Old and new principles of education
While an education that provides fragmented knowledge leads to partial brain development, education that provides the experience of Total Knowledge leads to total brain development. Every day I marvel at the benefits this experience brings to the lives of the students. It is the proof that education everywhere should adopt the new principles of Consciousness-Based education.
What follows are some examples of these new principles, together with old principles that are rapidly becoming obsolete. By providing students with the experience of Total Knowledge, old principles get replaced by new principles spontaneously, just as the principles that govern living in a darkened room get replaced by new ones when someone discovers how to turn on the light.
Old Principle
Education offers fragmented knowledge
Education can only offer students specialized knowledge of a few disciplines. This partial, fragmented approach leads to partial, fragmented brain development and inevitable problems and suffering in life.
New Principle
Education offers holistic knowledge
Education provides students with holistic knowledge through the experience of Transcendental Consciousness—the unified basis of all knowledge. This experience enlivens the holistic functioning of the total brain physiology, which is necessary for a healthy, happy, progressive, fulfilled life—free from problems and suffering.
Old Principle
Education is for gaining knowledge
Every year students gain some knowledge, but they become aware of a greater field of knowledge—unknown knowledge—lying ahead. In this way, modern education increases ignorance more than knowledge.
New Principle
Education is for gaining Total Knowledge
Only Total Knowledge can eliminate all ignorance. Students continue to increase in knowledge every year until they gain Total Knowledge. This is possible because Consciousness-Based education connects the parts of knowledge to the totality of knowledge, which is structured in consciousness at the source of thought.
Old Principle
Emphasis on the known
Education is geared to gaining knowledge of facts—the known.
New Principle
Emphasis on the knower
Education is geared to gaining knowledge of the knower, thereby unfolding complete knowledge of the knower, process of knowing, and known.
Old Principle
Emphasis on book knowledge
Students gain partial knowledge of various disciplines, such as physics, engineering, literature, etc., from books written by authors who are unaware of the totality of knowledge. Hence, students spend their time studying the restricted channels of other people’s thought.
New Principle
Emphasis on Self-knowledge
Students explore the full range of their own thought by taking their awareness to Transcendental Consciousness at the source of thought—the Self of every individual—and discovering Total Knowledge within their own consciousness. This is what education means—unfolding the totality of knowledge that is transcendental, hidden from view, within everyone.
Old Principle
Education is information based
Information-based education overburdens children with innumerable facts. It puts them on an endless quest for knowledge in which the thirst for knowledge is never satisfied.
New Principle
Education is consciousness based
Education continues to provide up-to-date information but also provides experience of Transcendental Conscious- ness—the Unified Field of All the Laws of Nature—at the source of thought. Experience of the home of all knowledge satisfies the thirst for knowledge and ensures that children grow to enjoy the fruit of all knowledge—a mistake-free life with maximum achievement and fulfillment.
Old Principle
Work hard to accomplish more
In an attempt to make students successful, education subjects them to a lot of hard work geared toward training them for more hard work in the job market. But rather than providing them with a life of happiness and success, this approach generally leads to increased stress and exhaustion, leaving their success and good fortune dependent upon the ups and downs of the economy.
New Principle
Do less and accomplish more
Schools offer students the simple, effortless Transcendental Meditation technique to provide experience of the source of thought—the source of their total creative potential. Instead of hard work, students fulfill their desires from the level of “soft thought”—more refined thinking. “Do less and accomplish more” is the formula for success in life.
Old Principle
Enjoy 100% of life
Education focuses primarily on skills deemed necessary to create material comfort in life. It does not emphasize programs that can prevent the rising levels of stress that jeopardize health and happiness and prevent full enjoyment of material life.
New Principle
Enjoy 200% of life
Education cultures the ability to enjoy 200% of life—100% inner happiness and 100% outer material success. Life is happy, healthy, and prosperous—free from stress, problems, and suffering.
Old Principle
Education will help solve problems
Education attempts to train students to be effective problem solvers. But clearly, schools have not produced a large crop of effective problem solvers; otherwise, the age-old problems of mankind would have disappeared long ago. Rather than preventing problems, such as disease, crime, and violence, modern education often contributes to these problems by only partially developing the brain physiology and subjecting students to high levels of stress.
New Principle
Education will prevent problems
Education enlivens the total creative potential of every student, without inflicting stress or strain. Decreased stress in the life of the individual and society results in decreasing problems, just as darkness disappears with the onset of light.
Old Principle
Genius is born, not made
Education tries to adapt to students’ “natural abilities.” It does not unfold the inner genius that is innate within everyone.
New Principle
Every child has inner genius,
but it has to be unfolded
Consciousness-Based education develops the total brain physiology, thereby unfolding the creative genius of every student.
Old principle
Students receive an academic report card
Students frequently take exams to test their knowledge of the different academic disciplines and the results are recorded on their report card.
New Principle
Students receive a brain integration report card
In addition to an academic report card, students receive a brain integration report card documenting the rising coherence of their brain waves as they grow to enlightenment.
Old Principle
Good schools are for the best students
Entrance exams are commonplace to ensure that only the most intellectually gifted students are admitted to prestigious schools.
New Principle
Good schools are for every student
Consciousness-Based education develops the total creative potential of every student. As the inner genius of every child is unfolded, every school will become a good school.
Old Principle
All knowledge on one campus
Good universities take pride in offering a wide range of knowledge on one campus. However, students graduate with little knowledge of any of it.
New Principle
All knowledge in one brain
Consciousness-Based education offers the student Total Knowledge. It changes the goal of education from “all knowledge on one campus” to “all knowledge in one brain.” Only this approach can deliver the “fruit of all knowledge”—mistake-free life in enlightenment for every human being.
Old Principle
Schools attempt to culture ideal citizens
Schools attempt to culture ideal citizens by developing the whole student—mind, body, and spirit. However, the anti-social behavior prevalent in schools and in society proves that this goal is not easy to accomplish through the fragmented approach to knowledge offered in schools today.
New Principle
Schools radiate peace and harmony for all citizens
Schools culture ideal citizenship by providing students with the experience of the Unified Field of All the Laws of Nature, thereby bringing the life of the student spontaneously into harmony with Natural Law—life in enlightenment. Groups of students practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program, including Yogic Flying, create a field effect—the Maharishi Effect—where peace and harmony are spontaneously radiated throughout society, leading to ideal citizenship for everyone, and invincibility for the nation
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