:20That is why a cat does not need to go to a school, a dog does not need to go to a school,

14:28but the human child definitely requires schooling.

14:32A cat would have nothing left incomplete if it does not attend the school, same for a dog.

14:45But the human baby cannot really even be called a human being if he is not schooled properly.

14:57So that's a tough one, that's a stringent condition on human existence.

15:06Human beings are not born human beings.

15:10They have to be educated to become human beings.

15:16Schools perform that all-important function, they give birth to humanity in the real sense

15:25and I wish and I implore that their role be performed with a great degree of understanding

15:38and love.

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