Acharya Tulsi
Spirituality and education are two important directions of life. Spirituality is the symbol of internal development and education develops the intellectuality. Absolute spiritual education can enlighten the mind, can be competent in physical creation, can develop physics, but the question of conduct becomes paretic. As long as the tendency is extroverted, spirituality cannot rise.
From years we have been hearing about creative works. In this regard different persons have different ideas. Hence, there is no particular definition of creativity. Some people think khadi, rural industries etc as creative. Some persons see establishment of schools and colleges and thereafter construction of building as creative work. Some other people have even more different thinking about it. In my opinion the greatest creative work is - building of human being. This work is not only great, but also it is original and solid and have strong base for other creative works. Without original creativity other works cannot be presented in full depth.
The work of building a human personality is very much expected in India. It is because India is a spiritual dominated country. Where spiritualism has supreme value, but society cannot build itself in that form, what will happen to that state is not unknown. My statement is not with reference to any particularly community because no community is ideal in this area. Hence, it is very much required to build up such ideal community or human society. Keeping in view this expectation, we preferred to bring forward the 'ANUVRAT' (small vow) conduct. The intellectual class has taken keen interest and proper out line was prepared for human building and new experiments were made in the area of conduct.
From the past few years human society is facing a lot of stress, which is a great hindrance in the mental peace and creative activities. When problem of this stress started getting critical, then it became necessary to do some experiments which could balance human heart and mind. For this yoga meditation became the first choice. In different areas various yoga specialists started giving instruction about yoga & meditation. Many felt stress free by doing this. Here Preksha Dhyan Sadhana exercise is going on. This yoga is not related with any particular class. This program is organized by the yoga department of Jain Vishwa Bharati (Ladnun) for the development of original and solid creativity.
Creativity is difficult. Building a human being is the most difficult work. It is not easy to get success by going through ten fifteen days of training. For this it is necessary to create builders, who could play role in building of coming generation. Among these, three types of persons can play important roles - guardians, teachers and local religious people. In ancient days there were Gurukul for building children. There, all types of trainings were given and in comparison to other children, Gurukul build up children used to come in some special way. In present era such system is not available. In this context short time training program have become more important. In children's training program training is provided as per their requirement, but after getting training in that ten-fifteen days program how they are using it in their life and in order to impart proper guidance, Jain Vishwa Bharati is organizing Teachers Training Programs.
First workshop was conducted from 25th December to 31st December 1977, in which twenty five teachers from Nagaur District received training. The result of training was very pleasant. Now second experiment is going to start on 16th May. The participation of fifty teachers is proves that the teachers can learn a lot from such camps.
Such programs are not available in Indian Education system, which is very much required for building life. New-new dimensions are opening of education department, but spiritual education is still not getting the strength. This is the fundamental deficiency. Until this deficiency is removed, expected result of education will not be come.
The teachers who participated in previous workshop said that if this program was known to us earlier then today our standard would have been different. Some teachers felt the unprecedented experience of their life. On the basis of the result received from such trainings, it can be said that by including spiritual and ethical education in Indian education system, the deficiencies from education can be removed.
I have a lot of expectations from the teachers. They should understand their responsibilities and be conscious to fulfil the same. We also feel comfortable to work in such workshops because intellectual and open minded people come here with curiosity. It does not take long time or great labour to train the teachers. Only proper guidance is required. Keeping their feet in the correct path and they will eventually reach their goal. In workshops teachers should obtain the all round education of their life building and should specially aim at building the life of children. The aim of discourses and seminars in such workshops are only to bring spiritualism in their life. Those who take education as their profession should understand that an illiterate person also take care of himself and his family.
Teachers training scheme of Tulsi Adhyatma Needam (Meditation Department) of Jain Vishwa Bharati will go beyond Nagaur District and conduct wide range programs. Then only fundamental changes in education system will be possible. I can imagine that teachers present here will prove themselves as an inspiration for other teachers by their ideal behaviour and changed attitude.
