If you compare the present system of education with our ancient Gurukul
system, there is a wide gulf between the two. In the first place, the present
system of education is very costly. The moral side of education is absolutely
ignored at the present moment. Every student in the Gurukul was pure. Every
student, had perfect moral training. This was the predominating feature of
ancient culture. Every student had a knowledge of Pranayama, Mantra Yoga,
Asanas, the code of morals, Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Upanishads.
Every student possessed humility, self-restraint, obedience, a spirit of
service and self-sacrifice, good demeanour, politeness, a courteous nature, and
last but not the least, a desire to acquire Atma-Jnana.
The college students of the present day do not possess any of the above
virtues at all. Self-control is a thing unknown to them. Luxurious living and
self-indulgence begin from their very boyhood. Arrogance, impertinence and
disobedience are deep-rooted in them. They have become confirmed atheists and
rank materialists. Many are ashamed to say that they believe in the existence
of God. They have no knowledge of Brahmacharya and self-control. Fashionable
dress, undesirable food, bad company, frequent attendance at the theatres, and
the cinema, and applying Western manners and customs have rendered them weak
and passionate. Brahma-Vidya, Atma-Jnana, Vairagya, the wealth of Moksha and
Atmic peace and bliss are quite foreign to them.
Fashion, style, epicureanism, gluttony and luxury have occupied their
minds. It is very pitiable to hear the life-history of some of the college
students. In the ancient Gurukul, boys were healthy and strong and lived long.
It has indeed been detected that the health of the students has deteriorated
throughout India. Moreover, the vices and bad practices that are ruining their
health are on the increase. There is no ethical culture in modern schools and
colleges. In the present system, the moral side of education is absolutely
ignored.
Modern civilization has enfeebled our boys and girls. They lead an
artificial life. Children beget children. There is racial degeneration. The
cinema has become a curse. It excites passion and emotion. Nowadays, in the
cinema, vulgar scenes and immoral plays are enacted even when they show stories
from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Again I have to reiterate with force
that the present system of education in India needs a thorough drastic
overhauling immediately.
Any system of education, which is not based on the principles of
Brahmacharya, and has not in its curriculum a compulsory study of Sanskrit
literature, will not be good for the Hindus. It is bound to fail! Those who are
responsible for giving them a proper system of education are ignorant on this
important point; and hence the numerous unfortunate experiments in education.
Professors of some colleges insist on the students putting on
fashionable dress. They even dislike students who wear clean but simple
clothing. A great pity! Cleanliness is one thing and fashion is another thing.
The so-called ‘fashion’ takes root in worldliness and sensuality.
Cleanliness of life is very necessary for physical and spiritual growth.
Boys and girls suffer in silence on account of ignorance, on account of misuse
of bodily parts which constitutes a definite drain upon the vitality. This
retards normal mental and physical progress. When ‘the human system is deprived
of its natural secretions, there must be a corresponding decline in nervous
energy. This is the reason why functional disorders develop. The number of
wrecks is increasing.
Young boys suffer from anaemia, bad memory and debility. They have to
discontinue their studies. Diseases are increasing. Thousands of injections
have come into the pharmacy, hospitals and dispensaries. Thousands of doctors
have opened their clinics and shops. Yet, misery is increasing day by day.
People do not get success in their enterprises and business. What is the reason
for this? The reason is not far to seek. It is because of wastage of the vital
force or semen through evil habits and immoderate sexual intercourse. It is
because of an unclean mind and an unclean body.
A great and onerous duty rests with the teachers and professors of
schools and colleges to train the students in the path of Sadachara or right
conduct and to mould their character properly. Brahmacharya includes
character-building or right moulding of character. They say that knowledge is
power. But I assert boldly, with great assurance and practical experience, that
character is power and that character is far superior to knowledge even.
Every one of you should endeavour your level best to mould your
character properly. Your whole life and your success in life depend entirely
upon the formation of your character. All the great persons in this world have
achieved their greatness through character and character alone. The brilliant
luminaries of the world have won their laurels of fame, reputation and honour
through character and character alone.
