Affirming Basic Human Values
I spoke on global education in January of 1990 at the Global Forum for Human Survival, Development and Environment in Moscow. My message to the 700 religious and political leaders there was that we need, in the century ahead, to teach all children tolerance, openness to different ways of life, different beliefs, different customs of dress and language. We need to stop teaching them to fear those who are different from themselves, stop teaching them hatred for peoples of other colors and other religions, stop teaching them to see the world as a field of conflict and instead instill in them an informed appreciation and a joyous reverence for the grand diversity we find around us. Modern education can do that, provided the approach is changed.
Basic human Vedic values should be taught to every child and every student. These eternal values have nothing to do with race, creed, caste, politics or ethnic culture. Learning how to read and write is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal of education is also knowing what to read and what to write, as well as how to live in tune with nature, in harmony with the universe and at peace with oneself and one’s fellow man. A great Hindu saint once wrote, “Those who cannot live in harmony with the world, though they have learned many things, are still ignorant” (Tirukural 140).
The big question today that spiritual and political leaders are facing is how the peoples of the world are to live on this planet in harmony, and how to correct the errors of the past and the resentments that still linger, to ensure survival of humankind in the future. Education, they know, will play a key role, but only if educators focus first on human values which make us all better people, and secondly on technical know-how.
The human values we are speaking of here are known by all the tribal peoples, as they are inwardly a part of the knowledge within each of us. These principles must be cultivated, however, to manifest in any society, community, village or family. Global education must reach all the peoples, including the tribals, in our worldwide global village. It cannot be one-sided on the part of those who have the resources teaching others what they think they need to know. Rather, all voices must be heard, of the tribal and the industrialist. But will they be heard? Perhaps yes! The intelligentsia of industrialized societies are realizing that they don’t really have all the answers and that traditional tribal communities have something to teach after all. We have simple problems on this planet—food for survival, water, air, shelter and health care. The tribals are well aware of each of these and had them under control before they were conquered. In the same spirit that the modern pharmacologist journeys into the Amazon forests to discover medicines used for centuries that he can apply to world health care, so we in our various spheres of knowledge need to more and more rediscover the old ways and bring them forward.
In Russia, some bright young students asked me, “What can Hinduism offer in contributing to world peace and global education?” I explained that Hinduism offers a unified vision of man and nature in which there is reverence, not dominion or carelessness. Mother Earth, sustainer of life, is a key Vedic idea. Respect for Earth, for life in its many forms, is found in the American Indian nations, in the Hawaiian religion, the African tribes and the many other indigenous peoples. It was lost by many in recent centuries, but now its depth is being discovered again.
While the family is suffering a lot in many parts of the world, I explained, it is still very strong in Hindu society. We have to keep it that way, and teach the world by our example that it is the family that nurtures the individual and stabilizes the religion and hence the nation. Only by keeping a strong sense of family can humankind hope for a secure future.
NANDINATHA SŪTRA 343: DISCIPLINES FOR SLEEP
My monastics sleep six to eight hours a day for rejuvenation and astral duties. They refuse a soft bed and sleep on a firm floor mattress, ideally on a neem plank. This custom may be relaxed when ill or traveling. Aum