OSHO'S MORE ENLIGHTENED INSIGHTS FOR NEW SYSTEM OF EDUCATION



EDUCATION IS A BRIDGE BETWEEN MAN'S POTENTIALITY AND THE ACTUALITY

"Man is born as a seed. He is born as a potentiality. He is not born as an actuality. And this is very special, this is extraordinary, because in the whole of existence only man is born as a potentiality; every other animal is born actual."

"A dog is born as a dog, he is to remain the same his whole life. The lion is born as a lion. Man is not born as a man, man is born only as a seed: he may become, he may not become. Man has a future; no other animal has a future. All animals are born instinctively perfect. Man is the only imperfect animal. Hence growth, evolution, is possible."

"Education is a bridge between the potentiality and the actuality. Education is to help you to become that which you are only in a seed form. And this is what I am doing here; this is a place of education."

"The thing that is being done in the ordinary schools and colleges and universities is not education. It only prepares you to get a good job, a good earning; it is not real education. It does not give you life. Maybe it can give you a better standard of living, but the better standard of living is not a better standard of life; they are not synonymous."

"The so-called education that goes on in the world prepares you only to earn bread. And Jesus says, "Man cannot live by bread alone." And that's what your universities have been doing – they prepare you to earn bread in a better way, in an easier way, in a more comfortable way, with less effort, with less hardship. But all that they do is prepare you to earn your bread and butter. It is a very, very primitive kind of education: it does not prepare you for life"

"Hence you see so many robots walking around. They are perfect as clerks, as stationmasters, as deputy collectors. They are perfect, they are skillful, but if you look deep down in them they are just beggars and nothing else. They have not even tasted one bite of life. They have not known what life is, what love is, what light is. They have not known anything of God, they have not tasted anything of existence, they don't know how to sing and how to dance and how to celebrate. They don't know the grammar of life; they are utterly stupid. Yes, they earn – they earn more than others, they are very skillful and they go on rising higher and higher on the ladder of success – but deep down they remain empty, poor."

"Education is to give you inner richness. It is not just to make you more informed; that is a very primitive idea of education. I call it primitive because it is rooted in fear, rooted in that "If I am not well educated I will not be able to survive. " I call it primitive because deep down it is very violent: it teaches you competition, it makes you ambitious. It is nothing but a preparation for a cut-throat, competitive world where everybody is the enemy of everybody else."



RIGHT EDUCATION SHOULD PREPARE YOU O BE YOURSELF NOT AN IMITATOR

"My vision of education is that life should not be taken as a struggle for survival; life should be taken as a celebration. Life should not be only competition, life should be joy too. Singing and dancing and poetry and music and painting, and all that is available in the world – education should prepare you to fall in tune with it – with the trees, with the birds, with the sky, with the sun and the moon."

"And education should prepare you to be yourself. Right now it prepares you to be an imitator; it teaches you how to be like others. This is miseducation. Right education will teach you how to be yourself, authentically yourself. You are unique. There is nobody like you, has never been, will never be. This is a great respect that God has showered on you. This is your glory, that you are unique. Don't become imitative, don't become carbon copies."

"But that's what your so-called education goes on doing: it makes carbon copies; it destroys your original face. The word "education" has two meanings, both are beautiful. One meaning is very well known, although not practiced at all, that is: to draw something out of you. "Education" means: to draw out that which is within you, to make your potential actual, like you draw water from a well."

"But this is not being practiced. On the contrary, things are being poured into you, not drawn out of you. Geography and history and science and mathematics, they go on pouring them into you. You become parrots. You have been treated like computers; just as they feed the computers, they feed you. Your educational institutions are places where things are crammed into your head."

"Real education will be to bring out what is hidden in you – what God has put in you as a treasure – to discover it, to reveal it, to make you luminous."



EDUCATION IS TO BRING YOU FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT.

"And another meaning of the word, which is even far deeper: "education" comes from the word educare; it means to lead you from darkness to light. A tremendously significant meaning: to lead you from darkness to light. The Upanishads say, "Lord, lead us from untruth to truth" – "asato ma sadgamaya." "Lord, lead us from death to deathlessness", "mrityorma amritamgamaya." "Lord, lead us from darkness to light" – " tamaso ma jyotirgamaya." That is exactly the meaning of the word "education": tamaso ma jyotirgamaya – from darkness to light."