The teachers themselves should be strictly moral and pure. They should
be endowed with ethical perfection. Otherwise, it will be like the blind
leading the blind. Before taking to the profession of a teacher, every teacher
should feel the high responsibility of his position in the educational line.
Mere intellectual achievement in the art of delivering dry lectures will not
suffice. This alone will not adorn a professor.
When students reach the age of maturity, certain growths and changes
take place in the physical body. The voice changes. New emotions and sentiments
arise. Naturally, the youngsters become curious. They consult the street boys.
They get ill advised. They ruin their health by vile habits. A clear knowledge
of sexual health, hygiene and Brahmacharya, of how to attain longevity and how
to control passion, should be imparted to them. Parents should teach their
children the various stories from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana that relate
to Brahmacharya and right conduct.
Parents should advise their children, often and often, on the subject of
Brahmacharya. This is their imperative duty. Candid talks to the boys and girls
are very necessary when they begin to show signs of puberty. It is no use
beating about the bush. Matters that relate to sex should not be kept hidden.
It will be only false modesty if the parents feel shy to talk to their children
on this important subject. Silence will only excite the curiosity of the
adolescent children. Whereas, if they can understand these things clearly in
time, surely they will not be misguided by evil companions and they will not
develop bad habits.
Teachers and parents should give proper instructions to the boys and
girls as to how they should lead a clean life of Brahmacharya. They should get
rid of their false sense of modesty and shame. They are a good deal responsible
for the ignorance of the boys and girls. There has been more suffering caused
by ignorance of these matters than by anything else. You are paying the price
of ignorance, of the false modesty that matters of sex and sexual physiology
should not be discussed. The teachers and parents should diligently watch the
conduct of the youngsters and clearly impress on their mind the vital
importance of a clean life of Brahmacharya and the dangers of an unclean life.
Pamphlets on Brahmacharya should be freely distributed to them.
Magic lantern demonstrations on the subject of Brahmacharya, on the
lives of Brahmacharins of yore, on the stories of the Mahabharata and the
Ramayana, should be regularly conducted in the schools and colleges. This will
be a great help in elevating and inspiring the students to a high moral
standard.
O teachers and professors! Wake up now! Train the students in the path
of Brahmacharya and righteousness and morality. Make them true Brahmacharins.
Do not neglect this divine work. You are morally responsible for this onerous
task. This is your Yoga. You can have Self-realization if you take up this work
in right earnest. Be true and sincere. Open your eyes now. Explain to the boys
and the girls the importance of Brahmacharya and instruct them in the various
methods by which they can preserve the Veerya, the soul-force or Atma-Sakti
that is hidden in them.
Teachers who have disciplined themselves first should hold private talks
with students and give them regular practical lessons on Brahmacharya. Rev. H.
Packenham Walsh, who was principal of the S.RG. College, Tiruchirappali, a few
decades ago, and who later became a bishop, used to hold regular talks with his
students on the subject of Brahmacharya and self-control.
The future destiny of the world rests entirely with the teachers and
students. If the teachers train their students in the right direction, in the
path of righteousness, the world will be filled with ideal citizens, Yogis and
Jivanmuktas, who will radiate light, peace, bliss and joy everywhere.
Blessed is he who truly endeavours in making his students true
Brahmacharins. Twice blessed is he who tries to become a real Brahmachari. May
the blessings of Lord Krishna be upon them. Glory to the teachers, professors
and students.
Passion reigns supreme in all parts of the world. The minds of people
are filled with sexual thoughts. The world is all sexy. The whole world is
under a tremendous sexual intoxication. All are deluded and move in the world
with perverted intellects. No thought of God. No talk of God. It is all fashion,
restaurants, hotels, dinners, dances, races and cinema. Their life ends in
eating, drinking and procreating. That is all.
