Krsna-centered Education is Graceful.
By Yogendra dasa (BMS)
Maybe you are one of the millions of people who question whether education should be student-centered or teacher-centered. Perhaps, you have gone a step further, and are among the thousands who promote the idea that education should be knowledge-centered. If you are really rare, perhaps you sense that education is perfected when it becomes relationship-centered. Even if you find yourself among this particular crowd, to say you know the actual central purpose of education would still be a hard case to make.
Education is such an expansive topic with many thousands of purposes to serve. Some are great, and some are not so great. Yet, we could expect to know its central purpose by looking for the greatest source. Let me try to give a comparable mental picture to justify this approach. A person who wants to get water needs to go to a source. An intelligent person chooses to go to a great reservoir instead of a small well, knowing that such a vast source will serve all their purposes. By contrast, a person who chooses to visit the same well many times, or many smaller wells that are spread out, does not serve their purposes as efficiently. The Bhagavad-gita is one of the greatest sources we may consider approaching. It is a great reservoir, and any considerate person can serve all their purposes by drawing its message into their thoughts.
There are several sections in the Bhagavad-gita that thread together a concise summary of a Krsna-centered education system. In chapter eleven, praise for this system is given by one of the speakers named Sanjaya. His comments stand as a witness to the immediate transformative impact a person experiences when Krsna is at the center of education. He says, “All was wondrous, brilliant, unlimited, all-expanding,” (Bg. 11.10-11).
Putting anything else at the center of education is less powerful. When Krsna is at the center, all of Krsna’s power and grace are available and help to reveal knowledge and our relationship to it. Grace is present and necessary in all education systems, to different extents. Grace is the presence of something that brings one honor or credit. It can mean, “talent,” “goodwill,” “elegance,” “blessings,” or “attractiveness.” Grace shines through different apertures according to our setting. In student-centered settings, the power of grace is most narrow and depends on the development of the student’s natural talents. In teacher-centered settings, the power of grace broadens slightly according to the amount of goodwill shown towards the students by the adults. In knowledge-centered education, the power of grace increases to the degree that knowledge becomes more elegant in its presentation. In relationship-centered settings, the power of grace is quite astonishing, and is received through the blessings of one’s well-wishers. But, in Krsna-centered education, the power of grace expands unlimitedly and causes a quality of attraction to learning that is equally wondrous. A Krsna-centered education naturally includes all the grace of other systems, just as a vast reservoir contains the same volumes of water found at lesser sources.
Krsna-centered education efficiently and immediately changes the way that we relate to everything. Commensurate with all the other divine systems Krsna has created, His education system is meant to inspire us into a relationship of profound wonder and respect for the world. Krsna-centered education overwhelms us with the energy to wonder at, find joy in, be humble towards, and show respect for everything and everyone. By Krsna’s grace, Arjuna directly understood this, and with brilliant clarity. The attractive change that took place within him thereafter was one that others can hardly grasp, even after prolonged study of diverse books of knowledge. Arjuna was motivated, and he expressed his heartfelt gratitude in word, thought, and deed. The world needs an education system that leads students to become well-adjusted persons, capable of reaching emotionally sound and morally upright conclusions about how to interact with the world.
What other point is more central to the question of education?