"Man lives in darkness, in unconsciousness – and man is capable of becoming full of light. The flame is there; it has to be provoked. The consciousness is there, but it has to be awakened. You have been given all, you have brought it with you; but the whole idea that you have become a man just by having a human body is wrong, and that idea has been the cause of tremendous mischief down the ages."

"Man is born just as an opportunity, as an occasion. And very few people attain: a Jesus, a Buddha, a Mohammed, a Bahaudin. Very few people, few and far between, really become man – when they become full of light and there is no darkness left, when there is no unconsciousness lingering anywhere in your soul, when all is light, when you are just awareness."

"Education is to bring you from darkness to light. That's what I am doing here. Parmar has asked this question because the Indian government is not ready to accept my work as education. It is natural."

"They cannot accept it as education, because I don't create clerks and stationmasters and deputy collectors. I am creating new human beings. For them that is dangerous. If this is education, then they cannot allow it to happen. It is rebellion."

"I am teaching you to be yourself. I am teaching you to be fearless; I am teaching you not to yield to the social pressure; I am teaching you not to be a conformist. I am teaching you not to hanker for comfort and convenience, because if you hanker for comfort and convenience, the society will give them to you, but at a cost. And the cost is great: you get convenience, but you lose your consciousness. You get comfort, but you lose your soul."

"You can have respectability, but then you are not true to yourself; you are a pseudo human being; you have betrayed your God and yourself. But the society wants that, that you should betray yourself."

"The society wants to use you as a machine, the society Wants you to be obedient. The society does not need you to function as an intelligent being, because an intelligent being will behave in an intelligent way and there may be moments when he will say, "No, I cannot do this. "

"For example, if you are really intelligent and aware, you cannot be part of any army. Impossible. To be part of any army you need, as a basic requirement, unintelligence. That's why in the army they manage in every way to destroy your intelligence. Years are needed to destroy your intelligence; they call it "training". Stupid orders have to be followed: right turn, left turn, march forward, march backward – this and that – and they go on and on every day, morning, evening. Slowly, slowly, the person becomes a robot, he starts functioning like a machine."

"The whole training in the army is to destroy your consciousness, is to make you an automatic machine. Then you can go and kill. Otherwise, if you are still carrying a little bit of intelligence, you will see the other person that you are killing is innocent; he has not done anything to you or to anybody. And he must have a wife at home who is waiting for him to come back; and he may have small children, and they will become beggars; and he may have an old mother or an old father, they may go mad. "And why am I killing this man? Because the officer says,'Start killing. Fire!' "

"An intelligent person will not be able to fire. An intelligent person may choose to die himself rather than to kill innocent people. Because some foolish politician wants to get involved in a war, because some politician wants to have more power, because of some stupid statements of the politicians, the war has started. He will not kill."

"This I call education: to make people more intelligent. And that's what I am doing here. If this fire spreads, then this old, rotten society cannot survive. It survives on your unconsciousness, it lives on your unconsciousness."

"So it is natural, Parmar, that the government will not recognize this place as a place of education. For them, it is one of the most dangerous places."

"But as far as I am concerned, this is education. tamaso ma jyotirgamaya – Lord, lead me from darkness to light."

(The Secret # 2)



UPTO THE AGE OF SEXUAL MATURITY THE EDUCATION SHOULD CONCENTRATE TO DEVELOP THE HEART OF STUDENTS AND QUALITIES LIKE LOVE, COMPASSION AND REVERENCE FOR LIFE.

"The first basic mistake is that we have taken man to be only intellect. There can be nothing more false and wrong than this. Man is not intellect alone and the education being given is only of the intellect. The rest of the man remains untouched and incomplete; the rest of the man remains undeveloped, only the intellect develops. It is just as if someone's whole body shrinks and wastes; only his head goes on becoming bigger. That man will be only ugliness, and that man will be unable to walk. It will be difficult for him to live, because his big head will not be in balance with the rest of his body. And this is exactly what has happened in the name of education."

"We decided that man is only intellect, and then for the past three thousand years we have been doing everything only to develop man's intellect. The intellect has developed but the rest of the man is left far behind; the rest of the man is left three thousand years behind, and his intellect has gone three thousand years ahead. The tension, the gap that is created between the two is what is killing us. This has given birth to an inverted crippledness."