Passion has introduced new fashions not only in London, Paris and
Lahore, but even in Madras amongst the Brahmin girls of orthodox families who
apply Cherry Blossom Powder and Hazeline Snow to their faces, instead of the
sacred turmeric powder, and dress their hair like the French girls. This sort
of vile imitation has crept into the mind of our boys and girls in India. The
sacred percepts and teachings of our ancient sages and Rishis have been totally
ignored. What a lamentable state! They will accept anything as true only if a
Johnson or a Russel brings something by way of the theory of evolution, motion,
atom, relativity or transcendentalism. Shameful indeed! Their brains are all
clogged with foreign particles. They do not have the brain to absorb anything
good in others. There is a miserable degeneration in the present young men and
women in India. This is the age when they cannot walk even a short distance
without a Rickshaw, a car, a tram, a bicycle or a carriage. What an awful
artificial life! Bobbing of the hair amongst the ladies in India has become a
severe epidemic and has invaded the whole of India. This is all due to the mischief
of passion and greed.
Young men of the present day indiscriminately imitate the West and this
results in their own ruin. Men are swayed by lust. They lose their sense of
righteousness, and of time and place. They never discriminate between right and
wrong. They lose all sense of shame.
Read the history of the crimes—robbery, rapes, kidnapping, assaults,
murders—that come up for trial before the Sessions Courts. Lust is at the root
of all this. It may be lust for money or lust for carnal pleasure. Lust ruins
life, lustre, strength, vitality, memory, wealth, fame, holiness, peace, wisdom
and devotion.
Man, with his boasted intellect, has to learn lessons from birds and
animals. Even animals have more self-control than men. It is only the so-called
man who has degraded himself much by indulgence. At the heat of sexual
excitement, he repeats the same ignoble act again and again. He has not a bit
of self-control. He is an absolute slave to passion. He is a puppet in the
hands of passion. Like rabbits he procreates and brings forth countless
children to swell up the numbers of beggars in the world. Lions, elephants,
bulls and other powerful animals have better self-control than men. Lions
cohabit only once in a year. After conception, the female animals will never
allow the male animals to approach them till the young ones are weaned and they
themselves become healthy and strong. Man only violates the laws of nature and
consequently suffers from innumerable diseases. He has degenerated to a level
far lower than that of animals in this respect.
As a king is no king without a treasury, subjects and an army, as a
flower is no flower without fragrance, as a river is no river without water, so
also, a man is no man without Brahmacharya. Ahara, Nidra, Bhaya and Maithuna—food,
sleep, fear and copulation—are common to both animals and men. That which
differentiates a man from an animal is Dharma, Viveka and Vichara Sakti. Jnana
and Vichara can be secured only by the preservation of Veerya. If a man has not
got these qualifications, he should really be reckoned as a veritable animal
only.
If lust, which is the source of all enjoyments in this world, ceases,
then all worldly bondage, which has its substratum in the mind, will cease.
Even the most virulent poison is no poison when compared to lust. The former
defiles one body only, whereas the latter adulterates many bodies in successive
births. You are a slave of passions and desires, emotions and attractions. When
are you going to rise up from this miserable state? Those persons, who, in
spite of the knowledge of the non-existence of happiness, both in the past and
in the present, in the baneful objects of the world, do yet entangle themselves
in them with their thoughts clinging to them, deserve the appellation of an ass,
if not a worse one. If you do not possess Viveka, if you do not try your best
for salvation, if you spend your lifetime in eating, drinking and sleeping, you
are a horizontal being only, having to learn some lessons from those animals,
which possess far more self-restraint.
The sexual degradation that has overtaken mankind today is due directly
to the fact that people have assumed that there is a natural "sexual
instinct" in human beings. It is not so. The natural instinct is the
procreative one. If men and women restrict sexual indulgence to mere
procreation, then that itself is observance of Brahmacharya. As this is found
to be impossible in the vast majority of cases, total abstinence is enjoined on
those who seek the higher values of life. As far as the Sadhaka of burning
Mumukshutva is concerned, celibacy is a sine qua non, as he cannot
afford to waste his vital energy at all.
