Due to neglect of soul needs in the education curriculum, human
development has failed to realize feelings of peace and contentment. To be
happier or more peaceful, a training in systematic understanding of emotional complexities,
needs to be inculcated with the same zeal as mathematical skills are taught.
A focus
on integration of soul needs along with material needs while teaching how to
make choices in everyday life is essential to create peaceful adults. A
training in integrated Emotional and Spiritual development is the only way to
permanently increase peace and happiness in the world.
Though
we blame everything else except our thinking patterns for the problems in our
life , a regular focus on grades/marks/ performance ability,
success and money has been the core negative thinking principle which has led
to a lop-sided development of humanity wherein inner peace of the mind has been
sacrificed for a need to perform due to external pressure.
This lop-sided development has
led to creation of imbalanced individuals who have no training on how to
resolve complex emotional issues and resort to violence or addictions to vent
out frustrations in an attempt to find inner peace.
Human happiness cannot be created as a side-effect of success. You
cannot get balanced, peaceful and happy adults by pursuing mechanical/academic
success as the goal of education.
Mind patterns are set in childhood
and are affected by mass culture which is affected by education,
predominantly. Since, the focus of all
education has been on becoming successful at the cost of neglecting training in
development of peace and inner happiness, people are driven towards a rat race
to earn success.
Training young minds to think that
working mechanically for successful performance is all that is needed to be
happy makes them feel comfortable about ignoring complex emotional development
, which actually aids human mind towards evolving to be happy and healthy
through the obstacles which adult life projects.
Children driven towards winning above
being peaceful, start finding short-cuts to success which are manipulative and
corrupt. A pattern of mass thinking has developed such that respect is measured
by money. If you are not aiming at
happiness or inner peace, money for success can be earned by being manipulative
and corrupt more than by being good and helpful.
However, happiness and satisfaction
come from a job well done whether it is acknowledged as successful
conventionally, or not. Winning always is not necessary to be happy. Trial and error
are common processes involved in research and inventions. Through the process
of overcoming failure, happiness and satisfaction continue to motivate the
person towards achieving success with satisfaction. For example, Thomas Edison
continued to fail for thirty years before he finally created an electric bulb.
Like him, students need to be trained to be motivated from within by a system
of education which rewards the process of achieving satisfaction and not just
the result.
A balanced training between inner
satisfaction and outcome/ happiness vs. success ensures internal and external
satisfaction even if the money earned is less than conventionally well defined.
But, a pure focus on results/money/success leads to neglect of effort on feeling
satisfaction, peacefulness or freedom from anxiety
The need to never be peaceful is
conditioned as a habit of thinking during schooling years, due to the stress on
external good performance above inner peace. Children are judged as being
good or bad by external measures of success like school grades which later are
replaced in adults by external measures of success like cars, clothes or
jewels.
However, getting good grades or
performing well in sports or dance or music or art or earning good money in
adult life does not lead to contentment in adult life. Children, always
motivated to perform for pleasing society’s norms of success, cannot,
naturally, focus on inner contentment.
For further reading, please refer to the book - Spirituality In Education: Redefining Success As Rising Peace, Optimism & Happiness
( www.pastliferegressiontherapy-shivaswati.com, www.shivaswati.com)
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