EDUCATION HAS NOT MADE MAN HEALTHY, IT HAS CRIPPLED HIM.

"Education has not made man healthy, it has crippled him. Only his intellect has developed and all the remaining parts of his body have remained undeveloped. The intellect has become bigger and bigger, and his connection with all the sources of life have been cut off."

"What do we teach? What do we give in the name of education? Do we offer any education of life? Do we give any education in living? Do we teach the art of life? Not at all. We teach some words; we teach some mathematics, some language, some chemistry or physics, some history or geography. But what do we really teach through all this teaching? Just some words."

"America is the most educated country, but the largest number of mad people is also in America. Is there some relationship between the two, or is it just accidental? The countries which are becoming more and more educated, the mental tension of their people is growing in the same proportions."

"Are we aware of these statistics or not? The more educated a country becomes, the more cases of suicide it has. In America itself, every day some 1.5 to 3 million people seek treatment for mental ailments. These are government statistics, and we know well that government statistics are never correct. If 1.5 to 3 million people are seeking mental treatment every day, then we know that it is not because of some individual difficulty, rather some collective disease is entering man's mind."

"In New York thirty percent of people cannot sleep at night without taking sleeping pills. And the scientific investigations and researches there say that within fifty years not a single man there will be able to sleep without taking sleeping pills. Are these the symptoms of a progressing man? And what to say about New York – even Bombay will not stay behind for too long. We are also standing shoulder to shoulder in this progress, in this race; India will not stay behind. India, which has been the world teacher in every field, will not stop before becoming the world teacher in madness as well. We cannot avoid it; we are moving fast in this direction. Our leaders are making every effort so that we are not left behind."

"The black shadow of mental tension and restlessness that has descended on the West – what is the reason for its birth? The people who have tried to make the West educated during the past three hundred years, they are the good people with good intentions whose hands are behind it. Perhaps they did not know about the total nature of life; perhaps they had the notion that man will become happy if his intellect alone can be developed. Certainly intellectuality should grow, intellect should grow, but in proportion to all the limbs of life, in a balance. It should grow hand in hand with health, with heart, with being. If it grows alone, it is bound to create danger.



EDUCATION OF ONLY INTELLECT IS NOT INTELLIGENT AND WISE.

"So the first thing I want to say to you is that education of only intellect is not intelligent and wise. There are other aspects of life too, and they are more significant than the intellect, because man does not live by intellect. The sources of man's living are much deeper than the intellect. Neither do we love through intellect, nor do we get angry through intellect, nor do we hate through intellect."

"Neither do we recognize beauty through intellect, nor do we read song and poetry through intellect, nor are any deeper experiences of life attained through intellect. It is not surprising if the education of mere intellect deprives and cuts life off from all the deeper experiences. But we have been imparting an education only of intellect."

"In my vision, too much weight of intellect completely stops a few things from growing within man. We start sending five-year-olds to school. Their intellect comes under such a load that their bodies, their hearts, their feelings – all capacities in their life for deriving bliss and enjoyment – get destroyed. All juices of life are taken away by the intellect and the rest of the life dries up."

"These children grow up heartless, without feeling, empty of any love, machine-like. Their value is only one: how much higher position they can reach, how much salary they bring back home, how efficiently they work. Is man born for this? Is man born only for this, that he gets a bigger salary or sits on a higher chair? Or does man come in life to search for some other wealth of bliss? But in order to search for that wealth, it is necessary to develop some other things."

"In my view – it will appear very strange to you when I say this today – until the whole of mankind comes to this decision, if not today then tomorrow, that there should be no weight on the child's intellect up to the age of twelve or fourteen years of age.... The weight on the child's intellect should come only after fourteen years of age. Up to fourteen years of age, all efforts should be made for the growth of the child's body and feelings."

"The first fourteen years in the child's life are the most formative years. As the child attains sexual maturity, only after that is the right development of his intellect easy and appropriate. Before that, there are other precious parts of his life which should develop. The child's health should develop, the child's feelings should develop, the child's capacity to love should develop, because the child whose capacity to love does not grow in childhood, even if he grows to old age there will not be any growth of love in him."



CHILDHOOD IS THE MOST PLEASANT AND AMAZING OPPORTUNITY FOR LOVE TO GROW IN CHILDREN.