The gratification of every worldly desire is sinful; the flesh should be
the abject slave of the spirit intent upon divine things. Man was created for a
life of spiritual communion with God, but he yielded to the seduction of evil
demons who availed themselves of the sensuous side of his nature to draw him
away from the contemplation of the divine and lead him to the earthly life.
Moral goodness, therefore, consists in renouncing all sensuous pleasures, in
separating from the world through discrimination and dispassion, in living
solely after the spirit, in imitating the perfection and purity of God.
Sensuality is inconsistent with wisdom and holiness. The great business of life
is to avoid impurity.
O Devis! Do not waste your lives in fashion and passion. Open your eyes.
Walk in the path of righteousness. Preserve your Pativrata Dharma. See Divinity
in your husband. Study the Gita, the Upanishads, Bhagavata and Ramayana. Become
good Grihastha-Dharminis and Brahma-Vicharinis. Bring forth many Gourangas. The
destiny of the world is entirely in your hands. You are holding the master-key
of the world. Open the door of Elysian bliss. Bring Vaikuntha in your home.
Train your children in the spiritual path. Sow the spiritual seed when they are
young.
O Devis of the world! Should you not strive for the higher life, the
grand, the sublime, the only real life in the Soul? Is it sufficient if you are
satisfied with the petty material necessities of life on earth? Do you remember
what Maitreyi said to Yajnavalkya? "What shall I do with the wealth of
this whole world if thereby I would not become immortal?" said she to her
husband. How many ladies of this world will be bold enough to assert this wise
saying of the Upanishadic ideal of a woman?
To chain themselves with the bondage of Samsara is not the birthright of
the mothers and sisters of the world. To get stuck up in family, children and
relatives is not the ideal of courageous and discriminative women. Every mother
of the world should realize her responsibility to awaken herself, her children,
her family and her husband, to the true light, and splendour of spiritual life.
What a glorious mother was Madalasa! Did she ask her children to study up to
the post-graduate examination, and then seek for some employment? "Suddhosi,
Buddhosi, Niranjanosi, Samsara Maya Parivarjitosi—You are pure, you are
consciousness, you are taintless, you are devoid of the Maya of
Samsara"—such was the Advaitic instruction which Madalasa gave to her
children when she rocked them in the cradle. How many mothers of the
present-day world have got the fortune to teach their children such profound
knowledge? On the other hand, the present-day mothers would try to crush the
spiritual tendency of their children even if it is found in them in a
microscopic state! What a sad and pitiable condition! Wake up, O mothers,
sisters! Wake up from your deep sleep. Recognise your responsibility.
Spiritualise yourselves. Spiritualise your children. Spiritualise even your
husbands, for you are the makers of the family! Remember how Chudala illumined
her husband. You are the makers of the nations! You are the builders of the
world! Therefore, spiritualise yourselves. Assert in yourselves the spirit of
Sulabha, Maitreyi, Gargi. Do not be cowardly. Come out of your fleshy homes—the
homes of delusion, the homes of vanity!
Be you all real Sannyasinis and bring real glory, real greatness, for
that is real boldness and courage, that is real wisdom and understanding. A woman
is not a woman if she is devoid of spiritual fire in her, if she is ignorant of
a higher life in the Soul. A woman’s duty is not merely family; her duty is
also to transcend the family. Her duty does not lie in sans, bangles, jackets,
powders and scents. Her duty does not lie in getting employment for her
children. Her duty is also concerned with the Self, the Atman, the Brahman.
Such a woman is a real symbol of God. She is to be adored, she is to be
worshipped!
A DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY PUBLICATION Sixth Edition: 1997 (2,000 Copies)
World Wide Web (WWW) Edition : 1999 WWW site: HTTP://WWW.SHIVANANDADLSHQ.ORG/ This
WWW reprint is for free distribution © The Divine Life Trust Society Published
By THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY P.O. Shivanandanagar—249 192 Distt. Tehri-Garhwal,
Uttar Pradesh, Himalayas, India.