"Childhood is the most pleasant and amazing opportunity for love to grow in children. But we waste and destroy that time in teaching them mathematics and teaching them geography and the foolishnesses of history."

"The whole capacity of childhood should be devoted to the development of love, not to the development of intellect, because the palace of life that is erected on the foundations of childhood love, only that can attain to bliss. Bliss has no relationship whatsoever with intellect. But we put intellect in the very foundation, then the building that arises is not a temple but a factory. If man's life is to be made into a factory, the building should arise on the foundation of intellect. And if man's life is to be made into a temple, the foundations should be laid in love."

"All of childhood should be given to the development of the heart, all efforts should be made for the development of the heart. And for the development of the heart quite different opportunities are to be sought, not the opportunities we seek in the schools and colleges. For the development of the heart it is necessary that the child be under the open sky, near the trees, under the shelter of the moon and stars, at the river banks and sea shores, in contact with the soil, the earth. The closer thechild to the vast, the more love will grow in him, and the sense and meaning of beauty will develop."

"The crime that is being done against small children sitting within closed walls in front of blackboards – the sin that is happening this way, someday, if not today then tomorrow, mankind will take account of it and we all will be declared guilty."

"Before they have hardly gathered any consciousness, in the name of education we imprison children within closed rooms and walls, in prisons. And what do we teach them there? What values of life do we teach them there? Then the wonderful moments of childhood, when the contact with life could have been established, are lost."

"But what education of love, what initiation in love have we given? What certificates of love have we conferred? And then if in three thousand years man has become completely loveless, murderous and violent, who is responsible for it? None other than our education can be held responsible for it. But the teachers need not feel offended by this, because putting this responsibility on education means I am giving lots of honor to education; I am saying education is the center of life. Hence the teacher should be ready to bear the main responsibility; tomorrow the main honor too can be his. Tomorrow, if life is transformed, it is education which will receive the honor. And today if life has become polluted and poisoned, then the educationist should be prepared to accept the main charge and responsibility also. This is indicative of education being central. What I am saying is very respectful – that education is central. Neither the politicians nor the religious leaders are as responsible as the teacher is."

"But the coming world will also only bestow honor on the teacher if he is able to lay down some basis for changing life. If you are not able to change it, tomorrow, children themselves will start changing it."



UP TO THE AGE OF SEXUAL MATURITY, THE CENTRAL EDUCATION OF THE CHILD'S LIFE SHOULD BE OF LOVE AND HEART – BECAUSE LATER THE WHOLE OF LIFE WILL COME OUT OF THAT.

"Up to the age of sexual maturity, until the child has ripened from the point of view of sex – be it a boy or a girl – till then the central education of the child's life should be of love and heart – because later the whole of life will come out of that. The child will become a wife or a husband, the child will become a mother or a father – all the emotional relationships of their lives then will be the relationships of love and heart, not of mathematics or geography or history."

"If in this world there was love in the hearts of parents for their children, a different world would have been born in which there could be no wars – because every child is some mother's child, some father's son. Who would have agreed to send their children to war? We would have said, "Let Pakistan perish, let India perish, but the children cannot go to war! Whether China is saved or not, whether Russia is saved or not, whether America remains or not, no mother is ready to send her son to war. The wars would have vanished from the world, as well as politics, politicians and nations."

"But nobody loves their sons, we simply do not know love. We simply have no acquaintance with love. We simply have not come across love. The moments that could have been the moments of meeting with love we have wasted in learning numerous useless things."

"So in my view, the foundation of education should be love, not intellect. Intellect is only a means. If there is love within, then the intellect becomes just a means to spread and develop love. And if there is no love within, then the intellect becomes a means for spreading lovelessness."

"Therefore I want to say only one basic thing: The first steps of education need to be the steps of love. And in order to take the steps in love closed walls are not needed but the open sky, birds, trees and stars and the moon. The basic education should not be of geography but of beauty. Basic education should not be of science but of art. Basic education should not be of tension but of relaxation and peace."

"If we can arrange the education of children up to fourteen years of age this way, then later on it is difficult to spoil these children, then they can be sent to any school or any university whatsoever. Then they can be taught anything, there will be no danger from it in any way. If a sword is put in the hands of these people, there will be no harm from that sword. If an atom bomb is given to them, there will be no harm done through it. Then even the greatest of power in the hands of love becomes creative."

"Science has discovered the greatest power for man, but education has not been able to give him a loving heart. Great power is dangerous in the hands of those who have no love."

"Man was uneducated for thousands of years. Those people, those uneducated people also have known bliss, known song, known love. They too created a world. In their lives there was also happiness and smiles – more than in us, much more than in us. We have lost everything. It is necessary to bring back man's naturalness."

"I do not say that education should be abolished, I am saying that the foundation of education should be changed. And if only this education is to continue, if there is no other alternative, if this education is the only alternative, then I say let this whole education be stopped and man go back to the jungles. Then too we will not lose anything."

"But I feel there is an alternative. Education can be made total. And if only one thing gets added to it: if its foundations become that of love, of feeling, of heart, of compassion and kindness, if we develop man's heart first and then his intellect, if the heart leads and the intellect becomes its follower, then this education can become the right education."

"At this time, there is only one urgent issue and that is: How do we create the right man? Man is wrong: how to create the right man? Think in this direction."

(Excerpts from : 'The Revolution in Education # 7')



NO UNIVERSITY SHOULD AWARD DEGREES TO STUDENTS UNLESS THEY ARE DEPROGRAMMED AND HAVE EXPERIENCED MEDITATION

"So I propose two institutes in every university. One institute is for deprogramming. Anybody who gets a graduation certificate will first have to get a clearance certificate from the deprogramming institute – which means it has deprogrammed you as a Christian, as a Hindu, as a Mohammedan, as a Jew... because this has been our trouble".

"And four years is enough time. Deprogramming does not take that much time; just a few hours a month for four years and you will be deprogrammed. And you will not get any certificate from the educational institute unless you are cleared by the deprogramming institute that "this man is now simply a human being. He is no longer a Christian, no longer a Hindu, no longer a Mohammedan, no longer a Jew."

"The second institute will be an institute for meditation, because just deprogramming is not enough. Deprogramming takes rubbish from you, but you are left empty – and it is difficult to be empty; you will start gathering rubbish again. You cannot manage by yourself to learn how to live joyfully with your emptiness. That's the whole art of meditation."

"So on the one hand the deprogramming institute cleanses you, empties you, makes you a vacuum; and the meditation institute goes on helping you to enjoy your nothingness, your emptiness, your inner vacuum its cleanliness, its freshness. And as you start enjoying it you start feeling that it is not empty at all, it is full of joy. It looked empty at first because you were accustomed to having so much rubbish in it, and that rubbish has been removed so you say it looks empty."

"It is just like a room full of furniture: you have always seen it full of furniture; then one day you come and all the furniture is removed and you say, "The room looks empty." The room is not empty, the room is simply clean. The room is roomy for the first time. It was cluttered before, burdened, full of rubbish; now it is pure space."

"You have to learn meditation to enjoy your emptiness."

"And that is one of the greatest days in life – when a person starts enjoying emptiness, aloneness, nothingness. Then nobody can reprogram you, nobody in the world."

"So a second institute is needed in every university which will be giving you a simple meditation. There is no need for any complexity. Universities, intelligentsia tend to be complex, tend to make things complex. A simple method of just watching your breath is enough. But every day for one hour you have to go to the institute. Unless the meditation institute gives you its degree, the university is not going to give you its degree."

"The university's degree will come only when a clearance certificate from the deprogramming institute and a graduation certificate from the meditation university have been granted. It will depend on you – you can graduate in one year, you can graduate in two years, you can graduate in three years, four years. But four years is too much. Any imbecile, if he just sits for one hour every day doing nothing for four years is bound to find what Buddha or Lao Tzu have found, what I have found."

"It is not a question of intelligence, talent, genius. It is only a question of patience."

"So from the university meditation institute you get a degree, a bachelor of meditation; then you get a bachelor of arts or commerce or science, not before it. And in the same way it continues. You get a master's degree in meditation, M.M., and again you will be required to continue with the deprogramming institute for two years, because you can't be left so easily alone. People are, in some strange way, collectors of all kinds of things. A few people collect antiques, a few people collect stamps – postal stamps!"

"So if you are going to continue on to do your master's degree, then for two years you will continue with the institute of deprogramming – because there is no end to cleaning you. Every day the dust collects. It is not a question of your collecting it, it is just like a mirror: every morning you have to clean it and dust goes on collecting on it."

"The mind is almost like a mirror, a reflector. Memories collect, experiences collect – this is the dust that is happening twenty-four hours a day. So unless you go on cleaning it continuously, soon you will be covered with dust again. So it is good experience: for two years again you are being deprogrammed; and for two years again you are meditating."

"These processes go on simultaneously deprogramming and meditation. One goes on cleaning you, emptying you; the other goes on filling you not with someTHING but some quality: blissfulness, lovingness, compassion, a tremendous feeling of worth for no reason at all. Just that you are living, breathing, is enough proof that existence thinks you worthy of living, that existence thinks you worthy of being here."

"You are indispensable to existence."

"This indispensability is discovered only through meditation; there is no other way. And unless you discover this indispensability to existence, you are going to do something stupid to feel worthy."

"But when existence overwhelms you, showers all its blessings on you, then the urge to collect garbage simply disappears."

"Then you live each moment and you die each moment. That is the time when meditation has come to its perfection:
Living each moment, dying each moment.
Dying to the memory that you have lived.
Dying to the moment that is just passing."

"It can leave its trace, its lining, its signature, its memories.... No, die to all that so you are again fresh, ready to mirror existence with a clear reflection."

"So if a person continues to study in the university, then he continues to go to the meditation institute for one hour every day; and before he gets his M.A., he gets his M.M. – that is, master of meditation."

"He can get it in one year, he can get it in two years; or he may take a longer time if he is not meditating, because there is not going to be any verbal examination – it is going to depend on the Master."

"If the Master feels, watching you coming every day, sitting, going – for two years he watches you, inquires about you, how you are feeling, how things are going – and never sees any tension in you, never feels that you are in a hurry, anguished, worried; and that you are always relaxed, at ease, at home; that you don't feel nervous about anything; that you are not concerned about the past and not concerned about the future...."

"Just all these things he goes on watching, and if he feels – and there is no question of misjudging. If he is a meditator, he is not going to misjudge anybody; that is impossible. He will know for sure that you have the taste of it, and he will give you the certificate."

"These are clearance certificates for your M.A. degree. And I want this to continue: if you are going to do your Ph.D. then you do three years deprogramming and three years meditation. Those are compulsory to the very end, so when you come out of the university you are not only an intelligent person, well-informed, you are also a meditator – relaxed, silent, peaceful, observant, watchful, intuitive. And you are no longer a Christian, no longer a Hindu, no longer an American, no longer a Russian. All that bullshit has been completely burned, nothing is left of it."

"This is the only way, to replace the politicians by the intelligentsia. But as the intelligentsia is now, it won't be of much help, because they are all as much into power politics as the politicians. That's why I make these two conditions necessary. If you get a Ph.D., simultaneously you will be getting a D.Phil. M., a doctor's degree in meditation. And if the meditation institute feels that somebody has come to a point where he should be honored, then they can give him a D.Litt.M."

"So while you are being educated you are, in a very silent and subtle way, being prepared to be in power, in such a way that power cannot corrupt you, that you cannot misuse it.

"So meritocracy is a whole program of transforming the structure of society, the structure of government, the structure of education."

"It looks utopian. Who is going to do it? How is it going to happen? Hence the question – how are we going to make it a reality?"

"It is utopian, but the situation is such that within twenty years politicians will bring you to the brink of death. Then you will have to choose; and at that time, when you have to choose between death and meditation, I think you will choose meditation – you are not going to choose death."

"If at that time you have to choose between death and deprogramming, you will choose deprogramming: "Let the Christian die, but I can live. Let the Jew die, I can live." And who bothers when it is a question of you or the Jew? If you can choose only one, either you or the Jew, I don't think you are going to choose the Jew; even Moses would not have done that. I trust him to have been at least that intelligent."

"Politicians have brought this great challenge to the whole of humanity. In a way we should be thankful to these fools: they have dragged the whole of humanity to the point where humanity has to decide, "Now either we can live or these politicians can remain in power – both are not possible." The politicians are bringing you to that point; they have brought you there already. So I say that now the universities have to become more bold, courageous, united, and they have to gather all the intelligentsia round them – which is not difficult, because all over the world I have seen that every kind of intelligent person is against these political fools. But he cannot do anything alone – what can he do? And he does not see that there is any alternative."

"I wonder why you can't see any: you have so many universities of great prestige. For example, if Oxford can gather courage to refuse, to say that the university is not going to give Thatcher an honorary doctorate, why shouldn't a university like Oxford – which is prestigious, old enough, respected around the world – start calling these conventions? Why shouldn't Oxford become the center of a new power, the power of the intelligentsia?"

(From Misery to Enlightenment # 8)



UNIVERSITIES SHOULD STOP AWARDING HONORARY DEGREES TO THE POLITICIANS; IT IS DEGRADING THE STATUS OF EDUCATION

"Just the other day I got this information – and I congratulate Oxford University for it; perhaps this will be the only congratulations they will receive. In England, as in every country, there are conventions."

"Every prime minister in England conventionally gets an honorary doctorate from Oxford. This time – this is unprecedented in the whole history of England – Oxford university has decided not to give the degree to Margaret Thatcher. I congratulate them, because this is how every university in the whole world should act."

"Of course the reason why they have stopped is not very great, but that is irrelevant. At least they have shown enough courage. And Margaret Thatcher will also be an historical person because no prime minister of England has gone without an honorary doctorate from Oxford. The reason they decided this was that she had cut the budget for Oxford university, particularly for research in literature. The reason is not very great, but still it is significant. A woman who thinks that literature does not deserve any research certainly does not deserve any doctorate from the university."

"I would like all the universities of the world to think again; just don't go on conventionally honoring stupid, idiotic politicians with doctorates. In this way you are simply insulting yourself. In this way you are degrading the status of education."

"On the contrary, I would like all the universities – first of just one state – to call a convention of all the vice-chancellors and the eminent professors; of the eminent intelligentsia who may not be part of the university: painters, artists, poets, dancers, actors, musicians. It would include all kinds of people who have attained a certain eminence and have shown their caliber – excluding politicians completely."

"All the Nobel prize-winners should be invited – excluding the politicians again, because within these past few years a few politicians have managed to get Nobel prizes, and this has degraded the value of the Nobel prize. It has not added any value to the politician; he still remains in the gutter, and he will remain in the gutter because that's where he belongs. He cannot live out of the gutter – he would die. And if you give him a Nobel prize he will drag the Nobel prize also into the gutter: of course wherever he lives he is going to take the Nobel prize, doctorates, and all kinds of degrees with him."

(From Misery to Enlightenment # 8)



USE TELEVISION FOR EDUCATION AND STOP ITS MISUSE BY THE VESTED INTERESTS

"It is television which has changed children's dreams, God could not do this, parents could not do this, priests could not do this. All these people have been using languages – they used logic which a child could not understand at all. A child lives primitively. He can understand pictures. His language is pictorial. His dreams are live and full of colors...."

"Television has affected children's behavior and their dreams to a great extent because television and dream sequences look alike. A child cannot differentiate between the two. And it has not even changed their dreams but their behavior too...."

"In America even small children too .... Sometimes back, a child took his father's gun and went to school and murdered four other children for no reason. There was no reason behind; neither they were his enemies, just like that! Because he has been constantly watching bloodshed on the television so he fired the gun on them...."

"He must have thought that it is exciting and it is not the single event. Boys have been caught raping small girls and television has given them all these thoughts."

"Children of seven-eight years are consuming drugs. They have left hippies far behind. It used to take eighteen to twenty years to become hippie. But children of today are taking drugs because these stories they watch on television, inspire them to do these things! Whatever they see on television, they are provoked to practice it, to know it deeply. Seven years old children are taking drugs and this danger is spreading like anything in America."

"And more surprisingly even Governments know this fact that television is destroying everything, it is destroying children's physical health and mental balance but still they are continuing with it because owners of these television centers are those big companies which donate money to politicians during elections....And these companies are not concerned with the mental peace of society. Their entire interest is into studding fifty percent times of televisions with advertisements, that is the source of their income, and that is possible only when laics of people watch their programs on T.V. otherwise who will advertise..."

"According to me, all television centers should be under direct control of universities, colleges and schools. Television program would educate people. Advertisements should not be there at all, they do not educate, on the contrary they exploit, they misguide. People should be taught history, geography. Small children don't understand languages; instead they will be interested in history, geography and other subjects through television. There can be programs about science, literature, stories, poetry, paintings and all faculties on television for children of different ages..."

"Any subject that children like can be made interesting."

"Once the television media is made free form exploiters and religious preachers then there are enormous possibilities available."

(God is Nowhere, Life is Now Here)



SLEEP SHOULD BE USED AS MEDIUM TO EDUCATE STUDENTS

"Great work on sleep-teaching is being done in Russia at present. Children are normally instructed in the daytime and spend the night in sleep; twelve hours of the night are being wasted. So in Russia they are playing tapes into children's ears while they are sleeping so that they receive instructions during the night time too. Thus great efforts are being made to make sleep a medium, an instrument of imparting instruction and they have been successful in this to great extent. Their hope is to be able in the near future to impart as much instruction in seven years as is now given in fifteen years, though using the night time also."

"There is another convenience to this new experiment. When the teacher is teaching the children in their waking hours, there arises a conflict between the ego of the teacher and that of the children and this creates a great hindrance to the children's progress."

"There is no conflict when children are sleeping and the instruction is directly absorbed. The teacher is not there and the children are also as good as not there. The pupils are in sleep, the teacher is not present, only the tape is being played. The tape feeds instructions slowly into the children's brains during the whole night and they receive it directly."

(The Heartbeat of the Absolute # 12)



THE EXPERIMENT OF EXAMINATION WITH BOOKS (AVAILABLE FOR STUDENTS IN THE EXAMINATION HALL)

"In the Soviet Union they realized the fact that the brain is exactly like a computer. Then why torture it and why unnecessarily harass it? Hence in examinations students are allowed to go into the library to consult books or to bring any book they want. All the books that may be needed are available in the examination hall. What is the need to unnecessarily remember something when it is written in the books? But one thing was discovered, and it changed the whole situation: people who were not coming in first started coming in first. People who had been coming in first started losing their grip, started going down -- second class, third class."

"What happened? In order to search for the answer you need intelligence and those books are big and the time is limited -- three hours. You have to answer five questions. You have to be very alert and intelligent to find all the relevant facts and figures to give an answer. The people who had always been coming in first started losing ground because they don't have any intelligence, they have only memory. Now that memory was of no use."

"This is all so primitive. Each student can be supplied with a small remote controller and he can just check what answer is needed. His intelligence will be in how to use the remote controller -- how to use it wisely, how not to get mixed up, how to understand the question intelligently so that he can find the answer intelligently. But it is not a question of memory. A different kind of education will be needed which teaches you intelligence."

"It is a known fact that people of great intelligence don't have that great a memory. And there have been people of great memory, but they don't have any intelligence at all. Their memory is almost miraculous, unbelievable, but it is absolutely mechanical."

(The Path of Mystic # 8)



STUDENTS JOINING POLITICS IS A CURSE, NOT A BOON TO THE COUNTRY

"I am not in favor of students joining politics because entire purpose of being a student is killed by this. Yes, students must understand politics and know it properly because if tomorrow when he comes out of university and begins his life, no one can cheat him, no one can rule him. But politicians who are not in power want to drag him in politics. Why they are so much interested in students? There is a reason behind it that student is reservoir of power. Anyone to whom students support, irrespective of his right or wrong doings, becomes powerful. That is why youth has been exploited always. Any movement, any revolution and they try to catch hold of students. When Hitler made Nazi Party, he did not care for others. He directly went to youths and teenagers. He tries to capture them because he knew that tomorrow all these teenagers would grow up then he will be more powerful and they could be used anywhere."

"In a country like India where there is so much of ignorance about politics, our youths need to understand politics properly. You remain immature if you join politics too early. Stop this! Study politics first, understand it, look around. Know how history would have been, observe the system accurately and then think about what is to be done for the country. Prepare yourself for tomorrow. But if you join in today then you would only be exploited and nothing else. Students joining politics is a curse, not a boon to the country."

"So it is a big challenge before youths to make a clean and honest political system. But we don't think about this. Slavery of thousands of years has resulted into the loss of political conscious from our country. Slowly and slowly we have developed an indifferent attitude saying that we are not concerned with it everything is O.K. with us; everything is right."

[Excerpts from: Bharat Ke Jalte Prashan]

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